Chapter 28
“These are the revised account structures,” William said the next day, setting the pages in front of Mr. Aldiss, his solicitor, who had arrived at eight that morning.
“The third clause is to be rewritten. The discretionary language needs to go. Every disbursement requires documented authorization, every authorization requires a corresponding receipt, and every receipt is to be filed with the quarterly accounts in this office as well as the household records.”
Aldiss looked at the page, peering over his glasses. “That is a significant departure from the existing structure.”
“The existing structure was built to be convenient for the person administering it.” William moved to the next page.
“I am not interested in convenience anymore. The orphanage fund becomes a formal charitable trust, independent of the estate accounts, with three trustees—myself, the Duchess of Wrexford, and Mrs. Peel as the institution’s representative.
Nothing moves without all three signatures. ”
Aldiss looked at the pages. “That is also a significant structural change.”
“It is the correct structure. It should have existed from the beginning. The tenant accounts are to be audited back three years, minimum. Every entry I signed without reading is to be verified against the original contracts and receipted invoices. Whatever discrepancies are found are to be documented and brought to me directly.” William looked at him. “Not summarized, but directly.”
“That will take some time.”
“Then it will take some time.” William leaned forward. “My sisters’ dowry accounts are to be legally secured and ring-fenced separately from the estate operations, administered by the trust rather than my steward. I want that done before the end of the month.”
Aldiss made a note. “And the full accounting on Harwood?”
“The full accounting goes to you. Everything documented in the original pages.” He did not say Cecily’s pages.
He did not say her name. “Everything I found in the subsequent audit. Pursue it through every available channel.” He looked at Aldiss.
“He used money meant for children with nothing. I want that understood in whatever proceedings follow.”
Aldiss nodded. He looked at the pages, then at William, “I would say, Your Grace, that you have been very thoroughly deceived.”
“I was careless,” William corrected. “There is a difference. Deception requires a deceiver, but carelessness is mine.” He looked at the desk.
“I signed what was placed in front of me because I trusted the system and did not look at it. That is not something I’m going to attribute to anybody. I will not make that mistake again.”
“That seems–”
“Final,” William said. “Yes.”
* * *
The week moved with purposeful energy.
William had decided that forward motion was the only available remedy for the thing he was not allowing himself to think about.
He was at his desk by seven each morning.
He read everything. He signed nothing he had not understood line by line.
He sent for new account books, established new filing systems, wrote personally to each of the three largest tenant farmers to schedule reviews of their improvement contracts, letters he drafted himself, not dictated to Prentiss, because dictating felt too much like the old way of doing things, and he was done with the old way of doing things.
He did not think about the kiss he shared with Cecily.
He did not think about it at breakfast, where the table had resumed its previous silence.
He did not think about it in the evenings, when the study was his alone, the fire burned low, and the house settled into its nighttime quiet.
He did not think about it when he walked past the library, the door was open, and the chair by the window was empty. Or when he would wake up from a dream of her.
On Tuesday, Isadora appeared in the study doorway at half past ten.
“You’ve reorganized the correspondence files in the library,” she noted.
“Yes.”
“They’re in date order now rather than subject order.”
“It was more logical.”
She came in and sat in the chair across from the desk—the chair Cecily would often sit in while she waited for him to finish writing.
“Mrs. Peel came this morning.” She smoothed her skirt. “She wanted to thank you for the trust arrangements. She said–” A pause. “She said she had submitted twelve requests in the last three years that were never addressed. She said she had stopped expecting them to be.”
William looked at his quill. “Twelve.”
“Yes.”
“I signed the quarterly reviews,” he said. “Every quarter, for three years, I signed them, and Harwood presented them, and I did not… I did not ask whether the requests had been received.” He set the quill down. “I should have asked.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I should have looked. I am the Duke.” He looked her in the eye. “That is not the same as not knowing. Not knowing is an accident. Not looking is a choice, even when the choice is made without realizing it.” He paused. “I have myself to blame.”
