The Secret Bride

Chapter Nine

(The picture above is of Sir Edmund in the study.)

This chapter is dedicated to @sharon_solleza

   Charlotte lay in bed that morning, her eyes transfixed on the ceiling as she thought about the conversation she shared with Sir Edmund earlier that week.

Was it possible for a man from a higher social class, such as Sir Edmund, to be fond of a simple girl like Charlotte?

Was he trying to kiss her that day or was that purely her imagination?

That moment seemed to be the main thing that occupied her mind lately which Miss Pompson was beginning to notice later that same morning when Charlotte stood, gazing out one of the windows in the kitchen with the warm teacup Miss Pompson had handed her still firmly in her grasp.

Miss Pompson stared at her curiously before rolling her eyes the way older people do when the young are behaving strangely.

"A penny for your thoughts." Miss Pompson said as she turned her attention back to the stove, snapping Charlotte back.

"Oh, I wasn't thinking anything," Charlotte said before she, at last, lifted the teacup to her mouth.

The cook just snorted in response, "Now Charlotte, I'm not a man who only enjoys women with nothin' but cobwebs inside their heads so there's no reason you need to pretend. What were you thinking about?"

Charlotte hesitated briefly before deciding against telling the cook about what she had really been thinking.

"I just miss my family. It's been a little over four months now, and I just worry about mother; with winter and everything. Not to mention my brother; John and my sister, Martha, they must be working themselves to death at the farm we have, now that father's gone..."

Miss Pompson gazed at Charlotte thoughtfully before she turned around and poured the porridge into a bowl.

"Well, I s'ppose you could take a day or two off at the end of the month."

Charlotte smiled at the cook like she would if Miss Pompson were her mother.

"Thank you, Miss Pompson."

The old woman let out a sound that was a cross between a snort and a sniffle before she placed the bowl on the tray.

"Now don't you start thinkin' I'm growing fond of you. I just know that you've been working hard since you got here and don't want you to get sick. Because then what good are you to me? I'd have to take care of you and her ladyship."

"The trouble and inconvenience that would cause me!" she snorted before setting a teacup on the tray.

"Now stop daydreaming and take that up before it gets cold!" Miss Pompson huffed as if she were annoyed, but Charlotte knew the cook too well and went along with Miss Pompson's orders and lifted the tray off the counter and made her way upstairs.

Sir Edmund had kept his distance from Charlotte ever since that day in the kitchen. He occupied his time with the estate's affairs and on occasion read a book when he grew tired before nodding off, often times in a chair in the small study.

He knew that Charlotte had been in the room after he'd nodded off because every time he woke he found a blanket covering him and a fresh fire burning to warm the chill that often hung in the air at night.

He found himself growing agitated with his situation. Edmund tried to tell himself that Charlotte was just a sweet, good-hearted, young woman and cared nothing for him, but he couldn't help but hope that she may grow to care for him.