A Rogue of Her Own

by Grace Burrowes

  “While you add coin to his coffers,” Radnor muttered. “Not well done of him.”

  “I will make very sure that Brantford and I belong to none of the same clubs,” Haverford said, making a slow descent while holding a book in his hand. “The man lacks couth.”

  Looking down on the duke and the marquess, Sherbourne’s first thought was that he was being subtly rebuked for having associated with Brantford. Another hypothesis suggested itself: The duke and the marquess were ashamed of Brantford, ashamed that a peer of the realm had acted so disagreeably.

  So dishonorably, to use Charlotte’s term.

  “I apologize for inflicting Brantford on you both,” Sherbourne said, closing the book of recipes. “If I could refund his investment and send him on his way, I would.” The apology was as rare as it was sincere, and yet, more words marched forth into the comfortable elegance of the ducal library. “His lordship threatened litigation if I failed to interpret the terms of our contract liberally. He reminded me that his cousin is a judge.”

  His dear cousin.

  Her Grace had towed Sherbourne all over this library countless times in recent weeks, but today was different, because he was an invited guest. Ten feet below, Haverford passed Radnor the book. The view from the mezzanine suggested Radnor would go bald before Haverford did—even that indignity apparently respected the order of precedence.

  Radnor glanced up from the book. “Brantford threatened you with a lawsuit not a month after agreeing to do business with you?”

  “The earl was subtle enough to leave a margin of ambiguity,” Sherbourne said, descending the steps. “He is not happy with the terms he agreed to, though I’ve guaranteed him at least as good a return as the cent per cents, and my own investment will be repaid on the same terms. I’m to improve those terms for him or deal with his displeasure. He awaits correspondence from me confirming my renewed understanding of our association.”

  Haverford took the reading chair by the fireplace and crossed his feet at the ankles. “Does he want his money back?”

  “I asked him that, and he laughed. He invested in my works, and now I’m to make him rich.”

  “Somebody ought to make him humble,” Radnor said. “The man’s a disgrace.”

  A lingering residue of self-doubt wafted away with Radnor’s words. Sherbourne had confidence in his own commercial abilities and confidence in his grasp of the law. He worked hard and had a fair degree of common sense. Where he’d erred was in assuming that a man born to wealth, title, and standing would also claim the integrity that should accompany such blessings.

  Radnor and Haverford confirmed that Sherbourne’s expectations had been reasonable, not naïve, not stupid.

  “Brantford is my disgrace for now,” Sherbourne said. “I cannot risk litigation or scandal, or even his lordship’s enmity in the clubs. I’ve recently married well above myself, and my liquid resources are at low ebb. If I do as his lordship wishes and make him a fortune, then I benefit as well.”

  Haverford scowled at his drink. “I could not be that rational, that pragmatic, or mature in the face of such arrogance. He doesn’t need another fortune, and investing with you was hardly taking a great risk. I’d be tempted to plant such an audacious creditor a facer.”

  Haverford was every inch the duke at his leisure. His Sunday attire was pristine, beautifully tailored, and adorned with his signature touches of lace and luxury. Despite his rank, he was merely commiserating with a neighbor and in-law over a turn of bad luck.

  A cat leaped into Haverford’s lap, inspiring the duke to swear affectionately and set his drink aside. Purring rumbled forth as His Grace scolded the cat and scratched its chin.

  I must get my wife a kitten.

  That thought—which brought Charlotte to mind—was followed closely by another: I owe Haverford an apology.

  “I was an ass,” Sherbourne said, before caution got the better of him. “As a creditor, I was an ass, Haverford. I am sorry for it. I should have shown you how to restructure your notes when you came into the title, should have written off the old duke’s obligation.”

  Radnor apparently found the view out the corner window fascinating.

  “The old duke should not have been such a profligate spendthrift,” Haverford said, “and by failing to accelerate delinquent notes, you essentially did restructure them. What do you suppose the ladies are gossiping about?”

  “Feminine mysteries,” Radnor said, turning from the window. “Names for babies. Glenys is honestly considering Galahad if it’s a boy.”

  The expectant fathers fretted about odd names that might befall their offspring. When a child was saddled with six or eight names from birth, much nonsense could creep onto the list.

