Page 24 of Falling for a Footman

Fifteen

“Hi Clemmie, hi sweetgirl, how are you?” James crooned as he petted Clemmie’s round belly, and the dog licked his hand in response.

The pups would come any day now. He was happy that the duke had let him bring Clementia, although Mr. Giles clearly thought that it was strange that a footman had brought his own dog.

“You will get me the minute that the birth starts, right?” he asked Mr. Giles who was standing outside of the enclosure.

“Of course, I will, as I’ve told you five times already,” the elderly man replied. “One would think that this was your wife giving birth to your first child and not your dog.”

“Well,” James started and could not help but smile.

“They do know how to take care of this for the most part themselves, you know,” Mr. Giles interrupted him. “You will probably most likely just be watching while she does all the work.”

James looked at his hand that was still resting on the soft brown fur of Clementia’s belly. He could feel the pups move above underneath it. There was at least three as far as he had been able to tell.

“I know. It’s just... It’s her first litter and I want to be there... Even if I do not have to do anything,” James tried to explain and looked up at Mr. Giles. “You know?”

The older man huffed, but something told James that he did in fact know. There was a crunch in the gravel that made both of them turn to look. James could not see anything from his crouching position, but Mr. Giles exclaimed:

“Lady Charlotte, how are you? Do you want to take Freya for a walk?”

James frowned and stayed down. Perhaps she had not seen him here. He already had the uncanny feeling that she was following him. He was quite certain that she had followed him out of the breakfast room this morning, when he was returning an empty tray to the kitchen. At least he had heard her excuse herself as he exited the door. He had not turned around to check since the hallway was not a place for the two of them to be seen talking.

Later he had caught a glimpse of her as he was replenishing the candles in the dining room. Curtis wanted the room to be spotless and sparkling – and sparkling required a lot of candles. James had been enjoying a moment to himself where he could just be and not pretend to be James the footman or even James the investigator who knew exactly what he was doing. He hummed to himself as he carefully placed the beeswax candles in the box on the side table. The moment a candle was about to burn down, it could quickly and easily be replaced. He felt a small satisfaction at how neatly the candles were stacked, when he chastised himself for the ridiculous emotion.

When he turned around from the full box, he had caught a glimpse of a pale green skirt disappearing in the door frame. Immediately his body remembered how sweet and soft Charlotte had been yesterday, how perfectly she had fitted against him... and how completely wrong it was that he felt this way about her.

He had marched to the door, hoping to catch her there, but she had been nowhere in sight.

Now she was here though. At the dog run. It felt almost too coincidental that she would go here at the same time as him. Except for the fact that Mr. Giles knew her.

“I think Freya would appreciate a walk,” Mr. Giles stated good-naturedly.

Apparently, she did walk the dogs frequently. Or at least that particular dog, Freya. It was a good name. When he reached the F litter in his breeding program, he might consider it. And he was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps she was not secretly stalking him.

“Oh, no, I’m not dressed for a walk. I was merely out... enjoying the weather,” she said in a hesitant voice.

Well, she was following him. James felt his stomach flip, and he was not certain whether it was in delight or dread. He knew they needed to talk about what had happened yesterday, but he had not assumed that she would openly seek him out during the day. He would have preferred for them to arrange a time to meet... at a later time.

He sighed. Perhaps it was him that was being a coward and Charlotte that was the brave one. He rose to his feet and looked at her. Oh, she had definitely followed him here. She was still in the green morning dress and still wearing pale green indoor slippers that would be ruined by being outside.

Her mouth opened slightly when she saw him, but she did not speak.

“I... I was just leaving,” she blurted and spun around.

James took his time saying goodbye to Mr. Giles and walked back to the estate. Charlotte kept increasing the distance between them; clearly talking had not been on her mind then.

When he had started to take an interest in women his father had warned him not to lead any of them on. Both the women that were members of the ton as well as the women that he would encounter otherwise. James had been a bit shocked to hear his father refer to these women, since his parents had a happy and stable marriage. As he had matured, he had learned that it would probably have been a tad presumptuous to assume that his father had not shared another woman’s bed before marrying his mother. They had after all not married until they were in their thirties.

James had replied that he had no intention of leading any women on. He had certainly not had any wish to marry any time soon at that point, nor did he envision it for himself now. He was only six and twenty after all.

“I am sure you will not, Jamie,” his father had reassured him and patted him on the shoulder. Not in a patronizing way as if James was still a child, but in an affectionate way making James feel like an equal, a man as well. He could not have been prouder at the age of fifteen.

“But one thing you have to understand,” his father had continued, “is that some women seem to lead themselves on. Even if you tell them outright that you are not interested in them, they do not believe you. For some reason some women seem to set themselves up for heartbreak in this manner.”

As he walked back to the estate, he could not help but wonder whether this was what Charlotte was doing. Whether she was seeing things that were not there. She believed him to be a footman and thus could not believe that marriage between them was an option. Perhaps she simply wanted some experience in amorous pursuits and thought that he was safe to explore with since nothing could ever come to be between the two of them.

James’s jaw tensed as he reached the servant’s entrance of the estate. He would be damned if he let another woman use him like that again.