Page 44 of Falling for a Footman

Twenty-five

“Charlotte, dear areyou awake?” her mother’s voice sounded from the doorway.

Charlotte lay frozen in her bed, hoping that her mother would believe that she was in fact asleep. Her breath was in no way even enough to emulate that of a sleeping person though, but she just wished that her mother would leave her alone. Her eyes hurt from crying and her insides felt raw.

It was ridiculous that she was feeling this way: She should be glad that James was the son of a marquis. That would actually give them a chance to be together. Instead, she felt that she could never trust him. She still could not wrap her head around why he had not told her who he was, when she discovered that he was the investigator. Her mind kept coming back to the point that he had used her somehow. That all of what he had done was pretend, including their times alone.

Charlotte could hear her mother’s light feet across the floorboards and felt the mattress dip as she sat down. Charlotte’s body stiffened as her mother placed her hands on her.

“Charlotte, I just want to make sure that you are alright,” her mother said gently.

Her mind raced as Charlotte tried to think of an appropriate answer. She was quite certain that her voice was so thick that her mother would be able to tell that she had been crying. She ended up only nodding, but of course that also gave away that she was not asleep.

“I am sure that the two of you can work everything out,” her mother murmured.

A cold dread settled in the pit of Charlotte’s stomach. Had she really been this transparent? Had everyone, like she had suspected, like she had feared, known about her and James?

“He is in the dog run right now. His dog is giving birth and he rushed there.” Charlotte could hear the smile in her mother’s voice. She should have known that the new dog was James’s. Why had she not made that connection? If she had, it would certainly have made her more alert to the fact that he came from a very privileged background indeed.

“You should go talk to him,” her mother continued. “This would be a great opportunity for the two of you to talk unchaperoned.” There was still a smile in her voice when she added: “I will not mention it to Papa.”

Charlotte could not help but smile as well. As far as she knew, her parents did not keep secrets from each other and for her mother to suggest keeping this a secret certainly meant that she believed it to be important.

“Are you not afraid of letting me be alone with him?” she asked and blushed in the darkness as she remembered what they had previously done when they were alone. They did not seem able to keep their hands off each other when they were alone.

“I highly doubt that the two of you will conduct a tryst next to a dog in labor,” her mother chuckled, and Charlotte could not help but smile as well. No, the dog run was probably the last place that she would conduct a liaison, even if it had been her purpose in meeting James.

“But do you think that there is even a point?” she had to ask. “When he did not tell me who he was, it has to be...”

Her mother shushed her to make her stop talking. Charlotte fisted her hands, because being interrupted in that manner made her feel like a child, but she still listened to her mother as she said:

“Let him explain himself to you, please. Don’t jump to any conclusions. The grandest mistake I have ever made in my relationship with your father was not confiding in him, and I hope that if the two of you are brave enough to speak to each other, perhaps you can avoid repeating our mistakes.”

Charlotte nodded again and reached for her mother’s cool and smaller hand. Her mother squeezed her hand gently and Charlotte returned it.

***

A lantern was shiningbrightly in the dog run. Charlotte could see it from a long distance and her stomach clenched at the sight. She did not like the idea of having to confront James, perhaps have him explain that what he had done and what he had said had merely been to better his chances of catching the thief. But her mother was right: they could not let what was unspoken be between them. She needed to know, even if it would break her heart.

Said heart pumped so fiercely that she could not hear anything for the rush of blood in her body. She supposed that was why it took a moment to recognize the voice from the kneeling man beside the dog.

“Lady Charlotte,” Mr. Giles asked in a concerned voice that made Charlotte uncertain of just how many times he had repeated his words.

Her eyes fell on the panting dog. It was pressing itself against a wooden box that Charlotte recognized as the box the mother dogs usually lay in after they had had their puppies. She had not seen a dog give birth before and known that they actually used the box during the birth as well. So far, no puppies had been borne it seemed. She remembered her mother’s words on how the two first children had been the hardest to give birth to. Childbirth was not a matter that Charlotte had thought much about, but now that she saw the dog in front of her, she wondered just how much her mother had labored to give birth to her.

“Lady Charlotte,” Mr. Giles repeated and had Charlotte look at him instead of the laboring dog.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Giles. I thought I might find James... Lord James here,” she explained.

If Mr. Giles was surprised that she used James’s cursory title, he did not show it. His face was focused, but that was on the dog in front of him, not on Charlotte.

“No, I was surprised when I returned. He hurried here from the duke’s office, but he was not here when I arrived,” Mr. Giles said.

Charlotte looked at the darkness surrounding the dog run as if it might reveal James. There was nothing to see except the dark trees and bushes that suddenly felt a bit eerie when she knew that James was not close. She supposed that something had kept him back at the estate. Perhaps he had gone to change his clothes although the urgency that Mr. Giles had spoken of made it sound as if he would not take the time to do that.

“How is she doing?” Charlotte asked, since Mr. Giles could of course not answer her questions on where James was.

Even in the dim light from their two lanterns she could see the deep lines of worry on the dog keeper’s face.