Sherbourne took another sip of his brandy—only the best quality graced his decanters—when he wanted to hurl his drink at the wall. Was a quiet meal with his new wife too much to ask? A little privacy to show her about her new home?
A chance to think through her disclosures in the coach? Charlotte’s tale of illicit love gone awry was significant. Whoever authored the downfall of Charlotte’s friend had in a sense ruined Charlotte as well, for much of her innocence had died with her friend.
“That is not the expression of a man contemplating marital bliss,” Haverford said, wandering away from the fireplace. “Give the ladies time to visit over a pot of tea. Elizabeth was ecstatic to learn of your engagement to Charlotte, and my duchess should be allowed a chance to interrogate her sister.”
Sherbourne settled himself onto a sofa that had learned his exact contours years ago. “Sisters interrogate each other?” Charlotte certainly hadn’t had many questions for her new husband.
Haverford appropriated the middle of the same sofa, which caused the cushions to bounce. “Are matters off to an acceptable start between you and Mrs. Sherbourne?”
“Again, this is none of your business, but because you will pester me without mercy until I gratify your vulgar curiosity: I hardly know if matters with Charlotte are off to an adequate start.”
Haverford propped his boots on a hassock. “Then they are not. If a woman is pleased with her new spouse, he’ll know it until he’s sore and exhausted.”
Sherbourne was sore and exhausted. “You have been married a mere handful of weeks, Your Nosiness. You are hardly an expert on holy matrimony, much less on Charlotte Sherbourne.”
The name pleased him. He hoped that someday it pleased his wife.
“I am becoming an expert on how to make my duchess happy. I suggest you apply yourself to the same subject regarding your own spouse.”
“The wife who agreed to marry me only after we’d been found in a compromising position by Their Graces of Moreland? The same wife who, five minutes previous to Their Graces’ untimely interruption, had been telling me I did her a great honor, but to take myself the hell off? That wife?”
Haverford rose and brought the bottle to the sofa. “Dear me, Sherbourne. How does a woman who’s refused your suit manage to be in a compromising situation with you five minutes later? That’s like no sort of refusal I’ve heard of.”
A comforting thought that had kept Sherbourne company in an otherwise unforgiving saddle. He held up his glass, and Haverford obliged with another half inch of his host’s brandy.
“You don’t accuse me of forcing her.”
“I’m not stupid, and Charlotte Windham would have had your tallywags in a knot before you’d so much as kissed her, had she been unwilling.”
“Consenting to a kiss isn’t the same as consenting to marriage.” Which thought had also kept Sherbourne company in that unforgiving saddle.
“She did consent to the marriage too, didn’t she? This is excellent brandy, if I do say so myself.”
“I sent a case over to the castle to remark the occasion of your marriage. Do you have any bastards, Haverford?”
Haverford set his drink aside. “I beg your pardon?”
“We’re family now, God help us. Your business is my business.”
“I have no illegitimate offspring. What about you?”
“None. Why doesn’t a duke of nearly ancient years have any by-blows? Polite society hasn’t grown that priggish, has it?”
“Sherbourne,” the duke said gently, “you are married to the granddaughter of a duke, the sister of two duchesses, the cousin of countless titles. You are now polite society, which ought to restore anybody’s faith in miracles. I haven’t any children born out of wedlock because they and their mamas cost money and create complications. I’m none too wealthy and prefer to avoid needless drama.”
“So by-blows are still acceptable, and turning one’s back on them is not?”
“You’ve become a quick study. Moreland himself raised a pair of by-blows with the ducal herd. If a man takes responsibility for his actions, society tolerates the results. If he doesn’t, he’s no gentleman.”
Then society must know nothing of the affaire that had resulted in the ruin of Charlotte’s friend.
“I assume you’ve looked in on the colliery,” Sherbourne said. “How do matters stand there?”
Haverford took that bait. The duke had resisted allowing any mines in the valley, until he and Sherbourne had reached a compromise: one mine, developed along Haverford’s notions of the valley’s best interests. The duke refused to own shares in the venture, which made his informal oversight disinterested.
