Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Henry didn't react quickly enough to the door opening behind him. He knew that he didn't, yet he couldn't tear his eyes away from the periwinkle-blue pair in front of him.

Lady Josephine St Vincent was nothing like the image he had conjured of her. At three and twenty and still unmarried, he had been expecting some plain field mouse with a kind disposition. He hadn't been expecting a girl who could have easily been the belle of the ball at any of the ton's parties.

She was smaller than he'd expected, with thick auburn hair and a complexion that had obviously seen more sun than many ladies of her age. She clearly liked the outdoors, her figure slim and fitter than he would have expected. But it was her eyes that captivated him. Large and framed by thick, black lashes, they shone such an interesting shade of blue that he had trouble settling on one descriptor or another for very long.

"Lord and Lady Fethmire," Harbuttle announced formally, highlighting Henry's preoccupation even further.

Henry didn't think he had done more than duly notice a woman's attributes in the past seven years or so – not since having met Martha. But Josephine's was the kind of beauty that punched you in the gut. It was unassuming and natural down to the very smattering of freckles that speckled the bridge of her nose and cheekbones.

"So sorry we're running late," Simon said, amusement layering his tone as he took it upon himself to start a conversation upon entering. "Lucy lost her stuffed rabbit, and she simply can't calm down without it when we are gone for more than an hour or two."

"Simon," Lisbet whispered, sounding half-mortified. "So lovely of you to invite us H – Your Grace."

Henry finally managed to extricate himself from Josephine's hypnotizing gaze, all but shaking himself as he stood and turned to face his two new guests.

"A pleasure, as always, to have you," Henry returned by rote. "Lord and Lady Fethmire, I take it you are already somewhat acquainted with the viscount and his wife here? Lord St Vincent and Lady St Vincent, and their daughter, Lady Josephine?"

Good Lord, what was that in his throat? Was that nerves? Whatever would he have nerves over?

Henry fought a frown, gesturing between the groups of his guests and stepping back a bit as he fought the urge to clear his throat uncomfortably.

He didn't at all miss the accusatory, amused look that his friend shot him either. No doubt he had read even further into the scene he had walked in on than he should have. Henry could hardly say what had possessed him to be so distracted, but certainly it wasn't anything to do with whatever romantic nonsense his old friend was conjuring.

"Oh, yes! Lady St Vincent, I was so pleased to learn that you and your family would be here tonight," Lisbet gushed, ever the socialite. "You know I've been meaning to invite you over to tea for ages, but every time I go to sit down and pen a letter, the baby needs to be cared for, or a pair of my elder children are fussing at one another again."

Lady St Vincent laughed. "I know all too well how that goes, Lady Fethmire. How many children do you have now? Isn't it four?"

"Yes," Simon groaned, pouring himself a glass of brandy for all the world as if he owned the place.

Lisbet shot him a light-hearted glare as she turned to focus more fully on Josephine's mother. "I did have just the three, but we've added to our number since last we were in the country."

"That's how many I had as well," Lady St Vincent said with a small smile. "There were days I was lucky just to keep them alive and in one piece."

"Four going on twenty," Lord St Vincent sighed, looking browbeaten even all these years later.

Simon, though, snorted appreciatively from the other side of the room, raising his glass in a half-toast to the man before he took a drink.

"To have a house full of children is such a joy, though," Lisbet said pointedly, her eyes darting to Henry and Josephine beside him for the briefest of seconds.

Lady St Vincent's smile grew at the subtle reminder, but both Simon and Lord St Vincent made sputtering sounds as if only just barely keeping from disagreeing or adding more commentary that would have their wives hissing their names.

"Any number of children is a blessing, I'm sure," Josephine said diplomatically.

Lord St Vincent chuckled, but her mother shot her a look that clearly was meant to be a warning.

If Josephine saw it, however, she pretended not to have.

"As the youngest of four siblings, I can tell you, from experience, that on more than one occasion, I very much wish that I had either had a good number more siblings so as not to be the last or to have been the only." She said it matter-of-factly, with no petulance in her words or expressions.

Henry found himself amused by how she laid it out, her opinion so freely given where he had been starting to think that perhaps he had been too avid in his hoping for someone amiable and been given instead someone with little to no opinion of their own.

"More children," Lord St Vincent groaned.

Simon looked on in understanding.

"I should have liked not to have been an only child," Henry admitted, surprising himself with his speaking up at all. "I always envied those families with any number of siblings to cycle through for company when I was younger."

And he had. It was one of his main motivations in searching for a wife willing to give him children, plural. It was an odd conversation they were all having before dinner, though – more forthright than any that Henry could remember of the dinner parties of his past.

"Oh, I don't know. You never shared a house with three female siblings clearly," Josephine joked. "I don't suppose you ever had to time your bathing either."

"Josephine!" Lady St Vincent exclaimed while nearly everyone else broke out in amused laughter.

Henry felt even his lips curving upwards at the blunt question.

"I don't suppose I did," he returned amusedly.

"Sisters," Lisbet said emphatically, "are very different from brothers. And I cannot tell you which I prefer more."

"You have both, then?" Lady St Vincent asked in interest.

"Oh yes, two brothers and two sisters," Lisbet sighed dramatically. "My sisters were liable to steal all the attention and God knows what out of my wardrobe and then claim it was their own. My brothers, though? You could not convince them that we girls were ladies and therefore we were victims to their treatment of one another any time my mother didn't intervene quick enough."

Lady St Vincent looked amused but scandalized, while her daughter's smile only grew and grew.

