A Rogue of Her Own (Windham Brides #4)(29)

“I look forward to meeting her and your father.”

No, Sherbourne clearly did not, and Charlotte had her doubts that Mama would have visited at all, but for Elizabeth duchessing nearby in nothing less than a genuine crenelated castle.

“Mama will lecture your ear off in Welsh,” Charlotte said. “I love to hear her speak in her native tongue, love the music of her scolds. Papa barely gets along in Welsh, but he insisted his offspring be proficient.”

“My servants all speak English and Welsh both. You may address them as you please.”

Our servants. Sherbourne was warm and solid, and a good deal more pleasant to lean against than the coach squabs. But what to talk about? What to talk about for the next half century?

“Would you like to have friends pay us a visit, Charlotte?”

“No, thank you. I’m sure we’ll have a steady parade of family over the years. They’ll want to look in on us, and Elizabeth is right next door. Mama loves her homeland, and traveling here by sea isn’t that difficult for those closer to the coast.”

The coach hit a spectacular pothole, tossing Charlotte nearly into her husband’s lap.

“I assure you, Sherbourne Hall is appointed as elegantly as any Mayfair mansion,” he said. “You needn’t worry that your friends will pity you for your domicile.”

Charlotte unlooped his arm from her shoulders. “Your home was once a ducal dower house, from what I understand. Of course it will be commodious.” In his way, Sherbourne was trying. Charlotte’s conscience compelled her to extend an olive branch. “The fact is, I can think of nobody to invite.”

The dratted coach chose then to sway around a curve, all but shoving Charlotte against her husband.

“Not a single soul?” Sherbourne asked. “No friends from finishing school, ladies who made their come out with you, former governesses, that sort of thing?”

Charlotte had wondered similarly about her husband: Who were his friends? “Most of the women I made my come out with have long since married and started families. Finishing school was years ago, and I have a wealth of sisters and cousins. One young lady who was like a sister to me has gone to her reward.”

Saying the words hurt. Charlotte thought often of Fern Porter, but she almost never spoke of her.

“A good friend?” Sherbourne asked.

Outside the rain pounded down, and the countryside went by in a dreary brown blur. Autumn was more advanced here, not a benevolent easing of summer’s heat, but a harbinger of winter’s dark and cold.

“She was a best friend,” Charlotte said softly. “Fern and I were inseparable from the first day we met at the age of eleven. We shared a room at school, we shared hopes and fears, and got into such mischief. When we had to separate over holidays, we’d write to each other daily. I had hoped she’d marry one of my cousins, though she was a mere minister’s daughter.”

Sherbourne’s arm had found its way around Charlotte’s shoulders again. Maybe husbands and wives traveled like this, all snuggled up and informal despite the potholes.

“Fern became enamored of a handsome bounder after we finished school,” Charlotte went on. “She couldn’t afford London seasons, but her family scraped together some means, and we sewed her dresses ourselves. When she came to town, she went everywhere with me. Then I realized she’d stopped joining me on many of our outings.”

“She was smitten?”

Sherbourne’s tone was indulgent, the mature male making a tolerant allowance for the follies of young women. Charlotte could leave him to his ignorance, but Fern’s memory deserved honesty.

“She was smitten, then she was ruined, then she was dead.”

Sherbourne took Charlotte’s hand. “I’m sorry. I hope she did not take her own life.”

This was the hardest part, the part that still had the power to make Charlotte’s throat ache. “She had a child, a little boy. She wrote to me, said she was happy despite all because she loved that child more than life. She did not recover from her lying in. The child’s father—a lord’s son—never acknowledged her letters, never so much as apologized for her ruin.”

Charlotte braced herself for a platitude, which she would somehow manage to endure without tossing Sherbourne from the coach.

These things happen.

A cautionary tale.

Where was the girl’s family when she was going so badly astray?

Such a pity.

And the one she dreaded most: You were her friend. Why couldn’t you talk sense into her?

Why did nobody ever talk sense into the man who caused such tragedies? Why wasn’t he at least deprived of the ability to wreck another young woman’s life and leave another child to be raised in poverty and disgrace?

“Who was the father?” Sherbourne asked.

“I don’t know. I have a likeness of him that Fern sent me to save for the child lest her family destroy it, but I have no idea of his name. He frequented Mayfair ballrooms, so he had means as well as family connections. He also had a fiancée with fat settlements, though he didn’t bother to tell Fern that until it was too late. If I ever find out who he is, I won’t answer for the consequences.”

Sherbourne propped a boot on the opposite bench. “If you do find out, I might be able to ruin him. I’m part owner of a bank that holds many mortgages for the Mayfair set, and I have some influence in Parliament. If his family is titled, so much the better. We can make an example of him and ensure all and sundry know why his debts are being called in.”