Page 16 of Lady Mary's May Day Mischief
He took the chair while Charlton busied himself with pouring brandy. “No. None for me, thank you. Got Lady Fiona settled, did you?”
“I put her to a comfortable chair and propped her up with cushions. Warned her not to move until I returned. I also asked for sturdier bandages with which to rewrap her ankle. I’ll go back in a minute to do that. Luckily for her, her injury is minor. Ankle’s sore now, but it will heal quickly if she’s careful.”
“Your efforts are appreciated, I’m certain,” he said with a wry grin.
“Hmm. By many. But by this lady?” Charlton winced as he took the opposite chair and a quick sip of his brandy. “I’d wager not in this decade.”
Why so gruff toward this woman he’d just met? Charlton usually charmed a woman out of her stockings with more ease than a matador tempting a bull. “The battlefield teaches so many lessons.”
“Charm is not among them.” Charlton pursed his lips and nodded toward the two footmen.
He was leery of the men overhearing. Gossip among the servants was a known terror. “Glad to hear she is not badly injured.”
“I hope so.” Charlton leaned toward him. “I was a bit of a prig, wasn’t I?”
Blake arched both brows. “Do you think?”
“No need to beard the goat. I was. And I did offer her an apology.”
“Did you? Good of you. Did she accept?”
“She did. And you?” Charlton sat back, a grin on his face as he tipped his head. “You know Lady Mary well?”
“I did once.”
“And wish to again.”
Blake smiled. “Obvious, is it?”
“Like minds are not often discovered by accident in the middle of an abandoned road,” Charlton said.
But fate intervened.“I had no intention to become fast friends with her again. Not as we once were.”
“Why not?”
He’d stick to the professional reason. “My future is so uncertain.”
“Surely the Corps is headed by men who understand the normal desire to marry.”
“It wouldn’t be fair to court any woman, not knowing what I must do or where I’ll go.” Blake had explained to Charlton he had a choice to make and soon, too. As head of his estate, he should remain home to run the barony. But to do that, he’d have to resign his commission. For a Royal Engineer to resign his commission was an unusual act. His years of training had been extensive and expensive to the Government. His years abroad, the finest teacher. From what he’d heard from others who wished to learn their futures with the Corps, those who had been in Spain and France were most prized for the service they could give in the future to the Country by serving abroad.
The wars over, his fellow engineers expected to be posted far from home with great regularity. The Empire, now protected, needed to be surveyed, mapped, afforded infrastructure of roads and towns, government buildings, city halls, military barracks, fortresses with impregnable bastions and the thousand different accessories which conquering nations must command. To court a lady, promising a hazy future traversing the globe on meager salaries, was not a venture that boded well. Indeed, it would create more problems than it might solve. What woman—especially a gently reared one—was inclined to leave her home country in exchange for hardship, travel to jungles and deserts and for the prospect of savages upon her doorstep?
“Yet you knew she’d be here, didn’t you?”
“I wasn’t certain. I know she is a distant relative to Northington and I accepted your invitation to accompany you because I purposely came to see him. But I hoped I might keep my distance and let her enjoy her friends, Esme and Fifi and the others.”
Charlton’s grey eyes danced. “Fifi, is it?”
Blake gave his friend a wistful glance. “Fifi is what her friends call her.”
“It suits her.”
Blake nodded, laughter on his lips. “And you, I see.”
“Pardon my intrusion, sirs.” Another footman stood in the entrance.
“Yes?” Charlton looked up.
