Loving the Wrong Lord

by Bethany M. Sefchick

  She wanted to dance and flirt and eat ices at Gunter’s. She wanted to go for a drive along Rotten Row and stroll along the Serpentine. She wished to visit Vauxhall and go shopping on Bond Street.

  Josie had done all of those things, but only with the grace and assistance of Lord and Lady Radcliffe. They had given her a true taste of Society life, even with the “stench of scandal” – as some gossips termed it – still following her every time she set foot outside of Ben and Julia’s lovely Mayfair town home.

  She hadn’t found a husband as of yet, but there was still time. She hoped. Instead, what Josie had found was a measure of happiness, even under what some would consider impossible circumstances, and happiness was as foreign to Josie was London life often was.

  She had known so very little happiness in her life that even now, she wasn’t always quite certain if she should allow herself to feel any true measure of pleasure. She was overcoming that notion, but slowly. Because since coming to London, Josie had realized that she was stronger than she knew. She was not some sort of fragile flower, and she refused to allow anyone to treat her like one ever again. No matter what the papers said about her.

  Even with her father’s failed plot to destroy Phin Trew’s life still being whispered about on a daily basis, Josie had been strong enough of will as of late to put on a fresh gown each morning and face the day, determined to be more than her father’s legacy. She was determined to live her own life and prove to Society that she was not her father and that not every member of the Marshwood family was madder than a Bedlamite.

  Josie was also determined to rise above the gossip that still swirled about her older sister Elizabeth’s death many years ago. Elizabeth had been unwell in the head, and when Phin had rejected her one long-ago evening, so long ago that few could even recall it, Elizabeth had taken her own life. She had been unable to cope with the idea that she could not have precisely what she wanted all of the time. And Elizabeth had wanted Phin. Desperately. Well, she likely wanted his title and his funds, but that was typical Elizabeth.

  That was not Josie, however, and never would be.

  Josie was not her father, and she was not her sister. She was her own woman, and she was stronger than either of them. She was strong enough to withstand the cutting gossip and prove Society wrong about her.

  Unfortunately, that also meant that she had been advised – by no less than the Bloody Duke himself – that she should stay far away from Phin Trew, much as she enjoyed the man’s company.

  And she did enjoy his company. Quite a lot. More than was wise.

  That, more than anything, had annoyed Josie the most, for she really did find the man quite charming and witty, even though they had only first met a few weeks past at Lady Chillton’s ball. The man was also kind and laughed easily. Not to mention incredibly handsome with dark brown curls and rich brown eyes and his well-over-six-foot, muscular frame.

  Yes, he was just the sort of man Josie could picture herself marrying – titled or not, for she really didn’t give a jot about such things – even if she was only just now turned twenty years of age and he was approaching the ripe old age of thirty. Or, at the very least, Josie wished to at least dance with the man once more and see if he was amenable to such a thing.

  The last time she had danced with him had been nothing sort of magical.

  Actually, that entire night at Lady Chilton’s ball had been far beyond anything Josie had ever dreamed about.

  In truth, Josie and Phin had only spent a single evening becoming acquainted in Lady Chillton’s ballroom. It had been enough. Or at least it had been enough for Josie. Enough to know that Phin Trew was the gentleman who would fuel her fantasies for weeks, if not months, to come.

  After the awful events of that night, caution was all but thrown to the wind, and propriety was relaxed, allowing Josie her first taste of a London ball without all of the endless proprieties. All because her father had lost his mind in the middle of the ballroom.

  Things would be different elsewhere, Julia had whispered to Josie that night. However, given that they were amongst friends, as had been carefully planned in order to catch Josie’s father before he ruined Phin and because that very disaster had been narrowly averted? There was no reason not to celebrate a bit. To relax the rules, as it were.

  And celebrate they had, though Josie hadn’t quite been as jovial as the others. After all, she had just essentially been disowned by her father, who was, without a doubt, madder than a Bedlamite. However, spending time with Phin that night had eased some of the ache in her chest. Phin was witty and intelligent and had made her laugh on a night when gloom had lurked at the edges of just about everything.

  He also seemed to appreciate what everyone else termed her “odd” wit. Nor had he chastised her for making observations about life that were unusual for a young woman her age. Rather, Phin seemed to appreciate that Josie’s life had been markedly different than the lives of other young women and that she had experienced far more in her life than most of them ever would for the entirety of theirs.

  He was handsome and charming and attentive and not at all the frigid bore that she had read about in the papers. He was…different than she had expected, and she had found herself utterly besotted with him.

  Such a thing was utterly inappropriate, of course, but that wasn’t the only inappropriate thing she had done that night.

  She and Phin had danced – three times, actually, which was far more than was proper – and he had taught her how to play whist while she very nearly sat in his lap, his hands guiding hers over the cards. They had shared a glass of scotch in Lord Chillton’s study, and they had laughed as if they were old friends. They had walked on the veranda under the stars and spoken like old friends, sharing confidences and confiding secrets.

  It was as if, in the space of that single night, the two of them had spoken to each other in a way that they had never spoken to another living person in their entire lives.

