Chapter 22
“Isimply had to come,” Lady Hartwell said, setting her teacup down. “The moment I heard, I said to myself—Margaret, you must call on the Duchess of Sappherton at once. Congratulations are so much better delivered in person, don’t you think?”
Charlotte thought a great many things. She arranged them neatly behind her smile.
“You are very kind to call,” she said.
Lady Hartwell looked around the drawing room with the bright, interested gaze of someone cataloguing details for later use.
She had arrived twelve minutes ago. She had already admired the fireplace, the curtains, and the arrangement of the side table, and she had done it all in the particular way that made admiration feel like inventory.
“It is a lovely room,” Lady Hartwell said. “Sappherton always had such beautiful properties. Not that I know them well, of course—I have only ever seen the house from outside.” She smiled. “Though I expect you know it very well by now.”
“Well enough,” Charlotte said.
“Of course. Though I did hear—" There was a pause. “Well. There is always talk, isn’t there? People do love to remark on things.” She lifted her cup again. “Your marriage was so remarkably swift. Everyone said so.”
“We did not see the point in delay,” Charlotte said.
“No, indeed. And under the circumstances—” Another pause. Longer this time. “Well. I’m sure no one could blame you.”
Under the circumstances. Charlotte turned the phrase over. She smiled. “The circumstances were straightforward enough.”
“Oh, quite.” Lady Hartwell’s eyes were very warm.
They had been warm since she arrived. They were the warmest eyes Charlotte had ever sat opposite, and she trusted them completely about as far as she could throw the tea service.
“Though people do talk about the time you were—away. Some weeks, wasn’t it?
Before the marriage?” She tilted her head. “Alone, in Scotland. One hears things.”
“One hears all sorts of things,” Charlotte agreed.
“They say—” Lady Hartwell set her cup down again, in the same exact spot, with the same delicate precision.
“Well. They say a great many things. That the Duke felt compelled to marry. That a situation had arisen which required, shall we say, resolution.” She smiled.
“I don’t believe a word of it, naturally. ”
Charlotte looked at her. “Naturally.”
“You were traveling. Visiting family, I believe? Or—no. Sappherton’s ward, wasn’t it?
The Scottish boy. Something of that sort.
” She folded her hands in her lap. “I am sure the explanation is entirely simple. Only people will draw conclusions, you know how it is. And of course there is the other matter.”
Charlotte kept her face entirely still. “What other matter?”
“Only that someone—I couldn’t say who, it is really quite absurd—someone has been suggesting that the marriage was conducted rather too hastily to be entirely above question.
Legally speaking.” Lady Hartwell’s brow furrowed with great concern.
“Which is nonsense, of course. I said as much when I heard it. I was certain it could not be right, the Duke of Sappherton would not—well.” She let the sentence rest unfinished. “I am certain it is all quite proper.”
“It is entirely proper,” Charlotte said. “The documents are lodged with the appropriate parties. There is no question whatsoever.”
“Of course, of course.” Lady Hartwell smiled. “I was certain of it. As I said.”
She had not said it. Not quite. That was the particular artistry of it.
Charlotte picked up her own cup. She drank. The tea was excellent but she tasted nothing.
The door opened.
Henry entered.
He had a letter in one hand, and his coat was not entirely settled on his shoulders, as though he had shrugged into it on his way down the hall. He stopped when he saw Lady Hartwell. His gaze moved to Charlotte, quick and direct, reading something.
Charlotte looked at him.
Not now, she thought, with considerable force, as though the sheer will of it could cross the room. I am managing it.
She smiled. “Lady Hartwell, may I present my husband.”
Henry crossed the room. He inclined his head. “Lady Hartwell.”
Lady Hartwell stood at once, her face rearranging into an expression of great warmth and social delight. “Your Grace! What a pleasure. I was just telling the Duchess how pleased everyone is. Such a surprise, your marriage—in the best possible way, of course. We are all quite delighted.”
“Are you?” Henry’s tone was perfectly civil. His eyes moved to Charlotte again.
Charlotte smiled at him. It was the smile she used when she wanted someone to believe everything was entirely fine. She was fairly certain he did not believe it.
“I was paying my congratulations,” Lady Hartwell continued.
“I had been meaning to call for weeks. One gets so terribly busy.” She gathered her gloves from the chair beside her.
“But I must not keep you—I can see you have just come in, and I have quite overstayed. I only wanted to say how glad I am.” She pressed Charlotte’s hand briefly.
“Do take tea with me soon. I should love to hear everything properly.”
“That is very kind,” Charlotte said.
Lady Hartwell curtsied to Henry. Henry inclined his head. And then she was gone, in a rustle of pale-yellow silk and a cloud of rosewater. The drawing room door closed behind her with a click that was somehow both quiet and final.
Henry looked at Charlotte.
“What was that?” he said.
“A social call.” Charlotte set her cup down. “She came to congratulate us.”
“She congratulated us on a marriage that happened nearly two months ago?”
“She is very thorough.”
Henry looked at the door. Then at Charlotte. “You are doing the thing.”
She looked up. “What thing?”
