When one is the rightful heir and the other wants everything just for himself. Josephine realised that she was caught in the middle of a succession war.
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Now that the moment had actually arrived, Josephine Langford wished that it hadn't. An unfortunate realisation that she could hardly reconcile with the excitement she'd felt only last night as she'd prepared for bed. For months she'd been eagerly anticipating her wedding to the Duke of Gloucester. The problem as she saw it now was that she was no longer certain she was anticipating the marriage. A strange notion indeed, but there you had it.
With a sigh, she started at her reflection in the cheval glass while her lady's maid fluttered around her like a butterfly that couldn't quite determine where to alight, touching up Jo's blonde hair, adjusting the wreath of orange blossoms that held the veil of Honiton lace in place, tittering about how lovely she appeared on this most special of all days.
Jo couldn't deny that it was a special day, which was the very reason that it seemed incredibly odd to find herself suddenly filled with such doubt. Her engagement and the upcoming wedding were the talk of London: how she, an untitled landowner's daughter, had managed to snag the most eligible-not to mention very nicely titled-bachelor among the peerage. They gossiped about the affair as though she'd done something special, and for the life of her, she could think of nothing exceptional she'd done other than smile at the duke and carry on conversations that, for the most part, seemed to delight him.
She was incredibly fond of Gloucester, but what did she truly know about him? He was exceptionally good at charades, was a fine dancer, and enjoyed long walks. Ah, yes, and he was undeniably handsome. Not that she thought a gorgeous face was a quality to take into account when selecting a husband, but it certainly didn't hurt matters that he was incredibly pleasing to gaze upon.
He had the most astonishing green eyes, and while they seldom sparkled with merriment, as he was a decidedly serious fellow, they did make her feel special when he gazed at her with such intensity that oftentimes she would blush beneath his scrutiny. He never revealed what he was thinking at times such as those, as if he might be embarrassed by his own thoughts, and she often wondered if he was thinking about the same thing as she: what it might be like to truly kiss each other.
He was so terribly proper, had never kissed any part of her other than her glove-covered hand-not even when he'd asked for that very hand in marriage-and yet tonight...well, tonight he might very well kiss a good deal more with no material to separate his lips from her skin.
She warmed at the thought of such intimacy and wondered if perhaps that was the source of her unease. The realisation that very soon she would become embarrassingly intimate with a man she liked extremely well, but didn't love. Or at least she didn't think she loved him. Shouldn't love be all- consuming?
Of course, she'd been thinking of her wedding every moment of every day for the past six months, but she hadn't truly been thinking of her betrothed. Had she?