  Sherbourne sipped his drink and missed his wife. Charlotte would know if Haverford had accepted Sherbourne’s apology, rejected it, or simply been embarrassed by it. Sherbourne didn’t particularly care. He’d tendered the apology that honor demanded, and that was what mattered.

  Charlotte would be proud of him—which also mattered—and that might give him the courage to rub her feet.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Does Mr. Sherbourne know what you’re about?”

  Miss MacPherson’s tone was polite but firm, such as a senior servant used on a child found outside the nursery at an odd hour. She’d come upon Charlotte making a Monday morning call at the Caerdenwal household, and had accepted a ride back to the village.

  “Mr. Sherbourne is too busy with the colliery to be bothered with my social schedule,” Charlotte replied. “He has his charitable undertakings, and I have mine.”

  “He’s putting the steeple to rights,” Miss MacPherson said, retying her bonnet ribbons. “Papa will be very wroth if Mr. Sherbourne withdraws his support from that project.”

  Old anger stirred, startling in its intensity. “Do you mean that putting a pretty steeple on the church is more important than seeing Maureen Caerdenwal’s baby thrive?”

  “I mean that we can’t have masonry plummeting from the heavens onto parishioner’s heads, Mrs. Sherbourne.”

  For about a quarter mile, the only sound was the hoofbeats of the gelding in the traces, and the crunch of the gig’s wheels on the lane. The fine weather had held, perhaps the last of the year. Along the tree lines, each breeze sent more leaves twirling down to join the carpet below. The undergrowth was dying back with brilliant reds and yellows among the somber browns.

  The day was beautiful, and Charlotte made up her mind to take her husband a picnic lunch once she’d delivered her passenger.

  “You doubtless surprised the Caerdenwals with your generosity,” Miss MacPherson said. “I hadn’t thought to collect fabric for them.”

  Infants needed clothing, and even scraps could be stitched together into quilts and dresses. “Winter approaches and the child must be kept warm.”

  Charlotte had barely set both feet over the cottage threshold, staying only long enough to introduce herself and leave a basket and a bundle. Maureen had been terrified into near speechlessness, while her mother had accepted Charlotte’s offerings with quiet dignity. Poverty had been evident, in the household’s painful tidiness, threadbare carpets, and empty quarter shelves in the front room.

  No cut work, no framed embroidery, no charmingly amateurish sketch of the baby, no embroidery half-finished in a work basket.

  But for the half-dozen plump hens in the yard, Charlotte might have started crying. Griffin had kept his word, and in the coming cold weather, his generosity might be all that kept the child healthy.

  “You ought to tell Mr. Sherbourne where you’ve been,” Miss MacPherson said as she climbed down from the gig outside the vicarage. “I’ve no business presuming to give you advice about your marriage, but Mr. Sherbourne isn’t the greedy brute some people would believe him to be.”

  “Miss MacPherson, you insult my husband even as you defend him.” And yet, Charlotte was just as outspoken as Miss MacPherson when the need arose.

&
nbsp; The vicar’s daughter was also right—about honesty between spouses being essential. Anybody who thought Sherbourne a greedy brute was an idiot.

  “I insult my papa’s congregation,” Miss MacPherson said, shaking out her skirts. “The parish enjoys having Mr. Sherbourne to gossip about, but he’s the closest thing this valley has to a banker, and he doesn’t cheat anybody. Now he’s building us a colliery, and that’s something Haverford would have prevented to his dying day but for Mr. Sherbourne’s persistence.”

  She really was quite fierce, quite admirable. “Now you insult my brother-in-law?”

  “I speak the truth, and mean the duke no insult. He did find us a lovely duchess, and now Mr. Sherbourne has brought you here as well. The valley will benefit from both unions.”

  She curtsied and came up smiling. Charlotte smiled back and turned the gig for home.

  Of course, she would tell her husband where she’d been. She would also tell her sister, and Lady Radnor, and enlist their aid in developing a plan to keep the Caerdenwals in chickens and quilts. Doubtless both titled households could contribute some fabric scraps, send the occasional gardener around to help with the heavier tasks, and spare a ham once a quarter or so.

