Page 17 of In Need of a Duke
“Yes, with the duke?” Miss Kemp asked. “There must be a role he can play.” She brushed aside her tangle of ashy brown curls and scratched the tip of her button nose. At nineteen and navigating her second year in the marriage mart, she still viewed London’s social scene with great anticipation.
What Charlotte would give to harbor such naïve trust again. Oncein a London ballroom, she had been swayed to believe he was a kind man. Once, she even fancied herself in love with him.
Before she could answer, another guest, concealed by the room divider, snickered. “He won’t be here in the?—”
“Well, I’ve been summoned.” Nathaniel jumped up. “It’s best I go, so I can be put neatly into my place.”
He spun around and folded in half with a dramatic bow, yanking his helmet off, and tossing it to the chaise beside Charlotte. The rest of the guests clapped and laughed, the tension easily slipping from the room. That was the power of Lord Nathaniel Gairdner. He was charm and light whereas his older brother was more the harbinger of death.
Well, it certainly felt that way.
Charlotte wasn’t known for fits of the dramatic, but the duke marching in here as he had, calling her darling…
Her stomach soured.
“Chin up, Lottie,” Nathaniel whispered, dipping down so only she could hear. “I will be back shortly.”
But she was not well.
The last time she had seen the duke, he had arrived as the sun was breaking over the horizon early one morning three summers ago. Lily had arrived, waiting for her husband to pick her up and drive her across the country to the Isle of Wight. She had answered an ad in the newspaper for a man seeking a wife.
In truth, it hadn’t been her husband who had arrived, however. Lieutenant Rafe Davies was the brother of Lily’s intended, and the man who had placed the ad on behalf of his older brother.
Their love story had turned out happy indeed in the end. Rafe was building a shipping empire with his friend, Liam Hawkins, and Lily was headmistress at Gairdner’s Seminary for Young Girls, the school Charlotte helped establish and fund.
If she couldn’t have children of her own, then she would use her position to care and nurture as many as she could. She thought it vital to provide a safe environment for girls to recognize their strengths and develop interests outside of marriage.
Something she had discovered too late.
After a few minutes, Charlotte bid everyone a good evening and wrapped her arms around herself, unable to chase away the chill which bore deep into her bones. The duke was busy with Nathaniel, and likely that conversation, while brief, would serve as distraction enough for her to slip into her new rooms and away from the duke.
She hadn’t dared look at him as he stood there in the doorway and called her darling. And she wouldn’t acknowledge him now.
Couldn’t, in fact.
In the morning, she would decide how to proceed. But given the duke’s inability to remain in her life, she didn’t wish to throw her plans into the wind because he decided to return to Stonehurst on a whim.
“Your Grace?” Susan whispered from Charlotte’s old rooms.
She spun, following as her lady’s maid gestured for her to enter. The woman shut the door promptly, locking it behind them.
“The valet is less than pleased with the new sleeping arrangements. The house is in chaos. No one knows where to put all the duke’s trunks.”
“It’s not for the valet to decide.”
“I told him as much, but you must have just missed him. He was seeking out the duke for the final say.”
With over eighty rooms in the grand home, she thought it likely the duke could find another place to sleep. If he were to treat her and Stonehurst as nothing more than an inn on his journey, she didn’t think it important that he should have the pick of rooms.
“Quick, help me dress for bed and I will gather my—” She stopped short, her eyes scanning the shelves where a few of her prized orchids lived. Empty now. “Where are my orchids, Susan?”
Her lady’s maid stopped searching through the duchess’s nearly empty wardrobe and spun around. “I moved them for you. And carefully. They are in the duke’s… I mean in your new room by the window but away from the draft.”
Charlotte fussed with the ribbons holding up the sheet she had fashioned into a toga. She had never wanted to participate in the play, especially not today. Her mind was elsewhere. And somehow, she hadsummoned the very devil who plagued her thoughts right to her doorstep.
Her only hope now was that he would come to his senses and leave in the morning, but hearing he had brought trunks was very bad news indeed.
It was a foolish idea to begin with. She would reside in her rooms, living in his shadow, and shut out of his heart.
