Charlotte Windham was a termagant who at least stood a chance of dealing effectively with Lucas Sherbourne.
“A crooked pot needs a crooked lid,” Haverford said. “They can be uncharming together, and raise up a brood of holy terrors in their nursery. Should I review dinner party etiquette with Griffin?”
Haverford poured himself a third cup of tea. No sense letting it go to waste.
“Griffin has joined us for any number of meals, and his manners are exquisite. What do we know of the Earl of Brantford?”
Griffin’s manners were a monument to rote memorization and practice. He had many limitations, but nearly perfect recall, often at the worst times.
“I honestly don’t know Brantford well. He says he’ll be in the area for some shooting—”
A tap sounded on the door of Her Grace’s private parlor.
“Come in,” Elizabeth called.
The butler stepped into the room. “Lord Radnor has come to—”
“No need to announce me.” The Marquess of Radnor, looking gloriously blond and fit, sidled around the butler. “I’m always welcome, or so I was told before I married into the family. Greetings, all. Duchess, you look radiant. Haverford, you look lucky to have chosen Her Grace for your duchess.”
Radnor bowed over Elizabeth’s proffered hand, took the place beside her on the sofa, then helped himself to the freshly poured cup of tea.
“I’m told hot tea is the latest fashion in hair tonics,” Haverford said. “Particularly when applied directly to the coiffure of a presuming caller.”
Radnor appropriated a piece of shortbread from Elizabeth’s plate. “Do your worst, Haverford, for my good spirits are beyond even your ability to dim. I bring joyous news.”
“You’re moving to France. Excellent, provided Glenys visits us often.”
Radnor balanced the cup and saucer on one knee and affected a concerned expression. “My, my. Is somebody going short of sleep?”
What an obnoxious…Well, yes. Somebody also missed the sister who’d shared his castle until recently. Glenys did visit, but she was thriving as Radnor’s marchioness, almost as if leaving Haverford Castle had been a relief.
“Your Grace,” Radnor said, addressing Elizabeth, “we must forgive Haverford his testy mood. He’s worried about you, and soon you will have to forgive me similarly, for Glenys is with child.”
Radnor’s sunny bonhomie faltered, and a rare shyness took its place.
“Congratulations,” Haverford said. “Take good care of my sister or I’ll kill you.”
Elizabeth resumed knitting. “You two gentlemen will take good care of each other, or Glenys and I will send you both to darkest Peru for a repairing lease. Please give Glenys my most sincere good wishes, and know that we’re ready to stand as godparents if that suits.”
This was part of the reason Haverford adored his wife. Elizabeth knew what to say, she knew what to do, and she went about saying and doing the appropriate things with no need to draw attention to herself.
“This is good news,” Haverford said. “If you’re to be the favorite uncle who spoils my children rotten, then I should have a chance to fulfill the reciprocal role. Will you leave us any shortbread?”
“Yours is better than ours,” Radnor said. “I must admit, the thought of becoming a father appeals. The idea of what Glenys must endure to become a mother, though…one worries.”
Elizabeth was watching Haverford as she deftly added stitches to her knitting.
“One does,” Haverford said slowly. “Incessantly. I suppose it’s good training for raising children.”
Radnor finished his first cup of tea—or Haverford’s third. “I’m told peppermint tea is soothing to the nerves. I shall doubtless become a peppermint tea drunk. I’m off to pass along my good news to the vicar. Prayers, you know. Can’t hurt.”
The bashfulness was back, while a lone piece of shortbread remained on Elizabeth’s plate.
Radnor was friendly by nature, though he was no fool. Once his temper was provoked, he was every bit as thunderous as he could be sanguine. He knew everybody and was universally liked, and also respected.
“Radnor, are you familiar with the Earl of Brantford?” Haverford asked.
“Quinton Bramley. He’s a few years younger than we are, family seat in Northumbria or the West Riding. Somewhere dreadfully bleak. Has an interest in coal mines. Indulges in the usual vices.”
