“You do?” Charlotte asked with a tone of amazement.
“Yes, she does,” Harry added with a smile to his daughter.
Charlotte giggled again. “Biscuit, Miss Drake?”
“Thank you, Lady Charlotte.” Louisa picked up the small biscuit and took a bite. “These are excellent.” She then sipped her tepid tea.
“Oh, no!” Charlotte exclaimed. “I forgot to ask what you put in your tea.”
“She drinks it plain. No sugar, no milk, and no lemon. Very odd, don’t you think?” Harry smiled at Charlotte.
“Very odd,” Charlotte parroted her father before pouring a healthy amount of milk into her teacup.
He remembered how she drank her tea. Louisa thought that particularly odd. “Now, you must make conversation, Lady Charlotte.”
Charlotte looked over at her as if attempting to decide on an appropriate question. “Where did you come from?”
“Where did you come from, Miss Drake?” Harry corrected her.
“London.”
The little girl’s brown eyes widened.
Louisa smiled and continued, “London is a very busy and noisy town. It’s not like here where you can go outside and have all this greenery around you. In town, people stay up very late and then call on their friends in the afternoon before going to balls in the evening.”
Charlotte sighed wistfully. “I wanna go to London. There’re elephants in London. Nurse says Mamma rode an elephant.”
“Your mother was raised in India, where there are plenty of elephants, poppet. There are not many in England.”
“There is one elephant I am aware of,” Louisa said then looked over at Harry. “You must take her to see Chunee.”
“Miss Drake,” Harry said in a low tone. “I do not believe my daughter is of an age to go to London.”
Charlotte’s eyes watered. “I wanna see an elephant.”
Harry tilted his head and stared at Louisa as if to say, “See what you’ve done.”
“I am sure when you are a little older, your father will take you to town, and you can see Chunee then,” Louisa said softly.
“I wanna go now!”
“Charlotte,” Harry scolded in a fatherly tone. “We will go, but not today. Even Miss Drake is stuck here because of the snow.”
“That is very true,” Louisa said. “The time to go to London is in the spring when the weather is warmer, and your father can take you riding in Hyde Park.” She smiled sweetly at Harry.
He narrowed his eyes on her before glancing over at his daughter. “Perhaps we shall go this spring, Charlotte. If you learn everything Nurse wants you to know.”
The little girl smiled, not sensing the tension between them. “I will! I promise!”
“I have no doubt of that, Charlotte,” Harry said but still frowned at Louisa. “Nurse has returned, and Miss Drake and I have much to discuss.”
“We do?” Louisa said innocently. “I thought we had finished with our discussion.”
He tilted his head at her. “Oh, no, we have much more to speak of now.” He scrambled back to his feet before leaning over and kissing his daughter on the forehead.
“What do you say to Miss Drake, Charlotte,” her nurse prompted.
“Thank you for coming to tea, Miss Drake.” Charlotte glanced over at her nurse, who nodded her approval.