Haverford crossed to the sideboard and poured half a glass of brandy. “Be that way, but if you think I’m difficult, just wait until Charlotte’s mama and papa come to visit for the winter holidays. Were I you, I’d get my house in order before the in-laws come to call, or Charlotte might well accompany them back to England in the new year.”
Sherbourne managed to remain standing, but Haverford’s taunt—or warning—landed on him like so much cold, wet mud.
Charlotte was being unreasonable, and yet, she was Charlotte. She would never relent, never give quarter where her sense of justice was concerned. Sherbourne loved that about her.
Loved that about her, too.
“You did know the in-laws are planning to visit?” Haverford asked. “You look as though you’ve suffered a significant blow to the head.”
To the heart, more like. “I am well aware that the in-laws intend to grace us with their presence for the holidays, and I hope they are frequent visitors. Mama-in-law loves her homeland, and Charlotte loves her mother and father.”
Did she love her husband? Could she ever love a man who did business with the likes of Brantford? Sherbourne had married expecting that attraction and respect would see him and Charlotte through well enough, but now…
Now he loved his wife, and “well enough” was less than she deserved.
Radnor sat up, his head appearing over the back of the sofa. “Did you trounce Haverford? He benefits from regular trouncing. I’ve made a career out of keeping His Grace from getting too high in the instep. The job is thankless and tiring, but what are friends for?”
Sherbourne wouldn’t know, never having had any. The more pressing question was, what was a husband for, when a woman could simply remove to her parents’ household, never to be seen again?
Chapter Twenty
Charlotte did not flatter herself that she was welcome at the Caerdenwal household, but after three weeks of polite distance from her husband, she needed a reason to leave her home, any reason at all.
Besides, she wanted to see how the baby was faring, and what household couldn’t use a bag of apples and one of pears? She’d also purloined some oranges from the larder, along with half a wheel of cheese and a tub of butter. A small ham had also fit into her basket. Cook’s growing consternation had stopped Charlotte’s plundering of the larders after she’d appropriated a loaf of sugar and raided the tea chest.
The lot of it rattled and jostled in the back of Charlotte’s gig as she drove over the frozen, rutted lane. Day by day, the sun set earlier and rose later, the temperatures dropped, and the wind became more frigid.
The weather felt like a metaphor for Charlotte’s marriage, and for her life. She’d put off socializing beyond family and the vicarage, because Sherbourne ought by rights to pay calls at her side.
Her visits to Haverford Castle were recitations of the correspondence she’d received from family, for Charlotte was quite up to date on her letters.
Quite. Even the rest of the Mrs. Wesleys had been tended to without any comment from Sherbourne.
Charlotte’s staff had so quickly accommodated her directions and preferences that the household fairly ran itself, which meant she retreated to the library where treatises on steam power at least helped her pass the time.
“Good day, Charlotte Sherbourne!”
Griffin St. David stood by the side of the lane, his hair windblown, his cheeks ruddy. He cut a handsome figure in his country attire, but what Charlotte liked most about him was his great, cheerful smile.
She drew the gig to a halt. “Good day, Griffin. Are you out taking the air?”
“Biddy chased me from the house. She said I am awful, though she didn’t mean it. I like to help in the kitchen, but sometimes…We burned the bread yesterday.” His grin said the loaves had been sacrificed for a fine purpose.
“You can keep me company. I’m on my way to pay a call on Maureen Caerdenwal and her mama.”
“I will visit the chickens,” Griffin said, climbing into the cart. “They are not my chickens, because I gave them away, but I know all of their names. There are six laying hens.”
“You were very generous.”
“Six chickens is not so many. I told Glenys that she must send over sugar and tea, and Radnor should give them a fall heifer so they’ll have milk, cheese, and butter through the winter. I love butter.”
Griffin loved life. He had no complicated depths, no guile. His view of life was uncluttered by moral subtleties, and he thrived on simple rules and the love of his family. Charlotte had a wild urge to confide her troubles in him—perhaps he could cleave the Gordian knot that tied up her marriage—but turning to Griffin would not do.
