“Hmm, yes,” Mary said as if she was not truly listening to Daisy. Her eyes were fixed towards the window, and her mind was somewhere else entirely. “I am just fine.”
Daisy dusted around, growing increasingly close to Mary with each passing second. There was a lot that she wanted to ask her friend, but she was not sure where to begin. The last thing that she wanted was to hurt Miss Roberts’ feelings. She had seen signs of progression between her and the Duke, but she did not know how to address that, or even if she should.
“Is there anything you wish to discuss?” she eventually said quietly. “You seem like you have a lot playing on your mind.”
Mary turned to stare at Daisy, almost as if she had only just realised that she was there. The dream had continued to affect her mind for a few moments longer, and she had not even managed to shake off the intensity yet. She needed to get some of her feelings off her chest. While she knew that she could talk to Charlotte about it, she did not feel right rubbing her happiness in her face. Daisy was a safe bet, and she could speak to her easily.
“You were right about His Grace,” she said calmly. “You were right to convince me to give him a second chance. The first impression that he gave me was not him at all.”
A bright grin broke out on Daisy’s face. She perched on the edge of the bed and turned to look at Mary. Yes, she still had work to do, but that could wait for a moment. Since learning of her friendship with Lady Roberts, all the other staff members were keen to know where their future lay. Some positive information was what they all needed right now because morale among the workers was incredibly low.
“I am glad to hear that,” she prodded. “So what has been happening?”
A blissful expression came across Mary’s face which really cheered Daisy up. That had to be a good sign. She found her fingers gripping onto the bed sheet below her while she waited for Mary to answer.
“We have been spending a lot of time together,” Mary told Daisy with happiness lilting her tone. “And the more I get to know him, the more I like him.”
Daisy forced herself to pause for a second so that she did not sound too keen. She did not want to be seen as selfish, only concerned with keeping her place of work. That was a large part of it; Daisy could not deny that she did not want to lose the amazing position that she held with the Roberts family, but it was also about Mary and her happiness.
The Lady was sweet; she deserved true happiness.
“You think you might want to marry him? You think your father was correct?”
As Mary turned to look at Daisy, her heart froze in her chest. Maybe her keenness had shone through without her intending it to. But then the Lady’s face shone like the sunshine was pouring out of it, and she relaxed.
“I think my father did a much better job than I gave him credit for. I think Edmund might well be the one that I marry. I believe that we might even be happy together. He is kind, and he also makes me laugh which is something that I never expected. I did not know that business-focused men also liked to have some fun ... maybe that was just me being na?ve.”
Daisy clapped her hands together gleefully before she leapt forward to embrace her friend. She did so with much more ease than Mary could ever manage, which Mary assumed had to be down to the class that she was born into. She held onto her and celebrated internally. This was incredible news and needed to be treated as such.
“I am so happy for you,” Daisy murmured into her hair. “You deserve to have such a wonderful life.”
“Thank you so much; that is very kind of you.”
Mary was touched; she could not believe how lucky she was. Daisy sounded genuinely happy for her, and while she was aware that a part of that would be to do with her job, she could also tell that some of it was real.
As Daisy pulled back, Mary was still smiling, but as the maid got back to work and eventually left her bedroom so she could rise from the bed in her own time, that happiness fell away. It did not matter to Mary how wonderful things were going for her, she could not get over her sister’s sadness. That was always there, playing in the back of her mind.
Mary forced herself to stand, and she padded across the bedroom to the window where she stared out over the land that surrounded her family home. Her brain wrestled inside her head. One part of her wanted to return to the dream about Edmund; she wanted to get back to that imagined kiss and the wonderful declarations of love to see where they might lead, but the other side of her, the more powerful part of her brain could only think about Charlotte.
That sadness in her eyes, that true fear ... she is going through a very terrible time.
Mary tried to think back to when Charlotte got married; she tried to recall whether her sister was looking forward to the day or not, but she could not remember anything. She was young at the time, and a lot had happened since such as their father’s passing. It was just not something she could remember the details of. She wished that she could, and she felt like it was something that could help her right now, but her brain would not let her do it.
If only there were something that she could do. If only she could sneak to Charlotte’s home in the middle of the night to steal her away and keep her safe. Maybe she had not mentioned it, but Mary had not forgotten about the bruises that she saw on her sister’s body. Lord Jones never seemed like the sort of man to be violent, but she could never tell what went on behind closed doors. Injuries like that did not come from nowhere.
What should I do? She glanced up at the sky as if someone was going to somehow give her an answer to her desperate plea. How should I help Charlotte and her unborn child? No one wants a child to grow up in such a toxic situation. There has to be something that I can do; I cannot just do nothing while she suffers in silence. But what can I do?
Of course, Mary did not get any answers. She was left more helpless than before. The only real solution she kept coming back to was the same one as before. She needed to marry the Duke to ensure that she inherited the house. She needed the house; she needed that security. She needed to give Charlotte somewhere to go if that was what she wanted, and marriage was the perfect solution to that.
It was just lucky that now it was something that she actually liked the idea of.
As she thought of that idea, Mary was not considering what Lord Jones would do if he found his young wife missing. She did not consider how society would take the news of her running away but remaining in London. All that she cared about was getting her sister far away from him. She did not want her to be in a place where he could ever put his hands on her again. Charlotte did not deserve that.