Page 9 of Falling for a Footman

It was a relief when the entire family retired to the drawing room after dinner and Charlotte did not have to fight her desire to look at James. Through the meal she had felt the urge as an itch that she refused to scratch.

Her father came with them to the drawing room, since he was the only male and did not want to sit alone with his port. Charlotte seated herself in a chair by the fire, finding the embroidery that she was working on. With the restless energy that surged through her body she would not be able to concentrate on a book. She would have preferred going for a long walk, but despite the summer night still being light she knew that it was too late.

"Is anything the matter with your neck?" Lucy queried as she sat down in the chair next to her.

"No, why?" Charlotte asked and looked up from the purple and yellow heartsease she was embroidering.

"I noticed you hardly turned your head to the right – or that has to be your left – during dinner," Lucy explained as she was looking at her own hands. For someone that was so visually oriented as Lucy it was quite endearing that she could not tell right from left without looking at her own hands. Henry, their thirteen-year-old brother, would tease her, that it was a good thing that she was not a driver.

"Perhaps my neck is a little sore from sitting in the same position in the carriage," Charlotte allowed and absentmindedly rubbed her neck as she thought about how her tactic of not looking at the James had clearly been noticed as well.

"Do you want me to rub your neck?" Lucy asked in a light tone of voice and had already sprung from her chair to stand next to Charlotte's. "Edmund always enjoys it when I do," Lucy added as Charlotte turned her back to her and Lucy started rubbing it with surprisingly firm movements with her small hands.

"Lucinda, I do not under any circumstances want you to be rubbing Edmund Winterbottom's neck," their mother exclaimed in a sharp from her place on the sofa next to their father. Both of them were sitting with a book in their lap.

Charlotte and Lucy turned to look at their mother.

"Edmund is my friend, Mama," Lucy said disarmingly and resumed rubbing Charlotte's neck.

"Edmund is almost a grown man..." their mother started arguing.

"He is fifteen just like me," Lucy interrupted defensively.

"Which is also in many respects grown for a young man," their mother claimed and glanced at their father.

When he did not speak immediately, she poked him with her elbow.

"Your mother is right, Lucy," their father chimed in, and Charlotte was quite certain he was concealing a sigh. He looked at their mother, who was still staring him down, then added: "I appreciate that you and Edmund are friends, but you will have to make sure that your friendship with him is proper - which means that from now on you cannot rub his neck..."

Their mother cleared her throat.

"Or touch him in any other inappropriate way..." their father continued, his fingers playing with the pages of his book as if he could not wait to return to it.

"What would you describe as inappropriate, Papa?" Lucy asked and Charlotte could hear the smirk in her voice.

Their parents simply sighed at this remark and returned to their books. Lucy's reaction to this had Charlotte wishing that she was more like her sister. Where Lucy was easygoing and almost never serious except when it came to her paintings, Charlotte would always overthink everything.

How would Lucy have handled being attracted to a footman? Definitely with a smile and not as though it was something that would define the rest of her life. Charlotte decided to try this approach. Hopefully everything would look better in the morning.