Chapter 11 #2
They came in through the side entrance, shaking the last of the outdoors from their skirts as they handed their bouquets to a footman, and parted ways at the foot of the stairs—the girls to change for the afternoon, Cecily to her rooms to do the same.
But she found, once she had washed her hands and sat for a moment in the chair by the window, that she was thinking about the library.
Specifically, she was thinking about what was in it.
Isadora read history and poetry and had apparently been supplementing the gaps through external means, which suggested the library’s collection was uneven.
Letitia read whatever came to hand, which seemed to be mostly whatever Miss Aldwell approved, which, going by Letitia’s expression, covered a narrow and improving range of territory.
Neither of them had mentioned asking their brother for recommendations, and the omission, Cecily thought, was its own kind of answer.
She sat for another moment. Then she went downstairs.
She heard voices before she reached the study door. William’s, low and businesslike. And another—measured, unhurried, the voice of a man making a practiced speech.
She knocked twice.
“Come.”
The study had more people in it than the last time she’d entered it. William was at his desk, as before, but across from him sat a man of about fifty in good, plain clothes. He was large and steady in his chair.
He rose when she entered.
“Duchess.” William looked up from the papers in front of him. “Come in. I’d like to introduce you.” He gestured between them. “Mr. Harwood, my steward. Harwood, the Duchess of Blackmoor.”
Harwood bowed. “Your Grace. Allow me to offer my congratulations on your marriage. I trust Blackmoor House has been comfortable.”
“Very, thank you,” Cecily said. “I hope we’ll have the opportunity to speak properly in due course, Mr. Harwood. I’m still finding my way around the estate.”
“Of course.” He smiled pleasantly. “Whenever convenient.”
She settled into the chair at the side of the desk, not wanting to interrupt, intending only to wait until William was free. Harwood returned to his chair and resumed speaking, unhurried.
The papers were considerable. Ledgers, by the look of them—columns of figures, several pages of accounts—alongside what appeared to be quarterly reports, the kind of formal documentation that accumulated in a large estate the way sediments accumulated at the bottom of a river.
Harwood presented them in order, briefly narrating the purpose of each as he set them before William, and William received them with the ease of a man who had done this many times and trusted the process.
He signed without pausing. Page after page, the quill moving with barely a beat between one document and the next.
Harwood waited, organized, and laid the next sheet in place. William read it—or appeared to read it—and signed, and Harwood retrieved each completed paper with the quiet efficiency of someone whose system worked and intended to keep it that way.
Cecily watched.
She could not have said precisely what it was that made her notice. The documents themselves told her nothing—she was not familiar enough with estate accounts to read meaning into figures she hadn’t studied.
And yet there was something about the pace of it, the rhythm of the exchange—the way each paper moved from Harwood’s side to William’s and back again with so little resistance that it was almost like watching a rehearsed performance—that made unease curl in her chest.
He signs very quickly, for a great many pages.
She said nothing. She turned her attention, deliberately, to the window.
Outside, the afternoon had held its softness. The light was still good, the lawns well-kept, the path she had walked that morning with the sisters visible from this angle, curving away past the first hedgerow.
She could see, at the far end of the grounds, the kitchen garden Mrs. Beam had mentioned, and beyond it the wall that marked the edge of the estate. Beyond that, in the middle distance—
“Mr. Harwood,” she said.
Both men looked at her.
“Forgive me, I don’t mean to interrupt. I only wanted to ask—I understand the estate supports a local orphanage. I was hoping to learn a little about it.”
Something crossed Harwood’s face. It was small, brief, and smoothed over immediately by the same composed politeness that had been there from the beginning.
“Indeed, it does, Your Grace. It’s a modest establishment. Well run, I assure you. Everything is in good order, Your Grace.”
“I’m glad to hear it. How many children are there currently?”
A fractional pause. “The numbers vary somewhat. I couldn’t give you a precise figure at this moment, but the matron manages things capably. It operates without difficulty.”