Ninety minutes later, Sherbourne was finally escorting Haverford and his duchess to the front door. Charlotte did look a bit more the thing for having been closeted with her sister.
“Did you have a peek at your bedchamber?” Her Grace asked as she kissed Sherbourne on the cheek.
“I’m sure it’s lovely,” he replied.
Haverford held out Her Grace’s gloves. “Stop whispering to my duchess.”
“We’re family now,” the duchess said. “Whispering is part of the fun. Come along, Haverford, I’ve a few things to whisper in your ear as well.”
They wafted down the steps on a cloud of connubial damned joy, leaving behind a profoundly welcome quiet.
Sherbourne both closed and locked the door, feeling as if he’d repelled a siege.
“They’re always like that,” Charlotte said, a little forlornly. “They were that way in town too. I don’t think they knew anybody else was at the church when they spoke their vows.”
“I’ve banished them for a week. Have you ordered a bath?”
“That is a splendid notion.”
“Let’s have a tray in the library, and by the time your bath is ready, we’ll have eaten.”
Sherbourne’s library was a mere gesture compared to the collection at Haverford Castle, which meant the room was cozy. They ate in companionable informality, though Sherbourne marveled to think he could discuss ordering a bath with a female, and she regarded the idea as splendid rather than scandalous.
Charlotte excused herself to enjoy her bath, and Sherbourne used the time to go through the correspondence stacked in date order on his desk. He gave Charlotte an hour—fifty-two minutes—to soak, then made his way to the ground floor suite now serving as the master bedroom.
He found the new Mrs. Sherbourne swaddled in his favorite dressing gown, fast asleep in a chair by the fire.
“Thus begins the wedding night,” he murmured.
Mrs. Sherbourne slumbered on.
After he’d warmed the sheets and pillows, Sherbourne scooped her up and deposited her on the bed, dressing gown and all. He tucked the covers around her, blew out the candles, banked the fire, and went back to the correspondence waiting for him in the library.
* * *
Charlotte slept like a debutante after her court presentation, felled by profound fatigue and relentless worry. Her first thought, before she’d entirely awakened, was that she was near the ground, the safest place to be.
She opened her eyes and was greeted by unfamiliar surroundings, and yet the sense of being anchored rather than one or two floors higher than she preferred would not leave her.
“Mr. Sherbourne said to let you have your rest, ma’am. I’ve kept the tea hot, and there’s chocolate too, if you prefer.”
The voice belonged to a giantess of a maid, and she’d spoken in Welsh.
I’m in Wales, in my husband’s house. In my new house. “We’re on the ground floor, aren’t we?” Charlotte could hardly recall arriving, though Elizabeth had been on hand, and then there had been enormous trays in the library, to which Sherbourne had done swift justice. Charlotte had enjoyed a lovely, hot, bath…
“Right you are, ma’am. The footmen had a time moving the furniture downstairs, but Her Grace got us organized. Would you like breakfast in bed?”
The bed was
huge and singularly lacking in evidence of another occupant. “I’ll use the table by the window. What’s your name?”
The girl—for she was quite young, despite her grand proportions—popped a curtsy. “Heulwen Jones, ma’am. Most at Sherbourne Hall call me Heulwen, because half the staff are Joneses.”
Heulwen meant sunshine, and the name suited her. She was plain and freckled with bright red hair peeking from beneath a white cap.
Charlotte struggled from the bed, and Heulwen held up a dressing gown Charlotte hadn’t seen since she’d left London.
“You unpacked for me?”
“Mr. Sherbourne said we were to see to your every comfort. When he uses that tone, even lazy Owen Jenkins pays heed. Owen is ever so handsome to hear his mama tell it. Handsome is as handsome does, I always say. Chocolate or tea, ma’am?”
“Let’s start with chocolate. Owen is the first footman, if I recall correctly?”
Heulwen made the bed and freely discussed her coworkers while Charlotte munched on fluffy eggs and buttered toast. Most-call-me-Heulwen was not by any standard a London house servant.
