A Rogue of Her Own

by Grace Burrowes

  “He drinks,” Radnor said gently, “possibly to excess. The last mine he worked for suffered a tunnel collapse due to flooding. If the collapse had happened any day but the Sabbath, dozens of men, women, and children would have been trapped below the surface. The mine owners kept it quiet, because they didn’t want their misfortunes to become public.”

  “Tunnels collapse,” Sherbourne said, though the very words left him queasy. “Mining is a hazardous undertaking.”

  “The miners warned him that water was leaching into the tunnel, warned him that his trusses were too far apart. He ignored them, and after the accident, his drinking grew appreciably worse. If his drinking is still a problem, you will have to replace him as soon as Brantford is done strutting about. I say that not only as a member of your board of directors, but as one who wants your venture to succeed.”

  The queasiness in Sherbourne’s belly became a burning that pushed up into his chest. Charlotte had offered to check Jones’s calculations, and Sherbourne had smiled and done nothing to provide her the figures.

  “Have you any more cheering news to report?” Sherbourne asked.

  “Glenys assures me we’re to have rain tomorrow. Her left knee aches, and she claims that’s a reliable predictor of bad weather.”

  “Then Brantford will see the colliery in all its rainy splendor, and once I’ve subjected my household to his dubious company at dinner, we’ll hope the grouse moors lure him away.”

  Radnor was soon back in the saddle, leaving his best wishes for Mrs. Sherbourne and a promise that he’d join the inspection tomorrow afternoon. Sherbourne watched him ride off, not sure if the call had been friendly, for all it was appreciated.

  Charlotte’s dog cart came up the drive even as Radnor turned his horse onto the lane, and Sherbourne waited in the chilly wind until he could assist his wife to alight from her vehicle. Morgan appeared from the stables to lead the horse away, and Sherbourne abandoned all decorum to kiss his wife’s rosy cheek.

  “Mr. Sherbourne, good day. The vicarage sends greetings. I hope you and Lord Radnor had a pleasant chat?”

  “His lordship spread a pall of gloom thicker than the foul miasmas wafting off the Thames in July.”

  Charlotte took Sherbourne by the arm. “This sounds serious, even for you. You must tell me all about it, and I shall explain how thrilled Vicar was that you have agreed to repair the church steeple.”

  Sherbourne stopped halfway up the front steps. “Charlotte, I cannot spare a single mason to repair a steeple that hasn’t gone anywhere for nearly three hundred years.”

  She peered up at him, nothing but concern in her eyes despite how sharply he’d spoken. “I was standing in the churchyard, visiting with Miss MacPherson, and a stone fell and nearly struck me on the head. I thought it was a sign from on high that I’d found the most public, charitable project for you to undertake. I’m sorry.”

  Many more such signs from on high, and Sherbourne would be the one drinking to excess. He made it as far as the foyer and even got the door closed before drawing Charlotte into his arms.

  “I’ll see to the steeple repairs, I promise, just as soon as Lord Brantford has pranced off on his merry way. He’s coming to dinner tomorrow night and will tour the works in the afternoon.”

  Charlotte stepped back to untie her bonnet ribbons. “Shall I join this tour of the works? He will behave himself if I am on hand.”

  Sherbourne undid the frogs of her cloak. “You mean, I’ll behave myself. I’d rather let him do his worst, then get rid of him once for all.”

  “What is the worst he could do?”

  Ruin me. “Withdraw his funds because I’ve misrepresented the state of the project, in which case I’ll find another investor.” A near impossibility if Brantford spoke ill of what he’d seen.

  Charlotte kissed Sherbourne’s cheek, treating him to a soothing hint of gardenia. “As long as his lordship can do nothing serious, we shall contrive.” The same phrase she’d used when nearly in a swoon from her fear of heights.

  “Shall we contrive with a shared midday nap, Mrs. Sherbourne?” The suggestion arrived to Sherbourne’s mouth without having given any notice to his brain. He had much to do, not enough time to do it, and canoodling with his wife wouldn’t help one bit.

  Though it wouldn’t hurt, either.

