“You will please, for the sake of your unborn children, refrain from giving me orders, Mr. Sherbourne.”
Splendid. Miss Windham was feeling a bit more the thing.
“Heaven forefend that I do more than offer you a suggestion, madam. I’m merely asking for the return of a favor. I spared you the effort of tossing his lordship into the river. You will spare me Lady Belchamp’s devotion. She’s been eyeing me as if I were her favorite dessert.”
Miss Windham smiled, her merriment mostly in her eyes. “Her ladyship gambles imprudently, and thus wealthy, generous bachelors are her favorite sweet.”
Most redheads were striking enough with green eyes, but Charlotte Windham’s eyes were blue. They were the first feature of hers Sherbourne had noticed, and while her eyes were everything a lady’s should be—pretty, slightly tilted, framed by perfectly arched brows—they were also many other things a proper lady’s eyes should not be.
Bold, direct, intelligent, and—this intrigued Sherbourne—subtly unhappy. Why would a woman who claimed a close connection to not one but three dukes have cause for complaint about anything?
“You would toss me to her ladyship’s tender wiles and enjoy my discomfort,” Sherbourne said. “Though I suspect you’d rescue me before my cause was hopeless.”
“Or I’d rescue her ladyship. You are not the tame gentleman you impersonate.”
“Thank you. One fears that a charade perpetrated too earnestly will become reality.” With Charlotte Windham, Sherbourne could only be honest. She’d verbally skewer him for wasting her time with flattery or flirtation.
“Or one fears that such a charade will drive one mad,” Miss Windham muttered.
Well yes, though Sherbourne hadn’t considered that a creeping sense of unease would also plague Miss Windham, who had more titles on her family tree than Wellington had battle honors.
For Sherbourne, this year’s little season had acquired the unwelcome rigor of an expensive finishing school. The Duke of Haverford had decided to turn up cordial after years of polite disdain, and thus Sherbourne had arrived to London with something of a sponsor.
Haverford had sent word ahead to his auntie-in-law, the Duchess of Moreland, that Sherbourne was to be taken in hand, and Sherbourne hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since arriving to town. Haverford would be made to pay for that kindness, assuming Sherbourne survived the next three weeks.
“If you don’t enjoy all the socializing, waltzing, and gossiping,” Sherbourne said, “why not remove to Kent, or wherever the family seat is, and spare yourself the aggravation?”
“My time is not my own, Mr. Sherbourne. I’m the sole remaining marital project in my family, and the Windhams are a large family.”
“Visit your sister Elizabeth. Wales is lovely in the autumn, and bachelors who are up to your weight are virtually nonexistent there.” With the exception of himself, of course.
Miss Windham gave a slight shake of her head as they approached the buffet. “Try again, sir.”
Ah—he’d spoken in the imperative. “Have you considered a visit to Haverford Castle? I’m sure the duchess would love to have your company.”
“Better, but still a preposterous suggestion. Their Graces of Haverford are newly wed, and a newly wed Windham is a happily preoccupied creature.”
Preoccupied? If His Grace of Haverford’s besottedness was any indication, both halves of the couple were seldom fully clothed.
Sherbourne was about to direct Miss Windham to try the apple tarts, but caught himself. “Would you care for some apple tart?”
Had he not seen Miss Windham’s smile for himself, he would never have believed the benevolence of her expression. Her smile suggested that at some point, Charlotte Windham had been a very sweet girl. That sweet girl would have been spared Lord Neederby’s oafish overtures, because even a clodpate such as he would have kept a worshipful distance.
“What do you fancy besides the apple tart?” Miss Windham asked, passing Sherbourne a second plate. “Peckish men are seldom good company.”
They moved down the table, with Miss Windham filling the plates Sherbourne held. The breeze was achingly soft, as early autumn breezes in southern England could be, and the guests had settled about the terraces and walkways in couples and small groups.
Miss Windham had chosen basic fare: slices of beef, small squares of cheese, buttered bread, and half an apple tart. Not for her, the rich desserts or pretty confections, while Sherbourne loved fancy treats.
“You’re not eating much,” he said.
“My digestion is still a bit tentative.” The lady surveyed the lawn as if deciding where to position her cannon. “Let’s enjoy the sun.”
