Page 42 of Her Scottish Duke
Blushing red, Charlotte took the letter back.
“He has asked me for etiquette lessons,” she said haphazardly, taking Frederica’s hands and dragging her from the room.
“Is that all it is?”
Charlotte didn’t answer the question.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“You all right, Gerard?” Jeffrey said as he placed the tankard down in front of Gerard. “You do not seem yourself tonight.”
“Aye, I daenae feel it.” He thanked Jeffrey for the ale and drank from it, taking a glance around the tavern where they had come for the night.
It was the third time they had escaped to the tavern that week for a drink together, and Gerard was secretly glad for it. In here, he felt more like himself than ever before, especially in Jeffrey’s company, though tonight was a little different.
Gerard adjusted one of the candles on the low table between them, drawing it forward so he could look at Jeffrey’s heavily lined face.
“Ye look tired, me friend,” Gerard observed with a nod.
“I am.” Jeffrey even stifled a yawn as he spoke. “My mother keeps me up by shouting at me every night, demanding to know why I am not married yet, and why I have not produced an heir.”
“Ha! I cannae imagine me mother doin’ such a thing.”
“Want to borrow mine for a while? You can have her.” Jeffrey tittered with laughter. “She’s driving me mad.” He rubbed his face and reached for his ale once again. “I suppose you feel no such pressures to carry on the line of the dukedom.”
“None.” Gerard shook his head. “My father dinnae even ken me. I daenae ken if the line of the dukedom mattered to him.” He’d wondered many times if it was something his father had cared about, but he supposed not as his father had chosen him as the heir. “I suppose if it did matter to him, he would have tried harder to have a legitimate heir.”
“Maybe.” Jeffrey shrugged. “You could just marry for the state of your own happiness, rather than the expectations of another?”
“I am nae bothered to marry.”
“Why not?” Jeffrey asked. “I’m gladly lookin’ for a wife.” He spoke with a rather mischievous smile. “With a little luck, she’ll draw my mother’s attention away on grandchildren, and I can get some peace and quiet at last.”
Gerard laughed with his friend.
“Nay, I daenae need to marry. As far as I can see, marriage causes misery. Me mother and father loved from afar, always sad, and as for the marriage he did have…” He paused, scratching the stubble on his jaw. “From what I hear from me father’s solicitor, neither of them were happy.”
“You have not seen any example of a happy marriage?” Jeffrey asked curiously.
“One, aye.” He thought of Lord and Lady Winchester but decided not to go into the details. “I ask ye this, though. How many drunkards from this tavern will go home tonight to the misery of their poor wives?”
Jeffrey chuckled and looked with him around the tavern. There were men like the two of them who were having a quiet drink, but there were also men seriously in their cups. A table bearing dominoes was upturned as a fight broke out over cheating. One man threw a tankard at another’s head and a brawl began. The tavern owner ran forward to dispel the argument.
“I take your point,” Jeffrey said, still laughing as the brawling men were thrown out of the tavern. He turned back with a sigh, taking another gulp from his tankard. “How go your lessons, then?”
Gerard had let his tongue fall loose one night after a drink and confessed to Jeffrey that he was taking etiquette lessons from Charlotte. He feared he would regret it when sober, but to his relief, Jeffrey hadn’t judged him for it at all.
“Well, until two days ago,” Gerard said calmly, though he felt his gut writhing. “She said she cannae teach me for a few days. She has to help… a friend.”
“Ah, and you think it is a lie? An excuse to avoid you?”
Gerard quirked an eyebrow as he lifted the tankard to his lips. Jeffrey chuckled deeply.
“Well, you will hardly mind, will you? After all, it’s not like you’re keeping Lady Charlotte’s company for anything other than the lessons, right?” There was something of a knowing glint in Jeffrey’s eye that unsettled Gerard.
“Aye, that’s right,” he said eventually. “I just want a few more lessons so I daenae feel like such an outcast in ballrooms and assemblies.”
“Do you wish to be like them?” Jeffrey asked. “Lord knows I don’t.”
