Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Josephine’s Bedchamber; Duels and Broken Hearts
The small hours
Josephine read and reread the letter several times before finally crawling into bed. It had been such an exhausting evening, and all she could think was that she’d finally got what she wanted – a release from the engagement without threat to Matilda – and yet it felt far from right.
Lord Huntingly’s letter had been entirely unexpected, and now it seemed that, while he had pursued Pellham abroad and witnessed his death, he’d also realised his friend was innocent of his father’s death.
And then there was the fact he’d been searching for a male relative to secure Pellham’s inheritance and take care of his mother – the actions of an honourable gentleman, not a villain.
Finally, there was his claim that he’d been desiring a lost life, which could mean so many things and was difficult to reconcile with the dark character she’d assumed.
Which left Eliza.
‘And as for Eliza, she cared too much.’
His words whispered through her thoughts like petals catching the light from a dying sun. Were they the words of an enemy? A friend? A lover perhaps?
And why did the thought that he might yet harbour feelings for Pellham’s sister fill her with such despair? Hadn’t she wanted this?
Her questions tumbled endlessly until she fell into a restless sleep, dreaming of duels, secrets and broken hearts.
* * *
The following morning
‘Lord, you should have seen Henry’s and Edward’s faces as I patched Dashton up,’ Matilda chuckled, helping herself to an extra-large ladle of scrambled egg from the breakfast table.
‘They were so disappointed he hadn’t been fatally wounded!
Can’t say I blame them, though,’ she added merrily.
‘I’ve often wished I could run him through, myself! ’
‘Oh, Matty, hush!’ Josephine warned, sipping her chocolate and taking comfort from its warmth. ‘Someone will overhear you.’
Matilda looked up as Sophie, Lord Rotherby and their noisy young daughters entered the breakfast room.
‘No matter! I lay you two ponies your party is all over Knightswood by now,’ Matilda retorted, buttering a warm roll while eyeing up a pound cake brought in by a footman.
‘What ponies? What party?’ Louisa called, running to the table and climbing on Josephine’s lap as Phoebe and Viscount Damerel also entered the room, followed by Miss Amelia and the Davenports.
‘Oh!’ Amelia flushed immediately, busying herself with some chocolate.
‘No ponies for me, thank you!’ Sophie exclaimed, nodding at the footman with the pound cake.
‘My plan is to sit very still until this evening, praying Mini Rotherby doesn’t decide to put in an appearance!
You don’t look as though you’ve had a great deal of rest, Jo?
’ She frowned, declining her husband’s proffered coffee with a look of stark revulsion.
‘Just not awake,’ Josephine dismissed, turning to her eldest niece. ‘Have you brought an extra guest for breakfast, Harriet?’
‘Oh no, not the grasshopper again,’ Sophie groaned. ‘Dominic, it’s your turn!’
‘Not a jot!’ her husband protested, halfway through a pastry. ‘You decided to bring our intrepid daughters to breakfast when they could have traumatised Alexander in the nursery, so I say their insect friends are welcome too.’
‘I’ll take her,’ Josephine offered, keen to escape the chatter now it was getting busier.
She’d risen early, determined to waylay Lord Huntingly and thank him for his letter, but no-one had seen him yet.
She swallowed, though her chest felt caught in a vice, telling herself he wouldn’t have left before breakfast or saying goodbye.
Yet, as she accompanied Harriet through the library and into the garden, she couldn’t help but notice Thomas’s study door was firmly closed.
‘That’s it, carry him over to the grass,’ Josephine encouraged her small niece, who looked very reluctant to set her new friend free on Knightswood’s vast rolling lawn. ‘With a little luck, he’ll still be here after luncheon.’
‘Which is more than I can say for honoured guests!’ Thomas interrupted caustically.
Startled, Josephine glanced back to spy her brother, standing just inside the garden door with an expression of thunder. She took Harriet by the hand and swallowed.
‘Take the child back and return directly,’ he growled. ‘It seems we must talk.’
* * *
Josephine closed her eyes, wishing she was Harriet’s grasshopper with all her heart.
‘I actually thought you understood!’ Thomas berated from behind his gleaming study desk.
‘That you were different from the rest! I even reassured Damerel that you were more sensible than your sisters, that your sense of duty had prevailed you to proposition Lord Huntingly in the first place. Because that is what you did, Josephine, you propositioned him!’
