Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
More temperate weather had turned the streets and walkways muddy, which was probably why Hope had assented to Joshua commandeering the bank’s coach and four for the excursion to Peters’s office.
She wasn’t saying much, and she hadn’t intruded on Joshua’s slumbers in the parlor the night before.
She would have taken easily to the taciturn, hulking Yorkshireman Quinn had been years ago.
Now, she clearly did not like that Joshua was that Penrose, or that he was wealthy, or that his business partner was a duke.
She cared not at all for such surprises, and Joshua positively loathed that his situation upset her.
“I’m nervous,” Hope said as the coach swayed around a corner. “I should not be.”
I’m nervous too, though for different reasons. “Peters works for you, Hope. He worked for Edwin, or led Edwin to believe that was the arrangement. Do you recall how they met?”
“Something to do with filing patents, I believe, and Edwin mentioned to Peters that he wanted us settled in a proper London house. Peters had a perfect property on offer for a client. I suspect Edwin had already begun to feel ill, but he wasn’t admitting it to himself, much less to me.”
Did Hope suspect she’d been swindled? “I am very good with money and figures,” Joshua said slowly. “I don’t have to work at it. I understand what a ledger is saying without having to decipher the information line by line. The numbers speak to me.”
Hope sent him a sidewise glance. “And?”
“I am useless when it comes to sketching and drawing. My trees look like mushrooms. My horses like some sort of sheep-cow hybrid without horns. This is part of the reason I enjoy good art so much.”
The coach slowed to a crawl.
“You’re saying Edwin could not be a genius at everything. I know that, but he never let me manage anything more than my pin money. Had an old-fashioned view of domestic finances, though one doesn’t learn such things about a spouse until after the vows are spoken.”
I want to marry you. Another rejoinder best kept for another time, assuming—as Joshua had been—that Hope was even open to the notion of remarrying.
“If I were in your shoes, Hope, I would be furious.”
“Furious with myself because I have been duped over the patent income?”
If Joshua’s suspicions were correct, she’d been duped in many regards. “Furious with Peters, who has done the duping. He’s a crook, and he thinks he’s been successful stealing the last groat you and Holly have.”
“The Christmas basket was very tasteful.” Said with an encouraging degree of asperity.
The Christmas basket had been an insult. “He has stolen from Holly, and he preyed on a dying man to set up crooked schemes. If I were Peters, I’d be in the next thing to a panic. I’d be living in terror of the day when Hope Burdette got wise to my plundering and came looking for retribution.”
“I have never terrified anybody in all my born days, Joshua Penrose.”
“I can’t say I’ve accomplished much beyond a timely and well-deserved intimidation or two, but I’ve seen Quinn frighten grown men nigh into incontinence.
He never raises his voice, he never answers questions—he asks the questions—and he allows innuendo to do the work of threats.
All three tactics are available to you. You probably use them with Holly to very good effect. ”
Hope sat up a little straighter. “I want to speak for myself. I know that much.”
“You ask the questions. You very civilly demand the answers. I thought the Christmas basket was a little understated, myself, but I do wonder if it wasn’t charged to your account.”
Hope’s brows rose. “More stealing under the guise of generous consideration. Speaking softly might be beyond me.”
“Then I pray the clerks have opened the windows so that all of London will hear you putting Peters in his place.”
She raised the shade on her side of the coach. “His place is Newgate, or perdition, if my suspicions are correct. He did steal from Holly. He did take advantage of poor Edwin.”
“Now he’s dealing with you. I would pity the man, but he deserves to be held accountable. If he’s preying upon your family, Hope, he’s likely cheating other clients out of their life savings as well.”
The effect of that surmise was lovely. The Widow Burdette gathered up her reticule, gloves, and muff.
As she assembled her accessories, she similarly collected both implacable dignity and unshakable resolve.
She’d dressed in the dove gray of second mourning for this outing and completed her preparations by lowering the black net veil pinned to her bonnet brim.
As a knight might lower a visor prior to galloping into the lists.
“You are my prospective banker?” she asked in a clipped, businesslike tone.
“I have that pleasure if you say so.” Joshua would rather be her fiancé, but to be her banker for the next hour was an honor in itself.
The coach came to a halt outside a row of handsome three-story houses. Save for a pub on the corner, the street boasted not a single shop. The walkways were shoveled and the porch lamps sparkling.
