A Rogue of Her Own (Windham Brides #4)(83)
“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.