He paused to let the full meaning of the word sink in, while his face put her in mind of the bulging-eyed fish in the Davenports’ orangery.
‘So to sit here this morning, and listen to Huntingly relate some banbury tale about your feelings and how he didn’t believe it was fair to pursue the matter further makes me conclude one thing: you never intended to marry the fellow in the first place!
I’m right, aren’t I? It was all some … ruse you planned with Matilda!
Do you know how much I’ve spent on this little event because of your prank?
’ he ranted. ‘More than your yearly allowance! Have you any idea how hard it is to acquire that kind of money, let alone throw it away on something that has no worth!’
‘It wasn’t a ruse…’ Josephine tried to protest.
‘Don’t even try to defend yourself! I’ve already heard whispers about some sort of inappropriate soiree on the ladies’ corridor last night, and I am shocked, Josephine!
Most certainly to hear that one or two non-family members were in attendance, too?
Indeed, if I hadn’t been assured it was swiftly dissipated, this would be an entirely different conversation! ’
‘It wasn’t what you…’
‘And what am I supposed to tell people now?’ he continued to bellow. ‘We have a hundred guests coming tonight, enough food to feed twice that number, and they will all know of your disgrace, of the tarnish to the Fairfax name, and all because you decided—’
‘Enough!’ Josephine yelled, jumping to her feet.
For a moment, it was quiet enough to hear the ticking of the library clock.
‘I have spent twenty-two long years being told what to think and do!’ she seethed, trying to catch her breath.
‘All you consider is the Fairfax name and washing your hands of us as fast as you possibly can. But we are all different, Thomas! I no more want to climb trees than I want to design pelisses, or ride in a thunderstorm, and that does not make me more sensible than my sisters, it just makes me me!’ She drew a ragged breath, aware her eldest brother was speechless for the first time in her life.
‘And as for inappropriate soirees,’ she scorned, ‘please credit me with a little more intelligence than to arrange a party in my own bedchamber the night before a Knightswood Grand Ball! There was a misunderstanding, but it was swiftly dealt with by Matilda and myself!’
Josephine swallowed and lowered her voice.
‘And if Lord Huntingly has had the decency to break off what he considered was not fully desired, I believe that deserves respect, not an assumption of guilt!’ she added icily.
‘I am truly sorry you consider your family’s worth in marriage contracts, Brother, but at least you have the assurance that I am unlikely to plague you so again.
And I wouldn’t worry about our guests, I am sure they will be comforted by news of Matilda’s season, and the twelve trays of buttered crayfish! ’
Josephine didn’t wait for an answer: the incredulous look on Thomas’s face was enough to know it would never be positive.
Yet, as she left his study with her head pounding and her chest so tight she thought her heart might take flight, she also felt a lightness she’d never experienced before.
She’d done the unthinkable: she’d told Thomas exactly what she thought!
‘Are you all right, Jo?’ Fred asked as she hurried back through the library gloom, trying to catch her breath.
She glanced up to spy his quiet figure, just inside the door, a mixture of fear and concern on his face.
‘Harriet said Uncle Thomas was being a troll, so I thought it best I check everything was in order?’
And for once, Josephine didn’t try to hide her feelings or say the right thing but burst, quite unapologetically, into tears.
* * *
‘It is … unexpected.’ Fred frowned, resting his head back against the oldest, gnarled tree in Knightswood Park.
Josephine cast a sidelong glance at her brother, their childhood haunt was an instant balm and yet she was conscious of treading carefully too.
She’d not forgotten their conversation about Sir Francis, and could sense that revealing the truth about his friend’s advances might hurt in a way she didn’t fully understand.
So, she focused on Huntingly’s letter and departure instead.
‘I mean, he was always a bit wild at Oxford, but with friends enough,’ Fred mused.
‘Even he and Francis had a friendship for a time,’ he added with a wry smile, ‘and went hunting and shooting at each other’s places before we all lost touch.
But a lot of the fellows did that, and I was the odd one out, really.
I wasn’t into that sort of thing.’ He shrugged.
Josephine squeezed her brother’s hand. It was no secret that Fred had a violent dislike for bloodshed of any kind, but he’d surprised her with the knowledge that Lord Huntingly and Sir Francis had ever been friends, even so many years ago.
‘How odd,’ she murmured. ‘They seem so very unsuited.’
‘They are, but I suppose we care less at that age.’