Chapter Four #2
Harbury glanced up. Bad form. Now he’d let the suspicion goad him into showing the old retainer hostility. He softened his voice. “The tenants who bring in the greatest income are Grayson, Bottlesworth, and Townsend. Correct?”
Anderson blinked. “The rents, you see, are fully documented by tract.”
Not an answer.
And not the first time this morning, Anderson had hedged.
Harbury leaned back in his chair, pressing his forefinger to his bottom lip. He hadn’t realized just how much trust he’d placed in Anderson before.
He’d dutifully reviewed and replied to every letter and statement his steward had sent him, but he’d left most decisions to the man’s discretion.
Perhaps he ought to pay a little closer attention.
He’d like some time to go over these numbers. And he wanted to take that time without the steward hovering over his shoulder.
“You may go,” he said.
Anderson reached for the ledger.
“Leave the book with me.”
“Your Grace? The household accounts remain here, naturally. But the estate books have always been stored in my office.” He hesitated a beat. “At Rose Cottage.”
“I am aware how my father arranged things. I, however—”
“If you keep the ledger, how am I to record receipts?” Anderson interrupted, twisting his hands.
“Keep notes.” Harbury sat up. “Or come here and make your entries. But I intend to take a closer look at the records, and I intend to do so at my leisure. So please leave the ledger. And have the documents mentioned in the Lady Day audit delivered to me as well.”
“Is His Grace certain?”
Harbury rose from his chair.
Anderson’s tone, and his mulish, annoyed, distrustful expression called to mind a different confrontation over this same desk. Only Harbury had been standing where Anderson stood now, and Harbury’s father was the one occupying the seat of authority.
I asked you to come up with a hypothetical plan should prices take a precipitous fall. This drivel is what you suggest? Have you no understanding of how to lead?
His father had then made a disgusted sound.
I cannot prevent you from taking my place. God help me, I wish I could.
Harbury leaned forward, steadying himself by placing both fists on the blotter’s smooth surface. In his mind, he heard clattering. He remembered his father had dropped the seal he’d been holding and transferred his grasp to his right arm. Then his father had crumpled. In seconds, he’d been dead.
Harbury glanced down.
The numbers in the book swam across the page, seeming to undulate. He might be sick again, just as he had been that day.
He couldn’t be sick.
His father had died a long time ago. And whether his father would like it or not—whether he liked it or not—he was now duke. Harbury Hall, Harbury Hall’s tenants and steward…they were all under his care.
And his command.
The responsibility was enormous. He had to be sensible. He had to be strategic. He had to shove his memories firmly back where they belonged, deep in the past. And he had to ignore the deep-seated fear of inadequacy that sprang up whenever he remembered his father’s final moments.
“Harbury?” The kindly query startled him.
He couldn’t place the voice until the lady stepped forward. Cassandra Wainwright. No. Cassandra, Duchess of Harbury.
He met her gaze. Did his eyes appear as raw as they felt? Likely, because her expression softened. For the first time since they’d wed, he recognized the woman whose proposal he’d accepted.
She touched his arm and lifted her brows, smiling a gentle smile as if encouraging him to speak. Her gaze exuded comfort. He took solace in her implied concern.
He cleared his throat. “Good morning, my dear.”
If she was as startled by the endearment as he was, she didn’t let the discomfiture show.
“Anderson, we are finished,” he said without looking at the man. “For now. I will send for you when I have need.”
Anderson neither moved nor replied.
Harbury faced him. “You may go.”
Anderson stared for a moment, then frowned as if confused, shook his head and blinked. An awkward pause followed before he finally spoke.
“Very well.”
Anderson acknowledged Cassandra with a nod. Then, moving as if he suffered stiffness in his joints, he left the room.
Cassandra watched the door close, then she swiveled back, a query in her eye.
Harbury imagined she wanted to know why he’d been hunched over his desk staring into nothing. How could he explain that the memory of his father’s death had been so visceral, so real, he’d been seized by a sense of failure, of helplessness?