  “Tomorrow,” Charlotte said, going up on her toes to whisper in his ear. “I am yet plagued by my inconvenience, but tomorrow I will be better able to share naps with you.”

  Share a nap with me anyway. Sherbourne kept that sentiment to himself, for he didn’t know what he’d be asking of her. Simple affection? A quiet respite from his worries? Rest?

  “Another time, then. I’m sure you’ll want to confer with Cook regarding tomorrow night’s menu.”

  Charlotte slipped her arms around his waist. The butler had found someplace else to be, and thus Sherbourne had a private moment with his wife. She simply hugged him, and before he could reciprocate the embrace, she was bustling off in the direction of her personal parlor.

  * * *

  “I am growing to dislike Quinton, Earl of Brantford,” Charlotte said. “How does a man develop a head cold when he has not stirred from Haverford Castle for three days?”

  His lordship had waited until early afternoon to send along a note postponing the tour of the works, and Charlotte had dispatched Morgan straightaway to inform Sherbourne at the colliery.

  The weather was beautiful, of course—mild, sunny, not much of a breeze. Gulls strutted around on the terrace, while Sherbourne’s expression across the small table beneath the maples put Charlotte in mind of sea cliffs.

  Stoic and endlessly beset by the tides.

  “You received this an hour past?” Sherbourne asked, studying the note she’d had taken to the colliery.

  “Not even that. Will you eat something if I order you luncheon?”

  Sherbourne had been gone since dawn and had come stalking across the garden’s carpet of fallen leaves only five minutes ago. His hair was windblown, but he’d taken care with his wardrobe, even to wearing a gold cravat pin tipped with a small emerald.

  One didn’t wear jewels during the day, but on Sherbourne the effect was a dash of daring amid casual elegance.

  “Brantford is toying with me,” Sherbourne said, gazing off toward the colliery. “He’s rapping me on the nose with his newspaper, as if I’m a naughty puppy who piddled on the carpet.”

  Like the younger sons and lordlings, who’d broken a young boy’s nose, ankle, and arm for sport?

  “I suspect he is simply enjoying ducal hospitality for as long as he can. Haverford was notably reclusive until this summer’s house party. Brantford wants bragging rights, wants to be able to say that he was the first guest Their Graces of Haverford welcomed after their nuptials. He doubtless hopes that Haverford will take him shooting, and if he attends services, he will delight in sitting in the ducal pew.”

  Sherbourne set the note aside. “They’re like that, the titled snobs. They play those inane games. Haverford will kill me.” This last was said with a slight smile.

  “Haverford is the one who accepted the earl’s request for hospitality,” Charlotte replied. “He doubtless did so with the duchess’s blessing.” Also without consulting Sherbourne, upon whom the earl had come to spy.

  Sherbourne’s smile was gone, and he was again studying the lane that wound across the fields to the works. “I should get back to the colliery. I thought I’d bring you some calculations to review, but I left them amid Mr. Jones’s mess when I got your note.”

  Charlotte hadn’t wanted to pester him for those figures. “As it happens, I am not interested in calculations at present.”

  That got his attention. “Are you well, Charlotte?”

  “I am well. A midday respite with my husband would put me in the very pink.” Her ears had doubtless turned pink at that wifely boldness.

  Some carfuffle among the seagulls sent them all winging upward, leaving Charlotte an
d her husband the only living creatures in the garden.

  “As it happens, Mrs. Sherbourne, I’ve been short of sleep myself lately.”

  Sherbourne came to bed with Charlotte most evenings, but then he disappeared until all hours before snatching some rest before dawn. Truly, the Earl of Brantford had much to answer for.

  “Give me a minute to have word with the housekeeper,” Charlotte said, “and I’ll join you in the bedroom shortly.”

  The staff graciously accepted the news that the company dinner was postponed, despite preparations having been under way for hours. Charlotte let none of her own frustration show, though she didn’t much care whether she made a good impression on his lordship or not.

  Sherbourne cared, and thus Charlotte would do her utmost to be a charming hostess.

