Page 57 of Duke of Sapphire

“My father,” Charlotte said.

Edith’s expression shifted. “Yes.” She smoothed her skirts. “The morning you were discovered missing it was the housemaid who raised the alarm—she went in to draw the curtains and found the room empty.” She paused. “The Earl was in the study by half past seven. I could hear him from the attic…where I was suddenly quite absorbed in folding and refolding old quilts.”

Charlotte said nothing.

“He summoned me at nine.” Edith looked at her hands. “He had already spoken to three of the other staff. I could tell by the way he asked—he was not asking because he didn’t know. He was asking to see what I would say.” A pause. “I said I knew nothing. That I had seen you to bed the previous evening and had no reason to expect any difficulty.”

“He believed you?”

“He believed nothing I said. But he could not prove otherwise.” Edith turned her hands over in her lap. “I was kept in the house for two weeks. Not under explicit constraint. Simply—not permitted to leave. Questions were asked. Letters were opened.”

“Edith—”

“It was fine,” Edith said, and she said it with the particular flatness that meant it was not fine, but it was done. “I had been considering leaving his service regardless. The situation had become—it was not a comfortable house to be in, afterwards.”

Charlotte was quiet.

“And then your letter came.” Edith looked up. “From Evermere. Very correctly worded. Nothing in it to incriminate either of us.” A small smile. “Very sensible.”

“I was working with limited time.”

“You were always sensible under pressure,” Edith said. “Dreadful under it in every other respect, but sensible in a crisis.”

Charlotte reached across and took her hands. “Stay here,” she said. “As my lady’s maid. Under my employ. Not my father’s. Mine.”

Edith looked at her for a moment. “I had rather hoped you would ask,” she said.

* * *

That following afternoon, Charlotte started small.

She went to the kitchens first, which produced an expression on the cook’s face that suggested Duchesses did not generally do so. Charlotte sat on a stool at the end of the table and asked, with genuine interest, what Ian had eaten that morning and what he had refused.

“He had the toast,” the cook said, cautiously. “And some of the porridge. He wouldn’t touch the kippers.”

“He won’t,” Charlotte said. “He is not fond of fish. He will eat almost anything with eggs, and he has a particular weakness for anything with jam. If you can manage a simple supper—something recognizable rather than elaborate—he does considerably better.”

The cook looked at her as though being asked her opinion was slightly alarming but not entirely unwelcome. “I can manage that, Your Grace.”

“Excellent.” Charlotte stood. “I heard your shortbread is exceptional.”

The cook’s expression changed entirely. “It is, Your Grace.”

“Ian would very much appreciate it, I think.” Charlotte smiled. “As would I.”

She found Mrs. Ellison in the upper hallway. “Is the morning room always shut?” she asked, bracing herself for the housekeeper’s defense.

Mrs. Ellison surprised her with a smile. “The Duchess used it often when she was alive, but that was decades ago. It has not been used since her passing and only opened on occasion to be cleaned.”

Charlotte nodded.

“Would you like to have it opened, Your Grace?”

She considered her authority for a moment, whether or not she had the right. “Yes, please.”

Then she went into the morning room and moved a chair from the center of it to the window, because the light was better there, and it felt like a room that had been too still for too long. On her way back through the entrance hall, she stopped at the garden door, collected an armful of late season stems from the small bed by the path, and arranged them in the largest vase on the hall table.

Then she went upstairs to find Ian.