Assuming Charlotte could explain her problem in terms Griffin grasped, he would fret and pass along her worries to Biddy, and even that much talk felt like disloyalty to Sherbourne.
Whom Charlotte missed hour by hour, even when she could gaze upon his tired, handsome countenance down the distance of a beautiful antique cherry dining table.
“Are you cold?” Griffin asked. “Biddy says it will snow soon. I love snow. Snow makes everything pretty and cozy.”
The sky was a blue-grey quilt above a landscape of bare trees and brown fields. “Snow would be a change, though it tends to turn to mud.” Sherbourne would not welcome snow. His masons had made progress with the tram lines and had laid foundations for a central hall that would serve as a dormitory, school, store, and management office.
Some progress had also been made in setting up the machinery to sink the central shaft, but not enough progress—never enough.
Radnor had drawn up the plans for the central hall, Jones had approved, and Charlotte had been too proud to ask to see a copy. Heulwen’s gossip kept her somewhat informed, but lately even the loquacious maid had grown quiet.
“Mud makes Mr. Jones at the colliery use very bad language,” Griffin said. “Biddy will have a baby this summer.”
Welsh country air was apparently conducive to conception. “Congratulations. I will pay a call on Biddy to wish her well later this week. Are you worried?”
Griffin lounged against the seat, his boot propped on the fender, his elbow braced on the arm rest. “Not yet. Biddy is very healthy, and babies are wonderful.”
For Griffin that was enough information to quiet any misgivings.
Babies were wonderful. All over again, Charlotte wanted to take back the words she’d flung at Sherbourne in anger, but then…She hadn’t been wrong. Brantford was a disgrace who’d never been held accountable for his vile behavior. To enrich him unnecessarily was to collude in his sin.
“You are quiet, Miss Charlotte. Are you doing sums in your head? Biddy says you can. I like sums, but I can only do them on paper.”
Charlotte turned the cart down the track that led to the Caerdenwal cottage. “Few people enjoy sums, though I do. I use paper and pencil more often than not, while Mr. Sherbourne uses an abacus.”
Griffin studied the fallow fields. “I would like to learn how to use an abacus. Sums must come out right, everything just so. I am often very slow because I want the just-so answer, and with sums there is always a just-so figure that is correct. The other figures are not correct. I like that.”
“I do too.” He’d put his finger on something worth pondering. Charlotte liked just-so answers too, but Griffin had brushed up against some other insight, some fact Charlotte had been overlooking.
“I will tell Julian to give the Caerdenwal boy a dog,” Griffin said. “Next year, when the lad can walk. A nice dog like my Henry Tudor.”
Henry Tudor was a canine plough horse, though he was a well-behaved beast and loyal to Griffin.
“You are very kind, Griffin, to prevail on your brother and sister to assist this household.”
“They are my tenants and my neighbors. Love thy neighbor, right?”
And love thy husband.
Though Griffin was a courtesy lord and a duke’s son, the welcome he received at the cottage sugge
sted he might have been any tenant farmer or neighbor ducking in from the cold for a few minutes of a gossip.
He was even allowed to hold the baby, while Charlotte perched awkwardly on one of two chairs in the parlor and tried to make small talk with Maureen’s mother.
After a fifteen-minute eternity, Griffin departed for home, and Mrs. Caerdenwal had barely closed the door behind him before spearing Charlotte with a fierce blue-eyed gaze.
“We are very grateful, Mrs. Sherbourne, for all you’ve done for us, but you must not trouble yourself to come here again.”
Maureen had taken the baby into the other room, though of course she’d overhear every word.
“It’s no trouble, ma’am,” Charlotte said, rising and dodging around a sheaf of dried basil hanging from the rafter. “I’ll be on my way, having accomplished my aims. Lord Griffin predicts snow, and the day does seem to be getting chillier.”
She did not respond to the “no trespassing” ordinance flung at her feet, because she was too upset. What was wrong with wanting to see a child preserved from penury and starvation? What was wrong with aiding a victim of injustice?
