“But you will have to learn the rest,” she insisted. “Well, it is poor progress, and I can see now our lessons will be much harder than I first thought.”
“Charlotte, daenae leave.” He did not know why he asked her to stay. He didn’t want her to stay, and he certainly didn’t want to continue this argument, but he had to be rid of her now.
“Lady Charlotte!” she snapped again and marched out of the room. He ran after her in an attempt to stop her.
“I daenae like any of this,” he tried to explain, aware that his tone was still angry, and he hadn’t managed to soften it at all. “It is nae what I ken.”
“Then you shall learn.” She picked up her cloak and pulled it back over her body.
“Lass, daenae leave when ye are so angry at me.” He caught her hand, his fingers brushing hers only momentarily, though he was aware that she did not pull back as he did so.
“I… I need to return home anyway. My parents believe I will only be gone for a short while tonight. Practice what I have told you, and we shall talk more in our next lesson.”
Nothing more he could say would persuade her to stay. Within minutes, she was gone, refusing his offer to escort her home as a small carriage awaited her in the main road, with Helen waiting for her inside it.
Eventually, Gerard returned to the dining room where Mrs. Philips was now tidying up the glassware. She turned to look at him with a sorry sort of smile as he threw off his tailcoat and rolled his shirt sleeves up to his elbows again.
“Are you sure about this, Gerard?” she asked softly.
A year ago, he had begged her to call him by his Christian name and not the ridiculous title to which the other staff cleaved. It took some persuasion, but she had agreed to do so in the endwhen no one else was around. She turned her wrinkled eyes toward him.
“You do not have to become someone you are not just to meet the high expectations of theton.”
“I ken.” He sighed heavily and returned to his seat. When he sat down, as Charlotte had described, like a sack of potatoes, he tried to sit himself straight again and reset his posture. “It isnae about being someone other than me. I’ll still be me, it’s just…”
He sighed, his spine crumpling as he looked at the myriad of different cutlery and glasses before him. He could remember some of what Charlotte had said, but not all of it.
He longed to have her back again, not just so he could ask her to go over it again, but so they could talk.
“I daenae want thetonto gossip about me so much. I daenae want them to be afraid. If I can blend in, as a bird can do in trees, will I nae be happier, then?” He leaned forward, giving up on all the instructions and resting his elbows on the table.
Mrs. Philips stepped forward and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. Strangely, Charlotte’s hand in such a place had felt warmer.
“Bless you, Gerard. I hope you find your happiness too, someday. Though if you ask me, happiness does not come in what people beyond those walls think of you.” She nodded outto the window. “Happiness comes from quite another place entirely.”
He looked at her curiously, wondering what she meant.
If he was being honest, he hadn’t been happy since he had come to London. He felt disconnected from this world and everyone around him. The only true connection he had was with Mrs. Philips, though he now had a liking for the gentleman he had met today, Jeffrey, and he seemed to have a preoccupation with thinking of Lady Charlotte.
Maybe I shouldnae think of her so much.
CHAPTER SIX
“Ithink it’s a wonderful idea!” Dorothy declared loudly.
Charlotte peered at her friend over the rim of her cup. Dorothy’s wild hair was as mad as it usually was, her animated gaze lively, as she placed a hand on her rounded stomach.
Dorothy had returned to the country just a few weeks ago after her travels in France with her husband, Stephen. She had returned very swell with child indeed.
“What could go wrong?” Dorothy asked with a shrug.
“She’s always keen to give her opinion, haven’t you noticed?” Frederica asked, sitting between the two of them at the garden table.
“Oh, I know,” Charlotte laughed with her as Dorothy adopted a look of outrage before relaxing into a smile. She topped up all of their teacups for them then batted away a bee that hadthreatened to land on the cake they were sharing. “Dorothy, you did hear what I said, did you not? All of it?”
“My pregnancy has not impacted my ability to hear, as far as I know.”
“I am giving the Duke of Rodstone etiquette lessons for money. This could be the most foolish thing I have ever agreed to do in my life.” Charlotte placed down her teacup, tempted to rub her eyes with the stress of it, though she held herself back. “He is so frustrating.”
