The Minx Who Met Her Match

by Christi Caldwell

  In the bevel glass, Josephine caught the macabre twist of his lips. Her legs moved of their own volition, compelled forward, and she stopped just a pace away from him. “What do you mean?”

  Duncan turned, startled as if he’d forgotten her presence. “She was running away with my brother.”

  Her insides twisted. “My God.” He’d suffered the cruelest of betrayals, and at the hands of two people who should have loved him most—his brother and his wife.

  “Society never learned of their affair. They didn’t need anything juicier than the murder of my wife.”

  Duncan fell silent and faced forward.

  Josephine stood there, attempting to sort through everything he’d shared. Following Lord Grimslee’s defection, she’d been enraged. Furious with herself for trusting her heart to a man who’d not deserved it. Livid with him for the ease with which he’d ended their relationship.

  But there’d never been love involved. Not truly.

  There’d been no child.

  What had it been like for Duncan to be trapped in a loveless marriage with a woman who despised him and who ultimately left him and their child for his brother, who had also planned to be a vicar?

  No person who was sane would ever dare resent him for his fury.

  “But, Duncan, you didn’t push her,” she finally said quietly. She’d known him only a short while and knew as much.

  Duncan stiffened.

  “She ran.”

  “Yes.”

  It hadn’t been a question, but he answered it anyway.

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  A harsh, gravelly chuckle shook his frame. “That is… very forgiving of you. The world didn’t see it the same way.”

  “You were found to be innocent,” she reminded him.

  “Not by the people that mattered. Nor did that innocence absolve me of responsibility.”

  In other words, even as he’d been exonerated, he’d take ownership of the guilt. Did he realize he did so as a means of punishing himself? “It is why you see those accused of crimes in a different light,” she said softly.

  His cheeks colored. “Don’t make more of me and my character than there is. I wasn’t always of an opinion. I was arrogant.”

  “But you grew from your life’s experiences,” she said more insistently, willing him to see. “You’ve represented men and women who’d otherwise have been without anyone to speak for them, people who were and are just as deserving of a trial.” He’d opened her eyes to that.

  And in his sharing his past, he’d opened the door for Josephine to do the same. She didn’t want any more half-truths or untold ones between them. She wanted a life with him. Because she loved him.

  I love him?

  She went absolutely motionless.

  She loved him. She loved him for who he was. He’d not sought to change her, as Lord Grimslee had. Duncan had only ever seen her contributions as meaningful. He was a man of honor and convictions. A man who fed fairy tales to his daughter in a bid to give her something when there was nothing.

  Josephine struggled to take in a proper breath, but a vise squeezed her lungs. It was impossible. It defied the logic of time spent and affection growing. And… and… she didn’t want to marry. She didn’t want a husband. She wanted to be the eccentric bluestocking with only legal books to keep her company.

  Didn’t she?

  “Josephine?” he asked haltingly, and she whipped her head up.

  “I’m sorry!” she squeaked. “I didn’t hear you. I was distracted. I was…”

  Duncan eyed her with a pained understanding that brought an immediate surcease to her ramblings.

  Taking a deep breath, she smoothed her palms along the front of her dress. “I need to speak with you about something of importance,” she said quietly, wanting to at last have it said.

  His expression fell. “You’re leaving.”

  “No,” she exclaimed. “That is… not it.”

  He eyed her with a relief that threatened to shatter her. Would he still feel that way once she revealed her secrets?

  Unable to meet his eyes, she put several steps between them, searching for what to say, how to say it. In the end, only the most direct words left her. “I haven’t been truthful with you.” He stiffened. “That is, about my identity.”

  “You’re married,” he said flatly.

  “No.” She sprang forward on the arches of her feet. “I was almost wed.” Twining her hands together, Josephine glanced down at the worn fabric of her thin leather gloves. The irony was not lost on her. Not long ago she’d vowed never to wed. She’d been so very confident that there’d be no love and no husband, only to find she wanted both—with this man. “Or I thought we would marry. But… no, I’m not.”

  Did she imagine the relief that marched across his heavy features? You’re only seeing what you wish to see. Before her courage deserted her, she gave him the truth. “My name is not Josephine Webb.”

  Tension whipped through his frame.

  She frantically yanked off her gloves. “My name is Josephine,” she clarified, stuffing the articles inside the pocket sewn on the front of her cloak. “That part is true, but my last name is not Webb.” Josephine wet her lips and, before her courage could desert her, said it. “That is my brother’s title.”

  His entire body turned to stone before her. “Your brother’s title,” he repeated with the same frost that had stung her at their first meeting.

  He hated everything to do with the peerage. She’d easily gleaned that in his telling of his late wife’s aspirations, because of what it had cost him and what it represented.

  “He’s a baron.”

  His dark brows dipped. “A baron.”

  This repeating everything she said did not bode well.

  She was losing him. And he did not even yet know that her other brother was the barrister he’d face off against in the Holman case. Josephine was besieged by the sudden urge to cry. “I’ve two brothers. Both have… struggled in different ways. Nolan was never one with numbers, and our finances suffered, and Henry—”

  “Why are you telling me this?” he asked, his voice so impassive it ripped at her heart.

