They picked up the pace, and cantered the rest of the way back to the stables, jumping over several brooks and some logs along the way. They were evenly matched as riders, and it was fun riding with him. They unsaddled their horses after they dismounted, and Charlotte brushed Pharaoh, and fed him some oats and hay, and then she and Henry walked back to the house together. It was almost time for tea, which was their evening meal. She had stayed out for a long time, and went to change. She met Lucy on the stairs, in a plain blue cotton dress, on her way to the kitchen, to help get tea ready for the family. She didn’t mind serving them and thought Charlotte would too.
“You can come to the kitchen to help as soon as you change,” Lucy said in a curt voice. She had seen Charlotte and Henry from her window as they rode home, and she worried when she saw them. She still hoped that one day, with time, Henry might reciprocate her feelings for him. In light of that, Charlotte’s arrival wasn’t a happy development for her. Lucy had spent two years hoping that Henry would become enamored with her, and she could make this her home forever, and she didn’t have much longer to woo him, before he went to war. Henry would be leaving in a few months, and now this pretty elfin girl from London had shown up. Charlotte hadn’t tried to charm him, but she didn’t have to. Everything about her was so enchanting that Lucy was sure Henry would fall in love with her, and Lucy’s chances would be dashed forever.
She looked glum as she set the table, and banged a few dishes down on it, angry about something Charlotte couldn’t guess at. Charlotte arrived a few minutes later in a navy pleated linen skirt, a white cotton blouse, and flat shoes. There was nothing of the seductress about her. She was all innocence, but she was a very beautiful young girl, which the two ancient kitchen maids had noticed too. One of them did the cooking, which was a challenge because they were so limited by rationing. The full brunt of that hadn’t hit Charlotte until now, but it did here. At the palace, their chefs were artful about making up for what they lacked for the queen’s table, but here in Yorkshire, it was going to be a slim meal. She wasn’t a hearty eater so she didn’t mind.
The earl and countess came downstairs to the dining room on time, and the girls sat down with them. They were generous about having Lucy eat with them, and had been since she arrived. It had improved her manners considerably, and she also helped in the kitchen, and served most of the meal. Charlotte tried to help but was embarrassed to realize she had no idea what to do, how to carry the platters in properly, how to set the table, or serve. She was used to everything appearing, with no thought given to how the servants did it, and she knew that here she’d have to learn in order to make herself useful. The countess looked embarrassed when she saw Charlotte carrying in a bowl of thin stew made with pork from the pigs on their farms. She started to tell Charlotte that she didn’t need to serve, and the earl gave her a cautioning look. Her Royal Highness would have to be one of the normal people here, pitching in as everyone else did, so no one would suspect her true identity. She was Charlotte White, a commoner now, but nothing about her demeanor made that convincing. She was a princess to the core, and looked it, even in simple clothes. After the meal, she and Lucy carried the plates back to the kitchen. Charlotte looked as though she might drop them but she didn’t, much to everyone’s relief.
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.