The usual vices being a mistress, and moderate drinking and gambling.
“Sherbourne has sold him an interest in the colliery,” Haverford said. “Brantford is dropping around next week to inspect the progress of the works. Her Grace and I are to host the visit.”
Elizabeth whipped the bulk of whatever she was making aside and started on a new row. “The same works that suffered a mudslide earlier today.”
Radnor rose. “Those works. I heard that nobody was injured despite considerable damage to the grounds.”
“The damned hill decided to move itself a good thirty yards to the east,” Haverford said. “Sherbourne seems undaunted, but I’ve asked my tenants to lend a hand putting things to rights.”
“Sherbourne excels at seeming undaunted,” Radnor said. “Duchess, a pleasure as always. I’m off to the vicarage. Haverford, be a dear and see a man off, would you?”
Elizabeth remained serenely knitting on her sofa, though she doubtless knew Radnor was asking for some privacy with a friend.
“Away with you both,” she said. “Though if you could have a pot of China black sent up, I’d appreciate it. Somebody seems to have drunk all of mine.”
Radnor paused with one glove on, the other in his hand. “But Haverford told me last week—”
“A fresh pot,” Haverford said, “along with another plate of shortbread. No bother at all. Radnor, come along.”
Radnor kissed Elizabeth’s cheek, and came along like a good marquess who didn’t want to return home sporting a black eye.
“Glenys claims it’s early days,” Radnor said, once they’d gained the corridor. “I reckon that means another seven months of fretting and fussing before the real worry sets in. Do you know how large the newborn human is, Haverford?”
“I’m several months ahead of you pondering that alarming topic. Gives a man pause.”
“Gives a man a bilious stomach. The ladies marry us, knowing what the likely consequences will be. One can only marvel at such fortitude.”
Haverford paused at the top of the main staircase, for this was not a conversation to be overheard by servants.
“Why,” he asked, “does one marvel at such fortitude only after one has fallen arse over ears in love, married, and got a woman with child? We see babies everywhere, hear them squalling at every church service, and yet…”
“And yet, our babies will be different,” Radnor said. “Our entire worlds will be different, because we’re to become fathers. I’m scared witless. You will please tell me I’m being ridiculous, and never mention this discussion again.”
They would have this discussion regularly for the next thirty years. “If you weren’t concerned for Glenys, I’d have to call you out, but then there’d be nobody to talk sense to me when Elizabeth’s travail begins.”
“Is your digestion upset?” Radnor asked, lowering his voice. “I vow, Haverford, I’m in worse condition than Glenys in the morning.”
“You’re simply worried. The dyspepsia will pass.”
“Not for months. Months, this ordeal goes on. I already told Glennie we’re having an only child. Fat George can have the marquessate. My nerves are too delicate for more than one lying-in.”
“You were an only child. You need heirs.”
Radnor started down the steps. “If that’s your idea of cheering a fellow up, you can forget about being anybody’s godfather. I’ll prevail on Sherbourne and his new bride.”
Like hell. “Radnor, has impending fatherhood addled you that badly?”
“No, actually,” Radnor said, rounding the l
anding. “I will be a competent father because Glenys will see that I am. It’s the other part, which might cost me my wife less than a year after I married her, that bothers me. The part that could cause Glenys endless, awful suffering, and consign her to a lingering death. The part where she bleeds—”
Haverford joined his friend at the foot of the steps. “Radnor, get hold of yourself, or have Glenys get hold of you.”
“She does, frequently. This delightful discussion reminds me why I asked you to walk me to my horse.”
“It’s damned chilly outside, and I already braved the elements to make sure Sherbourne hadn’t been buried under tons of mud. Say what you have to say.”
“You asked about Brantford.” Radnor used the mirror above the foyer’s sideboard and donned his top hat just so. “I recall some talk, years ago. My mother passed it along, and her sources were extensive.”
“What sort of talk?”
“Brantford ruined a young lady. Got her with child and threw her over for the present countess.”
“You don’t mean he set up an opera dancer as his ladybird?”
