Page 126 of Duke of Sapphire

“I am very glad you are here,” her aunt continued. “You may stay as long as you wish. I mean that without reservation.” She paused. “But I think you ought to know that someone may come looking for you. And it is better to be prepared than to be caught unawares.”

Charlotte’s chest tightened. “My father will have heard by now,” she said.

“I was not thinking of your father.”

Charlotte looked up. “Then who⁠—”

“The Duke,” Georgiana said simply.

Charlotte made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a dismissal. “He will not come. He is perfectly content without me.” She reached for her tea. “I have been in this house four days, and there has been no letter, no rider, no word whatsoever. That tells me everything I need to know about how greatly my absence is felt.”

Georgiana said nothing.

She only lifted one eyebrow, very slightly, with the expression of a woman who had lived considerably longer than Charlotte and had formed a different opinion entirely.

Charlotte looked at her. “What?”

The eyebrow did not come down.

“Aunt Georgiana.”

“More cake?” Georgiana asked pleasantly and lifted the serving knife.

Apollo purred on in Charlotte’s lap, oblivious to everything, thoroughly content. Charlotte stared at her aunt’s perfectly composed face and felt, for the first time in four days, that she might not have the full picture.

“You have a visitor,” Georgiana said from the library doorway.

Charlotte’s heart lurched. She did not look up from her book immediately, because looking up immediately would give her away, and she had not yet arranged her face.

Henry.

She arranged her face. Then she said, steadily, “I have no wish to see anyone.”

“You would want to see this one,” Georgiana said. “Otherwise he is likely to come in regardless.”

Charlotte looked up.

“Your father,” Georgiana said.

Charlotte’s shoulders fell. She closed her eyes.

Of course. Of course it was her father. Henry was at Sappherton House, perfectly content, reading dispatches and not thinking about her at all, and here was her father, who never needed an invitation.

She lifted Apollo from her lap and set him gently on the sofa beside her. He gave her an injured look. She smoothed the cushion around him and rose.

Lord Ashford was standing at the drawing room window when she came in. He turned when he heard her step, and he gave her a smile that she could not quite read. It was either warm or mocking. With her father, those were sometimes the same thing.

“Charlotte,” he said.

“Papa.” She kept her back straight. “I did not know you were coming.”

“I was in the neighborhood.” He looked her over once, assessing what has been lost and what might still be recovered. “You look well enough, considering.”

“Considering what?”

He sat. She remained standing.

“I have heard,” he said, “that you left Sappherton House. Alone. Without the Duke.” He let a small pause do its work. “I think we both know what that means.”