Chapter 11 #2
Charlotte had a stick. A proper one, not some twig she had picked up idly—a straight length of young ash, about three feet, which she was holding at an angle that suggested she knew exactly what she was doing with it.
Ian had a shorter branch in both hands and was circling her with the absolute seriousness of a six-year-old who had decided to win.
She parried his next swing without looking. Her feet shifted on the grass, weight back, then forward. She moved the stick in a short, controlled arc that redirected Ian’s blow sideways and left him stumbling.
Henry did not move.
Her footwork was clean. Her grip was right. She kept her elbow down and her wrist loose and she was absolutely teaching a child correct form, which meant at some point in Lady Charlotte Ashford’s life, someone had taught these techniques to her first.
She climbs trees, he thought. She argues shipping ventures. And apparently, she can sword fight.
Who on earth is this woman?
He cleared his throat.
Charlotte went still. She turned.
Her eyes found him and widened, just slightly. Ian looked over too, and his expression was considerably less ambiguous. It was the look of a person who had been interrupted at something important and had not forgiven the disruption yet.
“Ian,” Henry said. “I require Lady Charlotte’s company for a moment.”
Ian’s eyes narrowed. “She was in the middle of showing me the second guard.”
“She will return shortly.”
Ian looked at Charlotte. The negotiation was silent. She said, “I’ll be back before you’ve counted to a hundred.” He considered this, clearly decided it was adequate, and went back to swinging the branch at nothing in particular.
Charlotte fell into step beside Henry, and they moved together down the cobbled path that ran along the inner wall of the garden.
Henry waited until they were well out of Ian’s hearing.
“I owe you an apology,” he said.
She looked at him. She did not say anything.
“Last night’s proposal was ill-considered and poorly delivered. I ought not to have put it to you in the manner I did. You are not required to accept, and I will not press you.” He kept his gaze on the path. “I will make other arrangements for Ian. It will take time, but it can be done.”
Charlotte turned a broad smile on him.
It was not a polite smile, but the genuine article, wide and warm and occupying her entire face.
“You look,” Henry said, “extraordinarily pleased.”
“I am.” She clasped her hands behind her. “It is a very pleasant morning.”
“I note it did not require the offer of fresh air to bring you outside today.”
“The tree was,” she said, “sufficient air. For a while.”
Henry looked away before he could say something unwise. “In any case. I will need your help with Ian. I fear he will simply not agree to go to London. But he listens to you, and if you can persuade him that the journey is reasonable—”
“That should be easy enough,” Charlotte said.
“Yes.” A beat. “Good.”
They walked another few paces. The cobblestones were uneven and the morning light was thin and grey.
Henry was aware that the problem had not, in fact, resolved itself in any material way.
Ian still needed to go to London. Nathan and his wife still needed to be found.
And as for what to do with Lady Charlotte…
The weight of it settled back onto his shoulders like a coat he had briefly shucked before donning once more.
“Where will you go?” he said.
Charlotte glanced up at him.
“When Ian and I return to London,” he said. “What do you plan to do?”
She was quiet for a moment.
“Why,” she said, “I plan to become a duchess, of course.”
Henry stopped walking.
He turned to look at her.
She was facing him with her hands still clasped behind her, and the smile had returned—smaller this time, more contained, but there, very much there.
“Are you mocking me?” he said.
She laughed. It was a clear, genuine sound. “Would you rather I was?”
He opened his mouth. He closed it. He opened it again. “Charlotte—”
“I have accepted your offer,” she said.
He blinked. “That is an odd way to accept.”
“Your proposal was rather odd too.”
He stood on the cobbled path in the grey Scottish morning and looked at her.
She looked back at him. And then, because he could not help it—because the relief and the bewilderment and the image of her descending from a tree at midnight with her hair catastrophically disordered all arrived at once—he laughed.
He laughed properly. The kind that came from somewhere he had not opened in quite some time. It surprised even him.
When he finally recovered, he found her watching him. She had gone still. Her expression was different now—something was in it that was quiet and curious and not, for once, performing anything at all.
“You should do that more often,” she said.
Henry looked at her keenly. Her cheeks were pink from the morning air. Her hair was properly pinned today but a strand had already escaped near her ear. He was standing, he realized, rather close.
“Should I?” He took one step toward her. “And why is that? Do you find me more agreeable when I laugh?”
Her cheeks went from pink to something closer to rose. But her chin came up. “Any man can be handsome if he is agreeable.”
“And if he is disagreeable?”
“Then he has only himself to blame.”
“A severe standard.”
“A sensible one,” she said. “I should think a man as rigidly orderly as yourself would appreciate true sensibility.”
“I appreciate it enormously.”
“Then what is your response to my point?”
“My response,” Henry said, “is that agreeable and handsome are not as intricately linked as you suggest. I have met a great many agreeable men who were decidedly ordinary.”
“Then it is fortunate for you that you are not ordinary.”
The sentence sat in the air for a moment. They both seemed to notice it at the same time. Charlotte looked briefly as though she regretted it. Henry filed it away somewhere he did not intend to examine until later.
He cleared his throat. “We need to marry quickly. The sooner the arrangement is in place, the sooner we can address your father and Redmont. It cannot wait.”
“Agreed,” Charlotte said. “But I will need a written contract. Stating clearly that I maintain my freedom within the marriage. My time, my choices. In writing.”
“That is a reasonable condition.”
She looked slightly surprised that he had agreed without argument. “Good.”
“I will have the solicitor draw something up today.” He paused. “It will be straightforward.”
“Then we are in agreement.”
“We are.” He looked at her for a moment, then: “Where did you learn to do that?”
She blinked. “Do what?”
He gestured back toward the garden, toward Ian and the stick and the clean, controlled footwork he had watched from the gate.
Charlotte smiled. It was a different smile from the others. Smaller. Satisfied in a way that did not quite invite further inquiry.
“You will have to earn that answer,” she said.