The door swung open and instead of the Dashworths’ butler, Freddie answered, his dark hair rumpled as if he’d been shoving his hands through it constantly since she’d last seen him. It was irritating how the untidiness looked good on him, whereas it would look scruffy on another man.
‘You look…’ he squinted at her ‘…different.’
‘Why thank you, Mr Dashworth. That is precisely the compliment every lady wants to hear.’
His lips twitched and something stirred in the pit of her stomach. Irritation obviously, because it couldn’t be anything else. This was Freddie. Her perennial enemy. She was often the brunt of his amused glances and this should feel no different. It didn’t. Although her stomach had never fluttered before when talking to him; a strange development, but perhaps it was down to something she’d eaten or nerves at having to spend more time with the duke.
‘Do come in.’
Freddie held the door open further to allow them to step into the house and they began to head down the long corridor to the back sitting room.
‘Thank you again for what you did this morning. We were at our wits’ end trying to work out what was causing Charlotte such distress.’
Emily wasn’t used to Freddie being so… amenable. ‘It was nothing. Having experienced a painful hairstyle on a daily basis, I know exactly how she feels.’
Freddie frowned. ‘Why would you wear your hair in a certain style if it was uncomfortable?’
Emily paused. Nobody had ever asked such an obvious question; she’d not even asked it of herself. Why did she wear her hair in ways that hurt and why had she never protested? Was she really that pathetic? She didn’t want to answer that question because she feared the answer was yes. She’d spent so long being browbeaten by her mother, accepting what the woman who’d birthed her said, that she wore things that hurt her without complaint. How strange that it should be Freddie of all people who should make this point obvious to her.
‘Well?’
Emily jumped. She had forgotten where she was for a moment. Freddie was peering down at her, a slight frown marring his forehead.
‘Because it looks good.’ It was a weak response and she knew it, could see he thought so too in the slight downturn of his lips.
She didn’t want to justify why she had never protested against the pain of uncomfortable hairstyles, especially not to Freddie Dashworth. She resumed walking again. ‘Is Lotte looking forward to trying on the dresses?’
‘We…’ he ran a hand through his dark hair, tufting the long strands into spikes ‘…think she is looking forward to seeing you.’
‘What do you mean by “we think”?’
‘She hasn’t spoken since she arrived to stay with us.’ Freddie sounded so bleak, Emily almost reached out a sympathetic hand. She managed to stop herself before she touched him. ‘Aside from when she spoke to you earlier, she’s been entirely mute. But,’ he said brightly, ‘she keeps pointing to the chair you were sitting on togetherand when I said you were coming she took her thumb out of her mouth and went to stand by it with her doll so…’
Emily’s heart cracked a little at the thought of the little girl waiting for her and probably not understanding why it was taking so long. She picked up the pace, hurrying to get to the child.
‘There’s no need to run,’ Freddie muttered.
‘You need to do more exercise if you think this is running.’ It was good to be sparring with him again. She would rather their relationship stayed on familiar ground; she did not want to feel sorry for him. Letting her guard down around him was not an option.
‘I am always busy.’
‘Continually walking up and down the stairs at your club does not count.’
‘Why am I going up and down? Why am I not enjoying myself like everyone else?’
‘How am I to know what you get up to?’
‘Well, it is not traipsing along corridors for no reason.’
‘It shows with your lack of ability to keep up.’
He snorted but made no further comment, which was just as well because with his long legs he could far outstrip her, but that wasn’t the point of their encounters. They traded insults, soft insults that mostly didn’t hurt, but insults nonetheless. They’d been doing it for years. It hadn’t been so bad when they were children, although she’d never understood why he kept getting sent down from Eton. If she’d been given the opportunity to learn in the same way Freddie had, she would not have thrown it away for anything. He’d had the option to learn at that historic establishment and he’d treated it with a callousness that still surprised her. Perhaps that was when the tension between them had started. Maybe she should have done a better job of hiding her disappointment in his behaviour; he was not hers todisapprove of and, even if he had been, he made his own decisions about his future.
Inside the sitting room Charlotte was perched in front of the long chair they’d been on earlier, a doll clutched in her hand. A maid was watching over her, but otherwise she was alone. When she caught sight of Emily, Charlotte jumped up and ran to her as fast as her tiny legs could manage. Nobody had ever been so pleased to see Emily and it was natural to pick the little girl up and hug her tightly. This was only her second encounter with Lotte, but Emily already knew that she adored her.
Chapter Nine
There was a strange lump in Freddie’s throat, making it hard to swallow. It must be down to the absolute exhaustion he was experiencing. He’d had no idea raising a child would be so hard. He was constantly on alert, never able to truly rest because he was always worried something bad was going to happen to the little girl whose life now depended on four men who had no idea what to do with her.
