Page 30 of Her Scottish Duke
CHAPTER NINE
Gerard opened the door wide to find Charlotte on his doorstep, her cloak hood raised up around her head as she hid her face from any passersby in the street that might have noticed her walking up the driveway. He smiled at the way she gripped to the edges of that hood, leaning on the doorframe as he watched her.
“Are you not going to let me in?” she asked, glancing behind her, nervously.
“Are ye so ashamed of our acquaintance that ye have to hide?”
“You know this is inappropriate for a lady to come to a gentleman’s house alone. You do not need that to be a part of our lessons.” She gestured for him to step out of the way, and he did so, opening the door wider to allow her inside.
She stepped in, just as the housekeeper appeared through the drawing room door.
“Ah, Lady Charlotte. So good to see you again. Here, let me take that for you.” Mrs. Philips stepped forward to take her cloak.
“And you, Mrs. Philips. Thank you.”
“I have set tea up for you both in the drawing room today.”
“Thank ye,” Gerard nodded then beckoned her to follow. He knew it was best that he and Charlotte were not alone without a chaperone. What would Charlotte’s sense of propriety say if they were completely alone?
In the drawing room, Gerard followed Charlotte toward the tea table that had been set up. She paused a short distance from the table and looked around the room, her lips parted in a little wonder. Those blue eyes darted restlessly from one thing to the next.
Gerard found it all too easy to stare at Charlotte as she did so. She really was rather beautiful, with that smattering of freckles across her nose and the elegant way she raised a hand to push a loose lock of her hair that had fallen out of her updo behind her ears.
As Mrs. Philips picked up some embroidery to occupy herself with at the edge of the room, she coughed.
Gerard looked toward her, noting at once the friendly warning she was giving him.
Och, I shouldnae stare at the lass so openly.
“Well, what is our lesson today then?” he asked as he pulled back Charlotte’s chair, for her to sit down. “Or are ye occupied in admirin’ me house?”
“It is a very beautiful house indeed,” she remarked, still looking around in amazement. “Yet you do not look at it with the same admiring gaze,” she whispered thoughtfully leaning across the table toward him a little.
He glanced at her, warily, thinking it was no wise thing for Charlotte to lean toward him in such a way.
Teasing and flirting with Charlotte was all well and good. It was a pleasant distraction, especially with someone as beautiful and intriguing in character as Charlotte, but it was not something that could last.
She would have to marry a man someday, and no husband of hers would take kindly to this rather unorthodox friendship of theirs.
“It is a house,” he said simply. He poured out the tea for her, then reached for his coffee pot and poured out the coffee for him.
“You do not admire it?” she murmured, with her voice quite awed.
“I come from a different background.” He picked up the cup and purposefully took it away from the saucer. “My first ever home was just one room.” He didn’t look at her as he said these words. He rather expected her to say that he shouldn’t speak of such things in front of others of theton. “I am incredibly grateful for the house that is now mine…” He hesitated, lifting his gaze and looking at the vast room.
The ceiling was arched and molded with which plaster. The walls draped in fine damask wallpaper, interrupted occasionally by fine landscapes, were indeed beautiful, but he didn’t know what to think of them. He looked away, down at his coffee cup, thinking how just one of those paintings could have bought food for himself and his mother for three months when he was little.
“Never mind,” he murmured, not wishing to speak of it anymore.
“If you do not like it, why not change it?” Charlotte asked suddenly. “It is your home. You can do with it what you wish to.”
He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, staring at her.
“Elbows,” she reminded him smoothly, adding a little milk to her tea but no sugar.
He slipped his elbows back off the table.
Maybe she’s right. Maybe I could do something with the house.