Isadora nodded as if she understood.
“She found out in one morning.” There was awe in her voice.
“I know,” he said.
A pause.
“Are you going to–” Isadora began.
“The trust documents need reviewing before Aldiss returns on Thursday.” He picked up the quill again. “Thank you for telling me about Mrs. Peel. I’ll write to her this afternoon. Will you excuse me?”
Isadora looked at him for one more moment.
“All right,” she muttered.
Then she stood and left.
The next day brought rain, which suited him. He was doing some reading when Letitia knocked on his study door at an hour when she was supposed to be at her lessons.
“Miss Aldwell can wait,” she said, before he could speak. “I have something to say.”
“Letitia–”
“It is quick.” She came in and stood across from his desk with a set jaw and bright eyes, her hands clasped before her. “You are working very hard. The accounts are being fixed, the orphanage is sorted, the tenants are getting their repairs—everything is being done correctly.” She paused. “I know.”
“I’m glad the reforms have been–”
“But you come down for breakfast, you eat your toast, you look at your letters, and the room is very quiet and nobody laughs. I have not heard anyone knock over the cream in nine days.”
“The cream–”
“William.” She shook her head so hard that her ringlets bounced aggressively. “I am not talking about the cream.”
He looked at her.
“She was good for this house.” Her voice was level.
She had been planning this, he realized.
Had rehearsed the composure of it. “She was good for us. For Isadora and me. And…” She blinked hard.
“She was good for you. I watched you all autumn, and I know the difference between before and after. Before was not–” She broke off.
“I miss her, that is all,” she said simply. “And I think you do too, only you are being very determined and thorough about the accounts and hoping no one notices.”
“Letitia.”
“I am going back to my Italian lesson,” she added quickly. “I only wanted you to know that fixing the estate is not the same thing as fixing everything.” She turned to the door. “In case you had confused them.”
She left.
He looked at the desk for a long moment.
He had not confused them. That was the uncomfortable truth of it. He knew exactly what he had done and what he had not done, and the distance between the two was the specific shape of the thing he was not allowing himself to think about.
* * *
James arrived on Friday without sending prior notice, which was standard.
William heard his voice in the entrance hall at half past two, heard Mr. Prentiss directing him upstairs, heard the familiar footsteps in the corridor.
There was a pause outside the study door. The footsteps continued, checking the library, and continued again. James, who knew this house well enough to understand its geography, apparently expected to find him at his desk.
But William was in the nursery.
He had not decided to go. He had simply ended up there, as he had ended up there several times that week, standing at the empty crib with the stripped frame and the bare mattress and the absence that a room retained after something important had been in it and had left.
He was looking at the small wooden horse on the shelf.
The worn paint, the smooth neck, the ears.
Letitia had won it at a parish fair when she was two and had installed it here with great ceremony.
Since then, it had lived on this shelf, through three nursemaids and two bouts of scarlet fever and everything else.
He thought about the night the baby’s fever had broken.
About standing here in the two o’clock dark and the weight of that sleeping infant that had rearranged something within him.
About the silence of walking back down the corridor afterward, which had not been empty silence, but a whole conversation conducted without a single word that he had turned over and over in every unoccupied moment since.
He did not hear James come in. Did not hear his name the first time, or the second, because what reached him was a hand on his shoulder. He turned to find James standing behind him.
“I called you twice,” James said.
“I know. I heard it the second time.” William looked back at the crib.
James was quiet. He looked around the room, saying nothing for a moment, then cleared his throat. “How long were you standing there?”
“I don’t know.” William shrugged. “A while.”
“Prentiss found me outside the study, looking for you.”
“I was thinking.”
“In the nursery?” James raised an eyebrow.
“It’s quiet.”
“Your study is quiet.”
“The study has the accounts in it.” William looked at the crib again. “This has…” He looked at the chair by the wall, where Cecily had sat the night the baby’s fever broke. “Do you know how she is doing?”