I’m in Wales, in my husband’s house. In my new house. “We’re on the ground floor, aren’t we?” Charlotte could hardly recall arriving, though Elizabeth had been on hand, and then there had been enormous trays in the library, to which Sherbourne had done swift justice. Charlotte had enjoyed a lovely, hot, bath…
“Right you are, ma’am. The footmen had a time moving the furniture downstairs, but Her Grace got us organized. Would you like breakfast in bed?”
The bed was huge and singularly lacking in evidence of another occupant. “I’ll use the table by the window. What’s your name?”
The girl—for she was quite young, despite her grand proportions—popped a curtsy. “Heulwen Jones, ma’am. Most at Sherbourne Hall call me Heulwen, because half the staff are Joneses.”
Heulwen meant sunshine, and the name suited her. She was plain and freckled with bright red hair peeking from beneath a white cap.
Charlotte struggled from the bed, and Heulwen held up a dressing gown Charlotte hadn’t seen since she’d left London.
“You unpacked for me?”
“Mr. Sherbourne said we were to see to your every comfort. When he uses that tone, even lazy Owen Jenkins pays heed. Owen is ever so handsome to hear his mama tell it. Handsome is as handsome does, I always say. Chocolate or tea, ma’am?”
“Let’s start with chocolate. Owen is the first footman, if I recall correctly?”
Heulwen made the bed and freely discussed her coworkers while Charlotte munched on fluffy eggs and buttered toast. Most-call-me-Heulwen was not by any standard a London house servant.
Thank the heavenly intercessors for that mercy.
“What did you mean, that the footmen had to move furniture about?” Charlotte asked, when the maid had laced her into a comfortable day dress.
Heulwen tidied up the tea cart, making enough racket to mortify any Mayfair housemaid. “Mr. Sherbourne sent word to the duchess that the master bedroom was to be moved to the ground floor. Himself takes an occasional queer start, and Her Grace says newlyweds must be indulged. Her being newly wed to His Grace, she must know what she’s about. And she’s your sister, and a duchess, so we did as we were told.”
Sherbourne had moved his bedroom to the ground floor?
“Heulwen, you have made my first morning in my new home comfortable, and for that I thank you. Have you any idea where Mr. Sherbourne might be?”
Town servants didn’t expect thanks, and town employers would not ask the maid where the master had got off to. Town was one hundred and fifty miles away, and for the first time, Charlotte was glad.
“Mr. Sherbourne has gone down to the works, ma’am, and best he does that while the rain has let up. I’d rather it snow, though Mrs. Moss says I’m daft, but I’m not. We’ve had nothing but rain for the past fortnight, and enough is enough. Snow is much prettier than mud, I always say.”
The day outside had a sunny, blustery look that presaged changeable weather and swift-moving clouds. Like friendly servants, fresh air was another rarity in London, especially as the coal fires heated up in colder weather.
“Please ask Mrs. Moss to meet me in the library,” Charlotte said, opening one of two large wardrobes. She was greeted with an assortment of waistcoats, shirts, and morning coats.
One question answered. The second wardrobe held Charlotte’s effects. She wrapped her favorite plain wool shawl about her shoulders.
“Tomorrow, you needn’t bring both tea and chocolate for me. Chocolate will do.”
Heulwen gave her a curious look. “Yes, ma’am.”
Last night’s glimpses of the house had left an impression of luxury on a tasteful scale. Sherbourne Hall wasn’t a castle, but neither was it a manor house with bare, narrow corridors and more pantries than bedrooms. The appointments were spotless, the carpets bright, the corners free of cobwebs.
The staff valued either their master or their wages, and the housekeeper was competent. The master of the house apparently set little store by his own life, however, for he failed to appear for either luncheon or dinner.
The clock was chiming ten when Charlotte gave up pretending to embroider in the library, and returned to the bedroom. She dismissed the maid, built up the fire for the night, and started rehearsing her first proper rant as Mrs. Lucas Sherbourne.
The unforgivably neglected, furiously impatient, anxious-beyond-all-bearing Mrs. Lucas Sherbourne.
*
Thus far, Sherbourne did not like being married. He liked his wife well enough, what he knew of her, but he did not like his household having been put at sixes and sevens by the addition of a female. His valet was nowhere to be found, when by rights, Turnbull ought to have been dozing in a handy dressing closet.
Sherbourne’s sleeping arrangements, his staff, his schedule, his everything was changing because he’d taken a wife.
And there she slept, in the same chair by the fire where he’d found her the previous night.
Sherbourne washed as thoroughly and quietly as he could, and decided against shaving. As tired as he was, he’d probably cut his own throat and not notice until Charlotte scolded him for the resulting mess.
Another night in the library beckoned, lest he waken at some ungodly hour and reach for his wife uninvited.
“Mr. Sherbourne.” Charlotte hadn’t moved, though she had opened her eyes. Cats did that, went from restful contemplation to poised alertness merely by opening their eyes.
“Madam, I apologize for waking you.” Apologizing was a skill smart husbands doubtless perfected in the first week of marriage.
“Where have you been, sir?”
Charlotte’s tone—one he’d not heard since he’d been in leading strings—rather woke him up. “At the colliery, where apparently nothing can go forward without my hand on the figurative plough. If you want to tear a strip off me for abandoning you the livelong day, now is a good time to do so, because I’ll sleep through most of your lecture.”
He dared not admit that he’d been so overset by the state of works that he’d lost track of the time.
Charlotte rose and came closer, bringing with her the floral scent of French soap. She wore a dressing gown that covered her from neck to toes, but the way she moved told him that beneath the satin finery, she wore no stays or bindings.
“You had the master bedroom moved to the ground floor. Why?”
Because my wife shouldn’t have to be afraid even as she dreams. “Because you’ll sleep better in a room without a balcony. If you sleep better, so will I.”
His honesty earned him a small smile. “What’s amiss at the mine?”
“Everything, and it’s not even a mine yet. My engineer claims he was laid low by an ague, but I suspect he overimbibes, which was why I could hire him away from the works at Waxter. If something seems too good to be true, it is too good to be true.”
“What about last night?” Charlotte smoothed the lapels of his dressing gown. “Were you at the works last night too?”
In his nightmares. “I fell asleep at my desk in the library.”
“Ah, but why did you fall asleep at your desk in the library? Are you having second thoughts about this marriage?”
And third and fourth thoughts. Also married thoughts about the woman standing barefoot before him.
“I spoke vows, Charlotte. Second thoughts don’t come into it.”
She gave him a disappointed look. Too late Sherbourne realized he’d blundered into a verbal trap. If he’d answered honestly—yes, this hasty, expedient union had left him with many reservations—Charlotte would be hurt, even if she’d been harboring similar doubts.
If he professed a false enthusiasm for their marriage, she’d be disappointed in him for dissembling.
“If you have no second thoughts, Mr. Sherbourne, you are the first newlywed in the history of marriage to enjoy certainty about nuptial obligations entered into under dubious circumstances. I have second thoughts.”
After firing off that round of marital artillery, Charlotte marched to the bed, unbelted her robe, and climbed beneath the covers.
Sherbourne considered another night on the library sofa, another retreat into a bachelor’s privileges, and rejected the notion. The library was chilly, the sofa lumpy, and the whole room smelled of peat smoke and books.