“The thing where you say everything is fine when it is not.”
Charlotte opened her mouth. Then she closed it.
Tell him. She turned it over. He will want to know. He should know. That is exactly the kind of thing a duke needs to know about, not because his pride requires managing, but because those are threats to his name and his household and he is not a man who makes decisions blind.
And also: it is my problem. I handled it. I don’t require anyone to fight my battles.
She was aware those two positions were not, strictly, compatible.
Henry was still looking at her with that particular expression; the patient one he deployed when he had decided to wait.
“She had some things to say,” Charlotte said. “About the marriage.”
“What things?”
“That it was very swift.” Charlotte stood.
She moved toward the window, not because she needed to look at anything, but because she needed to think better while moving.
“That people are talking. That some people are suggesting you married me because a… situation had arisen. During the weeks I was away.” She turned back.
“That the marriage may not be legally sound.”
Henry was very still.
“The last one is absurd,” Charlotte said.
“I told her as much. The documents are lodged, the solicitor is satisfied, there is nothing to question. But the first two—” She stopped.
“The first two are already in circulation. Whatever she heard, she heard it from someone who heard it from someone else, and that is how these things travel.”
“What exactly,” Henry said, “did she suggest about the time you were away?”
Charlotte looked at him. “That I was compromised. And that you married me to contain it.”
The room was incredibly quiet.
Henry turned the letter over in his hand, once, and then set it on the side table with considerable care.
“She is not the first to think it,” Charlotte said. “I imagine she will not be the last. We were alone together for weeks. We married very quickly. It is the obvious conclusion for anyone who does not know the actual sequence of events.”
“The actual sequence of events was entirely proper.”
“I know that.”
“There was nothing—”
“Henry.” Charlotte looked at him steadily. “I know. I was there.”
He looked at her. Something in his expression was working hard.
“I should have told you while she was still in the room,” Charlotte said. “I know you prefer to be informed. I was deciding whether it was worth your time.”
“Threats to your reputation,” Henry said, very evenly, “are always worth my time.”
“Threats to your name are also worth my time. Those are not the same thing.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then he picked up the letter. He held it out toward her.
Charlotte took it. She read it.
A possible sighting. Two crofters on the western road, three weeks prior. A man and a woman, on foot, moving north. The man matching Drummond’s description close enough that the local constable had sent word.
She looked up. “A sighting.”
“Unconfirmed.” Henry said it carefully. “It may be nothing. The timing is wrong by a week, and the road they were said to be on leads nowhere particularly useful.” He stopped. “But it is the first report of any kind in two months.”
“Ian—”
“I have not told Ian.” Henry’s jaw was set. “Not until I know more. I will not raise his hopes and then—” He stopped again.
Charlotte understood exactly. She held the letter a moment longer, then gave it back.
“You are going to Scotland,” she said.
“I am leaving tomorrow morning.” He tucked the letter into his coat. “I need to speak to the constable myself. The men I have sent are good, but this requires—”
“I am coming with you,” Charlotte said.
Henry looked at her.
“You will need me,” she said. “Ian responds to both of us. If Nathan and Eleanor are found—when they are found—Ian will need—”
“Ian will need you here,” Henry said. “He cannot come to Scotland on what may be a false trail. He cannot go through that again.” He looked at her very directly. “I need you to stay with him.”
Charlotte wanted to argue. She could see the shape of the argument perfectly clearly, all its pieces, and she could feel it pressing at the back of her teeth.
She looked out of the window instead.
He was right about Ian.
“How long?” she said.
“Four days. Perhaps five.”
“And if you find them?”
“Then I will send word immediately and you will bring Ian north.” He paused. “I promise you that.”
Charlotte nodded once. She turned away from the window.
“There is something else you should know,” she said.
He waited.
“About Lady Hartwell’s visit. What she said about the marriage’s legality.
” Charlotte clasped her hands. “It is not only drawing room conversation. If that story takes hold—if people begin to genuinely question the validity of the marriage—that is a legal problem, not just a social one. It could be used against you.” She met his eyes. “Against us.”
“Used by whom?” Henry said.
“I don’t know. Redmont, possibly. My father. Anyone with a reason to want either of us destabilized.” She kept her voice even. “I am not being dramatic. I am being practical.”
Henry stood very still for a moment.
Then he said, “You are coming with me.”
Charlotte blinked. “You just said—”
“I said Ian needs you here.” He reached for the letter again, then stopped.
His hand dropped. “But that was before you told me the marriage is being questioned in drawing rooms across London.” His jaw tightened.
“You are right. It is not only social. And the best answer to speculation about whether this marriage is real—”
“Is to be seen,” Charlotte said slowly, “in it.”
“Is to leave London together, only the two of us,” Henry said. “Openly. Loudly, if necessary. A journey north. A visit to the estates. Any number of reasons a newlywed Duke might take his Duchess away from town for a sennight.”
Charlotte stared at him. “You want to take me to Scotland as a romantic trip?”
“I want the ton to believe we are going to Scotland on a romantic trip.” His eyes met hers and held.
Traveling companions, she thought. Again.