“It’s not what you think,” Mrs. Caerdenwal said as she held the door for Charlotte.
“I beg your pardon?”
Mrs. Caerdenwal wedged through the door and closed it behind her, so she and Charlotte stood in the little yard, surrounded by hens clucking and pecking at the dirt.
“Himself sent money,” Mrs. Caerdenwal said, putting a bitter emphasis on the word money. “The baby’s father, that is. His note said running to our wealthy neighbor hadn’t been necessary, and a regular sum would come for the boy by post. It’s enough and then some. We’ll manage, if he keeps his word, and I suspect Mr. Sherbourne will see that he does.”
Relief seized Charlotte, despite the cold, despite her troubles. “Mr. Sherbourne had something to do with this?”
“The boy’s father referred to a wealthy neighbor, not a titled neighbor, and besides, His Grace isn’t that wealthy, not compared to many of his rank. We know that, but he’s our duke and he does right by us.”
“You don’t think Lord Radnor—?”
“Radnor is several miles distant and has never laid eyes on the child.”
The wind was bitter, and Mrs. Caerdenwal had only a shawl to protect her, and yet, Charlotte had more questions.
“Mr. Sherbourne has seen the baby?”
“Aye. He came here the one time, spoke with Maureen, and not two weeks later, Lord Griffin brings us a letter from the post with money. We’ll manage, Mrs. Sherbourne, and you have our thanks for everything.”
Charlotte took what she hoped was a polite leave and collected the gelding, who’d got loose from the fence post and stood cropping from a bush along the lane. Before she could climb into the gig, a figure turned off the road down the lane before the cottage.
He moved slowly, his great coat flapping, a scarf obscuring his features. An older man, Charlotte guessed from his gait and diminutive frame.
Hannibal Jones caught sight of Charlotte, paused, then resumed his progress.
Charlotte stepped into the gig, took up the reins, and got the vehicle turned on the verge.
Jones tipped his hat but said nothing. Charlotte nodded, though what on earth was he doing paying a call on this household, in this weather, when he had work to do at the colliery?
And how was she supposed to remain angry with Sherbourne, when he’d resolved the situation for the Caerdenwal family and never said a word about it to his own wife?
She steered the horse in the direction of the colliery, intent on taking advantage of Jones’s absence from the work site.
Also intent on confronting her husband.
* * *
The wind played tricks on Sherbourne’s hearing, so when wheels rattled outside the tent, he dismissed it as yet another auditory hallucination brought on by marital discord. A hundred times a day, he thought he heard Charlotte’s gig pulling up before the tent.
A hundred times an hour, he wished she’d bring him a parcel of sandwiches and a flask of hot tea.
And with an unrelenting ache, he wished he knew a way to meet her demand that Brantford be cast from their lives. His lordship had sent a note by post, inquiring as to when he could expect a revised repayment schedule from Sherbourne and remarking on the beautiful scenery in Monmouthshire.
Sherbourne had considered the budgets, the estimates, the available funds, and every way to rearrange them, but ousting Brantford could too easily create a cascade of nervous investors on other projects, as well as nervous creditors, and nervous employees.
“I was hoping I’d find you here,” Charlotte said.
She stood just inside the tent, looking windblown and chilled—also lovely, annoyed, and uncertain.
“Mrs. Sherbourne, come sit by the fire.”
She obliged, sitting in the least-battered chair. Sherbourne took the other seat and cast around for something to say that wasn’t too trite, too private, too honest, too—
Charlotte pulled off her gloves and held her hands above the little stove. “Hannibal Jones was paying a call on the Caerdenwal household when I left there not thirty minutes past.”
“I wasn’t aware he and the ladies were acquainted.”
“Neither was I, but I thought perhaps you’d sent him to keep an eye on them.”
Was that an accusation, a suggestion, or a mere question? “He passes that way when he travels to and from his lodgings in the village. I thought he was up on the hilltop securing the surveyor’s stakes in case we get snow.”