Yesterday she’d asked if he, like others, had held his father in awe. Yes, he had. His father had always seemed so large, so invincible. His death had been a shock.
That his last words had been a condemnation, less so. He knew too well he never managed to earn the man’s respect.
But his father wasn’t here. His lovely wife, on the other hand, was very present.
“Did you have need of me?” he asked.
“Yes. Er, rather, no.” She glanced to the door and back. “It doesn’t matt—” She stopped herself. “Well, yes, it does matter. I came here to say I had hoped you would include me in your meeting. And…” Her lids swept down over her eyes. “I had also hoped you would join me for breakfast.”
Was he imagining things, or did she sound as if she’d missed him? When he was growing up, only Adrian wished for his company. Having someone seek him out was a strange and novel thing.
“I had intended to join you this morning, but I awoke in the middle of the night.” Last night, after a perfectly polite, careful dinner they’d parted at the top of the stairs.
Once in his bed chamber, he’d bolted her door on his end to keep himself from going back on his promise.
There’d been a brief interlude when he’d indulged in a, ah, pastime he did not want to think about right now.
He’d slept briefly and awoken exhausted but unable to return to sleep.
So, he’d retrieved the letter, uncrumpled the paper and studied, thinking.
“When I couldn’t get back to sleep, I came down here.”
Something about the letter had been nagging at him. The writing was vaguely familiar, and the unplaced familiarity left him uncomfortable. He’d brought down the letter so he could compare the handwriting to letters in his father’s files. He hadn’t found a match.
“And when did you send for Anderson?” She asked.
“Yesterday. I’d left word at Rose Cottage that I wanted to see the account books. When Anderson arrived with the books this morning, I was still in the study.”
“You could have invited me to join you. You said we were allies.”
“Yes. Yes, I did.”
He understood he’d hurt his wife. Oddly enough, as he looked into her eyes, her hurt became his pain, a weight against his chest.
“Allies,” he repeated. He came around his desk. “You are absolutely right. In the future, I will include you.”
“Of course,” she hedged, “you don’t need to consult me every time you wish to speak with your—”
“Our,” he interrupted. “I did say I wanted,” he paused, “no, I believe I said I needed your advice.”
“You did.” She sighed.
The room brightened. Somewhere outside, a cloud must have passed on through. With the increased light, his spirits lifted.
Cassandra looked so fresh, so young, so pretty—such a direct contrast to the vague musty scent of the old books and papers he’d been shuffling through.
A line from a book he’d once attempted to translate in school came to mind. Goethe’s Faust, perhaps? He’d be damned if he could recall, but in the passage the protagonist declared his intention to cast aside dusty knowledge and be restored by bathing in dew.
He glanced back at the monstrously sized ledger strewn across his desk.
To the devil with numbers.
If his baffling wife wanted his company, she would have his company. All he wanted right now was to make her eyes soften again, this time not with concern, but with something quite different.
Something more exciting.
He flashed her his most compelling smile. “But, since I missed the pleasure of your company at breakfast, might I make up for my mistake with a ride?”
Doubtfully, she searched his face. Then, she smiled once again, sending rushing-brook bubbles of anticipation spilling through his chest.
“I would like to ride with you.”
Remarkably, he liked looking at his wife. He liked when his wife looked at him. He especially liked when his wife looked at him and smiled.
How could he inspire more of those smiles? Where on the estate could he take her that would bring her pleasure?
When an answer came to him—the priory ruins—he did not think too deeply.
After all, with a distant sight of a picturesque collection of thatched cottages, but full of privacy-affording nooks, multiple published estate guides agreed the ruins were the most romantic place on the estate. And ladies liked romance, did they not?
He called for the groom to saddle their horses.
“I know just where to take you,” he said, ignoring the slight discomfort that, if examined, might have served as both warning and reminder that he’d also met Viv there on many clandestine occasions.