How did a woman enjoy the sun, when she was expected to wear a bonnet and carry a parasol, in addition to covering every inch of skin save her hands—the occasion was a meal out of doors—and her face?
“Excellent choice,” Sherbourne said. “If we sit in the sun, we’ll also avoid the company of females overly concerned about the perils of freckles.”
The sweet smile made a fleeting return. “You’re welcome, though I’ll thank you to defend me from any fortune hunters between bites of apple tart.”
They settled on a bench and were soon consuming their meal.
“Was it Neederby’s addresses that upset your digestion or the height of the overlook?” Sherbourne asked.
“You heard him. I shudder to speculate why he’d think his horseman’s talk could put a lady in a frame of mind for amorous advances.”
For Sherbourne, the connection was easily grasped. “Care for some of my raspberries?”
She frowned at her food. “I thought the raspberries were to go on my plate.”
Sherbourne held out his plate to her. “My mistake, I’m sure. Profound apologies.”
He was nearly flirting, trying to make her smile again, and that was…that was nothing to be concerned about. What else did one do at such an inane gathering?
Miss Windham spooned most of the raspberries onto her plate. “Mistake corrected. At least Neederby didn’t liken marriage to gardening. Poor Lord Helmsford considers himself a botanist, and by the time he’d discoursed about bees, fruits, and pollen, I wasn’t sure if his objective was turning a profit from his orangery or securing the succession. These raspberries are luscious.”
“Helmsford proposed to you?” Helmsford was an ass, even for an earl.
Miss Windham licked the tip of her thumb. “He proposed the first time five years ago, then again last week.”
Helmsford could go to the devil, for all Sherbourne cared, but that small gesture—Charlotte Windham licking a dab of raspberry from her thumb—lit a flame of imagination in Sherbourne’s mind.
Charlotte Windham was intelligent, honest, pretty, and enduring one stupid proposal after another. Sherbourne esteemed her greatly, as the cliché went, and also genuinely.
How would she react if Sherbourne offered her a sensible proposal?
Chapter Two
Charlotte got through the meal with Sherbourne partly by correcting his manners, which were in truth perfectly adequate, and partly by delivering pointed stares to the hopeful young ladies, prowling matchmakers, and merry widows sashaying by.
She’d left Sherbourne in the company of her cousin Valentine, who’d doubtless report to the family that Charlotte had strolled down the garden path with Neederby and returned on Sherbourne’s arm.
Thank the heavenly intercessors for the quiet of the ladies’ retiring room.
For the next three weeks, Charlotte would be dragged about from one entertainment to another. After the weather turned cold and hunt season started, she’d be free of London until next spring.
Three weeks—four at the most—and she could choose between Papa’s estate in Hampshire, or Uncle Percival’s family seat in Kent. Charlotte nodded to the maid sitting on a stool in the corner, let herself into one of the little closets intended to provide privacy, and settled on the cushioned bench.
> Four weeks was 28 days, 672 hours, or 40,320 minutes. She was working on the seconds when chattering voices filled the silence.
“Well, I heard that Minerva Fuller had to marry Captain Baumrucker, and that explains her immediate remove with him to the north. You, girl—fix my hair.”
Nanette Monmouth had been Minerva Fuller’s bosom bow for much of the season. Charlotte rustled her skirts as a warning—gossiping in the retiring room was a tyro’s mistake, and Nanette had finished her second season.
“Well, I heard that Charlotte Windham is ruined.”
That would be…Miss Cynthia Beauvais, also recently graduated from her second season.
“Captain Baumrucker is in my cousin’s unit,” Lady Ivy Fenton said. “The weavers up north are discontent, and the army has been dispatched to keep the peace.”
Smart woman, and she didn’t put on airs.
“What do you mean, Charlotte Windham is ruined?” Miss Monmouth asked. “My brother says she’s an Original. Is she ruined-ruined, or has she been scolding His Grace of Wellington in public again?”
“She was teasing him,” Lady Ivy said. “My mama overheard the whole exchange.”
“Ouch! You stupid girl!” The sound of a hand smacking flesh brought the gossip to a momentary halt.
