Though when had Charlotte had time to send a basket to the local fallen woman?
“Would anybody like more wine?” Radnor asked. “At the mention of rain this time of year, all I can think is, snow would be worse.”
The weather served its usual purpose, and various courses were presented and removed, until the ladies abandoned the menfolk. Sherbourne, having been instructed by Charlotte previously, escorted the women to the family parlor, which private moment gave him a chance to receive fresh orders from his wife.
“I trust you will manage without us men for a short time,” Sherbourne said, “and I won’t allow the gentlemen to tarry too long with their port.” He bowed over Charlotte’s hand and would have returned to the dining room, but Charlotte kept his fingers clasped in hers.
“Kiss my cheek,” she muttered. Her back was to the ladies. Nobody else would have heard her quiet words.
Sherbourne did as she bid, which had the other three ladies smiling at him. He kissed Charlotte’s other cheek as well—one good kiss deserving another—and then left the women to their tea and talk.
He passed through the foyer on his way back to the dining room and noticed correspondence sitting in the salver on the sideboard. Charlotte—for the direction was in her hand—had written to a Harold Porter, who had the great misfortune to dwell in a godforsaken corner of Brecknockshire. Three other letters lay beneath the epistle to Mr. Porter.
One to Mrs. Wesley Smythe, one to Mrs. Scott Wesley, a third Mrs. Morton Wesley.
Interesting. Charlotte wrote only to family that Sherbourne knew of, and no Windhams rusticated in Brecknockshire.
He was tempted to pocket the letters and study them further, but Griffin poked his head out of the dining room at that moment and motioned Sherbourne down the corridor. He rejoined the gentlemen, who were looking more forlorn than relieved to have parted company with their ladies.
“Shall we to the decanter?” Sherbourne asked. “I’m under strict orders from Mrs. Sherbourne not to tarry over the port for more than thirty minutes.”
His guests brightened, Griffin launched into an earnest panegyric to the Welsh laying hen, and Sherbourne breathed a sigh of relief. His first dinner as host to multiple titles—even Griffin was a courtesy lord—was going well. Charlotte knew what she was about, and tomorrow Sherbourne could get back to creating a mine where even nature seemed determined that he should not build one.
“You are quiet,” Griffin observed. “Do you miss your wife? I miss Biddy.”
“Might as well admit the truth,” Radnor said. “We miss our ladies, don’t we, Haverford?”
Haverford’s smile was less than dignified. “Terribly. Eight minutes to go, though. Courage, lads.”
Sherbourne was not a lad. “Nothing says we must wait the full thirty minutes. This is an informal gathering of family, and we’ve discussed the weather enough to last us until spring. If the rest of you are too domesticated to storm the tea tray, I am not.”
The three other men rose as one, and Radnor finished his drink in a single swallow. “Lay on, MacDuff, and damned be him that first cries, ‘Hold, for I’m too domesticated to storm a teapot.’”
“Is Radnor sozzled?” Griffin asked. “He’ll have a sore head in the morning if he is.”
“He’s in love,” Haverford said, heading for the door. “He’ll be fine in the morning, if Glenys lets him out of bed.”
Griffin’s beatific smile was back. “Biddy sometimes won’t let me—”
“To the parlor,” Sherbourne said. “I expect each of you to compliment my wife effusively on her hospitality.”
“Right,” Radnor said.
“Of course,” Haverford added.
Griffin was already out the door.
Sherbourne followed, mostly pleased with the evening. Charlotte had been right—they’d needed a dress rehearsal, a family-only gathering for practice. That Haverford and Radnor were family still boggled Sherbourne’s mind.
And yet, the evening had been disquieting as well. Charlotte had made no mention of sending a basket to the Caerdenwal household, and she was writing to some man in Brecknockshire whom she’d also never raised in conversation with her husband.
Also to several women who’d married men named Wesley.
Charlotte had kept her fear of heights from her family’s notice for years.
What was she hiding from her husband, and why?