Here, discreet, prosperous business was done, or so the appearances suggested.
“I’m angry,” Joshua said, meaning it. “I’m angry on your behalf, but a crook in the countinghouse also gives all who handle money honestly a harder job. When you take Peters to task, you strike a blow for all honest people in trade too, Hope.”
She nodded. “I shall be a fire-breathing dragon who does not raise her voice, does not tolerate questions, and allows innuendo to do the work of threats. Any mama or governess worth her salt can accomplish that much before breakfast.”
Peters would not know what hit him, but if he was smart, he’d know to stay down and protect his head, for the drubbing would be very, very thorough.
Mr. Peters wasn’t in, and the relief Hope felt at that news shamed her. She wanted to put the confrontation off, not because holding a scoundrel to account was hard, but because a small, timid part of her wanted to be wrong.
Mr. Peters was not a scoundrel.
He had not cheated Edwin out of a sizable sum.
He would never be so dastardly as to enjoy the revenue that Edwin’s creativity and hard work had earned.
The quality of Joshua’s silence in the coach had warned Hope otherwise. There was more to Peters’s scheming than Joshua had said, but stealing the patent revenue was bad enough.
“When might Mr. Peters be expected back?” Hope asked the genial Mr. Plodgely.
A crash sounded from behind a closed door. Plodgely’s smile faltered. “Beg pardon, Mrs. Burdette, Mr., um, sir. I brought my sons with me today—Mama and daughter were off to the shops—and the boys can be a bit rambunctious.”
He bowed and withdrew, leaving Hope and Joshua among a half-dozen clerks at their high tables, none of whom was willing to so much as glance at Hope.
A man’s voice, raised in ire came from behind the door, and Mr. Plodgely returned holding several large pieces of what might have once been a ceramic vase.
“Beg pardon,” he said again. “Mr. Peters isn’t expected back until after the New Year. We all agree he’s earned himself a nice long holiday.”
One of the clerks raised his head, then checked himself and went back to his copying.
“No matter,” Hope said. “My questions were not urgent.” But now that she’d arrived unannounced, Peters would be on his guard. Drat and blast.
“Perhaps you might answer a few questions for Mrs. Burdette?” Joshua asked, all diffidence and masculine patience.
Plodgely drew himself up. “I am always happy to be of service to our clients.”
“You there,” Hope said, addressing the clerk who’d almost looked up. “Tend to the boys and set them to working sums or copying or something useful. They are bored witless and have had too many sweets for days on end, none of which is their fault.”
The hapless fellow looked from her to Plodgely, who appeared to have lost his grasp of plain English.
Hope clapped her gloved hands at the clerk. “Be off with you, or they’ll smash Mr. Peters’s bust of Blackstone next, and heaven knows where the funds for a replacement might come from.”
The man got off his backside and shepherded the boys into some sort of conference room while Plodgely gaped.
Joshua was right. One did not have to raise one’s voice or make explicit threats.
“My office is through here,” Plodgely said. “Would anybody care for tea?”
Hope was not about to be distracted with who took his with sugar and who preferred milk.
“None for me, and I daresay my banker doesn’t care for any either.” The moment had not yet arrived to introduce Joshua by name.
Plodgely ushered them into a space where evidence of industry did battle with the forces of tidiness and order. Briefs tied up in red ribbons were scattered on a long table by the window. Law books were open on the desk, the table, and windowsills, and an abacus lay on its side on the desk blotter.
A standing desk by the window held yet more law books, three opened and layered atop each other. The room had no less than four inkwells, and another abacus sat on the mantel. A map of the Thames hung above the fireplace, and a portrait of King George held pride of place opposite the desk.
No sketches of the children, no holiday touches. The shine on the elbows of Mr. Plodgely’s morning coat and the worn heels on his shoes suggested that a lack of coin figured in his decorative choices.
“Now, then,” he said, moving books into stacks on the table. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Burdette?”
The wording Hope had decided on was simple. “I’d like to see the accounting of my patent revenues.” Hers, willed to her by Edwin, who had been a genius at inventing useful gadgets.
Plodgely ceased heaving tomes into piles. “For the year? We haven’t done the year-end totals yet, ma’am. I can show you the detailed ledger for this year, and we certainly have last year’s totals done.”