“At Haverford’s house party this summer,” Miss Beauvais said, “Miss Charlotte was observed to suffer poor digestion. The ruse of a megrim was put about, but I know of only one cause that renders an otherwise healthy young lady prone to casting up her accounts.”
The problem had been bad ale, or nerves. House parties were a circle of hell even Dante had lacked the courage to describe.
“The dress Miss Charlotte has on today did strike me as a bit loose,” Miss Monmouth observed. “She was definitely pale when I saw her clutching Mr. Sherbourne’s arm.”
“She wore a walking dress,” Lady Ivy replied. “Mr. Sherbourne is something of a challenge for us all.”
Do tell.
“Even if he’s common as coal and rough around the edges,” Miss Beauvais said, “no man with so much lovely, lovely money is too great a challenge, according to my mama. I doubt even he would put up with Charlotte Windham’s waspish tongue and haughty airs.”
Haughty again? Did polite society really have such a limited vocabulary?
“She’s a Windham,” Miss Monmouth said. “They are quite high in the instep, but Charlotte Windham needs ruining. None of us will have a chance next spring if she’s still being invited everywhere.”
So don’t invite me, please don’t invite me. Charlotte’s prayer was in vain, of course. As the last unmarried Windham, she’d become her Aunt Esther’s de facto companion, and even prayer did not stand much chance against Her Grace of Moreland’s wishes.
“I see no harm in admiring Miss Charlotte’s fashion choices,” Miss Beauvais said, “even if they are curiously loose about the waist and bodice.”
“I’m leaving,” Lady Ivy informed her companions. “As you plan this assassination, please recall two things: First, in a few years, you might stand in Miss Charlotte’s slippers. She warned me away from that dreadful Mr. Stanbridge, and for that I will always be in her debt. Mama had become convinced of his worthiness.”
“Whatever happened to Mr. Stanbridge?” Miss Monmouth asked. “He was a fine dancer.”
Stanbridge had developed a pressing need to admire the glories of ancient Rome after Charlotte had sent him an anonymous note, totaling his debts of honor such as she’d been able to winkle them from her cousins. Stanbridge’s illegitimate daughter was kept in near penury, while her dashing papa wooed decent women by day and scandal by night.
Charlotte had used her best imitation of Uncle Percival’s handwriting and threatened to reveal the sum of Stanbridge’s debts to Lady Ivy’s papa.
Alas, a compulsion to travel had overcome Mr. Stanbridge’s version of true love.
“Who cares about Mr. Stanbridge?” Miss Beauvais asked. “We must look to our futures. Miss Charlotte Windham was pale this morning, and did anybody notice that she started her walk with Lord Neederby but returned to the buffet with Mr. Sherbourne?”
“His lordship has the loveliest hair,” Miss Monmouth said. “I would adore to muss it up, but it’s already so adorably mussed.”
“I wish you both good-day,” Lady Ivy said, “and leave you with one final thought: Charlotte Windham’s uncle is the Duke of Moreland, one of her sisters is married to the Duke of Murdoch, another to the Duke of Haverford. I need not enumerate the cousins and in-laws she’s connected to, any one of whom could ruin you without saying a word. And then there’s Her Grace of Moreland to consider.”
Another silence stretched, this one respectful, if not awed.
The door opened and closed.
“Poor Lady Ivy,” Miss Monmouth said. “She’s getting long in the tooth, and one can’t quite call her pretty.”
While the blond, dimpled Miss Monmouth was all that was ugly about polite society. Had Charlotte not already suffered Neederby’s proposal by the river, she might have marched forth, smiled brilliantly at the two young fools—they were still more foolish than malicious—and been about her business.
But marching forth took bravado, and her stores of that staple were depleted.
“Let’s see if Miss Charlotte has turned loose of Mr. Sherbourne,” Miss Beauvais suggested. “She must be luring him on for an eventual set down. She does that, you know. One must admire her skill even if she’s not very nice.”
They went tittering and conniving on their way, though theirs was not the first such conversation Charlotte had overheard. She remained on the tufted bench, more dispirited than she’d been since watching Elizabeth and her duke drive off to Wales.
