An Unlikely Duchess Read Free Page A

greatest good sense, “is tell Papa immediately that you do not want the duke. If you tell him without delay, he will probably be able to stop his grace from even leaving home, and no harm will be done. I am sure Papa will understand that you would prefer to live out your life as an old maid.”
    “I don’t want to be an old maid,” Josephine said crossly. “I just don’t want to be a duchess. But how can I tell Papa or Grandpapa that? They are both so very pleased for me. I could not possibly disappoint them.”
    “You have a simple choice, Jo,” Bartholomew said, completing the stretch that had been interrupted a few moments before. “Either you disappoint Papa and Grandpapa, or you live out your life as the Duchess of Mitland.”
    “Mit ford ,” Josephine said, correcting him. “The Duchess of Mitford. Oh, goodness gracious me, I couldn’t possibly. I would sooner die.”
    It was a sentiment that she felt even more strongly later that evening after talking to Mr. Porterhouse at the Winthrops’. Mr. Porterhouse was a distant cousin of the Winthrops, who lived most of his life in London, and who was so fashionable a gentleman that he looked rather like someone from a different universe. He was also the most handsome gentleman ever to have set foot in the neighborhood, the proverbial tall, dark, and handsome paragon of manhood.
    He had favored Josephine from the moment of his arrival the week before, sitting by her at various assemblies, turning the pages of her music when she played the spinet, taking her on his arm during walks. Susanna was disapproving.
    “I don’t like him, Jo,” she had said more than once. “I don’t trust a gentleman who smiles quite so much. Do have a care.”
    But Josephine had laughed at her. “I like him,” she had said. “But you need not fear having him as a brother-in-law, Sukey. I cannot find him attractive. He makes me feel like a veritable child. I don’t reach even near to his shoulder.”
    “Well, he cannot help being so tall,” Susanna had said sensibly.
    “And I cannot help being so very small,” Josephine had said. “But he is and I am, and I cannot feel any attraction to him.”
    “I am glad of it, then,” Susanna had said, much relieved. “For he does single you out for marked attention, Jo. And I know you do not always think wisely before you act. I would not have you fall prey to his charms.”
    “Besides,” Bart had said to Josephine’s indignation, “the man is only after Jo’s dowry. It’s as plain as the nose on your face. Why else would he be rusticating except to find himself a rich and innocent bride?”
    “Perhaps to visit his cousins,” Josephine had said with as much dignity as she could inject into her voice.
    She could not help liking Mr. Porterhouse even if she could not sigh over him. He was very attentive and very kind, and he smiled a great deal. And he knew the Duke of Mitford. Penelope had mentioned the duke earlier in the evening. “So you are to marry Mitford,” he said, when the two of them were talking late in the evening beyond the earshot of everyone else. “I am cut to the heart.”
    “How foolish!” Josephine said with no trace of flirtatiousness in her manner. “Yes, it seems that I am to marry him, though it was very wrong of Penny to mention it since he has not paid his addresses yet.”
    “You do not sound very pleased, ma’am,” he said. “Do you know him?”
    “No,” she said. “And neither does Grandpapa nor Papa, nor anyone else for that matter. But he must be eligible, you see, because he is a duke, and because his grandfather and mine have been friends all their lives.”
    He sighed.
    “Do you know him?” she asked as an afterthought.
    “I am afraid so,” he said.
    He did not want to say more, but Josephine had not had a brother all her life without learning how to wheedle out reluctant information.
    “He is excessively handsome,” he said. “Blond and blue-eyed, you know. Quite like a Greek