A Rogue of Her Own (Windham Brides #4)(85)
Very likely, Brantford’s cronies would have known what he was about, for he would have bragged of his progress and joked about his objective. Men did, and other men pretended not to take the boasting seriously, for then no guilt need trouble them, either. The same unspoken rules meant that boys at school could beat Sherbourne without mercy, while other boys pretended not to notice.
“When did you learn that your friend had misstepped?”
Charlotte sat up, though she kept the quilt about her. “She did not misstep. She was seduced by a conscienceless snake, one promising undying love and matrimony. He cozened her consent and her affections with his lies, and then he betrayed her trust.”
All true enough, and yet, young ladies were warned almost from birth against such scoundrels. Sherbourne would start warning his daughters from the moment of their conception.
“He offered marriage?”
“He did, on bended knee. I am very glad your proposal wasn’t offered from that ridiculous posture. He gave her a ring, which I also have, and he got her with child. Fern turned to me only when her situation was past denying. Her own father wanted nothing to do with her, but her brother agreed to take her in, and he and his wife are raising the child.”
Insight lifted a burden from Sherbourne’s memory. “Your old friend, Mr. Porter?”
“The very one. He might have been as hypocritical as his father, but I promised him sufficient coin to raise the boy, and in the end, he and his wife were kind to Fern.”
Would they have been as kind without Charlotte’s money? “You are supporting the child?”
Charlotte shot him a glance over her shoulder. “You are now, indirectly. I set aside a sum from my pin money. Do you mind?”
Sherbourne did not dare mind. “I mind that you didn’t tell me. I don’t begrudge the lad necessities when I was raised with every comfort. Few would come to the aid of a fallen woman as you have, Charlotte. Your loyalty is commendable.”
Charlotte rose and folded the quilt over the reading chair. “Is there more you would say? I intend to continue supporting the boy, Lucas. His father’s sins are not his fault.”
Sherbourne stood and took her hand. Her palm was hot and damp, her cheeks red, and her eyes glittery with spent tears. The lock of hair he’d cut short curled up at an odd angle by her jaw.
His wife was far from composed in her present state, and yet she was dear.
“The failings of the boy’s mother are also not of his making. Anybody with human parents should agree with you there. If we’re to believe our history books, King William himself was the child of a fallen woman.”
Charlotte withdrew her hand. “Fallen woman, Lucas? You call my friend a fallen woman? Why do you not refer to Brantford as a fallen man? Why is there never any such creature as a fallen man?”
Charlotte paced to the hearth, indignation ringing with every footfall. “When did Fern fall from honor? When she rebuked his lordship for his inappropriate correspondence? When she avoided him in London? When she believed his lies and trusted his promises? Why call her fallen, when with malice aforethought and a dash of casual violence, Brantford despoiled her, ruined her, got her with child, cast her out, made no provision for his own progeny, and none for the mother of his child, either?”
Skirts swishing, Charlotte paced before the fire. “Tell me again why my friend, my friend who died after delivering Brantford’s unclaimed son, is fallen, while his lordship is worth all the hours you put in at the colliery, all the late nights, all the careful estimates and hard work. Why should that man be allowed to continue to draw breath, much less profit from your efforts while he does?”
Too late, Sherbourne realized he was in the midst of a negotiation. Charlotte had a grievance, in the truest sense of the word—she grieved for her friend, and for the trust any young woman expected to be able to place in male decency. Both were gone, one just as surely as the other.
Which could not be helped.
“Charlotte, my fate has now become entangled with Brantford’s. He was in the wrong where Miss Porter was concerned, without doubt he was in the wrong, but we cannot change the past.”
Charlotte was sensible, she’d have to accept that reasoning.
She marched up to him, and despite her blotchy complexion, flyaway curls, and red nose, Sherbourne resisted the impulse to step back.
“I do not expect you to change the past, though God knows I’ve wished I could. I do, however, expect you to change the future. Cut your ties with Brantford, Lucas. He’s not worth your time, your coin, or your passing thoughts. Cut him out of our lives, and do what you can to limit his access to anybody from whom he might profit. That much is in your grasp, and I’ll content myself with it if I must.”
The expectation in her eyes, the righteous certainly that Sherbourne would not fail her made him want to howl.
“What you ask is impossible. I signed a contract, I gave my word, and Brantford has already let it be known I’m to improve on the terms agreed to, not renege on them.”
Charlotte’s regard shifted to the steady, gimlet gaze he’d seen her turn on a presuming lordling, the same look she’d give a streak of bird droppings on a park bench.
“You don’t even like Brantford. You don’t trust him, you regret your association with him, and now you know he’s dishonored a decent young woman and ignored his own child. Why would you choose his part over the honorable path?”