An Unlikely Duchess Read Free Page B

god.”
    Josephine gulped. “And tall?” she asked.
    Mr. Porterhouse looked measuringly at the diminutive lady seated beside him. “About my height,” he said, “or taller. I am afraid he is very well aware of his looks. He is a great favorite with the ladies.”
    “Of course,” Josephine echoed. “He is very rich, is he not?”
    “And squanders his money,” he said. He hesitated. “On women, mostly.” He took her hand suddenly, the hand that would not be seen by anyone else in the room. “I am so very sorry for you, ma’am. It is a heavy cross you will have to bear. But what am I saying?” He smiled with warm sympathy into her wide eyes. “Of course, he has never been married. When he is, and to you, then of course he will change. Of course he will.” He squeezed her hand reassuringly and relinquished his hold on it.
    Josephine was summoned the next moment to play a game of spillikins with Augusta and Henrietta Winthrop.
    Over the next few days Josephine came to see—with the aid of a kind and sympathetic Mr. Porterhouse—that there was only one solution to her problem. She could certainly not face either Papa or Grandpapa with her reluctance to marry the horrid Duke of Mitford, and Bart was no use at all as an elder brother. Her sisters were all too young. There was only one person in the world who could advise her and help her express her reluctance.
    Only one person. And she lived five and twenty miles away. But Aunt Winifred would know what to do. She had herself defied Grandpapa and chosen her own husband. Aunt Winifred would help her. There could be no delaying, of course. The Duke of Mitford might arrive any day and then there would be no way of escaping for what remained of her lifetime.
    Mr. Porterhouse was kind enough—he was a very kind gentleman—to offer to escort her to her aunt’s house. It was not quite proper to accept, although the journey could be made in one day, and it was rather cowardly to run away from a home where the only complaint she had was that she was smothered in love.
    She hesitated, thanked Mr. Porterhouse, told him that he was too kind in saying that he and his carriage were at her disposal at a moment’s notice but that she would have no need to inconvenience him, dithered, and finally took fright on the day when the duke’s valet and a mountain of baggage arrived.
    The valet was so grand that at first everyone mistook him for the duke and flew into a panic. It was a mistake that was quickly put right, and everyone relaxed again when they knew that the duke himself would not arrive for two more days.
    Everyone except Josephine, that was. Gracious goodness, if the valet looked and behaved like that, and if all those possessions were merely what his grace traveled with, whatever was she to expect of the man himself?
    Her nerve fully broke the day before the duke was to arrive and just after a visit from the younger Winthrops, when she walked alone on the terrace for ten minutes with Mr. Porterhouse. Before luncheon, while everyone was still busy about the house, she stole away to a prearranged rendezvous with Mr. Porterhouse, leaving behind her the message that she would be taking luncheon at the Winthrops’, and a note to be delivered later in the day to say that she had gone to Aunt Winifred’s.
    It was just very unfortunate that Mr. Porterhouse’s carriage broke down ten miles from her aunt’s. Something to do with the axle, Mr. Porterhouse explained vaguely. He was very apologetic as he settled her into a room at thee Crown and Anchor Inn on the Great North Road.
    Josephine was frantic. She could imagine just what Papa would say to her if he were there now. And Grandpapa. And Bart. They would say that as usual she had acted without a moment’s forethought. And without a thought to ladylike propriety.
    But she had thought. Very carefully. For several days. She did not want to marry the Duke of Mitford. Aunt Winifred would help her break the news to Papa. It had