“The answer is no.”
She sighed. “Before you say no, perhaps you should consider that it might be good for her.”
“How would a dog be good for her?” he asked incredulously.
She gave him a look he couldn’t decipher before she began to lay out the blanket she’d brought with her. Joseph helped by ensuring the blanket stayed pinned down, but he didn’t take his eyes off her. He realized he couldn’t. She seemed to glow under his attention, a faint flush on her cheeks and a sparkle in her beautiful green eyes.
God, she was utterly beautiful.
“… and when I received mine, it made me far less… Joseph, are you listening to me?”
Joseph blinked, lifting his gaze from her lips to her eyes. He’d been caught staring, and for some reason, he didn’t particularly mind. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
She thinned her lips in annoyance. All that did was draw his attention back to them. Last night, he’d barely held back from claiming them, overcome with such insatiable need that he feltlike he hardly knew himself in that moment. He blamed it on the late hour, the candlelit room, the fact that they had stood so close, and he’d been vulnerable to her in a manner that he’d never allowed himself to be with anyone else before.
But what was his excuse now? Why was he so taken by his longing when he should be focused on other things?
“I said…” she went on, sounding slightly frustrated. Joseph pulled himself from his reverie, reminding himself to listen this time. “… my father gifted Nina to me when I turned twenty years old, and she has been faithfully by my side since then. She’s the best gift I have ever received. And it is clear that Dorothea adores dogs, so I see no reason not to.”
“Dorothea has no reason for a dog.”
“Many do not, but they do make lovely companions. Haven’t you ever had a pet?”
“No, I haven’t.”
Catriona seemed surprised by that. She paused in the middle of pouring herself a cup of lemonade. “Not even one?”
“You sound surprised by that.”
“Well, I thought it was very common for families. Though I suppose that might just be in Scotland. Every castle nearby had a few dogs milling about.”
“And Scotland is your basis for most of your generalizations?”
She nodded. “I had no reason to leave Scotland before my father passed away. And when I came to London, I tended to stay indoors.”
“What of your mother?” he asked without thinking.
Catriona looked away as she poured another cup of lemonade. This one, she handed to him. “She passed away when I was quite young. I did not know her very well. Ava and Maisie even less so.”
The thread of sadness could not be missed though. She might not have known her mother very well, but she certainly missed her.
Joseph was tempted to take her hand, and that urge scared the hell out of him.
“That’s why I am the way that I am,” she went on a much chirper note, obviously forced. “I thought myself their mother rather than their elder sister, even though we are not that far apart in age. And now that they’ve grown, it somehow feels as if I am lacking in purpose.”
“Have you…” He stopped himself before he could ask the insanely invasive, inappropriate question.
But then Catriona looked at him, and he felt his resistance crumble. “Have I what?”
“Have you thought of having a family of your own?”
He knew it was an unfair question to ask, given the situation she was in. He’d never promised her a child, after all. And Joseph, despite his position as a duke, had never thought of having another.
But now, as he pictured Catriona nursing a young babe, teaching a toddler to walk, celebrating the small, mundane milestones as they grew, he wondered if he wanted the same for himself.
“I have thought about it,” she admitted after a moment. “But I never allowed myself to truly consider a path I would never be able to go down.”
Joseph tore his eyes away from Catriona, as if that would enough to chase away that feeling of discomfort brewing in his chest, fixing them on Dorothea instead. His heart skipped a beat when he saw her bent by the riverbank, her hand in the water.