  Phin told her about his son, Philip, and Josie, in turn, had confessed so very many things about her father. Phin had confessed that, at times, he hated being a duke because people only saw his title and his fortune rather than the man. She had confided that she often felt like a prized mare being paraded about, judged only for how well she could breed and what she looked like rather than who she was in her heart and mind.

  Logic dictated that there should have been other guests milling about the darkened corners of Lady Chillton’s ball that night, but there hadn’t been. No matter where one of them went, the other had been almost certain to turn up only a moment or two later, as if the universe or the fates were conspiring to grant them this precious time to be alone with each other.

  To learn about each other in a way that would never otherwise be granted.

  And by the end of that night? Josie was convinced she would never care for another man the way she did for Phin Trew. He was the standard by which all others would be judged, and, in all probability, those men would be found lacking.

  Oh, Josie and Phin hadn’t kissed or touched inappropriately or anything of the like. In fact, Phin had made it a point to keep his hands off of her.

  But he had wanted to touch her. She could see the desire in his eyes and felt an answering desire withing her as well.

  Josie didn’t know much about desire, but she knew the wanted Phin. This wasn’t love growing between them, but it was something akin to respect tinged with passionate desire, and that made what she felt all the more attractive. Especially since it was clear Phin felt the pull as well.

  On the way back to Lord and Lady Radcliffe’s that night, both Ben and Julia had warned Josie that what had transpired that night would likely never happen again. They had both cautioned her that it was a stolen moment out of time, and that she should not expect a night like that to happen ever again.

  In that, they had been right. In the days and weeks that followed, Josie attended any number of elegant entertainments, but none had ever possessed the
same magic she had felt that night at Lady Chillton’s. With Phin.

  Josie had, though, expected to be allowed to dance with Phin again. Or, if not dance, then at least exchange pleasantries when they saw each other at different London events. At the very least, a subtle title of the head.

  Unfortunately, she hadn’t been. Not even a nod in his direction.

  Josie had been prohibited from dancing with Phin after that first night, much to her annoyance. She couldn’t even speak to him or blink at him or, well, do anything that might even hint that they knew each other.

  Instead, she was pushed at a veritable throng of gentlemen who, she was told, were all vying for the right to marry her. All she had to do was choose one, and all of the details would be arranged for her. She would receive a dowry and a new wardrobe and anything else she could possibly wish for. Just like that. So long as she chose one of those men and stayed away from the Duke of Fullbridge.

  It was only too bad Josie didn’t feel the same connection to any of those gentlemen that she had felt with Phin that first night.

  The other gentlemen who had paid her court were nice enough, but they weren’t Phineas Trew. Still, they were acceptable, most of them had the Bloody Duke’s grudging approval to court her, and she had been determined to make a successful match, even if she wasn’t madly or passionately in love with any of them.

  Nor was Josie madly or passionately in love with Phin either, but the point remained the same – she preferred Phin’s company over theirs.

  Not to mention that Phin was wildly attractive and made her insides feel a bit tingly.

  None of the gentlemen paraded before her could say the same.

  Yet she had to pick one.

  Because she couldn’t have Phin. Not now and not ever.

  Especially not now, after the news of her father’s demise had broken ten long days ago.

  Josie’s father was dead, and under suspicious circumstances no less. The very-recently-departed-from-London Earl of Telford had been found floating face-down in the Thames just over a week ago. Not that anyone was mourning his passing, though his death had put a rather large hole in Josie’s plans for her future.

  Her father’s death was also curious because the last Josie had heard, he had been press-ganged and shipped off to America while the Bloody Duke and the Crown began a search for the next blood relation to take the title of the Earl of Telford and restore some modicum of respectability to it. Josie had no idea her father was even still in England, let alone London, and had no inkling that he had been last seen sneaking about the rookeries with unsavory characters. He was still an earl, after all. Even disgraced earls did not behave that way.

  However, the Earl of Telford had for reasons that no one knew.

  Which, of course, did nothing but make the gossip all the more salacious.

  So, while Josie was like most others and didn’t mourn the loss of her father – a man she didn’t love and who hadn’t loved her in return – she now felt the sting of gossip once more and this time? It was far harsher than it had been. Not to mention far more vicious.

  Before, when her father had attempted to force Penny to wed Phin and then destroy his reputation before leaving him alone and in disgrace, those in London Society had looked upon Josie with a large measure of pity. Though everyone connected to the incident had done their best to keep the entire matter quiet, word had leaked out that Josie’s father had beaten Penny and threatened Josie’s life in order to force the other woman to comply with his orders.

  Such threats had made Josie a sympathetic character in the farce that was her life. As such, most Society matrons viewed her more with pity than suspicion.

  Now that her father, who was assumed to be gone, turned up dead in the river? New gossip sprang up, and this time, it wasn’t as kind to Josie. People quietly wondered what she had known about her father’s plans for Phin and if she had some sort of hand in her father’s death. In the end, she would benefit, or so rumor had it.