* * *
The Earl of Brantford was a fine specimen of English nobility, blond, above average height, with the pale blue eyes of the typical Saxon. Every instinct Haverford possessed told him Elizabeth had disliked the earl on sight, though her manner had remained gracious throughout the introductions and ensuing small talk.
“If you gentlemen will excuse me,” she said, rising, “I’ll let the housekeeper know our guest has arrived.”
Haverford bowed. “Until dinner, my dear.”
The housekeeper had doubtless known the instant Brantford’s coach had turned up the drive. Elizabeth was simply abandoning ship, doubtless off to enjoy a solitary nap, while Haverford was left to make yet more small talk with Sherbourne’s pet earl.
Brantford offered the duchess a bow as well, then resumed decimating the tea tray.
“I hadn’t realized you’d married such a beauty, Haverford. Never hurts when the wife is easy on the eyes, eh?”
The remark rankled. Exceedingly. “I beg your pardon?”
“Wait until you’ve been married a few years. The early days can be lively, but after that, boredom sets in, particularly if your best efforts don’t result in a full nursery. You’re a duke. I needn’t spell out the obvious.” Brantford wiggled his eyebrows while he munched a beef sandwich.
“Will you be staying with us long?” Haverford asked, for the past hour had been among the longest he could recall.
“Dear me, of course not. Wales in winter? You must be daft, but then, you are newly married. One and the same for some. I’m guessing Sherbourne’s nuptials were an entirely mercenary undertaking. I don’t know the man well, but I’ve heard a few on dits regarding the new Mrs. Sherbourne.”
Haverford got up to toss more peat onto the fire, for the afternoon was growing chilly. “Such as?”
“You married into the same family. The Windhams are well connected, but they aren’t all as, shall we say, genteel as your lovely duchess. Her sister is known to be outspoken, or so I’ve heard.”
Haverford used the wrought iron poker to rearrange the peat and coals. He put the poker back on the hearth stand, though delivering a stout blow to Brantford’s thick sense of his own consequence appealed strongly.
“I delight in Mrs. Sherbourne’s outspokenness,” Haverford said. “She’s a refreshing change from the toadies and flirts who have nothing better to do than gossip about the same people they attempt to flatter.”
Brantford saluted with a silver flask and tipped it to his lips. “Just so, just so. I’ve been asked why I invested in Sherbourne’s little project by those same people. Why entangle my affairs with such as him? He’s part owner of a bank, you know. One of the other partners is the grandson of a Ludgate jeweler.”
Which had exactly nothing to do with anything.
“I’ll tell you why I’m investing with Sherbourne,” Brantford went on. “I’ll never begrudge a man’s efforts to better his situation if those same efforts also better my situation. Everything Sherbourne touches turns to gold. He’s shrewd, has a knack for knowing when to step in and when to step out. As distasteful as coin might be to those of us raised with refined sensibilities, the lack of coin is more distasteful still.”
A lack of couth ranked even higher on Haverford’s list of disagreeable qualities. “And yet, you clearly had sufficient means to invest. One hopes your own situation prospers adequately, irrespective of Sherbourne’s projects.”
Brantford emptied his flask. “Was that a warning, Haverford? Have I backed the wrong horse? That’s why I’m wandering about the wilds of Wales, you
see. Sherbourne himself challenged me to inspect the colliery, more or less. Likened solicitors and men of business to meddlers. He doubtless never expected to see me here in person. I have better things to do than ruin my boots and court a case of lung fever.”
Haverford had better things to do than listen to this braying ass. “Though here you are, in the wilds of Wales after all.”
Brantford rose, a bit unsteadily. “So I am. I need for Sherbourne’s little project to show a handsome profit. He has odd notions about providing housing for the miners, no children employed below the surface—no women, either, and that’s just the start of his daft fancies. I’ll set him straight, and a word from you would be helpful too. One cannot coddle the brutes who labor for their bread or they simply take advantage.”
His lordship wandered over to the sideboard and lifted a glass stopper from a crystal decanter. “Mind if I refill my flask?”
“Help yourself, of course. We keep country hours, and if you’d like to rest before changing for dinner, I can send a footman to waken you.”