“Of course not. Nobody would have thought twice about an arrangement like that. He all but courted a decent young woman of humble origins, then dropped her flat when the inevitable occurred. The lady was packed off to the countryside and not heard from again, but there was a child.”
“Many a squire regrets letting his daughter have a season in town.” And many a duke too?
“She wasn’t a squire’s daughter,” Radnor said, hand on the door latch. “Her papa was a minister, and she was his only daughter. A man who’ll ruin a minister’s daughter bears watching.”
This was Sherbourne’s idea of a business partner? “I appreciate the warning. My regards to Mr. MacPherson.”
Radnor went jaunting on his way, while Haverford went in search of two pots of tea. China black for the duchess, though she’d probably not drink a single cup.
Peppermint for him, and for his nerves.
* * *
“Heulwen, can you take some letters to the posting inn for me tomorrow?”
“Aye, ma’am,” the maid replied as she unlaced Charlotte’s stays. “You could just as well leave anything for the post on the sideboard in the foyer, though. Crandall will see to them.”
“I’d rather not chance these letters sitting about until the next groom or gardener wanders into the village.”
Charlotte’s back ached, possibly from the journey to and from the works on the horrendously muddy lane. The relief of being unlaced was exquisite.
“As you like, ma’am. Shall I brush out your hair?”
“No, thank you. I’ll bid you goodnight, Heulwen. I’ll have several letters for you to post in the morning. My thanks for all your help today at the colliery.”
“That’s a lot of mud what came down that hill. Will we be taking the nooning out to the works tomorrow?”
Heulwen was clearly eager for any opportunity to consort with the groom, Morgan, but Charlotte hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“I don’t know. I’ll ask Mr. Sherbourne.” If he ever comes to bed. “Goodnight, Heulwen.”
Charlotte’s husband had gone back to the works, his saddle bags bulging with sandwiches and a flask. He’d told Charlotte not to wait up for him. Married life thus far had too much of waiting and worrying, and not enough of anything else.
Though last night had been…splendid.
Heulwen tarried, refolding clothing already folded, smoothing covers that hadn’t a single wrinkle.
“Heulwen, I’d like some solitude.” Charlotte also wanted to throw something fragile and use foul language, because her husband should have been here with her, settling in at the end of the day. The intimacies they’d shared the previous night had been wondrous beyond imagining, and then she’d had that disagreement with him on the lane…
Though even that hadn’t ended awfully. They’d managed. They’d been civil and brought the conversation to a friendly conclusion.
“Goodnight, then, ma’am. Ring if you need anything, such as a bath for Mr. Sherbourne, for example. Or a tray. Some chocolate. A fresh bucket of coal. Anything.”
“I’ve already told the kitchen to keep bath water heating.” Charlotte jabbed a finger in the direction of the door, and finally Heulwen left.
Charlotte found her sketch pad and drawing pencils and pulled a chair closer to the fire. The colliery sat between three hills. To the south, the land fell away in the direction of the sea. The retaining wall had been built along the eastern boundary of the planned village, though the slope rising to the west was less steep.
She was still rearranging the work site on paper an hour later when Sherbourne walked into the bedroom without knocking.
“Haverford sent a dozen men.” No greeting, no kiss to Charlotte’s cheek. “Radnor came trotting by and said he’d do likewise. He’s on my board of directors, and of course must poke his nose into the works.”
Charlotte yanked the bell pull three times. “You resent their support?”
Sherbourne took some time divesting himself of papers, two pencil stubs, and a folding knife. Next came a signet ring, his watch, his cravat pin. He shrugged out of his coat and arched his back, hands braced at the base of his spine.
Should Charlotte assist him? Leave him in peace? Ask? Why, if polite society must hold marriage out as the apex of a woman’s ambitions, was so little done to explain how she was to go on once the great prize had been won?
“I resent everything,” Sherbourne said. “Ignore me. A goddamned mountain of mud sits where my tenant cottages should be, and I have no faith another wall won’t give way just as easily.”