  Charlotte was happily engrossed in charitable plans as she sailed into the library, intent on jotting down a few ideas.

  Sherbourne sat at his desk, neither reading nor writing. He rose when Charlotte entered, and she approached with intent to hug him thoroughly—he’d torn himself away from the works at midday after all.

  “Mrs. Sherbourne. Good day.”

  “Mr. Sherbourne. You have foiled my plans. I had intended to kidnap you from the works for a picnic because the weather is so fair.”

  He propped a hip on the corner of the desk, dropped something from his pocket into the pen tray, and crossed his arms.

  “You planned to kidnap me?” he asked.

  No warmth shone from his eyes, no welcome. He was again the calculating, self-contained social interloper Charlotte had first encountered months ago at Haverford’s house party.

  “Have you and Mr. Jones quarreled?” she asked, drawing off her bonnet. A hairpin caught in her bonnet ribbons. She couldn’t hold the hat and untangle her hair both, and rather than help her, her husband merely watched from several feet away.

  He disdains to touch me. Charlotte rejected that wayward thought almost before it formed. “Might you assist me?”

  He waited for two unfathomable seconds, then withdrew a pair of shears from the desk drawer. He approached, held up the shears, and Charlotte resigned herself to finding a new ribbon for her bonnet. She held still, though at the last second she realized he intended to cut off a lock of her hair.

  “You’re free,” he said, holding up the curling strands with the trailing length of ribbon. “Where have you been, Charlotte?” A taunt, not friendly marital small talk.

  “I’ve come from the vicarage.”

  “Is that where you’ve spent your morning?”

  Charlotte tried to tuck the shortened lock behind her ear, though it refused to stay there. She set her bonnet atop the globe that stood near a tall window.

  “Lucas, what’s wrong?”

  He pulled an object from his breast pocket and held it out to her. “Why would the earl of Brantford have given you his miniature, and signed the back, conveying all of his love, always?”

  Charlotte should have laughed, should have refused to touch the object in Sherbourne’s hand. She should have snatched it from him and tossed it across the room.

  The very sight of the small portrait made her ill. She hadn’t forgotten the miniature, quite, but hadn’t made it a point to study the image recently, either.

  “You searched my jewelry box?”

  “No, I did not. I have been remiss as a husband. Among my many failings, I’ve never presented you with a morning gift. I thought to leave you such a gift among your effects, a few baubles, such as I can afford. I have no idea what you prefer in the way of jewels so I thought to look at what you already own. Instead, I find you’ve been playing me false with the same man who’s trying to all but blackmail me. Did you and Brantford laugh at your cleverness, Charlotte?”

  If Sherbourne had abandoned her on the highest peak in the land, Charlotte could not have been more bewildered.

  “You accuse me of betraying my vows with Brantford?”

  “I’m doing you the courtesy of asking you for answers, Charlotte. You had Brantford’s miniature secreted where few husbands would ever look. You entertained him with every appearance of gracious good cheer. He’s titled, he’s of your ilk, he’s unscrupulous, and he’s in a position to ruin everything I’ve worked for. He approached me only after the Windhams had shown me a cordial welcome to London. What am I to think?”

  Charlotte needed to sit down, and the closest available chair was behind Sherbourne’s desk. She took it, refusing to so much as glance at the miniature in Sherbourne’s hand.

  Indignation was trying to push aside other emotions, for Sherbourne had reached the worst judgments about her without even hearing her explanation. She was prepared to tell him so when a glint from the pen tray caught her eye.

  A hairpin tipped with amber. Her hairpin, and Sherbourne had had it in his pocket, the rogue.

  If he’d carried this token with him since their betrothal, then he was her rogue, and he was her husband.

  “I can see why you are perplexed,” Charlotte said, “but that miniature is not the Earl of Brantford. I’ve had it for years, and it belonged to my dearest friend. The man who gave Fern that portrait and penned such tender sentiments to her was the complete scoundrel who ruined her and left her to die shortly after bearing his child. I hate him, whoever he might be, and if the opportunity ever arises, I will hold him accountable for his sins.”

