Chapter Thirteen
Alex had seen Bexley flustered before, but never with quite so much paper and perspiration competing for dominance.
He pushed open the door to the steward’s office without ceremony, his entrance muffled by the lingering damp in the air.
Bexley, bent over a spread of ledgers, didn’t hear him at first. The steward’s lips moved in a silent tally as his finger chased figures down a page, utterly absorbed in his task.
Alex took the moment to observe, his gaze sweeping the room with a soldier’s precision.
Disordered stacks of account books teetered precariously, some marked with hastily folded notes, others bearing the blots of spilled ink.
Sheets of correspondence lay curled at the edges where they had been hastily dried by the hearth.
It was not the chaos of deceit, Alex thought grimly, but of drowning.
Bexley turned a page too quickly, and the motion disturbed a loose slip of parchment.
It slid free, fluttering toward the floor.
He lunged to catch it, and in the same motion became aware of Alex’s presence.
He startled, rising abruptly, his chair scraping back against the floorboards with a screech.
His arm clipped the corner of an unsteady pile, sending it listing dangerously before he managed to right it with a flailing hand.
“My lord!” Bexley managed, cheeks flushing as he attempted a bow amidst the clutter.
Alex’s expression remained cool. He had entered prepared to confront a man complicit in deceit. Instead, he found chaos, honest, desperate chaos.
“Leave the courtesies, Bexley,” Alex said, his tone edged. “Tell me what you’ve found.”
“Yes, my lord,” Bexley rasped, tugging his sleeves down to his wrists as though it might restore some semblance of order to himself, if not the office.
He shuffled through the nearest pile of ledgers and opened one to the marked page.
His finger, slightly ink-stained, trailed the line of entries with nervous precision.
“I’ve been reviewing the suppliers’ accounts as you instructed. There are… there are gaps, my lord,” he admitted, his voice tight with strain. “Payments issued, but no matching delivery receipts. And,” he swallowed visibly, “some letters I had set aside for follow-up have gone missing.”
Alex narrowed his gaze. “Which letters?”
“Most notably, the correspondence from Mr. Tom Carver,” Bexley replied. He drew a shaking breath. “I had flagged them for irregularities, but when I returned to the file, they were gone.”
Alex’s jaw tightened. “When did you last see them?”
“Two days ago, my lord. Before I turned to the estate accounts. I cannot explain their absence.” Bexley’s brow furrowed deeply, his genuine confusion evident in the furrow between his brows. “No one should have had access to those files. At least, I believed so.”
The sharp edge of suspicion dulled. Georgina would have told him to look twice before condemning the man. The thought steadied him more than the ledgers ever could.
Alex watched him closely, measuring his words, his demeanor, the restless motion of his hands. He saw no guile in Bexley, no subterfuge, no confidence trick. Just a man sinking under the weight of honest failure.
The sharp suspicion that had carried Alex into the room cooled, tempered by recognition. This was no conspirator standing before him, but a steward overwhelmed, swamped beneath a tide of deceit not of his making.
He drew a breath and let it out slowly. “You are certain of that?”
“To the best of my knowledge, my lord. I swear it.” Bexley met Alex’s gaze squarely, and though his shoulders sagged beneath the strain of the confession, there was honesty in his eyes.
Alex inclined his head once. “Very well.”
Relief flickered across Bexley’s features, though it did little to ease the deep lines of fatigue carved into his face. “Anything I can do to assist further, my lord?”
Alex’s gaze swept once more over the disarray of ledgers and papers. His mind ticked through the estate’s resources, assessing what little could be done to bolster Bexley’s failing defenses.
“You’ll need help to untangle this,” Alex said at last. “Speak with Mr. Hughes, our solicitor. He’ll know someone reliable to assist you.”
Bexley’s brows rose, and for the first time since Alex had entered, a glimmer of hope flickered through him. “Yes, my lord. I will.”
Alex fixed him with a final, steady look. “Choose carefully.”
“I will, my lord,” Bexley promised, drawing himself up with a semblance of his former diligence.
