Aldridge left them talking and crossed to a chair near Lady Charlotte’s window seat. “Will your family object to my mama coming to visit Tony? I would suggest taking him back to my place, but I don’t think he should be moved until the bones have started to knit.”
“He is welcome here, and well protected if that madman Wharton tries anything. Aunt Eleanor may visit at any time. I’d be glad of it, actually. It is nearly a year since your father dropped out of Society. With him gone, there is no reason for a continued rift between our families.”
“True.” Trust Charlotte to get right to the heart of the matter. Two and a half years ago the Duke of Haverford had decreed that the Winshires did not exist. His dependents had honoured the command to ignore an entire ducal family and all their connections more in the breach than the observance even while they were under the man’s eye. In the nine months since his incarceration, only Her Grace continued to even pretend that she was obeying the duke’s strictures. Aldridge wondered if Charlotte was aware that her uncle and his mother had been meeting in secret this whole time.
“The gossipmongers will make a meal of the Duchess of Haverford visiting the Winshires, but this is a good time to get it over with. The ton are already beginning to leave London. When we return next year, it will be old news.”
“Are you going to Haverford Castle this year?” Charlotte asked. “For Christmas?” She was examining her hands as intently as if she wished to memorise them.
“We are spending Christmas with Matilda and Charles, but I have to go to Haverford Castle first. Just a quick trip, and I’ll be back in time to escort Mama and my sisters to Gloucestershire. I’ll probably leave tomorrow.”
She glanced up and a sound escaped her before she changed her ‘Oh’ into a polite tip of the head. “Tomorrow,” she repeated.
Senses alert, Aldridge fished for whatever it was that bothered her. He kept his voice casual. “Or the next day.”
Charlotte nodded, her eyes returning to her hands. “I imagine you will not be going to the Bowkers before travelling the next day.”
“If I can redeem the promised supper with you, Cherry, I will be at the Bowkers. I can leave late in the morning or even the day after. I have time.” He struggled to keep his voice friendly, light. Don’t rush your fences, he reminded himself, and was rewarded when she met his eyes again and smiled.
“I would like that,” she said, hastily adding, “as a friend. You have been a good friend to me, Aldridge, even when I have been sharp with you.”
A friend, was it? He reassured her that he always had been, and always would be, her friend, keeping to himself the pain of yet another rejection. Pathetic fool that he was, he would take whatever she would allow.
