the middle of the drive, didn’t you, to punish me for that remark about spinster caps?”
“In the middle of the drive? I most certainly did not!” she retorted quite honestly.
“No, I left it there, didn’t I? I take full responsibility. You know, Charlie, I wouldn’t tell anyone else, but it’s rather daunting, knowing I am now the custodian of all of this,” he said, indicating Ashurst Hall, the estate, all of his inheritance, with the sweep of his arm.
“I can well imagine, Your Grace,” Charlotte said, sighing as she thought of the twins. “Having an unexpected responsibility suddenly thrust on your shoulders is rather disconcerting.”
“Harris, my majordomo in London, grew rather weary of calling me Your Grace, just for me to not answer him. I know it has been some time, but it’s only now that I’m back in England that I’m beginning to realize the full consequence of what has happened. I was comfortable as Captain Rafael Daughtry. I’m not sure I’m up to this, Charlie.”
Her heart went out to him at his unexpected honesty and humility, and without thinking she placed her hand on his arm. “You’ll be fine, Rafe. And everyone at Ashurst Hall will help you.”
“That’s better. You called me Rafe. Please always do that, Charlie—Charlotte.” He sighed, nodded, and then seemed to remember that he was the Duke of Ashurst and should not be admitting fear or apprehension or anything else remotely human or vulnerable. “I’ve kept you outside in the cold long enough. Let’s go inside.”
Charlotte pictured the look on the twins’ faces when they were confronted not only with their brother—and if he looked huge and imposing to her, what would the twins see when they saw him?—as well as one Charlotte Seavers standing next to him, looking at them with a knowing glare in her eyes.
“Yes, let’s do that. At the least, you should have that head of yours attended to.”
“Funny, my friend Fitz says that a lot about my head, although he makes the suggestion not half so politely. You two will doubtless become fast friends.”
“Pardon me?”
“Never mind. Fitz and my coach will be along soon enough, making explanations unnecessary.”
The front doors opened even as they walked up the wide stone steps.
“Ah, I see my late uncle’s footmen are still as curious as ever. We’ve been observed, Charlotte. A good thing I didn’t attempt to seduce you as we stood here, casting your reputation to the four winds.”
“You wouldn’t do that,” Charlotte said, suddenly sober again.
“No, I wouldn’t. Should I?”
She collected her scattered thoughts. “You know, Rafe, you’re not half so amusing as you seem to think you are.”
“Yes, Fitz tells me that, as well.” He took her arm and, together, they entered the imposing foyer of Ashurst Hall, the cold and damp of the day immediately closed off behind them by the shutting of the door.
“His Grace has returned from Elba,” Charlotte informed the fairly dazzled young footman who, instead of jumping-to to help Rafe with his cloak, just stood there, his mouth at half-mast, goggling up at his new master.
“Billy,” Charlotte prodded quietly. “His Grace’s cloak?”
“A big ’un, isn’t he, ma’am?” the wide-eyed Billy muttered before he was pushed aside by Grayson, the starchy, silver-haired majordomo of Ashurst Hall.
“Allow me,Your Grace,” Grayson said, deftly sliding the cloak from Rafe’s shoulders even as he executed a perfect bow, one caught somewhere between perfunctory and fawning. “And may I be so bold as to welcome you home. I have already sent someone to alert the Ladies Nicole and Lydia. They await you in the main saloon.”
“Thank you, Grayson,” Rafe said solemnly before turning to assist Charlotte with her own cloak. “It’s good to be home. My traveling coach will be here shortly. Please see that my luggage is attended to, and that there will be ample assistance shown my good friend Captain Fitzgerald, who has sustained an injury and will needs must immediately be carried to a bedchamber.”
“It would be my honor, Your Grace,” Grayson said, bowing yet again.
“His honor? Poor fellow is probably near to bursting his spleen, having to bow to me. The man would much rather kick me down the stairs,” Rafe whispered as he and Charlotte made their way across the wide black-and-white marble tiled expanse toward the pair of doors leading to the main saloon. “I once put a toad in his bed, you know.”
“I know. And it was two toads, one under his pillow and one deep beneath the covers, so that he thought he was safe once he’d removed the more obvious one.” He took her arm, and she didn’t even bother to pretend she didn’t feel a small frisson of awareness course through her body. “And one thing more, although I would have thought you’d know. There is something about the configuration of the ceilings of the entrance hall that allows even whispers to carry to every corner.”
“The devil you say.” Rafe and Charlotte both then looked over their shoulders at Grayson, the man a good twenty feet from them. A man whose rather large ears had turned a most alarming shade of puce.
“Carry on, Grayson, carry on,” Rafe called brightly to the majordomo, and then, his hand tightening slightly on Charlotte’s forearm, he hastened her the rest of the way as Billy scampered ahead to fling open the double doors. “I’m not making the best of starts, am I?” he whispered.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Charlotte said as she looked ahead into the enormous main saloon, anxious to locate Nicole and Lydia. “I thought falling at my feet a nice touch. Ah, there they are, your dear, sweet sisters, eager to welcome you home.”
Charlotte watched as Nicole leaped to her feet and then signaled with an impatient twist of her hand that Lydia also should rise.
The two of them stood in front of one of the satin settees, not moving, as if the backs of their knees had somehow become glued to that piece of furniture.
The twins were sixteen now, hardly the awkward near-nursery infants Rafe had last seen before he departed for the war. Charlotte wondered if he even recognized them, or they him.
The pair was as alike in their looks as chalk and cheese. In fact, all three Daughtry children bore little resemblance to each other.
Nicole did share Rafe’s near-black hair, but her eyes were far from sherry brown. They were violet, a shade Charlotte had never seen in any other eyes, and Nicole’s dramatically arched brows and long black lashes only made that violet more startling, almost mesmerizing. Witchlike, Charlotte’s father had once commented, not completely in jest, warning that in an earlier century the girl would have doubtless ended burning at the stake.
Nicole had lovely pale skin, but because she refused to wear her bonnet and loved to run free, there was always a beguiling sprinkle of freckles across her nose and cheeks and a glow to her skin that, although most unladylike, was perfect for Nicole.
In short, Nicole looked as she was—fresh, unbridled, a child of nature and full of mischief.
The complete opposite of Lydia.
Nicole’s