“They’re gone, miss,” said a soft voice. “Best come out now before the next batch arrives.”
Charlotte pushed to her feet, smoothed her skirts, and unlatched the door. The maid sat on her stool, her left cheek bright red.
“Thank you,” Charlotte said, fishing a coin from her skirt pocket and passing it to the girl. “You should put some arnica on that cheek when you have a moment.”
The maid smiled wanly. “The young misses are slappers, but I do fancy the vales.”
Pennies, hoarded up against the day when a young miss decided a maid must take the blame for a spilled bottle of ink or something even more trivial.
Charlotte hadn’t such a desperate need of pennies, but what resources would she have when her family’s influence, or the common sense of a Lady Ivy, was no longer adequate to protect her from ruin?
As she left the retiring room, a dangerous question popped into her head: Did she even want that protection? Her sisters were all married, and their reputations were safe.
For Charlotte, ruin was becoming perilously hard to distinguish from rescue. She had the odd thought that none of her family would understand her reasoning, but Lucas Sherbourne—blunt, common, ambitious, and shrewd—would grasp her logic easily.
* * *
The more Sherbourne considered offering marriage to Charlotte Windham, the more he liked the idea. Many a debutante married on short acquaintance, provided the suitor met with her family’s approval.
Those debutantes didn’t often marry a Welsh nobody, though, regardless of the nobody’s wealth. Nonetheless, a letter sat on Sherbourne’s desk from no less exalted a dunderhead than Julian, Duke of Haverford. Sherbourne’s neighbor hinted, in a roundabout, ducal, indirect way, that Charlotte Windham was in need of marrying.
“I must determine what I have that can tempt the lady into looking with favor upon my suit,” Sherbourne informed his cat.
Solomon went about his ablutions, licking his right paw and swiping it about one black ear. The feline sat on the sideboard in the front foyer, occupying a gold tray intended to hold the day’s correspondence.
“Elizabeth Windham is keen on books—and on being married to His Grace of Haven’t-a-Clue—but all I know about Miss Charlotte is that she’
s a highly skilled archer and does not suffer fools.”
Sherbourne checked his appearance in the mirror over the sideboard. He loved fantastically embroidered waistcoats for town attire—the only spot of color gentlemen’s fashions allowed—but his valet had advised moderation.
“I hate moderation,” Sherbourne muttered, tilting his hat a half inch on the right. “Better.”
Solomon yawned, showing every toothy detail of his mouth.
“Same to you. I’m off on reconnaissance.”
Which for Sherbourne meant presenting himself on the Duke of Moreland’s doorstep. Sherbourne’s townhouse was larger but lacked the profusion of potted heartsease on his portico.
Before he could raise his hand to use Moreland’s brass knocker, the door opened.
Charlotte Windham stood before him in a fetching ensemble of soft green with a snug cream spencer. Her bonnet was a small-brimmed straw hat, and her reticule was a beaded confection that caught the midday sun.
“Oh, it’s you, Mr. Sherbourne.”
He tipped his hat, though her greeting was a bit lowering. “Who else would I be?”
“I was just going out.”
“Not without an escort, you weren’t. Might I offer myself in that capacity?”
Behind Miss Charlotte, a white-haired butler stared across the foyer as if the conversation were being conducted on somebody else’s front stoop in some other hemisphere.
“I’m merely off to visit a cousin. No escort—”
The butler cleared his throat. Loudly.
“Indulge me,” Sherbourne said, because clearly, Miss Charlotte had been prepared to strike off across town on her own. Even he knew that was not the done thing.
“I’ve changed my mind,” she said, taking Sherbourne’s arm and dragging him into the house. “Hodges, a tray in the blue parlor, please.”
“Very good, Miss.”
Hodges shot Sherbourne a look that promised doom to any caller who put his boots up on the furniture—or his hands on Miss Charlotte—and made a silent exit down the corridor.
“This way,” Miss Charlotte said. “If you’re here to curry favor with Moreland, you’d be better off accosting him at his club. Her Grace is occupied at the modiste’s, which means you’re stuck with me. You have two cups of tea, stay fifteen minutes, bore me to tears with chatter about the weather, then take your leave.”
A Rogue of Her Own Page 2