  She let herself into the bedroom, expecting to find her husband at the table, poring over one of his endless reports or estimates. Sherbourne was face down on the mattress, naked and snoring gently, one foot hanging over the edge of the bed.

  He looked at once utterly immovable and vulnerable. A solid, sizeable male, and a fallen warrior.

  “I love you,” Charlotte said softly. “I know not how or when this sentiment arose, but I love you, and the Earl of Brantford will have to deal with that if he thinks to strut about your colliery and treat you with anything less than respect.”

  She sat on the bed to remove her boots, while Sherbourne slept on undisturbed.

  * * *

  Conflicting impressions too hazy to qualify as thoughts woke Sherbourne. The first had become as familiar as his own heartbeat: He must away to the colliery. Jones might have a drinking problem—something bedeviled the old man—the masons were squabbling with the yeomanry provided by Radnor and Haverford, and for reasons that Sherbourne’s tired brain refused to enumerate, a sense of dread made these problems pressing.

  Something else was pressing. Charlotte was tucked against Sherbourne’s side, her hand drifting along his chest and belly. Her touch was slow and sweet, and she tempted his attention away from anything having to do with the dratted mine. She was exploring him, even while she might have been trying to let him rest.

  Sherbourne kept his eyes closed until Charlotte’s expedition ventured south of his waist. He was more than half aroused, which state of affairs provoked her to cupping his stones and running a single finger around the tip of his cock.

  “My wife has grown bold.”

  She sleeved him with her grip. “I have always been bold in some regards. The wife part is new. I was nobody’s wife before.”

  Sherbourne had been nobody’s husband, nobody’s family, even. He’d been a disliked neighbor, a resented creditor, a ridiculed classmate. Long ago, he’d been a disappointing son.

  What did Charlotte see in him, besides wealth that was growing more imperiled by the day?

  “I am your husband and you are my wife until death do us part.” Charlotte was stuck with him, regardless of the fate of the mine, the bank, the infernal lending library scheme—regardless of anything.

  “I like being your wife,” Charlotte said, giving him a gentle squeeze. “You don’t bore me. I hope you like being my husband.”

  She’d carefully not asked him a question. Sherbourne turned on his side, the better to answer her without words.

  He kissed her on the mouth, then wrapped his hand around hers and showed her how to tease him. Charlotte delighted in knowledge. She would have puzzled this out on her own eventually, but Sherbourne wanted to give her something—a gesture of trust, perhaps?

  “You respond to this,” she said, taking another slow, thorough tour of his stones.

  “I enjoy it.” A vast understatement. Sherbourne’s worries and woes were falling away, his plans and estimates drifting into oblivion as his mind focused on one plea: Don’t stop.

  Charlotte took his hand and placed it over her breast.

  Her bare breast. Sherbourne matched her tempo, which had accelerated from a dreamy largo to a maddeningly placid andante. Surely he was losing his reason if the long-ago maunderings of his piano teacher were surfacing?

  “I want you inside me,” Charlotte said, arching into his hand. “Does that make me wanton?”

  His slid his hand up to cup her cheek, and of course, her cheek was hot against his palm. She’d closed the bed curtains, but there was light enough to see that she, too, had offered him a gesture of trust.

  “Desiring your husband does not and never will make you wanton. It makes me damned lucky.”

  Though even as Sherbourne shifted over her, worry nagged him: If he got Charlotte with child, that would be one more mouth to feed, one more set of expectations he could never escape. One more person who might someday—soon—be ashamed of an association with Lucas Sherbourne.

  His immediate dependents would never be cast out into the elements, but in some ways, shabby gentility was a worse fate than outright penury.

  Sherbourne knew from experience that disgust was easier to endure than pity.

  Charlotte laced her fingers with his, as if drawing him away from the gloomy precipice of his thoughts. Such was her way with loving, that Sherbourne’s worries fell beneath an onslaught of desire. She bit him on the shoulder at the exact right moment to drive him over the edge, though he had the satisfaction of knowing he’d taken her with him.

  She held back nothing, growling softly against his neck as pleasure overtook her, sinking her nails into his hip in a grip that satisfied even as it stung.

