Page 56 of Duke of Sapphire

Mr. Gedge did not blink. “Of course, Your Grace.”

He went. Charlotte stood at the window of her sitting room and looked at the square below and tried not to think too hard about whether Edith was still at Ashford House, or whether her father had dismissed her, or whether the note would even arrive in time. She had sent word from Evermere—a short letter, very carefully worded, nothing in it that could be used against either of them if it were opened. She had not known, when she wrote it, whether Edith had stayed.

She would know for certain soon enough.

Edith arrived with her traveling case, one hat box, and an expression of such visible relief that Charlotte had the door open before she had reached the top step.

“Inside,” Charlotte said. “Now.”

The door to the sitting room shut behind them. Edith set down the traveling case. She looked at Charlotte for two full seconds—at the house, the carpet, the entirely evident fact of Sappherton House arranged around her new mistress—and then she said, “You are married.”

“I am.”

“To a duke.”

“Yes.”

“You left in a borrowed coat and no money.”

“I had some money.”

“You had nine shillings.” Edith sat down in the nearest chair. “Tell me everything.”

Charlotte told her.

When Charlotte finished, Edith stared at her.

“You climbed out of a tree at midnight,” Edith said.

“I was getting air.”

“In a tree.”

“The tree was incidental.”

“The tree was forty feet of Scottish oak in the dark.” Edith pressed both hands to her face. Then she took them away. Her eyes were brilliant. “You married him.”

“I did.”

“The Duke of Sappherton.” A pause. “He is extremely—” She stopped. “I saw him once, from a distance, at Hyde Park two Seasons ago.”

Charlotte folded her hands in her lap and said nothing.

“Charlotte.” Edith leaned forward. “He is extremely— he is very— you married him.”

“You have said that three times.”

“Because I cannot quite believe it.” She let out a breath. “Is he kind to you?”

Charlotte thought about it honestly. “He has been most kind.”

Edith. “And Ian?”

“Is wonderful,” Charlotte said. “He is quite desperately wonderful and entirely exhausting and he has a pony named Tam and I have promised him the garden trees.”

Edith looked at her. Then, quietly and helplessly, she started laughing. Not the polite kind. The real kind, shoulders shaking, one hand over her mouth, and Charlotte found herself laughing too, and the sitting room felt like itself for the first time since she had arrived.

It lasted until it did not. Edith stilled first.