  After all, a distant cousin, one Mr. Ewan Stewart, had not two days before been declared the new Telford heir. The man was rumored to be both handsome and in the market for a pretty, young, pedigreed, child-bearing-aged wife – preferably one of Marshwood blood.

  Meaning Josie, since her cousin Penny was recently wed.

  Could Josie have known about Mr. Stewart, people wondered, along with his position as the heir to the earldom? Was killing her father her way of making certain she could move on with her life while still keeping part of her old one?

  Those stories were ridiculous, of course, but they sold papers. Lots and lots of papers.

  Josie hadn’t even known of this Mr. Stewart’s existence, let alone ever met him. She certainly hadn’t known he was in line to be the next earl. Moreover, she had given little thought to marriage in general since her father had kept her all but a prisoner in her own home all of those years. The very the idea that she was savvy enough to arrange her father’s death in the rookeries, of all places? Preposterous!

  However, that didn’t stop the gossips’ tongues from wagging even faster and the mere thought of “sweet and innocent Josie Marshwood” somehow being involved in her father’s death so she could finally be rid of him was a juicy and salacious tale indeed.

  Not that any of it was true. Not so much as a single word.

  Both Ben and Julia had instructed Josie not to mind the gossips, saying that even acknowledging them gave them more fuel for the proverbial fire. However, that was proving difficult to do, especially as Josie heard the cutting whispers from Wallflower Row each time she walked past.

  So instead of dancing and searching for a husband, tonight, Josie was hiding.

  Eventually, a bigger scandal would come along, and she would be forgotten about. But until then? Hiding seemed to be her best option.

  Then the doorknob to the library rattled, and she had a feeling that she was about to be discovered and either forced back to the ball or possibly ruined. More scandal. More gossip. Lovely. Just lovely.

  Leaping up, Josie prepared to bar the door as best she could, but before she could even grab so much as a poker for the fire, the door swung open with a bang before being slammed shut once more. And there, standing before her like an avenging, angry god was the one man she would do well to avoid. Had been instructed to avoid, actually.

  Lord Phineas Trew was here. In the library. With her. And suddenly, her already complicated life became a good deal more complicated.

  Chapter Four

  “You.” That single word was out of Josie’s mouth before she could stop herself.

  Proper ladies didn’t act like heathens. They spoke only after spoken to, and all of that, but Josie had never been very good at being a proper lady. At least not for much longer than the span of half of an hour.

  Then again, the man standing before her hardly looked like a proper gentleman, so perhaps it didn’t matter. Not to mention that he already knew very well exactly how improper she could be. Again, not that he was much better at the moment.

  The duke’s cravat was askew and partially undone. His curly hair, normally kept in check with pomade, was wild, almost as if he had been running his hand through it repeatedly. His jacket looked a bit wrinkled, and there was a scuff mark on the toe of one shoe. In short, he looked almost as disheveled as Josie likely was. Hardly the picture of a proper and perfect gentleman. Let alone a duke.

  Then, as if registering who he was looking at, Josie saw the expression on Phin’s face change from one of panic to one of cold calculation and then, finally, what might have been delighted surprise – she hoped.

  In the dim lamplight, Josie watched as Phin’s eyes grew wide at first and then narrowed as he took in her form. She knew she was on both the short and slight side, but really, did the man have to stare at her as if she possessed two heads? Josie thought not. Besides, she thought he liked her. Well, he had. But that had been another time and another place.

  Another night so very different fr
om this one. So different that she might have believed it was all a dream. Except she knew better. She was fanciful, but she was not an idiot.

  “You.” Phin echoed her earlier word back to her, and then he paused as if he wished to say something else. Instead, his mouth snapped shut, and his lips pressed into a thin line for the briefest of moments, giving Josie a glimpse of the man that many in Society referred to as “a right proper prig.”

  Maybe they were right about that after all. Maybe that was the real Phin Trew, and man she had met at Lady Chillton’s was the result of too much to drink.

  “That is hardly,” Josie began, but before she could scold him for his rude behavior – not that hers was much better, mind you – Phin grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the far corner of the library with a hard yank.

  He nodded at a ladder she hadn’t noticed earlier, not that she had thoroughly investigated the room when she had chosen to hide there. She had only bothered to make sure it was empty.

  “Up the ladder and to the left. Then all the way to the back. Hurry. We’ve little time.”

  For a brief moment, Josie thought about protesting, but then she heard the distant patter of slippered feet scurrying down the hallway. Someone was coming – someone female – and that female was likely chasing Phin. If she was caught out with him? Well, that would only lead to even more scandal.

  Josie wasn’t certain she could take any more scandal just then.

  The dark glare in Phin’s eyes hinted that he thought Josie might protest or refuse and that he had a plan for such an occasion. Instead, she simply gathered her skirts in one hand, grasped the ladder’s railing with her other, and then began to climb in silence. There really was no need to discuss the matter, though her silence seemed to surprise him a little. She had no idea why. She was not some addlepated nitwit hoping to be caught out with a duke and become mired in scandal. He knew her better than that. Or she assumed he did.