“Desiring your husband does not and never will make you wanton. It makes me damned lucky.”
Though even as Sherbourne shifted over her, worry nagged him: If he got Charlotte with child, that would be one more mouth to feed, one more set of expectations he could never escape. One more person who might someday—soon—be ashamed of an association with Lucas Sherbourne.
His immediate dependents would never be cast out into the elements, but in some ways, shabby gentility was a worse fate than outright penury.
Sherbourne knew from experience that disgust was easier to endure than pity.
Charlotte laced her fingers with his, as if drawing him away from the gloomy precipice of his thoughts. Such was her way with loving, that Sherbourne’s worries fell beneath an onslaught of desire. She bit him on the shoulder at the exact right moment to drive him over the edge, though he had the satisfaction of knowing he’d taken her with him.
She held back nothing, growling softly against his neck as pleasure overtook her, sinking her nails into his hip in a grip that satisfied even as it stung.
“You undo me.” Charlotte unwrapped her legs from his flanks some moments later, but kept her arms around him. “You absolutely undo me, Lucas. One has more understanding of why newlyweds are sent away for a month where none of their familiars will observe their adjustment to wedded bliss.”
He owed her a wedding journey, another unpaid debt. “When we’ve dealt with Brantford, I’ll take you into Cardiff, if you like, or up to the Lakes. A sea trip to the north might be pleasant.”
“Winter approaches,” Charlotte said, as Sherbourne slipped from her body. “Worse yet, my mother has threatened to pay a visit. Why can’t they leave us alone?”
Her lament was reassuringly grumpy. Perhaps she truly did enjoy being married to him?
Sherbourne rose, wrung out a flannel in the warm water by the hearth, and rinsed himself off.
Charlotte propped herself on her elbows and watched from the bed.
“Keep looking at me like that, Mrs. Sherbourne, and we’ll be late for supper.”
She flopped to her back. “Will the world come to an end, because a very tired man and his very new wife were late for supper? You’ll have to do better than that, Mr. Sherbourne. We can journey to the Lakes in spring, assuming all goes well at the works, and it will go well.”
“Radnor tells me Mr. Jones has a potential drinking problem,” Sherbourne—or some befuddled gudgeon—said. “A man who drinks can be fatally careless. Once Brantford is gone, I’ll see about replacing Jones.”
Charlotte smoothed a palm over the mattress. “Is this why you’ve been so preoccupied lately? Because you’re worried for the works?”
For his whole future—for their whole future. “In part. The bank has been giving me a spot of bother as well.”
“I would love to be left alone for hours at a bank,” Charlotte said, folding her hands behind her head. “All those lovely, lovely numbers. Pages and pages of them, as far as the eye can see.”
She’d not tucked the covers up high enough to hide her breasts, which was as far as Sherbourne’s eyes could see at the moment.
“When we’re next in London, I’ll turn you loose at the bank after business hours. You can prowl the ledgers like a mythical creature, spotting mistakes and inaccuracies and breathing fire upon them.”
“I’d like that.”
Except if he truly let her loose at the bank, sooner or later she’d learn that one of the investments had gone perilously sour, and Sherbourne hadn’t yet found a way to manage the damage. He considered explaining the canal situation to her, but she’d already closed her eyes, a goddess who’d earned her slumbers.
Sherbourne very nearly dressed to return to the works. Hannibal Jones was probably inebriating himself at that very moment, and the temperature was doubtless planning to plunge overnight.
Charlotte sighed—a contented, sweet sound. Who knew how long she’d be content with her choice of husband?
Sherbourne climbed back into bed, wrapped himself around his wife, and tried to set aside thoughts of the bank, the mine, the crumbling steeple, and a nosy earl in delicate health.
They all followed him into sleep anyway. Again.
Chapter Seventeen
Brantford had inherited his mines, and thus had no idea what a colliery should look like before shafts were sunk. He might have peppered Sherbourne with questions, except that the Marquess of Radnor hovered at Sherbourne’s elbow like an underfootman new to his livery.
“You are on the board of directors for this undertaking?” Brantford asked Radnor, as they returned to the white tent at the center of the planned works.
“I am the assistant director of the mine’s board,” Radnor said. “We in the peerage have an obligation to bring progress to our neighbors, don’t you agree, Brantford? What’s the use of having a family seat if one doesn’t take an interest in the surrounding parishes? Can’t have all of our best and brightest leaving for the colonies.”
“I’m told you have fine hunting on Radnor land,” Brantford replied, though Radnor had yet to extend an invitation to either ride to hounds or try a bit of shooting.
Inside the tent, Sherbourne was engaged in conversation with the engineer, Hannibal Jones. Based on a few discreet inquiries, Jones had a prickly reputation, though he’d answered all of Sherbourne’s questions readily and with proper deference for the august guest in their midst.
“Hunting hasn’t started here yet,” Radnor said. “The rain has made the ground too soft, though most of the crops are off. Perhaps later in the season we’ll have some sport to offer you.”
“Does Sherbourne ride to hounds?”
Sherbourne had collected a pile of papers from the longest table in the tent, and Jones was apparently explaining something to his employer.
“Sherbourne is a very competent horseman,” Radnor said. “Why do you ask?”
Because making money off of Sherbourne was all well and good, but too much socializing with him would not do.
“One doesn’t want to create awkwardness,” Brantford said. “Can’t invite the man to ride in my flight if he’s likely to tumble at the first fence.”
Veronica rode with the first flight, and the dash she cut in the saddle had drawn Brantford’s notice even before he’d realized the ambitions her family had held for her. He’d received a letter from her that very morning, and she was having a grand time in the company of her cousins at the family seat.
Without her husband.
“If you’re still in the area once the weather settles down,” Radnor said, “I’ll happily take you out shooting. At least you have the famed Haverford library to entertain you until then.”
Brantford had done more reading in the past several days than in the previous five years. Her Grace of Haverford did not believe in allowing a guest to while away an afternoon with a plump, pretty chambermaid when Sir Walter Scott was available instead.
The duke didn’t believe in allowing anybody or anything—much less a mere titled house guest—to upset his duchess. Their Graces’ mutual devotion was nauseatingly sincere.
Also slightly enviable.
“What can Sherbourne be going on about?” Brantford asked. “Tramping around in the mud has worked up my appetite, and I’d rather not linger in this wind and court another illness.”
He’d rather not have come to Wales, and had almost put that in a letter to his wife.
“Sherbourne is at these works in all kinds of weather,” Radnor said. “He’s here morning, noon, and night, and if you are to profit from his labors, then you can spare him a few minutes with his engineer.”