A Rogue of Her Own (Windham Brides #4)(87)



Faced with Elizabeth’s gracious understanding, Charlotte grasped exactly why Sherbourne had no patience with his titled neighbors.

“Haverford knows next to nothing about mines.” Charlotte pulled her driving gloves out of her reticule and jerked them on. “That is not an insult, that is a fact. His Grace’s ignorance did not stop him from dictating to Sherbourne many details of the colliery’s appointments, and they are expensive details. I could lend Haverford some books. Big, heavy, bound books, and then you might believe me.”

Drip, drip, drip. Thunk. Elizabeth set the watering can on the table, where it would doubtless leak for the next two hours and warp the wood.

Charlotte did not care.

“You are upset,” Elizabeth said, sounding very much like their auntie, the Duchess of Moreland. “I will overlook your tone, because when I believed that Haverford and I were to part, I was a wreck.”

“Now you tell me I’m a wreck and take on your Older Sister of Doom voice. I am not wrong, Elizabeth. Haverford dictated terms in ignorance, and Brantford is awful, and sometimes, I think not a single adult male should be allowed out without a nanny.”

Charlotte set the watering can onto the packed earth floor, batted aside a gauzy frond of foliage, and marched to the door. She jerked on the door latch, but the humidity of the conservatory had made the mechanism unreliable. She was still rattling the door when Elizabeth’s arms came around her.

“You love him,” she said. “You love Sherbourne, else you’d never be this overwrought. You love that man like you’ve never loved another.”

Charlotte’s ire subsided, to the bright, steady flame of indignation she’d carried thanks to Brantford for years.

“Love isn’t supposed to hurt, Bethan. Not like this. Never like this.”

“You have been hurting for a long time,” Elizabeth said, stepping back. “I didn’t see it, probably nobody saw it, but now you can’t look away from it. That’s good, Charl. We can’t heal wounds that remain unacknowledged. I’ll say something to Haverford about the mines.”

Sherbourne had seen the bewilderment behind Charlotte’s exasperation and testiness, and abruptly, all Charlotte wanted was to assure herself that her husband was whole and well. She longed to hear the decisive click of his abacus, to feel the muscular security of his arms about her in the dark.

“I’m sorry for my temper,” she said. “You’re right. I am terribly overset.”

Charlotte saw herself out, and as the horse trotted back to Sherbourne Hall, she admitted that Elizabeth was right about something else too: Charlotte loved her husband, loved him with an abiding respect that had been a significant relief, given how few men she encountered who bothered to earn her esteem. Sherbourne was at the top of that very short list, and if he should tumble, felled by financial pride, Charlotte’s heart would never recover.





Chapter Nineteen



A frisson of sympathy for Hannibal Jones stole through Sherbourne’s mind as he stared at the figures on the page. Charlotte would delight in deciphering these crabbed calculations—would have delighted in them, had she not stormed off to the safety of her sister’s castle, likely never to be seen again.

For the first time in his life, Sherbourne was tempted to consume a quantity of strong drink. Perhaps that was Hannibal Jones’s problem. He drank because Mrs. Jones was lost to him forever.

If Sherbourne mourned abandonment by his wife after less than a month of marriage, what must Jones be suffering, and how must that affect his concentration?

The library door clicked open, and Sherbourne tossed down his pen, ready to rebuke any footman who’d failed to knock when the master was intent on brooding away the evening. Brooding and possibly getting drunk.

“I missed luncheon and my sister failed to offer sustenance,” Charlotte said. “I’ve ordered a tray.”

The relief that coursed through Sherbourne was undignified and nearly complete, but for a thin vein of resentment running near his pride. He rose and remained behind his desk rather than approach his wife.

“Mrs. Sherbourne. Good afternoon.”

“Darkness has fallen. I am sorry for my earlier temper, for I ought not to have spoken to my lawfully wedded husband in anger, and yet I am angry still.”

She could be furious, and he’d still rejoice that she hadn’t left him—yet—though if she intended to cling to her anger, then Sherbourne could feel less guilty about his own.

Charlotte was no longer in her driving ensemble. She wore a day dress of unrelieved brown, her hair was ruthlessly caught up in chignon, and no trace of her earlier tears remained. She reminded him of the acerbic young woman who’d endured a bumbling proposal from Viscount Neederby.

“Your ire is understandable.” Sherbourne was prepared to be gracious but firm, and thus he sidestepped the word “justified.”

Charlotte gave the globe a spin. “Then you’re willing to cut Brantford loose?”

“Of course not. I’ve signed a contract with him, and he’ll be difficult if I’m anything other than generously accommodating.”

“I see.”

Sherbourne knew better. He knew better than to take that bit of bait, redolent with wifely indignation. “What do you see?”

She spun the globe the opposite direction. “I see that honor ceases to matter when a man’s business interests are at stake. I had thought a gentleman’s honor ought to be more scrupulously in evidence where coin is apt to tempt him from the path of decency. I see that I was wrong. Profit renders honor null and void.”

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