They all retired early and kept country hours, since they woke at dawn. Henry often left to help on the farms before sunrise. He walked Charlotte back to her room that night, and offered to lend her a book about Arabian horses that he had just read, and she thanked him. After he left, she sat down at the small desk in her room to write to her mother. The countess was going to mail her letters for her so no one would see who they were addressed to. With a sigh, Charlotte picked up her pen, wondering what to say to them. She didn’t want to shock them by telling them about serving dinner, or worry them, nor tell them about the tiny room that would be hers in the drafty dark manor for the next year. She was anxious to hear from them soon, Alexandra had promised to write too.
“Dear Mama and Papa,” she wrote in her elegant penmanship, and began telling them about riding Pharaoh in the beautiful Yorkshire hills. That was something they would understand at least, and she could tell them honestly that she hadn’t been troubled by her asthma on the first day there, and didn’t need her medicine. She told them about Lucy and said she was very nice. She didn’t mention Henry, who had been pleasant to her too, but it didn’t seem proper to write about him. She talked about the earl and countess, and their hospitality. It took her an hour to finish the letter, and there were tears in her eyes when she sealed it. Her family, and the palace, and all the problems in London seemed so far away. It was going to be a very long ten or eleven months until she could return. For now, Pharaoh was her only reminder of home in this unfamiliar world. Lucy seemed almost too withdrawn to become a friend, and Henry was a boy, so they wouldn’t be close. The earl and countess were kind but seemed so old. She missed her parents and sisters fiercely as she left the letter on her desk and undressed for bed in the tiny room. She had never felt so alone in her life, and the year ahead seemed like an eternity, as she cried herself to sleep that night.
Chapter 2
Charlotte rapidly fell into a routine of leaving the house at dawn every day, and riding Pharaoh through the fields and along paths in the forests for several hours before coming back to the house. There were no morning chores she had to do, and no one objected to her going out riding. Henry saw her leaving the stables one morning, when he was late going to a nearby farm, and asked if he could ride with her. Neither of them could resist the temptation to race each other, and Charlotte always won, because of Pharaoh’s extraordinary speed, and her ability to urge him on.
“You shouldn’t ride out alone,” he chided her gently. “I know you’re a very fine rider, and Pharaoh is sure-footed, but if anything ever happens, there would be no one to help you.” In part because of her size and the fact that she was a girl, he felt protective of her.
“I don’t want to be slowed down by a groom on an old horse,” she said, and he laughed.
“Maybe I should ride with you every day.” She blushed when he offered, and didn’t answer. She could tell that he liked her, but more than anything they liked riding together. Charlotte never flirted with him. She told him about her sisters sometimes, without saying who they were, and he never suspected anything. Charlotte was the companion he would have liked to have had for the last two years, not Lucy. He and Charlotte always found something to talk about, unlike Lucy, with whom he never knew what to say. She was so obviously besotted with him, it embarrassed him, and he felt awkward trying to respond. She was becoming increasingly dour as the friendship between Henry and Charlotte grew. She knew there was no way she could compete with Charlotte’s beauty and innocent charm, and within weeks, it was equally obvious to the countess that her son was falling in love with their royal guest. They were becoming inseparable. He now left for the farms later, and came home earlier, changed for dinner, and was always on hand to help Charlotte, even with carrying in the heavy platters for their meals. He had never offered to help Lucy with the same tasks. Charlotte was learning how to make herself useful in the kitchen. She never tried to shirk from the menial tasks, or even the disagreeable ones, like scrubbing the pots, or washing the kitchen floor, which Henry insisted on doing for her. It caused a deep resentment between the two girls, not on Charlotte’s part, but Lucy could see easily what was happening. The only one who seemed unaware of the meaning of his intentions was Charlotte. She seemed oblivious and entirely innocent. He was her riding partner, and her friend, as far as she was concerned, and nothing more.
The countess mentioned it to her husband one night in their room, with a look of concern. “Have you noticed how attentive Henry is to our royal guest?” Their bedroom was the only place she could allude to who Charlotte really was.