Chapter 9 #2
She winced and bowed her head. “It isn’t as bad as it looks. I just…”
“Rose.”
“I was just in here, searching for the ledgers that concerned the payment of the staff. I wanted to confirm the amounts and make sure that they were—” She swallowed and tried for an innocent smile. “That they were being treated fairly.”
“And this?” He stabbed with his finger at what she was working on now. “Where did you get this?”
She did not answer, still refusing to look at him.
“Rose!” he barked.
She jumped when he shouted, and while Christopher was afforded a second of guilt for the way he acted, it fled him just as quickly. And that had everything to do with Rose, his wife.
He saw her shoulders stiffen. He saw her back straighten. And he saw the way her expression hardened with a defiant energy as she snapped her head up and fixed it on him.
“It was sitting on the table, open and there for anyone to read,” she said rightly. “It is not as if I was snooping around for it.”
“That is not –”
“And I only meant to glance at it,” she powered over him, at which point she raised a smug eyebrow. “Then I noticed all the errors.”
“Errors?”
“I thought to leave them, because surely they were made on purpose? But then I remembered my father, and often he would make similar errors, and not even on purpose. I hesitate to think that someone with your reputation would make such mistakes; that is not what I am suggesting at all.” She could not have looked prouder of herself.
“But just in case, I fixed them, nonetheless. Really, it was nothing.”
Christopher balked at the gall, at the arrogance, at the possibility that she found a mistake in his work. And then fixed it! There was just no way.
And that she was so darn self-important about it. The way she folded her arms and looked at him, not even bothering to hide her victory. Oh, how it annoyed him.
Despite his best efforts to be calm and reasonable, there was only so much a man could take.
“Perhaps I should have been clearer,” He spoke through gritted teeth. “When I told you that this marriage is one of convenience, you must not have understood what that meant.”
“I understand well enough,” she said. “And you were the one who said you wished to take advantage of what I can do. Well, this,” She gestured to her work. “This is what I can do. This is how I can help.”
“I did not ask for your help.”
“You did!”
“Not. With. This.”
The work in question pertained to new taxation policies that Christopher was readying to implement on his tenants in the north. He wished to raise money for a conservatory in Bath that needed funding, so he was quietly raising these taxes in a way that would not cripple his tenants.
It was difficult work, and it required much nuance. Rose insisted that she was helping, but Christopher highly doubted it.
I do not make mistakes. And if I did, she certainly isn’t the one who is going to find them.
“You have been bored,” he said, still through gritted teeth. “I understand that. You are trying to find ways to fill in your time.”
“I have found ways.”
“Ways that, and allow me to be perfectly clear.” He leaned over her, his stare a rueful one, and brimming with warning.
“Ways that will not see you enter my personal office again. Nor will it see you touch my work, or anything remotely linked to my work. Do I make myself clear?” He added a growl to the last part, needing to hammer it home.
Rose looked away, but it was done with a sharp exhale and a curled lip. “Very clear.”
“Good.” Christopher pushed himself off the desk so that he was standing straight. Then he adjusted the collar on his jacket and brushed off some dust that had somehow found its way onto the corner of his desk. “We are done here.”
“As you say,” Rose’s expression was still abjectly stubborn, but she stood up, nonetheless. “If I might suggest that next time, when you plan on leaving, you tell me beforehand. Save me from having to take matters into my own hands.”
“Noted.”
Christopher kept his expression flat and his tone even. She glared back, but he did not so much as blink. That saw the fire behind her eyes dim, and she skulked around the desk before crossing the room.
When she reached the doorway, she paused and looked back, which had Christopher bracing himself for what he was sure would be one last piece of abuse. He cocked an eyebrow, and she shook her head with apathy and looked away.
A second later, and she was gone.
Christopher exhaled as a weight was lifted from his body, and he could finally breathe again. Not happy with how he lost his temper, but content with the fact that it needed to be done, Christopher decided that things could have gone a lot worse than they had.
This time.
He walked around the desk and sat down, sparing a final glance for the open doorway through which Rose had just vanished. She was not done with him yet, and Christopher understood that if he wasn’t careful, the next time would be far worse.
Then he forced her from his mind for all of five seconds, because his gaze fell on the work that Rose had been doing, and once again, that boiling anger rose inside of him so that he thought he might explode.
That was until he took notice of the specifics of Rose’s changes. He scanned the top page quickly, paused at what he saw, frowned, and bit into his lip as he did the additions in his head, and then very nearly fell out of his chair.
No… there. There is no way. How did she know to? What did she do here? She fixed it? Impossible.
Christopher hated making mistakes. For that reason, he should have felt white-hot fury to see what his wife had done. Strangely, what he felt instead was impressed.
He looked at the doorway again, and this time, it was done with a coy smile. His wife, as vexing as she was, as infuriating, was unlike any woman he had met before. A fact that was as enticing as it was terrifying.