“He killed my friend, Lucas. That vile, rutting, smiling, despicable, mortal sin of a man lied to my friend, struck her, and cast her out when she was with child. It was Brantford, and I’ve entertained him at my own table. I gave him my hand, I curtsied to him, when I should have driven a knife through his heart.”
Charlotte pushed away from the desk, needing to put distance between herself and the image of evil on the blotter. Sherbourne caught her before she stumbled, and then Charlotte was weeping uncontrollably against her husband’s chest.
“Lucas, he killed my friend. I cannot bear it. He killed my friend, and there was nothing I could do.”
Sherbourne swept her up in his arms, settled with her on the sofa, and even produced a much-needed handkerchief, and still Charlotte could not cease weeping.
*
All of Charlotte’s passion, her magnificent dignity and decency, fueled hot, miserable tears that wet Sherbourne’s shirt and broke his heart. She cried for her friend and for her own lost faith in gentlemanly honor. He knew—because this was his wife, the woman he’d been born to partner, the woman who’d frightened him witless when he’d thought she’d played him false—that the last lament was the deepest cut.
There was nothing I could do.
He held her, he rocked her, he stroked her hair, and kissed her brow until she slowly quieted.
“I hate him,” Charlotte said, voice raspy and low. “Lucas, I will hate him until the day I leave this earth, and should the Almighty consign me to the Pit, part of me would rejoice, for there I’d see that human plague-rodent and confront him with the evil he’s done.”
She meant every word, and Old Nick himself would not dare interfere with her vengeance. “Tell me what happened.”
“I have told you. Fern was a vicar’s daughter. The sweetest, most mischievous, dear, young woman ever to help me tie sheets together so we could dance under a full moon and feel as daring as pagans. We were ridiculous, and I will never have a friend like that again.”
You have me. “She decided to dance with Brantford under the stars instead?”
Charlotte squirmed about and took the place beside Sherbourne on the sofa. He tucked an arm around her shoulders, and after a bit of fussing, she scooted down to rest her head against his thigh. He draped a quilt over her—her favorite quilt—and wished he’d met his wife before heartache had made her so indomitable.
“Fern did not decide to tryst with Brantford. She knew he was far above her touch. She was introduced to him only because a cousin of his attended the same finishing school we did. I was at Morelands, spending a holiday with my family while Fern bided at school, and she met Brantford. He charmed her, then struck up a correspondence with her. She initiated none of it and didn’t answer his letters until he threatened to cast himself from the nearest sea cliff if she continued to ignore him.”
Would that he had. “I assume you tried to dissuade her?”
“I knew nothing of it—he enjoined Fern to secrecy and for good reason. If I’d suspected that vile abomination was sniffing about her skirts, I’d have set my cousins to chasing him off that cliff at gunpoint.” A shuddery sigh went through her. “Hate is a taxing emotion, but Brantford deserves my hatred, Lucas. He deserves to be pilloried for the rest of his life.”
Charlotte was not meant for hatred, but neither could she tolerate injustice. Sherbourne treasured that about her. He needed her moral clarity in his life, needed her common sense—and her affection.
“When did you become aware that your friend was conducting a liaison?”
Charlotte bit his thigh. “Fern did not conduct a liaison. She made a poor family’s version of a come out, and if I’m to believe her, she avoided Brantford. I certainly didn’t see her showing favor to any particular man, though she later admitted she’d danced with him occasionally. Brantford’s attentions would have been considered gentlemanly, even generous, given the difference in their stations. All the while, he was stealing kisses and tempting her to clandestine meetings.”
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.”