Alex turned to the door, the line of his shoulders set, the thread of urgency pulled tighter still. The trail they followed had not yet gone cold, and he would not allow it to do so.
*
Georgina stepped down from the carriage at the Sommer-by-the-Sea Female Seminary. Damp mist clung to the stones of the courtyard, curling around the iron railings like a reluctant guest unwilling to depart.
Georgina drew her cloak closer against the chill as she crossed to the main hall.
Despite the grey weather, a quiet energy filled the seminary grounds.
Students flitted between lessons, voices low beneath the patter of rain, while Ellen supervised from beneath a sturdy umbrella with military precision.
Inside, the warmth of the familiar office greeted her like an old friend.
Lamplight softened the edges of the high-ceilinged room, casting golden pools over the ledgers spread across the broad oak table.
Mrs. Bainbridge was already there, her sleeves neatly turned back, her spectacles perched at the bridge of her nose as she bent over the latest column of figures.
“Lady Georgina,” she greeted without looking up, “I trust Hawkesbury Manor proved instructive?”
“It did,” Georgina replied, settling across from her. “Though I suspect this task may prove more fruitful.”
Mrs. Bainbridge gave a wry smile. “At least these ledgers do not argue with me. The bakers for the wedding, on the other hand, seem determined to drive me to distraction.
Georgina’s lips curved. “They still debate?”
“Endlessly. Marmalade enthusiasts against sugared rose loyalists.” She sighed, though amusement softened her exasperation. “One might think I were convening a royal court rather than ordering cake.”
“You could assign them ledgers instead,” Georgina suggested with a small laugh. “It might distract them.”
“I am not convinced they would not begin debating sums and margins instead,” Mrs. Bainbridge retorted, though her eyes glinted with humor. “At any rate, I far prefer the company of these numbers over the squabbles of bakers. At least here, the falsities can be proven.”
They fell into quiet industry, the soft scratch of quills and the muted patter of rain filling the room as they worked through the entries. Georgina’s attention sharpened, her focus narrowing to the columns of amounts and suppliers.
Her thoughts, however, drifted more than once to Alex.
She imagined him across the estate, pacing the steward’s office with the same restless determination he had carried since the moment she arrived at Hawkesbury Manor.
He would not sit idle. She knew that now with certainty.
He would drive toward the truth with the same fierce energy he had shown in every encounter between them.
She pictured the quiet steadiness in his gaze, the warmth that always reached her first. The memory stirred her pulse, unwelcome for its timing, but impossible to dismiss.
Perhaps Mrs. Bainbridge read something of Georgina’s unspoken thoughts, for she murmured without lifting her gaze, “Lord Hawkesbury strikes me as a man who will burn through every wick of daylight if left to it.”
Georgina smiled despite herself. “He does not yield easily.”
“A useful trait,” Mrs. Bainbridge replied, her tone approving. “And a dangerous one, if pointed in the wrong direction.”
Georgina returned to the ledger before her, pressing past the warmth that bloomed in her chest at the observation. “Fortunately, he is pointed in precisely the right one.”
They bent over the ledgers once more, the rhythm of their search resuming.
Georgina paused, her brow knitting as she studied a particular entry. The amount struck her first, unusually high for even the seminary’s considerable needs.
“This sum is too large for household use,” she observed, her finger trailing beneath the line.
Mrs. Bainbridge adjusted her spectacles and leaned closer. Her eyes narrowed. “And the supplier?” She exhaled slowly, her voice cooling. “Not one of ours. Nor anyone I would entrust with so much as a bundle of kindling.”
A coil of unease tightened in Georgina’s chest. “That makes two irregularities. Different names, same strategy.”
“They’re weaving a careful pattern,” Mrs. Bainbridge agreed, “but we’ve caught the thread.”
She reached for a slip of paper and marked the entry with decisive strokes. The impact of their discovery settled over them like a gathering storm.
Georgina closed the ledger, her pulse steady but quickened by purpose. “We take this to Lord Hawkesbury.”
