Page 46 of Duke of Sapphire

“Was it what you expected?”

He looked away from the window then, and his eyes found hers. “I was there for a shipping negotiation,” he said. “I saw very little of it.”

Charlotte stared at him. “You went to Italy and saw almost nothing of it?”

“I had considerable business to conduct,” he said. “And I saw the harbor.”

“What else did you see?”

Henry gave a slight shrug and held her gaze. Then he said, “I had a schedule.”

Charlotte pressed her lips together. She felt the laugh trying to form and held it. “Of course you did.”

“It was a well-organized schedule.”

“I am certain it was. And entirely devoid of anything pleasant.”

“The negotiation went well.”

“I am sure it did.” She shook her head slightly. “Henry. You were in Italy.”

Ian’s boot slid off Henry’s knee in slow stages and came to rest on the seat between them. Henry looked down at it, then back at Charlotte.

“The harbor was quite fine,” he offered.

Charlotte laughed this time. She could not help it. It was the same quality of laugh she had not meant to produce in the Scottish garden, the one that had surprised Ian and, she suspected, surprised Henry considerably more. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and recovered.

Henry watched her. His expression was not the composed, considering look he deployed at coaching stops and legal documents. It was quieter than that. More open.

She looked away before she could count what was in it.

Outside, the last light failed entirely. The carriage lamps were lit at some point when she was not paying attention, and they threw a low, warm light across the interior, across the document case and Henry’s knee and Ian’s sleeping face. The road unreeled behind them, smooth and dark.

Henry picked up the letter. He did not open it. He set it in the case and closed the clasp.

“The next stop is perhaps two hours,” he said.

“All right.”

“If you need to rest⁠—”

“I am not tired.”

He nodded once then turned his attention toward the world outside the window.

Charlotte looked at him.

She was aware, in the way one became aware of things one would rather not think about, that her chest had fluttered in the last several minutes, that she had not authorized it to do. It made her nervous because she was yet to understand it. She was not sure she wished to.

The carriage was warm, and Ian breathed slowly against her arm. Henry was two feet away and neither of them spoke.

Then Henry turned.

This time, he was not looking at her the way he looked at situations that required management, but with what looked like warmth.

CHAPTER 14

Tristan was already on the steps.