Page 21 of Duke of Sapphire

She looked at all of it.

You are free, she thought. There is no one on the other side of that door telling you what to do.

The thought was odd. She turned it over, expecting relief to arrive cleanly, the way she had imagined it might during all those long nights at Ashford estate when freedom had been a thing she pictured from a distance. It did not arrive neatly or in a certain and precise manner. It arrived sideways, carrying a question for which she had not adequately prepared.

What do you do now?

She had been so entirely focused on not going home, not meeting Lord Redmont, not becoming a Marchioness at her father’s convenience, that she had not considered the matter of what she did instead.

She was in Scotland. In a stranger’s house.

That is a question for later, she told herself firmly. Later. Not now.

A tap at the door announced the maid, a young girl with a sensible face and a large can of hot water, and Charlotte was enormously grateful for both.

The bath was the finest thing that had happened to her in a week.

She sat in it longer than was strictly necessary and did not feel guilty about it at all. When she finally emerged and submitted to the maid’s assistance with her hair, she felt like a different person from the one who had climbed out of the Duke’s carriage an hour ago. A more coherent person. One who could face the day and the future now that she was clean.

The maid produced a dress from somewhere—navy wool, slightly too long, but warm and clean—and Charlotte put it on with genuine gratitude. Her boy’s clothes were folded on the chair, still present, still practical. She would need them again, she supposed, though she was not entirely certain in what capacity.

Later, she thought again. Still later.

What she wanted now was to find Ian.

She had observed him on the roof and seen how the boy’s grief was being interpreted as recalcitrance. Charlotte had experienced this when her mother passed.

He had looked at the Duke and found him lacking, and he had not been wrong to make such an assessment. After all, the Duke had not addressed the child as he ought to.

He did not need a plan. He did not need authority. The child needed someone who would sit beside him without wanting anything from him.

Charlotte had some experience, she thought, with wanting to be left alone by people who had good intentions.

She found a footman in the upper hallway, a young man carrying a tray of firewood with a slightly harried expression.

“I beg your pardon,” she said. “Do you know where Master Ian might be at this hour?”

The footman shifted the tray. “Playroom, miss, most like. Up the next stair, near the old nursery. Though—"—He hesitated. “He might not want company.”

“I know,” Charlotte said. “Thank you.”

The playroom was at the end of a short hallway, its door half-open. Charlotte stopped outside for a moment and listened.

No sound. Not the occupied silence of a child playing. The other kind.

She pushed the door open.

Ian was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, a cluster of small wooden soldiers spread on the boards in front of him. He was not playing with them. He was turning one over in his hands with a methodical, purposeful focus that had nothing to do with games, pressing at the joints until something gave.

He did not look up.

Charlotte came into the room and sat down on the floor beside him. Not close enough to crowd. Close enough to reach the soldiers.

He said nothing. She said nothing. The fire in the small grate made a low, steady sound.

She picked up one of the soldiers nearest to her. It was missing a leg—the right one, snapped off somewhere below the knee. She turned it over and set it on her palm. Then she began to look.

The leg was not far. It had rolled toward the skirting board, which was the natural place for small things to go when they were done being held. She crossed the room, retrieved it, came back, and sat down again.