Lord Brixton approached them with Miss Henrietta’s horse trailing behind him. “I was able to retrieve your horse.”
“Thank you, Lord Brixton,” Miss Henrietta said. “Shall we ride out of here?”
Charles exchanged a look with Brixton before saying, “It might be best if Lord Brixton went and secured a carriage instead.”
Miss Henrietta frowned. “You don’t think I can ride out of here on my own?”
“I never said that, but I think it would be best if we erred on the side of caution,” he remarked.
Lord Brixton interjected, “It is a short jaunt to Miss Whiston’s townhouse. I will be back before you know it.”
“I shall go with you,” Miss Whiston said, rising.
Lord Brixton smiled. “I would enjoy that very much.”
As they left, Charles sat down next to Miss Henrietta. “It is a lovely day, is it not?”
“It is.”
His eyes roamed over the Serpentine River in the distance. “This path that runs alongside the Serpentine River may be my favorite.”
“Not Rotten Row?”
He chuckled. “Heavens, no,” he said. “It is much too crowded for my tastes. As I have stated before, I do not care about being seen.”
“But you are the son of a marquess.”
“That I am, but I still have the need for privacy.” Charles watched as Miss Henrietta fidgeted with her hands as they sat in her lap and felt compassion welling up inside of him. He was well aware of what would happen if the gossips ever caught wind of this.
“It will be all right,” he attempted, hoping his words were truthful.
Miss Henrietta turned her gaze towards him. “I don’t know how,” she replied. “My own parents will be furious with me, despite it being an accident.”
Charles shifted on the bench to face her. “When I was eight years old, I went in search of my father and found myself in his study,” he shared. “It was a rule that no one could be in my father’s study when he wasn’t there, but I was curious as to what my father worked on all day long.”
He continued. “So, I sat on his desk chair and started rifling through all his papers. While I was doing so, I accidently knocked over the inkpot, and it spilled all over his desk. I knew my father would be furious, so I raced out of the study and hid behind a haystack in the barn.”
Miss Henrietta stopped fidgeting. “How long did you stay there?”
“It seemed like hours,” he replied. “The lead groomsman, Thomas, found me and asked what was wrong. I told him that I was hiding from my father because I did something naughty.
“Thomas came and sat down next to me,” Charles said. “He told me that hiding would resolve nothing, and I needed to face my father like a man.”
“That was some sound advice.”
“It was,” Charles agreed. “I got up and headed back towards the manor. When I arrived, I discovered that they had been searching for me since I had left.”
“Your mother must have been in quite a panic.”
“She was, as was my father,” he shared. “When my father saw me, he ran up and pulled me into his arms. I wept and I told him what I had done.”
“Was he angry?”
“He was,” he responded. “He put me down, knelt down in front of me, and told me that I would need to clean up the ink as punishment.” He paused. “Then, he told me something that I would never forget.”
“Which was?”
“He said that nothing he possessed meant as much to him as I did,” Charles revealed.