Thank the heavenly intercessors for that mercy.
“What did you mean, that the footmen had to move furniture about?” Charlotte asked, when the maid had laced her into a comfortable day dress.
Heulwen tidied up the tea cart, making enough racket to mortify any Mayfair housemaid. “Mr. Sherbourne sent word to the duchess that the master bedroom was to be moved to the ground floor. Himself takes an occasional queer start, and Her Grace says newlyweds must be indulged. Her being newly wed to His Grace, she must know what she’s about. And she’s your sister, and a duchess, so we did as we were told.”
Sherbourne had moved his bedroom to the ground floor?
“Heulwen, you have made my first morning in my new home comfortable, and for that I thank you. Have you any idea where Mr. Sherbourne might be?”
Town servants didn’t expect thanks, and town employers would not ask the maid where the master had got off to. Town was one hundred and fifty miles away, and for the first time, Charlotte was glad.
“Mr. Sherbourne has gone down to the works, ma’am, and best he does that while the rain has let up. I’d rather it snow, though Mrs. Moss says I’m daft, but I’m not. We’ve had nothing but rain for the past fortnight, and enough is enough. Snow is much prettier than mud, I always say.”
The day outside had a sunny, blustery look that presaged changeable weather and swift-moving clouds. Like friendly servants, fresh air was another rarity in London, especially as the coal fires heated up in colder weather.
“Please ask Mrs. Moss to meet me in the library,” Charlotte said, opening one of two large wardrobes. She was greeted with an assortment of waistcoats, shirts, and morning coats.
One question answered. The second wardrobe held Charlotte’s effects. She wrapped her favorite plain wool shawl about her shoulders.
“Tomorrow, you needn’t bring both tea and chocolate for me. Chocolate will do.”
Heulwen gave her a curious look. “Yes, ma’am.”
Last night’s glimpses of the house had left an impression of luxury on a tasteful scale. Sherbourne Hall wasn’t a castle, but neither was it a manor house with bare, narrow corridors and more pantries than bedrooms. The appointments were spotless, the carpets bright, the corners free of cobwebs.
The staff valued either their master or their wages, and the housekeeper was competent. The master of the house apparently set little store by his own life, however, for he failed to appear for either luncheon or dinner.
The clock was chiming ten when Charlotte gave up pretending to embroider in the library, and returned to the bedroom. She dismissed the maid, built up the fire for the night, and started rehearsing her first proper rant as Mrs. Lucas Sherbourne.
The unforgivably neglected, furiously impatient, anxious-beyond-all-bearing Mrs. Lucas Sherbourne.
* * *
Thus far, Sherbourne did not like being married. He liked his wife well enough, what he knew of her, but he did not like his household having been put at sixes and sevens by the addition of a female. His valet was nowhere to be found, when by rights, Turnbull ought to have been dozing in a handy dressing closet.
Sherbourne’s sleeping arrangements, his staff, his schedule, his everything was changing because he’d taken a wife.
And there she slept, in the same chair by the fire where he’d found her the previous night.
Sherbourne washed as thoroughly and quietly as he could, and decided against shaving. As tired as he was, he’d probably cut his own throat and not notice until Charlotte scolded him for the resulting mess.
Another night in the library beckoned, lest he waken at some ungodly hour and reach for his wife uninvited.
“Mr. Sherbourne.” Charlotte hadn’t moved, though she had opened her eyes. Cats did that, went from restful contemplation to poised alertness merely by opening their eyes.
“Madam, I apologize for waking you.” Apologizing was a skill smart husbands doubtless perfected in the first week of marriage.
“Where have you been, sir?”
Charlotte’s tone—one he’d not heard since he’d been in leading strings—rather woke him up. “At the colliery, where apparently nothing can go forward without my hand on the figurative plough. If you want to tear a strip off me for abandoning you the livelong day, now is a good time to do so, because I’ll sleep through most of your lecture.”
He dared not admit that he’d been so overset by the state of works that he’d lost track of the time.