Brantford made a mess and wasted good brandy refilling his flask. “Don’t send me a footman, for heaven’s sake. Send me a hot bath and a comely little chambermaid to assist me. I like blondes and prefer a woman with good hips. A tray of viands wouldn’t go amiss, and none of this peat, please. Coal will do for me, and I’ll need some clothing pressed if I’m to be properly attired for dinner.”
“I’m sure the staff will be happy to meet your every need.” Though Her Grace had already warned the butler and housekeeper that only men were to wait on his lordship. “If Sherbourne is not amenable to your ideas regarding management of the colliery, will you withdraw your support for the project?”
“I ought to,” Brantford said, snatching the last biscuit from the tea tray. “That would serve him right. He got quite above himself with me. I admire ambition, but will not tolerate disrespect.” Brantford ate his biscuit as the fresh peat caught and the lovely, tangy scent of a blazing fire filled the parlor. “Here’s the thing, Haverford. I have been beset lately by something of a premonition.”
He ran a hand through thinning hair, and for a moment, Brantford was not the arrogant, confident aristocrat, but rather, a man who could see middle age bearing down upon him, much sooner than expected. He was weary and worried, though he probably didn’t admit that even to himself.
“My in-laws are in dun territory,” Brantford said. “Their situation is not common knowledge yet. They put every spare farthing into the marriage settlements, and I’ve done what I could with those funds. My countess has yet to oblige me with an heir, though not for lack of trying on my part. I have it in my mind—you will think me addled—that if I can replenish her family coffers, then she might conceive.”
To make that admission, Brantford had to be nearly drunk or very preoccupied with his lack of children.
“A titular succession can be a terrible weight,” Haverford said. “Have you no indirect heirs?”
“Some bantling second cousin in Scotland. I’d rather see the estate revert to the crown than fall into the hands of a barbarian.”
Two of Elizabeth’s sisters had married Scotsmen. “I can’t promise that Sherbourne will be amenable to your suggestions. He’s developing this colliery in part to provide employment beyond what’s available on the valley’s smallholdings and tenant farms. Excessive profit isn’t his aim.”
Which had surprised Haverford, and it apparently surprised Brantford.
“Excessive profit is a contradiction in terms. I’ll sort him out easily enough, Your Grace. If he ever wants to attract another titled investor, he’ll see reason. About that bath?”
“Right,” Haverford said. “Your bath, a tray of viands, somebody to see to your wardrobe and lay out your evening clothes. Anything else?”
“Coal on the bedroom hearth. Peat has its charm, but not while a man is trying to sleep.” Brantford started for the door. “I’m partial to French wines, if you were wondering what to send along with the tray. I prefer the reds, as long as they aren’t too dry.”
“Our staff will be happy to oblige.”
Brantford took himself off, while Haverford recited the earl’s list of required amenities to the first footman.
“Mind you don’t let the maids near him,” Haverford said. “He’s our guest, but Her Grace will skewer him with a rusty sword if he disrespects any member of her household.”
Not, of course, that food and wine in abundance, a hot bath on demand, footmen stepping and fetching in all directions, and a hearth kept blazing was coddling his lordship.
Haverford used the footmen’s staircase to join the duchess in the ducal apartment and found his wife awake, though beneath the covers with a book.
“I’d hate him,” Haverford said, “except I pity the man.”
“Brantford?”
“Of course, Brantford. You thought I meant Sherbourne?”
“Come to bed,” Elizabeth said. “Our guest has put you out of sorts.”
“He’s put me in a quandary.” Haverford did not need to be invited to bed twice. He peeled out of his clothes—all of them—and climbed in beside his wife. “Brantford is greedy, which is probably to be expected, but he’s also in want of an heir. He refers to Sherbourne as having a Midas touch, and yet the legend of Midas seems to apply to the earl.”
“Midas turned his daughter to gold, didn’t he?”
“And realized too late that all the coin and consequence in the world mean nothing without somebody to love. I could have been Brantford.” He’d made the last admission quickly, before self-consciousness could snatch the words back.