Charlotte knew exactly the mood he was in, because it visited her frequently. “So don’t build another wall. Clear enough mud to make the lane passable and well drained, then put the houses elsewhere.”
Fatigue grooved Sherbourne’s mouth and ringed his eyes—fatigue and frustration. “I can’t put the damned houses in the sea, though I’d like to.”
A tap sounded on the door.
“Your bath,” Charlotte said, admitting one footman wheeling in the copper monstrosity, and a half dozen more bearing steaming buckets.
Sherbourne’s expression said he did not want to bedamned bathe, he did not want to be blasted reasonable, and he did not want to dratted deal with a wife who also wasn’t feeling entirely reasonable herself.
Turnbull brought up the rear, laying out a shaving kit, then bowing and retreating with the parade of footmen. Two full buckets sat steaming on the hearth.
Charlotte advanced on her husband. “The water is hot, you are doubtless chilled to the bone. Your clothing is filthy, while you are by nature fastidious. I’m sorry if the notion of soaking in warm, fragrant water and scrubbing yourself from head to toe annoys you, but in all the lending libraries in the world, there is no manual on how to cosset a contrary husband. Please get into the water.”
He remained silent while Charlotte untied his cravat and collected his sleeve buttons.
“Where would you put the houses?” he asked, as she started on his waistcoat.
“Not now, Mr. Sherbourne. Shirt off.”
Long ago, Fern Porter had said that her papa’s mistress was the church. The congregation made endless demands, at all hours, regardless of the inconvenience. Aunt Esther had once remarked that Parliament was a jealous mistress, and Papa had muttered that he competed with all of Wales for pride of place in Mama’s heart.
Charlotte was jealous of a muddy patch of ground that didn’t even qualify as a colliery yet.
Sherbourne sat by the fire to take off his boots, which were a disgrace in progress. He set them outside the door and passed Charlotte his waistcoat.
“Your expression, madam, would have inspired Napoleon to blow retreat at Waterloo before the first shot was fired.”
Another tap sounded on the door. Charlotte took a tray from a footman, and shut and locked the door.
“You
’d best make use of the water while it’s hot, sir.”
Sherbourne’s shirt and breeches came off, and Charlotte was appalled to see a long, dark bruising rising along one hip.
“You’re hurt.”
“I’m clumsy,” he said, lowering himself into the water. “Slipped and landed on a disobliging rock. God, this feels heavenly.”
Not quite a thank-you, but gratifying nonetheless. “Shall I wash your hair?”
“Please, and don’t let me fall asleep. What’s on the tray?”
“Meat pastries, ale, apple tarts. Shall you wash before I tend to your hair?” And are you the same man who was so patient and understanding with me earlier today?
Sherbourne lifted a pastry and sniffed it. “I am famished. My hands will taste of soap if I wash myself. Perhaps you’d assist?”
He was disappointingly nonchalant about this request, more interested in his viands than in flirting with his wife.
Charlotte knelt by the tub. “Give me your foot.”
She became better acquainted with her husband’s person part by part. Large feet, the arches somewhat high, the second toe longer than the first. Two toes on the left foot were crooked, which Sherbourne explained as the result of having been stepped on by a fractious horse in his youth.
One ankle was larger than the other—a broken ankle having occurred when he’d been tripped at supper his first term at public school.
Sherbourne had muscular calves and thighs, though Charlotte had known that. His hands were in proportion to the rest of him and not the hands of a gentleman for all their elegance. Calluses covered his palms, suggesting he often indulged in manual labor.
Long arms, one of which had been broken in a schoolyard melee, broad shoulders, hair a bit in need of a trim at the back. Charlotte rinsed the soap from that hair.
“Shall I shave you?” Not that she’d ever shaved a man before.
“Perhaps in the morning.”
She took the tray—not a crumb of food left—and set it outside the door. While she relocked the door, Sherbourne lounged in the tub, one foot propped on the rim, the tankard of ale in his hand.
A Rogue of Her Own Page 17