Mrs. Bainbridge stood, smoothing her skirts. “Without delay.”
As they crossed the office to retrieve their cloaks, Georgina allowed herself one final glance at the ledgers spread across the table. The pieces were aligning, the shadows thinning.
They were no longer chasing whispers. They were closing in.
*
The fire in the Hawkesbury study had burned low, casting long shadows across the papers strewn like fallen leaves over the desk.
Outside the rain had eased to a sullen mist, clinging to the windows in thin, wavering lines.
The room carried the scent of damp wool and woodsmoke, and beneath it all, the faint sharpness of ink left uncapped for too long.
Alex stood before the hearth, one hand braced against the mantelpiece, the other holding Kenworth’s latest dispatch. The paper, still creased from its hurried folding, bore the unmistakable marks of haste. Ink smudged in the margin where the messenger’s hand had slipped in the wet.
“A stranger asking after Carver’s operations,” Alex read aloud, his voice tight with tempered urgency. He lowered the paper to the desk, weighing its meaning. “It seems we are not the only ones following this trail.”
Barrington, standing at the opposite side of the room, gave a grim nod. “They’re watching their loose ends.”
“Then we’ll see them unravel faster than they can tie them,” Alex replied.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor beyond, brisk and purposeful. Moments later, Georgina and Mrs. Bainbridge entered the study, cloaks still damp from their ride. Rain pearled along the edge of Georgina’s hood before she pushed it back, revealing eyes alight with determination.
“We found a second irregularity,” Georgina announced, moving directly to the desk.
Her pulse ticked at her throat. This was no coincidence—no clerical oversight.
It was too clean, too intentional. A false thread sewn into truth.
She set the seminary ledger between them with practiced efficiency and opened it to the marked page.
“Another payment routed through dormant accounts, buried so neatly it might have been missed entirely.”
Mrs. Bainbridge stood beside her, her expression as firm as the inked annotations on the ledger. Her voice cooled, the edge of steel replacing civility. “Not one of ours. And not one I’d trust with a paper lantern in a rainstorm.”
Alex stepped closer, scanning the entry. The pattern emerged at once. It was a clever concealment masquerading as a routine expense. His jaw tightened. “They’re using legitimate channels to mask their diversions.”
“And counting on chaos to hide them further,” Mrs. Bainbridge said with a note of contempt.
Barrington leaned over the desk, studying the figures with a soldier’s eye. “It’s a careful construction,” he agreed. “But not without cracks.”
Georgina met Alex’s gaze across the table. “And we have found them.” For a heartbeat, the firelight flickered between them, catching in his eyes. He trusted her judgment. It was evident in the quiet stillness between their words. That knowledge settled through her like warmth after a storm.
For a moment, Alex saw nothing but her and the fire’s reflection flickering in her eyes, her posture steady despite the damp chill of her cloak.
She had not come this far to falter, and the certainty of it settled in his chest like the first true breath after a long climb.
Something fierce twisted in his chest. Not fear.
Not worry. Rather, a quiet awe, sharp as it was steady.
His voice, when he spoke, carried the weight of decision. “Barrington, have the Brigade prepare to move. Quietly.”
“Already done,” Barrington replied, a faint trace of approval beneath his customary steadiness.
Kenworth stepped forward from the shadows near the door, clearing his throat. “My lord, word from our informants near Carver’s holdings. Unfamiliar riders, seen twice at the far ridge.”
Alex’s gaze sharpened. “They’re moving their pieces.”
“And so must we,” Georgina said, her tone crisp.
Alex’s attention lingered on her a heartbeat longer, the corners of his mouth easing from grim tension to something nearer respect, perhaps even admiration. “You’ve proven yourself invaluable in this, Lady Georgina.”
She inclined her head, but there was no modesty in it. Only resolve. “We will see it through.”
Alex looked at Barrington, then back at the ledger where their discoveries lay bare. No more half-measures. No more shadows unchallenged.
“Then we go to Carver,” Alex said. The silence that followed wasn’t hesitation. It was an agreement, forged in urgency and trust.