  “So that you might understand. Henry struggled with his studies.” She paused. “As he strove to become a barrister.”

  Not a single muscle moved in Duncan’s face.

  “Henry. As in Henry Pratt.” Of course, with the smallest bits of evidence, he should piece it together.

  How was it possible for words to come out as cold as ice?

  “The same,” she whispered.

  *

  Time stood still.

  Suspended.

  It wasn’t the first time in Duncan’s life where the earth had ceased moving, and then when it resumed, it had flipped itself—and him—upside down.

  Josephine settled a tentative hand on his coat sleeve. “Say something,” she pleaded.

  And damn his body for responding to her nearness as it had from the moment she’d broken his damned window and barged into his life. “What would you have me say, Miss…?” The remainder of that address hissed off, going unfinished.

  She let her hand fall to her side, and he hated that he mourned it as another loss where this woman was concerned.

  “Pratt,” he spat. “Miss Pratt.”

  As in Henry Pratt’s sister. “Oh, God.” He surged forward, and Josephine flinched.

  Did she think he’d hit her? His fury burned only deeper. Storming to the other side of his desk, he jerked out the drawer and removed the lone bottle there. Yanking out the stopper, Duncan tossed it on the floor, tipped the bottle back, and drank deeply.

  “I didn’t know you drank spirits.”

  “I don’t.” With that, he took another healthy swig and then set the decanter down with a hard thwack. Atop his files. Atop Lathan Holman’s files. Horror spiraled as he flung himself over those papers. “My God, I allowed you near my files.”

  She bit her lower lip. �
��I can certainly see why that would be a concern.” Josephine held his gaze. “I’d never betray you or your work. Not to my brother and not to anyone.”

  He began pacing and felt her eyes on him, following his frenetic movements.

  “You are entitled to your anger,” she said quietly. “And yet, aside from my failure to mention—”

  “That you are Henry Pratt’s sister and came to me spouting your opinions and charges about my client, only to then abruptly change your mind and then ask to work for me?” His voice crept up.

  Josephine winced. “Yes, yes. Well, I see how, when you put it that way, it certainly sounds sinister. But it wasn’t, Duncan.” She lifted her hands, palms up. “It isn’t.”

  His life had fallen apart before. Nothing about betrayal was foreign to him. So why did this lie of omission and Josephine’s lie in truth about her identity gut him? Gut him in ways that his late wife’s deception never had.

  “There is but… one more thing.”

  “Good God, what else could it be?” He bit out each syllable.

  At her silence, he stopped and looked over.

  “It is going to sound terrible.”

  A sharp laugh burst from him. “Worse than my opposing counsel’s sister securing employment in my office and access to my files?” He felt the hesitation hover in the air like a palpable force, and dread, an increasingly familiar sentiment, continued to root around his gut. “What?” he asked, needing to know, and yet at the same time not wanting to.

  “Your Mr. Lathan Holman?”

  The knot in his stomach grew tauter. He didn’t know what she would say, and yet, he’d never been a coward to hide from the truth. “Yes?”

  Josephine fiddled with her skirts. “Well, I may have been betrothed to his eldest brother, Lord Grimslee—”

  Duncan’s eyes slid shut.

  “And Lord Grimslee may have broken it off with me in a messy and public way because, following Lathan’s scandal, their family decided they wished for a bride for Lucas who had an impeccable reputation.”

  Unlike hers.

  They’d found her unsuitable. Fury swamped his senses for a moment, distracting him from the significance of her revelation. The Holmans believed that Josephine, with her indomitable spirit and clever mind, was somehow unworthy? His chest tightened. “You may have been betrothed to him, Josephine, or you were?”

  “I… was.”

  Duncan spun away from her. He knew what was expected of him. He knew immediate panic and worry should stem from his case and the possible—and calamitous—ramifications. And yet, he was able to focus on only one thought.

  That there’d been some fine lord who’d won her heart and then broken it filled him with competing forms of rage… and something more. Visceral, hot jealousy, volatile in its depths. While Duncan? Duncan had never been anything to Josephine. Not truly.

  You wanted to, though.

  He shoved aside that truth battering at his mind.

  “I told you because I didn’t want to let this to go on too long. I didn’t want to lie to you, Duncan,” Josephine entreated, misunderstanding the reason for his silence and bringing his focus back where it should be.

  Duncan dragged a hand through his hair. “Christ.” It was a prayer. He paused briefly and looked over at her again. “You already did lie and let it go on too long, Josephine. You did both of those things.”

  Her arms fell to her sides, and she moved closer in a rustle of skirts. Satin skirts. Fine ones. Different than the muslin ones she’d worn every day to his office. “Yes, but nothing has to change because my brother is representing the Home Office.”

  His stomach lurched. When she said it like that… precisely as it was… “Do you truly believe I can keep you on in my employ?” he demanded. Even if I want to… It was a concession that defied all logic and common sense.

  Josephine wet her full lips. That perfectly plump flesh he’d kissed and had dreamed of kissing every day since. A mouth he’d never kiss again. She looked up at him through saucer-wide eyes. “I’d rather hoped you would,” she said, tentative when she’d only ever been direct and bold, and that transformation in her chipped off another piece of his heart.

