gazed at her. Charlotte could almost hear her pointing out that the room was often empty, and no one could keep her from the furniture if she wished to sit on it. Charlotte sighed. She half admired Callie’s attitude and half worried that it seemed so easy to interpret. Was she going just a bit mad? “I won’t end up old and dotty, holding long conversations with a houseful of cats,” she said. It was a joke, and then it wasn’t. Charlotte’s hands closed as if to grasp all that life might offer.
***
Ethan stood in the pantry next to the dining room, gloved, his hands mechanically polishing silver. He finished a fish slice, put it aside, began on a soupspoon. He needed a plan—and he needed it soon. Gran was already making noises about wanting to go home. He’d have to find someone else to work at the house, or tell Lucy’s mistress about the agencies. But a staff of town-bred strangers would leave him with no excuse for visiting, not to mention the way the thought filled his head with hideous visions of roguish menservants stealing Lucy’s affections away from him.
Not that he possessed them, of course. Despite all his efforts, he hadn’t won her over. Meanwhile, Ethan found himself constantly imagining her with him in the forester’s cottage in Derbyshire. Waiting with a smile and a kiss at the end of the day. Sharing a meal, and the bed, oh yes. Perhaps, later on, a family.
This agreeable picture dissolved. To have that life, he had to ask Sir Alexander for the position, which would rouse all kinds of ruckus in his family. He didn’t even want to think about that. But even supposing it didn’t exist, would Lucy leave her Miss Charlotte? He didn’t think so, even though she longed to leave London. And so… his thoughts circled back to the beginning, more tangled than they’d ever been in his life. He needed a plan.
“Ethan.” The tone said that Sir Alexander was repeating himself.
Ethan tried to hide his start. He hadn’t even heard the swinging door. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
“I’m going to see Mrs. Wylde. I shall be out for some time.”
“Yes, sir.”
Sir Alexander started to turn away, then hesitated. “How did your grandparents end up working for her, Ethan? I thought they had left service and were living in that cottage they own.”
“They was… were down here visiting my aunt, and I asked them to do it as a favor, sir. I didn’t like to think of L… of the ladies all alone there.”
“Ah. Good work.”
Something in the way he said it made Ethan prick up his ears. Maybe he just had love on the brain, but he got a sudden notion that Sir Alexander was more than commonly interested in the welfare of Lucy’s mistress.
With a nod, Sir Alexander departed, the door swinging shut behind him.
Ethan’s hands stilled as he thought back over the last few weeks. Now that he considered, he could see hints all along the way. Ha. If his master and Lucy’s mistress got together, Lucy would be in Derbyshire, just where he wanted her. Developments could then… develop. And without Lucy having to do anything, which was good, because getting that girl to listen was like pulling teeth. So, how could he… encourage the situation, like?
An elbow poked his ribs. “Ethan, you great lug.” He looked down to find Susan standing beside him. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing’s wrong with me.”
“Come on. You’re never like this.”
“Like what?”
“Mooning about instead of working. Not hearing the bell.”
“Did it ring?” He was horrified at the idea.
“James went.” Susan peered up at him. Her eyes narrowed with delighted speculation. “Are you in love?”
Ethan almost moaned. With all the complications suddenly plaguing his life, the last thing he needed was people sticking their noses into his affairs. He’d had a lifetime of that. “Me? ’Course not! Don’t be daft.”
Susan continued to eye him as if he were a horse she might buy.
“Got a letter from my dad,” Ethan added. It wasn’t a lie; he had had a letter two days ago, full of the usual unnecessary admonitions about doing his job well.
“Oh.” Susan knew all about Ethan’s troubles with his father. “Is there anything…?”
“It’s all right.” Ethan hated deceiving a childhood friend. “Nothing new.” Except a swarm of difficulties that somehow only he could resolve.
With a sympathetic pat on his arm, Susan left him, and Ethan tried to put his mind to polishing, despite its being about as