Elizabeth wrapped herself along his side. “You could never be Brantford, else you would have sunk a mine ten years ago and ignored all the agricultural interests in the valley. You would never have married me, either. You would have married some giggling heiress who left you to molder away with your books. Sherbourne will deal easily with Brantford.”
“If Sherbourne fails to impress Brantford, the earl will try to withdraw his money.” Why did the scent of Elizabeth, the simple feel of her body, soothe Haverford when nothing else could?
“Can Brantford renege like that? Lucas Sherbourne strikes me as a man who’d tidy up all the legalities before coin changed hands.”
Haverford pulled the covers over his wife’s shoulders. “Doubtless Sherbourne has dotted i’s and crossed t’s in triplicate, but Brantford will slander Sherbourne in the clubs if Sherbourne doesn’t give the money back, or manage the project according to Brantford’s rules. That will be the end of Sherbourne’s ventures with titled investors.”
Sherbourne, for reasons Haverford only dimly grasped, wanted to move among titles as an equal.
“Then you and Radnor and various Windhams will simply unslander him,” Elizabeth said. “Brantford is a minor northern earl with airs above his station. Sherbourne is ours now, and we protect our own.”
“Spoken like a duchess.” Also like a Windham and a St. David. “Is it very rude for a host and hostess to be late for dinner?”
“I haven’t yet told the kitchen when dinner is to be served.”
“Nor will you be telling them for at least another hour.”
“Spoken like a duke,” Elizabeth said, drawing her leg over his thighs. “Like a very wise duke.”
* * *
“He’s here.” Sherbourne might have been speaking of Old Scratch, so grim was his tone.
“Lord Brantford has arrived?” Charlotte asked.
They were in the library after a quiet supper. Rain pelted the windows in icy torrents and darkness had fallen hours ago. While her husband had clicked away at an abacus and penciled figures on sheets of foolscap, Charlotte had read Mr. William Sharp’s treatise on coal mining, which was more interesting than any edition of La Belle Assemblée.
Mining was an endeavor made possible by tons of mathematics as well as tons of ore. Without a quantity of careful calculations, the whole business was littl
e more than digging in the dirt while relentlessly praying to remain alive. To construct a tunnel that would not collapse, flood, subside, or lack for ventilation was a puzzle of numbers, and until those numbers came right, lives were in peril.
Sherbourne pitched a crumpled-up note into the fireplace behind his desk. A second fireplace before Charlotte’s perch on the sofa burned just as a brightly.
“Haverford welcomed Brantford shortly before sunset,” he said. “The weather will prevent us from touring the site tomorrow.”
“If his lordship is so keen to inspect his investment, then he ought to brave the elements,” Charlotte said. “You certainly haven’t let rain, cold, wind, hail, or dark of night stop you from being there.”
Sherbourne rose, braced his hands on the mantel, and arched his back. “Have you missed me, Mrs. Sherbourne?” The question was more weary than flirtatious.
Perhaps even a trifle annoyed?
“Ever since last week’s dinner party, you have been preoccupied.” Charlotte patted the cushion next to her. “Come sit with me.”
Sherbourne cast a longing glance at his calculations, though Charlotte knew they did not call to him the way they did to her. Sherbourne was worried, and his fretting required him to do something, not simply sit and read a week-old London newspaper to keep up with the gossip.
He took the place beside her. “You have made a nest on my sofa. If you’ve bided here to keep me company, you needn’t.”
Charlotte pushed her quilts aside, rose, and stood before her husband. “Boots off, Mr. Sherbourne.”
He extended his left foot, expression wary. His boots were worn, though this pair lacked any evidence of mud. Charlotte took off first one, then the other, and set them in the corridor. She pulled up a hassock, and put her husband’s feet in her lap.
“Has it occurred to you, sir, that you might have been keeping me company?” She wrapped her arms around his feet. “My aunt likes to have her feet rubbed. This is a family secret. Are your feet cold?”
A Rogue of Her Own Page 21