  “You undo me.” Charlotte unwrapped her legs from his flanks some moments later, but kept her arms around him. “You absolutely undo me, Lucas. One has more understanding of why newlyweds are sent away for a month where none of their familiars will observe their adjustment to wedded bliss.”

  He owed her a wedding journey, another unpaid debt. “When we’ve dealt with Brantford, I’ll take you into Cardiff, if you like, or up to the Lakes. A sea trip to the north might be pleasant.”

  “Winter approaches,” Charlotte said, as Sherbourne slipped from her body. “Worse yet, my mother has threatened to pay a visit. Why can’t they leave us alone?”

  Her lament was reassuringly grumpy. Perhaps she truly did enjoy being married to him?

  Sherbourne rose, wrung out a flannel in the warm water by the hearth, and rinsed himself off.

  Charlotte propped herself on her elbows and watched from the bed.

  “Keep looking at me like that, Mrs. Sherbourne, and we’ll be late for supper.”

  She flopped to her back. “Will the world come to an end, because a very tired man and his very new wife were late for supper? You’ll have to do better than that, Mr. Sherbourne. We can journey to the Lakes in spring, assuming all goes well at the works, and it will go well.”

  “Radnor tells me Mr. Jones has a potential drinking problem,” Sherbourne—or some befuddled gudgeon—said. “A man who drinks can be fatally careless. Once Brantford is gone, I’ll see about replacing Jones.”

  Charlotte smoothed a palm over the mattress. “Is this why you’ve been so preoccupied lately? Because you’re worried for the works?”

  For his whole future—for their whole future. “In part. The bank has been giving me a spot of bother as well.”

  “I would love to be left alone for hours at a bank,” Charlotte said, folding her hands behind her head. “All those lovely, lovely numbers. Pages and pages of them, as far as the eye can see.”

  She’d not tucked the covers up high enough to hide her breasts, which was as far as Sherbourne’s eyes could see at the moment.

  “When we’re next in London, I’ll turn you loose at the bank after business hours. You can prowl the ledgers like a mythical creature, spotting mistakes and inaccuracies and breathing fire upon them.”

  “I’d like that.”

  Except if he truly let her loose at the bank, sooner or later she’d learn that one of the investments had gone perilously sour, and Sherbourne hadn’t yet found a way to manage the damage. He c
onsidered explaining the canal situation to her, but she’d already closed her eyes, a goddess who’d earned her slumbers.

  Sherbourne very nearly dressed to return to the works. Hannibal Jones was probably inebriating himself at that very moment, and the temperature was doubtless planning to plunge overnight.

  Charlotte sighed—a contented, sweet sound. Who knew how long she’d be content with her choice of husband?

  Sherbourne climbed back into bed, wrapped himself around his wife, and tried to set aside thoughts of the bank, the mine, the crumbling steeple, and a nosy earl in delicate health.

  They all followed him into sleep anyway. Again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Brantford had inherited his mines, and thus had no idea what a colliery should look like before shafts were sunk. He might have peppered Sherbourne with questions, except that the Marquess of Radnor hovered at Sherbourne’s elbow like an underfootman new to his livery.

  “You are on the board of directors for this undertaking?” Brantford asked Radnor, as they returned to the white tent at the center of the planned works.

  “I am the assistant director of the mine’s board,” Radnor said. “We in the peerage have an obligation to bring progress to our neighbors, don’t you agree, Brantford? What’s the use of having a family seat if one doesn’t take an interest in the surrounding parishes? Can’t have all of our best and brightest leaving for the colonies.”

  “I’m told you have fine hunting on Radnor land,” Brantford replied, though Radnor had yet to extend an invitation to either ride to hounds or try a bit of shooting.

  Inside the tent, Sherbourne was engaged in conversation with the engineer, Hannibal Jones. Based on a few discreet inquiries, Jones had a prickly reputation, though he’d answered all of Sherbourne’s questions readily and with proper deference for the august guest in their midst.

  “Hunting hasn’t started here yet,” Radnor said. “The rain has made the ground too soft, though most of the crops are off. Perhaps later in the season we’ll have some sport to offer you.”