“And the funding?” Cecily asked. “Does it come directly from the estate, or is there a separate endowment?”
“The arrangements are handled through the estate.” Harwood’s voice remained pleasant.
“It is one of a number of charitable obligations His Grace maintains. I oversee the disbursement as part of my regular duties.” He folded his hands in his lap with the composed finality of a man closing a subject.
“I wouldn’t wish to take up the Duchess’s time with the details—it’s rather dry reading, I’m afraid.
These matters are well in hand and need not concern you. ”
The words were gracious. The tone beneath them was not, entirely.
It was not rude, nothing as artless as that. It was the tone of a man who had decided where the boundaries of her interest appropriately lay and was politely redirecting her back within them.
Cecily had heard that tone before, in different rooms and from different mouths, and she had always found it enlightening.
“Of course,” she said, with an equally pleasant smile. “I wouldn’t wish to complicate things unnecessarily. I only ask because I hope to involve myself in the estate’s charitable work, and the orphanage seemed like a natural place to begin.” She paused. “But there’s no urgency. Another time.”
Harwood inclined his head. “Of course, Your Grace.”
He returned to the papers.
William signed the final page and set down his quill, and the meeting concluded with the same smooth efficiency with which it had proceeded.
Harwood gathered the documents with practiced care, offered his congratulations once more, bowed, and then left.
The door closed, and the study settled into the particular quiet of a room that had just emptied of people.
Cecily looked at William. He was straightening the remaining papers on his desk with the focused, automatic movement of a man already thinking about the next thing.
“Mr. Harwood,” she began.
“Mhm.”
“He was very eager to tell me that the orphanage didn’t concern me.”
William looked up then. “He manages it. That’s his job.”
“I know. But I only asked a few ordinary questions.” She kept her voice even, not argumentative, simply precise. “The number of children. The source of the funding. Nothing that would require particular knowledge to answer. And he answered none of them.”
“He said it was in order.”
“He said it was in order,” Cecily agreed. “Three times, in different arrangements of the same words. That’s not the same as answering the question.”
William was quiet for a moment. He looked at her with the expression she had come to recognize—the one that was giving her more consideration than his composure let on.
“Harwood has managed this estate for fifteen years,” he said. “He managed it under my father, and he manages it under me. He is thorough, he is loyal, and in fifteen years, he has given me no reason to doubt him.”
“I’m not doubting him,” Cecily clarified. “I’m telling you what I observed.”
“Which was?”
“That he answered a question about charity with efficiency and not information.” She looked at him directly. “A man with nothing to hide does not work that hard to close a subject.”
The silence that followed was not the silence of someone with no answer. It was the silence of someone deciding which answer to give.
“Harwood is careful,” William insisted. “He protects the estate’s business as a matter of habit. It does not mean anything beyond that.”
She looked at him for a moment. “Perhaps.”
She stood, smoothing her skirt with unhurried movement.
“We are dining with Beatrice and Edward tomorrow,” she reminded him.
“Yes.”
“Would you come with me to the orphanage afterward? On the way back.” She said it simply, without pressure. “I’d like to see it. And I’d rather go with you than arrive as a stranger making independent inquiries.”
He considered this. She waited, not filling the silence.
“It’s out of the direct route,” he pointed out.
“Not significantly.”
Another pause. His quill was still in his hand, the afternoon’s business not quite finished, and he looked at her across the desk intently.
“All right,” he acquiesced.
“Thank you.” She moved toward the door.
Her hand was on the handle when he spoke. “Cecily.”
She turned.
He looked at her for a moment—just a moment, his green eyes unreadable in the afternoon light. “Harwood has not been wrong before.”
“No,” she said. “I’m sure he hasn’t.”
She left him to his papers.
In the corridor, the house went about its quiet afternoon business—a maid with linens at the far end, the distant sound of Letitia’s voice from somewhere upstairs, the measured tick of the longcase clock outside the drawing room.
Cecily walked back toward the stairs slowly.
Indispensable is a useful thing to be.
She went upstairs to dress for the evening.