Henry found himself drawn to it. She wasn't smiling prettily like the society ladies he was used to. Her smile was too wide, showing too many teeth, and there was no artifice or thought behind the motion, either. She had dimples on both sides of her cheeks, he realized, and she even half-snorted when she leaned forward to address only Lisbet.

"There was a boy from the village that I used to think of as a brother," she confided through her grin. "He had nine siblings. Nine! And sometimes, when I was over, I think they quite forgot I wasn't one. Why this one time –"

"Oh, Josie," Lady St Vincent cried, "not the pig pen story!"

Lord St Vincent was already laughing under his breath, and Josephine, rather than back down, seemed to take her mother's words as a challenge.

"Oh, yes, Mother, don't spoil the story!" Josephine's dimples deepened. "We were arguing over who was allowed to take the last tart that his mother had made. He, two of his sisters, and one of his brothers. I must've only been seven or eight. Well, we're outside while all this is happening, and I decided to grab it. Next thing I know, he's pushed me! I'd never been treated such, you understand, so I froze for a moment, but then I realized he had nicked the pastry and was taking a bite. So I pushed him back and tried to steal it. Next thing I know we're fighting over it, and my mother is yelling at us from across the street."

Lisbet had tears in her eyes as she laughed, clearly identifying with the story in a way that Henry couldn't quite understand. He and Simon, surely, had fought in such a way. But they were both boys and friends since boyhood. Did boys really treat their sisters in such a manner? Henry couldn't imagine having ever fought with a girl, no matter how young he had been.

"You were behaving abominably," Lady St Vincent sniffed. "And the next thing I knew, you were swinging fists at the little boy even when he tried to diffuse it!"

Josephine grinned. "I got carried away. And Johnny, despite how this story sounds, really was a little gentleman. When I punched him in the face, he got so mad. I knew he wanted to hit me back; he even told me so later. But he remembered that I was a girl at the last second, and instead of hitting me … he just pushed me back into the pigpen."

Gasps and snorts of laughter filled the room as Josephine shrugged, her grin still in place.

"It was humiliating," she said, giggling. "Moreso because they had just wet the whole thing down for the pigs earlier that morning. So I'm covered head to toe in pig mud–"

"And still trying to get that pastry!" Lady St Vincent groaned. "Oh, Lord, Josie, what a story to tell at a dinner party! Whatever must they think of us now?"

Henry couldn't help noticing the fondness in Lady St Vincent's words, despite her chastisement.

"Well, I, for one, think it sounds terribly normal," Lisbet chimed in, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief as she calmed from her laughter. "I can think of ten million similar stories regarding my brothers."

"And several more still just from home between our two oldest," Simon interjected with a weary laugh.

All of them were interrupted by the door opening, Harbuttle appearing out of nowhere once more with a deep bow of his head.

"Dinner is served," Harbuttle announced gravely, stepping back to hold the door open behind him.

"And it smells heavenly," Lord St Vincent declared, standing with a jovial grin.

Simon was quick to gather his wife, leading the way eagerly out of the room with the Lord and Lady St Vincent just behind them.

Henry paused, holding his hand out to help Lady Josephine to her feet.

She took it easily, her small hand fitting inside his much larger one with an unexpected grace.

Her cheeks were still flush from her story-telling, her eyes a lively hue of a clear spring covered in sunlight. Again, Henry found himself transfixed as she stood, his eyes searching hers as she did. He didn't immediately drop her hand when she was on her feet, and she didn't jerk it back either.

Something stirred in Henry. Something latent and long-ignored, his chest tightening as the amusement left her face, and her cheeks seemed to pinken for an entirely different reason.

It wasn't arrogant of him to assume attraction. He knew well enough what that looked like on a woman: the eyes had been a darker hue, and the facial features entirely different. Trying to overlay the two made him feel dirty, his mouth going dry as he dropped her hand as if her skin had burned him.

Martha.

He could still remember that first evening they had met. The way their eyes had connected over the crowd of all those bodies in that ballroom. He could remember how she had smiled at him and that look in her eyes as she had tilted her head and glanced away so shyly.

God help him, why was he experiencing any sort of attraction to Josephine at all?

"The dining room is through here," Henry muttered, sweeping his hand out to lead Josephine out of the room. He knew that his tone had changed. As much as he was trying to remain civil, it was like a steel trap had slammed shut inside his head.

Martha. Martha. Martha.

Her name rang in his head and in his memories as he led his intended from one room to the other, trying very hard not to focus on that fluttering of emotion he had felt earlier seeing Josephine smile as she had.

She was here for him to marry so that he could produce heirs.

She would make a good duchess. Even just the half hour he had spent in her company so far had proved as much. She was witty and intelligent, with a dry humour that matched his well enough to amuse. And she was from the area.

That was the biggest point in her favour, he reminded himself firmly. She knew the lands of his dukedom. She knew the village and the tenants he needed to keep up with. He wouldn't have to go around introducing her and pretending that he had any socialization with the people in the area or trying to foster any sort of relationship there; it was already built-in.

She'd make a good duchess.

Any nonsense about attraction or whatever could be firmly forgotten.

"Your Grace?" Josephine asked in a small voice from his side as they caught up with the others entering the dining room.

Her blue eyes searched his face as he led her to her chair with as straight a face as he could manage, the guilt eating at him.

"Here we are," he murmured, pulling out her chair.

He could at least endeavour to remain polite.

Even if his attention had waned from the current dinner party and the jokes of Simon and Josephine's father were going right over his head. He smiled and nodded, pushing Josephine in place before rounding the table to his own spot.

They just had to get through dinner, and then he could find out what had gone wrong and ensure that it didn't happen again.

Just … get through dinner first.