  The clock ticked three times while Sherbourne stared at the small likeness in his hand, then he stalked across the library and slapped it onto the blotter.

  “This is Brantford, Charlotte. Younger, thinner, handsomer, but it’s him. Don’t put me off with some flimsy lie.”

  “It’s not Brantford. It’s one of many blond, blue-eyed lordlings whom the portraitists are paid to flatter outrageously. Fern refused to tell me his name because she knew I’d see him ruined if it was the last thing I did on this earth.”

  Sherbourne’s cool façade cracked to reveal a hint of exasperation. “Charlotte, this is Brantford. I know his penmanship, and the initials on the back are his. He makes a particularly vain production out of his Q’s, and the likeness is him.”

  A chill passed over Charlotte, leaving a queasy weakness in its wake. “That cannot be Brantford. It’s not…”

  Sherbourne pushed the little painting closer, so Charlotte had merely to tip her chin down to study it. A blond, bland countenance smiled up at her, though as she’d said, many a young lord was blond-haired and blue-eyed, and every one of them smiled.

  The artist had taken the predictable liberties and flattered the subject, though not unduly. The image was years out of date, too, and age was not improving Brantford’s looks. His hair was thinner, his cheeks fuller, his eyes colder.

  But Charlotte knew that smile. She’d last seen it when he’d bowed his farewells, and offered her fine compliments on a lovely meal.

  She rose, though her knees were none too steady. “I need to wash my hands.”

  She needed to be sick, to toss that devil’s painting into the fire, to cling to her husband and cry until she had no more tears left.

  “You’re not making sense, Charlotte. You always make sense.” Concern lurked beneath Sherbourne’s terse observation.

  “He killed my friend, Lucas. That vile, rutting, smiling, despicable, mortal sin of a man lied to my friend, struck her, and cast her out when she was with child. It was Brantford, and I’ve entertained him at my own table. I gave him my hand, I curtsied to him, when I should have driven a knife through his heart.”

  Charlotte pushed away from the desk,
needing to put distance between herself and the image of evil on the blotter. Sherbourne caught her before she stumbled, and then Charlotte was weeping uncontrollably against her husband’s chest.

  “Lucas, he killed my friend. I cannot bear it. He killed my friend, and there was nothing I could do.”

  Sherbourne swept her up in his arms, settled with her on the sofa, and even produced a much-needed handkerchief, and still Charlotte could not cease weeping.

  * * *

  All of Charlotte’s passion, her magnificent dignity and decency, fueled hot, miserable tears that wet Sherbourne’s shirt and broke his heart. She cried for her friend and for her own lost faith in gentlemanly honor. He knew—because this was his wife, the woman he’d been born to partner, the woman who’d frightened him witless when he’d thought she’d played him false—that the last lament was the deepest cut.

  There was nothing I could do.

  He held her, he rocked her, he stroked her hair, and kissed her brow until she slowly quieted.

  “I hate him,” Charlotte said, voice raspy and low. “Lucas, I will hate him until the day I leave this earth, and should the Almighty consign me to the Pit, part of me would rejoice, for there I’d see that human plague-rodent and confront him with the evil he’s done.”

  She meant every word, and Old Nick himself would not dare interfere with her vengeance. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I have told you. Fern was a vicar’s daughter. The sweetest, most mischievous, dear, young woman ever to help me tie sheets together so we could dance under a full moon and feel as daring as pagans. We were ridiculous, and I will never have a friend like that again.”

  You have me. “She decided to dance with Brantford under the stars instead?”

  Charlotte squirmed about and took the place beside Sherbourne on the sofa. He tucked an arm around her shoulders, and after a bit of fussing, she scooted down to rest her head against his thigh. He draped a quilt over her—her favorite quilt—and wished he’d met his wife before heartache had made her so indomitable.

  “Fern did not decide to tryst with Brantford. She knew he was far above her touch. She was introduced to him only because a cousin of his attended the same finishing school we did. I was at Morelands, spending a holiday with my family while Fern bided at school, and she met Brantford. He charmed her, then struck up a correspondence with her. She initiated none of it and didn’t answer his letters until he threatened to cast himself from the nearest sea cliff if she continued to ignore him.”