Charlotte untied her bonnet and set it amid the detritus on the nearest table. Loose papers and a pair of treatises were weighted down with an unlit lamp. A quill pen lay beside the lamp, along with a quizzing glass and a lump of hard, black coal.
“I want to thank you,” she said, casting Sherbourne an unreadable glance. “I mean that. I am happy to express my gratitude for what you did for those women and that tiny boy. That was decent of you, and I hadn’t thought to ask it of you.”
So absorbed was Sherbourne in assessing his wife’s mood, that making sense of her words took him a moment.
“I wrote a simple letter, gained permission from the ladies to send it, and that was that. I will cheerfully send another such letter if it becomes necessary.”
Charlotte snatched a sheaf of papers from the table and stared at them. “Haverford didn’t think to send that letter, and neither did the vicar or Lord Radnor. They’ve known of Maureen’s circumstances for months. Griffin kept a roof over their heads, but that doesn’t solve the real problem, does it?”
“For the boy, a roof over his head solves at least one problem. Have you eaten luncheon?”
She slipped the top paper behind the others. “I have not. I have a few pears and some cheese in the gig along with a flask of tea. The tea won’t be very hot.”
Pears and cheese with lukewarm tea sounded like a feast, provided Sherbourne could share his repast with Charlotte. She typically sat at her end of the dining table, a marital disaster masquerading as a portrait of fine manners.
Sherbourne found an orange rolling about in the back of the gig, along with the parcel Charlotte had described. A snow flurry danced down from above, and the horse—a fat, furry piebald cob named Nelson—blew out a white breath and cocked a hip.
“Thank you for the food,” Sherbourne said, passing Charlotte the orange. “If you’d peel that, I’ll find a knife and deal with the rest.”
Charlotte set aside the figures she’d been studying and rolled the orange between her palms. “I cannot decipher two consecutive lines of those calculations. Either Mr. Jones needs new spectacles, or he’s writing in a code known only to mining engineers. Griffin thinks we’re in for snow.”
That was more than Charlotte had said to Sherbourne at once for nearly three weeks.
“He and Biddy paid a call?”
Charlotte tore off a thick piece of orange rind. “He was out rambl
ing, and accompanied me to the Caerdenwal cottage. I’m not welcome to return there.” She took a bite from the rind and chewed for a moment. “I’ll send along the occasional basket, though, and Griffin is prevailing on Radnor to provide a fall heifer.”
“Griffin is kind.” As I am not. Why hadn’t Sherbourne given his wife a kitten when the gesture would have been seen as something other than manipulation? “How are you, Charlotte?”
She munched another bite of orange rind, which made Sherbourne’s teeth ache. “I miss you. I suspect I would miss you regardless, because you work so much, but I miss you here.” She tapped her heart. “I hate that you must work so hard. I hate that much of your hard work will go to benefit a monster.”
Did she expect him to lounge about on his rosy arse all day? “I cannot abide idleness any more than you can, and my hard work will go mostly to benefit myself and those who depend on me.” But he missed her too—in his heart, in his arms, in his dreams. “I’ve been meaning to bring you Jones’s figures to review, but the moment hasn’t been right.”
Charlotte tore the orange in two and gave him half.
“I can’t read his writing, Lucas. A month ago, his hand was crabbed, but legible. This,”—she waved the papers she’d been studying—“it’s nonsense.”
Sherbourne took the papers from her. Pencil scratchings covered much of the top page. As Charlotte said, the occasional digit was decipherable—a seven, a five, a four—but nothing like an equation or column of figures emerged from the confusion Jones had wrought.
“Perhaps he wrote this when in his cups.” Though Jones hadn’t at any point in recent weeks seemed tipsy, despite Radnor’s gossip to the contrary.
Charlotte separated a section of orange and ate it. “Mr. Jones wears spectacles. Maybe he wrote it when he couldn’t find his eyeglasses. My sister Megan is nearly blind without her eyeglasses, particularly as she grows fatigued.”
Nearly blind…
A Rogue of Her Own Page 28