  For a moment, he wavered. Wanting her to stay. Because from the moment she’d stormed into his life, he’d been weak.

  “Josephine, surely you know the implications of being discovered working for me,” he said painfully.

  Her expressive eyes revealed the truth even if she wouldn’t, or couldn’t, bring herself to admit as much.

  “What Society would say about you,” he went on.

  “I don’t care what they say about me.”

  “What would my client think if he learned I’d worked with you… or had any relationship with you?”

  “And that matters so much to you, Duncan?” she asked breathlessly. “The opinions of all. That is always your way.”

  “Don’t turn this on me, Josephine.”

  She stormed over, glorious in her outrage. “You, so worried about what everyone will say about your past, and you’d have mine and my familial connections matter more than me?” Her chest rose and fell quickly.

  “This isn’t about me,” he said tiredly. “You are a lady, Josephine.” She belonged to a different world for the station of her birth. How could she not see that?

  “You’re the one who cares about that distinction, Duncan. Not me.” With that, she swept off, pausing at the front of the room. “Those parts of me that you’d condemn me for?” she began, speaking so softly that he strained to hear her over the tempest raging inside him. Josephine faced him once more, and like a man starving, he devoured the sight of her, knowing it was the last he’d ever see her. “They aren’t even the most important parts of who I am.” She pressed a hand to her breast. “They are the parts I have no control over.”

  They remained at an impasse, locked in silence.

  In the end, Duncan broke it. “I should see you home.”

  “I don’t require you to look after me,” Josephine snapped, her spirit restored, and he preferred her as she was, spirited and outraged, to the sad figure she’d been moments ago. “I’m a grown woman, quite capable of seeing after myself and hardly requiring the care of any man.”

  “Even so,” he said quietly. “I’ll not have any harm befall you.”

  “My maid and driver are waiting not far from here.”

  Of course there’d be a driver and maid. That was just one more reminder of the elevated ranks from which she came. It was also a reminder that there were people who knew of her presence here. Who knew what she’d been up to. “Oh, God.” His eyes slid closed.

  “You needn’t worry. They’re quite loyal.”

  He’d have to be deaf to fail to hear that thinly veiled insult.

  Josephine gave a loud snap of her skirts. “I’m sorry I wasn’t forthright with you, but at least be honest and answer this: Had you known I was Henry Pratt’s sister, would you have ever hired me on to work with you?”

  No, he wouldn’t have.

  “I thought so,” she said with a sad little smile, and his heart, the damned organ he’d sworn would be safe forevermore from any woman, cracked open. Broken.

  Josephine reached for the handle once more and then stopped. She stood there, her gaze trained on the faded oak panel. “I listened to your secrets, your past, and did not judge you, and yet, you should judge me for my birthright? But do you know, Duncan…” She cast a glance over her shoulder. “What you’re worried most over isn’t my status or my family or my connection to your client. You’re more worried about winning your case so that you might, at last, have the respect you’ve been searching for. You’re unable to accept that the world and its opinion can all go hang.”

  How dare she presume to know what drove him? “You don’t know anything about it,” he snapped.

  “Of course,” she said. “Why would I?”

  “You have to go.” Striding over to the hook where her cloak rested, he pulled i
t free. “Now.”

  “That’s it, then?” She stared at him with stricken eyes.

  I will not feel badly. I will not feel badly.

  “Josephine,” he said in agonized tones.

  Sweeping over, she tugged her muslin cloak from his fingers. Fine muslin. God, how had he failed to see the details before? Every one had indicated her birthright.

  Her delicate features twisted with a pain that ravaged him. And for a moment, he thought she’d say something else. And he wanted her to. Wanted there to be words that could put this to rights between them.

  But with the regal grace of a queen, she continued her march to the door and reached for the handle.

  She looked back, and even after her betrayal, his heartbeat accelerated, for he needed her to say something. He didn’t want these happiest moments they’d shared to come to this ugly end.

  “Lord T is most likely Lord Tennyson,” she said quietly. “A newly married member of the peerage.”

  With that revelation, she swept out of his offices and out of his life, taking with her the only real happiness he’d known in more years than he could remember.

  Chapter 17

  Five days later

  Duncan had suffered many losses. His marriage. His career. Countless cases.

  Hell, he’d nearly lost his life.

  This loss, however, was worse.

  This loss of Josephine and their time together… this was an altogether different pain. One that left him splayed open and mourning the life he wished for… with her. For a too-brief time, he’d had a glimpse of an existence he’d never believed someone like him was capable, no, deserving of. And perhaps, even with the lies between them, they could have had all of that had it not been for the fact that they were born into entirely different worlds.

  Locked away in his home offices, he threw his pen down.

  Stop it.

  Even if there hadn’t been a chasm of lies between them, it could never have been.

  He briefly closed his eyes.

  She was Henry Pratt’s sister.

  A lady of the peerage.

  A member of the ton.

  She’d nearly married Lathan Holman’s titled brother.

  And if the gulf of her relationship to Pratt weren’t barrier enough, the station divide between them was wider than the damned English Channel.