Charlotte rose and came closer, bringing with her the floral scent of French soap. She wore a dressing gown that covered her from neck to toes, but the way she moved told him that beneath the satin finery, she wore no stays or bindings.
“You had the master bedroom moved to the ground floor. Why?”
Because my wife shouldn’t have to be afraid even as she dreams. “Because you’ll sleep better in a room without a balcony. If you sleep better, so will I.”
His honesty earned him a small smile. “What’s amiss at the mine?”
“Everything, and it’s not even a mine yet. My engineer claims he was laid low by an ague, but I suspect he overimbibes, which was why I could hire him away from the works at Waxter. If something seems too good to be true, it is too good to be true.”
“What about last night?” Charlotte smoothed the lapels of his dressing gown. “Were you at the works last night too?”
In his nightmares. “I fell asleep at my desk in the library.”
“Ah, but why did you fall asleep at your desk in the library? Are you having second thoughts about this marriage?”
And third and fourth thoughts. Also married thoughts about the woman standing barefoot before him.
“I spoke vows, Charlotte. Second thoughts don’t come into it.”
She gave him a disappointed look. Too late Sherbourne realized he’d blundered into a verbal trap. If he’d answered honestly—yes, this hasty, expedient union had left him with many reservations—Charlotte would be hurt, even if she’d been harboring similar doubts.
If he professed a false enthusiasm for their marriage, she’d be disappointed in him for dissembling.
“If you have no second thoughts, Mr. Sherbourne, you are the first newlywed in the history of marriage to enjoy certainty about nuptial obligations entered into under dubious circumstances. I have second thoughts.”
After firing off that round of marital artillery, Charlotte marched to the bed, unbelted her robe, and climbed beneath the covers.
Sherbourne considered another night on the library sofa, another retreat into a bachelor’s privileges, and rejected the notion. The library was chilly, the sofa lumpy, and the whole room smelled of peat smoke and books.
Charlotte smelled much nicer, and she was his wife.
Sherbourne blew out the candles, banked the fire, draped his dressing gown over Charlotte’s at the foot of the bed—a metaphor, that—a
nd appropriated the opposite side of the mattress. Some fool had forgotten to warm the sheets, which was probably a blessing.
“Tell me of your second thoughts, Mrs. Sherbourne.”
A gusty sigh greeted his invitation.
“Madam wife, I’d like to hear your second thoughts, if you’re inclined to share them.”
On the other side of the bed, a good yard from where Sherbourne lay, Charlotte shifted. “I was prepared to endure you.”
Likewise, I’m sure. “We are man and wife. I’m confident a fair amount of enduring will be necessary all around.”
She stirred about some more. “I meant…”
Sherbourne waited. He was not up to this conversation at this hour, but the alternative was sleeping in the library, possibly for the next thirty-seven years.
“I worried about you,” Charlotte said. “The weather was fickle, you were gone for hours, and you didn’t send a note. Men are pigheaded, and mines can be dangerous.”
“You worried about me.” The unhappy former bachelor part of Sherbourne wanted to resent her worry, to see it as yet another burden, more proof that marriage was an undeserved penance.
Except…nobody worried over Lucas Sherbourne. They worried that he’d call in their debts, accelerate a promissory note, reveal the state of their finances.
They did not worry about him.
“I’ll send a note next time I’m delayed. We haven’t even dug our main shaft yet and won’t until spring at the rate we’re not progressing. I’ll show you around the premises tomorrow, if the weather’s fair.”
“Thank you.”
He didn’t want her thanks. He wanted to get to sleep, to forget this whole miserable, bloody day, and wake up with his life back as it had been before he’d gone to London.
And he wanted to wrap himself around his wife and know that he was welcome in her embrace.
Sherbourne pondered that insight for several long minutes.
“Charlotte?”
A soft sigh, and then, “’Night, Bethan.”
Now, she was drifting off? “We have only the one tub that’s large enough to accommodate me, the one you were using last night. I wanted to bathe but couldn’t, and then it was too late to wake the staff. One shouldn’t come to one’s new bride in all one’s dirt when consummating a marriage.”
A Rogue of Her Own Page 10
