Haverford put down the poker and lounged against the mantel as if he owned the house, the grounds, its fixtures, outbuildings, and livestock. “Been going short of sleep have you? Tending conscientiously to your marital duties?”
“I have escorted my lady wife more than one hundred fifty miles along the king’s highway in less than favorable weather. You will please collect your wife and don’t allow her back on this property for a week. Perpetual absence on your part would be a singularly insightful wedding gift.”
Sherbourne took another sip of his brandy—only the best quality graced his decanters—when he wanted to hurl his drink at the wall. Was a quiet meal with his new wife too much to ask? A little privacy to show her about her new home?
A chance to think through her disclosures in the coach? Charlotte’s tale of illicit love gone awry was significant. Whoever authored the downfall of Charlotte’s friend had in a sense ruined Charlotte as well, for much of her innocence had died with her friend.
“That is not the expression of a man contemplating marital bliss,” Haverford said, wandering away from the fireplace. “Give the ladies time to visit over a pot of tea. Elizabeth was ecstatic to learn of your engagement to Charlotte, and my duchess should be allowed a chance to interrogate her sister.”
Sherbourne settled himself onto a sofa that had learned his exact contours years ago. “Sisters interrogate each other?” Charlotte certainly hadn’t had many questions for her new husband.
Haverford appropriated the middle of the same sofa, which caused the cushions to bounce. “Are matters off to an acceptable start between you and Mrs. Sherbourne?”
“Again, this is none of your business, but because you will pester me without mercy until I gratify your vulgar curiosity: I hardly know if matters with Charlotte are off to an adequate start.”
Haverford propped his boots on a hassock. “Then they are not. If a woman is pleased with her new spouse, he’ll know it until he’s sore and exhausted.”
Sherbourne was sore and exhausted. “You have been married a mere handful of weeks, Your Nosiness. You are hardly an expert on holy matrimony, much less on Charlotte Sherbourne.”
The name pleased him. He hoped that someday it pleased his wife.
“I am becoming an expert on how to make my duchess happy. I suggest you apply yourself to the same subject regarding your own spouse.”
“The wife who agreed to marry me only after we’d been found in a compromising position by Their Graces of Moreland? The same wife who, five minutes previous to Their Graces’ untimely interruption, had been telling me I did her a great honor, but to take myself the hell off? That wife?”
Haverford rose and brought the bottle to the sofa. “Dear me, Sherbourne. How does a woman who’s refused your suit manage to be in a compromising situation with you five minutes later? That’s like no sort of refusal I’ve heard of.”
A comforting thought that had kept Sherbourne company in an otherwise unforgiving saddle. He held up his glass, and Haverford obliged with another half inch of his host’s brandy.
“You don’t accuse me of forcing her.”
“I’m not stupid, and Charlotte Windham would have had your tallywags in a knot before you’d so much as kissed her, had she been unwilling.”
“Consenting to a kiss isn’t the same as consenting to marriage.” Which thought had also kept Sherbourne company in that unforgiving saddle.
“She did consent to the marriage too, didn’t she? This is excellent brandy, if I do say so myself.”
“I sent a case over to the castle to remark the occasion of your marriage. Do you have any bastards, Haverford?”
Haverford set his drink aside. “I beg your pardon?”
“We’re family now, God help us. Your business is my business.”
“I have no illegitimate offspring. What about you?”
“None. Why doesn’t a duke of nearly ancient years have any by-blows? Polite society hasn’t grown that priggish, has it?”
“Sherbourne,” the duke said gently, “you are married to the granddaughter of a duke, the sister of two duchesses, the cousin of countless titles. You are now polite society, which ought to restore anybody’s faith in miracles. I haven’t any children born out of wedlock because they and their mamas cost money and create complications. I’m none too wealthy and prefer to avoid needless drama.”
“So by-blows are still acceptable, and turning one’s back on them is not?”
“You’ve become a quick study. Moreland himself raised a pair of by-blows with the ducal herd. If a man takes responsibility for his actions, society tolerates the results. If he doesn’t, he’s no gentleman.”
Then society must know nothing of the affaire that had resulted in the ruin of Charlotte’s friend.
“I assume you’ve looked in on the colliery,” Sherbourne said. “How do matters stand there?”
Haverford took that bait. The duke had resisted allowing any mines in the valley, until he and Sherbourne had reached a compromise: one mine, developed along Haverford’s notions of the valley’s best interests. The duke refused to own shares in the venture, which made his informal oversight disinterested.
Ninety minutes later, Sherbourne was finally escorting Haverford and his duchess to the front door. Charlotte did look a bit more the thing for having been closeted with her sister.
“Did you have a peek at your bedchamber?” Her Grace asked as she kissed Sherbourne on the cheek.
“I’m sure it’s lovely,” he replied.
Haverford held out Her Grace’s gloves. “Stop whispering to my duchess.”
“We’re family now,” the duchess said. “Whispering is part of the fun. Come along, Haverford, I’ve a few things to whisper in your ear as well.”
They wafted down the steps on a cloud of connubial damned joy, leaving behind a profoundly welcome quiet.
Sherbourne both closed and locked the door, feeling as if he’d repelled a siege.
“They’re always like that,” Charlotte said, a little forlornly. “They were that way in town too. I don’t think they knew anybody else was at the church when they spoke their vows.”
“I’ve banished them for a week. Have you ordered a bath?”
“That is a splendid notion.”
“Let’s have a tray in the library, and by the time your bath is ready, we’ll have eaten.”
Sherbourne’s library was a mere gesture compared to the collection at Haverford Castle, which meant the room was cozy. They ate in companionable informality, though Sherbourne marveled to think he could discuss ordering a bath with a female, and she regarded the idea as splendid rather than scandalous.
Charlotte excused herself to enjoy her bath, and Sherbourne used the time to go through the correspondence stacked in date order on his desk. He gave Charlotte an hour—fifty-two minutes—to soak, then made his way to the ground floor suite now serving as the master bedroom.
He found the new Mrs. Sherbourne swaddled in his favorite dressing gown, fast asleep in a chair by the fire.
“Thus begins the wedding night,” he murmured.
Mrs. Sherbourne slumbered on.
After he’d warmed the sheets and pillows, Sherbourne scooped her up and deposited her on the bed, dressing gown and all. He tucked the covers around her, blew out the candles, banked the fire, and went back to the correspondence waiting for him in the library.
*
Charlotte slept like a debutante after her court presentation, felled by profound fatigue and relentless worry. Her first thought, before she’d entirely awakened, was that she was near the ground, the safest place to be.
She opened her eyes and was greeted by unfamiliar surroundings, and yet the sense of being anchored rather than one or two floors higher than she preferred would not leave her.
“Mr. Sherbourne said to let you have your rest, ma’am. I’ve kept the tea hot, and there’s chocolate too, if you prefer.”
The voice belonged to a giantess of a maid, and she’d spoken in Welsh.