“I like to see ye so happy, lass. Now… there is somethin’ more I wish to do. If ye’d come with me, I need to have a little chat with yer parents.” He stood, offering his hand to her. She took it quickly and together they crossed the room.
Harry and Rose had now left the table, joining the other dancers who were gathering into a space between the tables. Violins began to play, and as some of the dancers began to move around the room, regally and elegantly, Harry and Rose chose a somewhat more unorthodox style, which prompted both Charlotte and Gerard to chuckle.
As they reached Lord and Lady Winchester, the two turned toward them.
“Thank ye for yer kind toast, me lord.” Gerard extended a hand to shake.
“Call me David, please, Gerard,” David said with a welcoming smile. “I am your father-in-law, now. I would not have it any other way.”
“And call me Margaret,” Lady Winchester pleaded at her husband’s side. “No more formal titles between us!”
“Thank ye.” Gerard took Harry’s free chair and dragged it toward them, as Charlotte did the same with Rose’s. “There is somethin’ I wished to say to ye today.”
“You have me curious. Go on, Gerard.” David encouraged with a wave of his hand.
“I understand the money troubles that have plagued yer family.” Gerard was careful to whisper so quietly that no one but each other could hear him. “I wish to assure ye that whatever assistance ye need, ye have it in me. I have the money to lend ye a loan, if that is what ye need. Me investments have done well, and if it’s advice ye’d prefer, I can give that too.”
Gerard was cut off by David raising a hand. At first, Gerard held his breath, fearing he might have hurt the pride of the man by offering his help, but then David smiled a laid a hand on Gerard’s shoulder.
“You are a kind man indeed, Gerard. I see quite clearly how well my daughter has chosen. I may take you up on hearing your advice. My own choices have not always gone well in my investments.”
“An understatement,” Margaret murmured, though she smiled a little and reached for her husband’s hand as she said it. David smiled with her.
“Thank you,” David said another time to Gerard. “I will simply be sad to lose the two of you on your journey to Scotland.”
“We’ll return soon. I assure ye of that.”
“Wonderful, wonderful. Now, off with the two of you. You do not want to spend your whole wedding breakfast talking to us old folks.” David waved them away.
“Old!?” Margaret spluttered. “Speak of yourself husband, not me!”
As the two began to bicker, Gerard found his hand snatched by Charlotte. She towed him away from the table and slowly toward the dancers.
“Dance with me,” she pleaded.
Gerard hesitated. This was not a waltz. The music had begun and it was the very same dramatic quadrille that she had taught him that day in one of their lessons.
“I havenae yet done this dance in public.”
“There is no other I wish to dance with, Gerard,” Charlotte said, turning to face him with a smile.
“Well, I suppose now I have the trainin’ to be a gentleman, I cannae make so much of a fool of meself, can I?”
She laughed and shook her head.
“Gerard, you were always a gentleman,” she whispered, threading her fingers through his own. “You just needed to be taught which cutlery to take for which course, and how to dance.” She winked at him, and Gerard’s stomach leapt with happiness. “Dance with me?” she pleaded again.
“Anythin’ ye wish for, lass.” He raised her hand and kissed it softly, as she led him toward the dance floor, confident that with Charlotte beside him, he would be the gentleman he had long wished to be.
The End?
