Page 8 of Falling for a Footman

Five

The first thing thatcaught Charlotte's eye as she walked into the dining room that evening was James standing along the wall behind her father's chair. Of course, it was him, and of course, she was able to recognize him.

Charlotte slowly walked to her chair to let Lucy precede her, in the hope that James would then have to help her and not Charlotte. But as Lucy reached her chair, William stepped forward to pull the chair out for her and help her into it. Charlotte cursed under her breath as James stepped up to help her. She focused on the heavy dark green brocade on the chair in front of her to not accidentally look into his eyes. His blue eyes. Her whole body tingled with the awareness that he was closing the distance between their bodies. From the heat in her cheeks, she was quite certain that she blushed as well.

Why, oh, why, could she not have felt this way about any of the gentlemen in London? The Earl of Alston that had proposed to her for instance. He would be a perfect match except that she felt absolutely nothing for him.

She saw James’s hands in the white gloves pull out her chair and commanded her body to move. She sat down with rigid motions to make certain that she was not touching him in the slightest, not even her light blue silk dress.

"Are you alright, Charlotte? Did you have a chance to rest?" her mother asked. She was sitting across the table from Charlotte. Her father sat at the head of the table on her left, meaning that James would be able to see her profile the entire meal.

"Yes, it was much needed," Charlotte answered her mother.

In fact, she had not been resting, but stayed in her room to avoid James. She had hoped that if she just stayed away from him for a few hours she would discover that it had simply been the weariness from the travel that had made her so aware of him. But her reaction to him pulling out a chair for her – a chair! – had already proven her wrong.

As she ate her way through several courses, Charlotte tried to engage in the light conversation between Lucy and her parents, but it was impossible when most of her mind was occupied with not thinking of James. Not thinking about how he was standing along the wall and was able to watch her eat. If he wanted to. He might not even want to. Charlotte knew that she was not beautiful, she might not even be called pretty. The thought that James might not want to look at her prickled under her skin.

The Earl of Alston had called her intelligent and charming which Charlotte had thought was much better praise than being beautiful or pretty. But of course, the footman would not be able to know that about her, since they had only met each other twice and not even spoken to each other. All he knew of her was her looks... And why was she even thinking about what James thought of her? He was a footman; she was the daughter of a duke. He might be handsome, but there was nothing more to him than that.

“Are you going riding tomorrow, Papa?” she interrupted her own thoughts. From the way both her parents and Lucy looked at her, she realized that she had interrupted their conversation. “I beg your pardon; I was caught up in my own thoughts.”

Charlotte felt her cheeks heat again. Seriously? These were her parents and her sister, why was she blushing when she was speaking to them.

“It’s quite alright, Charlotte. I suppose we are all a bit weary from the journey. Yes, I am going riding tomorrow. Would you care to join me?” her father answered.

Charlotte nodded and smiled gratefully at him. After meeting his blue eyes for a second her own immediately strayed to another set of blue eyes only to find them fixed on a point on the other side of the room. Just like a footman’s eyes should. Charlotte quickly glanced at her plate of half-eaten food. She did not have much of an appetite. It would be torture having to go through another month like this.

Her parents’ friends, viscount and viscountess Winterbottom, had planned a house party at their estate in a month. But perhaps Charlotte could write to one of her friends to find out whether she could come and stay with them until the party. It would solve her problem of not being in the vicinity of James.

But she knew that her parents had been looking forward to this time at home with their children without the constant social engagements that the season demanded of the family. Charlotte did not want to disappoint them by arranging a house visit so shortly after they had arrived.

Besides she had been looking forward to a break at Great Farleigh Hall herself. She had enjoyed many of the diversions of the season, but she had also been surprised by how restricting she had found it. She had known beforehand that she would not be allowed to venture anywhere without a chaperone, but to attend a ball with several hundred people where the ballroom had reached the temperature of a hothouse and then not be able to go outside alone had been a challenge.

No, she could not leave right now. She needed the break that Great Farleigh Hall could offer her. She knew that Lady Winterbottom had invited several young people and their parents solely for her benefit at the house party next month. She would have to socialize with them every day and to be able to enjoy that properly she needed a quiet month at home.

Her only option was to ignore James as best she could – if she could not make the feeling of being drawn to him go away – and she had no notion of how to accomplice that.

"Jane mentioned that a couple of candlesticks had been stolen," Lucy cut through Charlotte’s thoughts. Jane was the maid that usually helped Lucy dress. She was not an official lady’s maid yet, but everyone knew that she hoped to be when Lucy came out in two and a half years. “Is that true?”

Charlotte could see her parents exchange a look, before her father answered.

"A couple of gold candlesticks that were gifted to the first Duke of Camborne by Charles II have been stolen while we were in London and I have hired an investigator to find the thief – and hopefully the candlesticks as well." Their father looked from Lucy to Charlotte. "I trust that the two of you will not tell this to anyone else. I would like this to remain in the family."

Both Charlotte and Lucy nodded solemnly. Charlotte could not help but think of the irony in her father telling them this in front of four footmen. If he had truly wanted to keep it in the family, he would have told them when they had retired to the drawing room, and it was just the four of them. But Charlotte understood what he meant: He did not want people of their rank outside of the family to know that someone was stealing from them. Especially since it was most likely one of their servants.

“And has he found anything? The investigator?” Lucy asked eagerly.

"He has traced the candlesticks to an auctioning house in London. Last I heard from him he was working on a lead in town as to who had tried to sell the candlesticks through the auctioning house," their father explained.

"I'm glad he is so efficient. I don't like the thought of anyone stealing our belongings," Charlotte's mother remarked.

Charlotte caught a movement out the corner of her eye but did not dare to turn and look at James who she knew was the one that had moved. Instead, she focused on how her father placed a hand over her mother’s to comfort her. They sent each other a small private smile that made Charlotte's stomach clutch.

Previously she had only felt lucky, blessed even that her parents were so obviously affectionate of each other in their own discreet way. She knew that several of her friends were less lucky and had to live with parents where either an icy cold silence reigned or furious rows were everyday occurrences.

Now her parents’ display of affection made her mouth go dry. Would she ever have what they had? She had known before her debut that it would not be easy finding a man that was not only suitable but whom she also felt a connection to. She had just not realized that it would be this hard.

“Yes, I am certain that he will have found the culprit very soon,” her father stated in a good-natured voice and the conversation moved to other topics.