An Unlikely Duchess Read Free

husband and Papa has approved his choice and he is to come within the week to pay his addresses to me.”
    Bartholomew laughed while Susanna jumped to her feet and Penelope and Augusta gaped.
    “Not Phipps?” Bartholomew said. “Oh, poor Jo.”
    “Not Mr. Porterhouse?” Susanna asked. “Oh, no, Jo.”
    “The Duke of Mitford” Josephine said, “whoever he may be.”
    “Mitford?” Bartholomew frowned. “Can’t say I met him when I was in London, Jo.”
    “The Duke of Mitford,” Susanna said. “A duke, Jo? A real duke? Are you sure?”
    Josephine swallowed. “He is also the Earl of Newman,” she said. “And I think a few other things, too. And he is as rich as Croesus.”
    “Oh, Jo,” Susanna said, her eyes glowing, “how very wonderful for you. How happy I am for you.”
    Bartholomew chuckled and threw his book at the windowseat close by his chair. “That’s famous,” he said. “Our Jo a duchess. We had better hope that there are no coronations and no royal weddings and such for the next fifty years or so. Jo would doubtless trip over her ermine robe and pitch her coronet at the feet of the king or the bride or whoever.”
    “Oh, Bart,” Josephine cried, picking up a cushion, which was the best weapon she could lay hands on at that precise moment, and hurling it across the room at him. It missed him by three feet. “Do stop cackling in such an imbecilic way. This is serious!”
    “Don’t tell me you are on your dignity already,” he said. “You’ll never keep it up, Jo. Poor Mitford, whoever he might be.” He resumed his laughter.
    “Oh, Jo,” Augusta said, her eyes wide enough to pop from their sockets, “do you suppose he will buy us all gifts when he marries you?”
    “Do watch your manners, Gussie,” Penelope said. “Grandpapa always says it is vulgar to talk of money.”
    “But it was Jo who mentioned a fortune,” an injured Augusta said.
    “Yes,” Josephine said gloomily, “and it was Grandpapa who told me. Or was it Papa? I can’t remember. They were both so bubbling with happiness. Oh, Bart, what am I to do?”
    “Find a tree to swing from in delight at your good fortune, I imagine,” her brother said, rising from his chair and stretching. “Just do it far enough from the house so that Grandpapa does not see, Jo, there’s a good girl, or we will all be subjected to a lecture on propriety at dinner.”
    “But what am I to do ?” Josephine said, her voice taking on a note of hysteria that had her brother pausing in mid-stretch. “I can’t marry this duke.”
    “Can’t marry him?” Susanna said. “Can’t marry a duke, Jo? But why not?”
    “A duke!” Josephine said. “A duke, Sukey. Can you honestly see me marrying a duke? He is bound to be stuffy and toplofty and anything else you may care to name. I hate the very thought of him. I can’t marry a duke.”
    “But, Jo,” Susanna said, “you don’t know those things about him, do you? Perhaps he is quite the opposite. Perhaps he will be the gentleman of your dreams. Would it not be wise at least to see him before judging?”
    Augusta’s face lit up. “If you don’t want him, Jo,” she said, “perhaps I could have him instead. Perhaps he would wait two years for me.”
    Her brother threw back his head and guffawed with merriment.
    “Oh, very sorry, your grace,” he said in a tolerable imitation of their father’s best hearty social manner, “but Josephine will not have you because you are stuffy and toplofty. You will not mind having Augusta instead, will you? She is fourteen, you know, and will be quite ready for marriage when she is sixteen.”
    Penelope glared at Augusta.
    “Well,” Josephine said, thoroughly aggrieved, “it is very unkind of you to make a joke of it, I must say, Bart, and foolish of you to think of something so nonsensical, Gussie, when I am in such distress. And you need not stand there looking so disapproving, Penny.”
    “All you have to do, Jo,” Penelope said with the