Page 105 of Why Do Earls Fall in Love?
Chapter 22
Hoverstoke had never seemed so small.
Fortunately, Charlotte was warmly welcomed back. Anne and George were ecstatic to see her, of course. Aunt Bernadine was gentle and sympathetic. The villagers hailed her as a returning heroine—a poor, young girl who had snagged herself an earl for a husband.
Things were better here than they had been when she left. Her uncle had kept his promises and food was plentiful. Both of her siblings had new shoes. And her aunt had hired a cook/maid to come into the house to help her on several days of the week.
Eli was gone and Lady Elizabeth had become instant, bosom friends with Anne. Each had knowledge or experience the other lacked and they set about sharing it all, although Charlotte forbade Elizabeth to teach anyone how to pick locks or gamble with dice, vices Eli had picked up in Town.
Two weeks passed. Charlotte visited friends. She wrote letters to Julia and Penelope, sending them flowers pressed from the garden. She set up an easel in the study and began her portrait of Aunt Bernadine. Two weeks stretched into three and Charlotte began to realize that the aching hole in her heart was a condition she was going to have to grow accustomed to.
“Will Lord Whiddon visit us, do you think?” her aunt asked one day while Charlotte painted.
“I don’t know. He’s from home right now. Julia writes that he and Stoneacre have gone to Devonshire.”
“How nice. Perhaps he will stop here when he has finished his visit. I know Anne and George are mad to meet him.”
Charlotte had no reply.
She found herself alone in the cottage one afternoon. Anne had taken Lady Elizabeth to meet Herr Adlung. Her aunt had taken George into the village to buy a length of nankeen, as he’d outgrown another pair of breeches. Charlotte donned her smock and set her easel at an angle, so the light would fall on both the canvas and the curio cabinet she was trying to depict. She’d been at it a while and was lost in the shine on a bronze coin when she felt a prickle go down her spine. Looking up, she found Gabriel standing just inside the room, holding a box and staring raptly.
She gasped and began to set down her brush and palette, but he objected. “No. Stay just as you are for a moment. I want to remember you like this.”
“With my hair a mess and paint on my smock?”
“And with a smear across your nose,” he agreed.
Blushing, she wiped her face clean. She had to fight the urge to rush into his arms. She clasped her hands before her, instead.
“Welcome to Hoverstoke, Gabriel. The children will be beside themselves at the chance to finally meet you.”
“I feel the same.” He lifted the box. “May I come in?”
“Of course! Come.” He looked so strange here. Too large for the cottage and so splendidly handsome. She cleared a chair of her aunt’s needlepoint and bade him sit. ‘Should you like some tea? You will have to take my own poor offerings, as today is not a day for Mrs. Whips to come in.”
“Margie will be devasted to hear you have replaced her.”
“No one could replace Margie,” she said firmly.
“She misses you.”
She wanted to launch into a thousand questions. About Margie, and the rest of the staff. About the house. His trip to Devonshire. His father. How he felt, without her in his life? Had he missed her half as much as she’d missed him?
She looked down into her lap, instead. “I heard you went to Broadscove?”
“Yes. Stoneacre has been a huge help. He gathered testimony against my father. Eyewitness accounts and formal complaints. We took a page from your book, told him what we had, and laid out the exact trouble that would come to him if he didn’t immediately disband the smugglers.”
Her eyes widened. “He must have been furious.”
“Utterly,” he agreed. “I quite enjoyed it.”
She laughed, but it faded quickly. “Did he argue on behalf of the families who count on the income?”
“Of course he did, although that has no real meaning for him. He can increase production at the quarry or invest in the fishing fleet, if he cares to make up the difference.”
“Perhaps you can donate a flock of Rambouillets to the estate?”
“If I thought he would take them, I would.”
