really should go to school.”
“Perhaps she will reconsider once Anne is busy elsewhere.”
“Perhaps.” Frances didn’t sound as if she believed it. They sewed in silence for a while. “In a few years they will all be off to lives of their own. Alec will marry, naturally, and I shall not be needed in his household.”
Remembering stories she had heard of the ill treatment of poor relations, Charlotte grew concerned. “You would not be turned out?”
“Oh no. Alec would never do that. And in any case James, his father, left me a tidy sum in his will. I am quite independent. It just seems that my… work… the work I was given to do fourteen years ago is nearly over. It’s odd to think of.”
“You have been a very busy person.”
“Too busy sometimes,” Frances laughed. “But I am less and less so. I used to help James a good deal with the estate work, but Alec prefers to handle it himself.”
Charlotte was well aware of that!
“Richard is at Oxford; Anne is nearly out.” She shook her head.
“What would you most like to do?”
“What?”
“It is a subject I have been thinking and thinking about myself. For some reason, I never considered it much before. But we need to, don’t we? If we don’t, who will?”
“Will…?”
“Think about what we want—ourselves, separate from what others may need or plan.”
“Ah.” Frances said nothing more for such a long time that Charlotte wondered if she had overstepped her bounds. At last, however, she spoke very quietly, eyes on her sewing. “There was a time when I thought… hoped, perhaps, that James… He was twenty years older, of course. But I was about the age of his wife—my cousin Elizabeth. It seemed no impediment. However, he did not… there was never any approach to…” She stopped, pulled dark green threads through the cloth several times, then added, “He talked to me quite frankly, you know, trusted me. We were good friends, and I believe I was a comfort to him in many ways. And I had the children; I loved… love the children as if they were my own. I had less than many women have, but also more than a great many.” She glanced briefly at Charlotte, then dropped her gaze to the needlework again.
“Since he’s been gone, I feel just a little… lost. Everything is so different.”
Moved, Charlotte leaned forward and put a hand on one of hers. She had no words to offer. Frances’s story made her feel young and inexperienced. But she could show how much she sympathized.
Frances gave her a warm smile. She turned her hand up and squeezed Charlotte’s. “It has been so short a time, but you feel like one of the family,” she said.
Charlotte’s eyes pricked with tears. Nothing she could have said would have been more welcome than this. Frances patted her hand and went back to her needle. The moment passed; the conversation retreated to more general subjects. But Charlotte would hold it close in her heart ever after.
***
With a quick knock on the drawing room door, Ethan came in. He presented a silver tray holding a visiting card. Frances picked it up. “Edward?”
“Mr. Danforth is below, Madame.”
“Oh. Well… I don’t… I suppose he should come up.”
What was it about the Danforths, Charlotte wondered? Frances didn’t seem to dislike them; it was more as if they confused her so much that she didn’t know what to do.
Alec’s cousin strolled into the room looking more handsome than ever in a many-caped driving coat—the essence of a fashionable man about town. “Afternoon, ladies.” He smiled at Charlotte. “We finally got a warmer day in this blasted icy spring, and I dared pull out my curricle.” He made it sound like an adventure. “Care to take a drive… Aunt?” His blue eyes glinted with humor at the ridiculous title.
“Now?” said Charlotte, then berated herself for sounding childish.
“Well, if you are not particularly occupied.” Edward looked at the vast piece of embroidery as if he pitied her.
“I don’t know whether…” Frances began. At an amused glance from Edward, she trailed off into silence.
She didn’t need anyone’s permission, Charlotte thought. A burst of excitement went through her at the idea, and at the prospect of glimpsing some of London society at last. She had dreamed of it on leaving home, and been so bitterly disappointed. She slipped from under the embroidery canvas. “I’ll get my things.”
In her bedchamber, however, she nearly balked. All she had to wear was the cloak she’d gotten