7. A Trustee’s Duty
CHAPTER SEVEN
A TRUSTEE’S DUTY
“You have changed your cravat.”
Darcy did not need his godmother to needle him about his first meeting with her latest goddaughter, Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
He had prepared for this meeting in the manner of a professional obligation.
But nothing felt professional about sitting across a ledger from the woman who had eviscerated his heart.
However, a Darcy had dignity, and he would not deign to bleed in front of Lady Sophia by dignifying her taunt with a response.
“Twice, unless I am mistaken,” Lady Sophia continued from her armchair, where she sat with a chocolate and a novel.
“The first was your usual knot. The second was rather more elaborate. I observed it through my window when you crossed the garden. You have since returned to the first, which I commend. Too much formality makes it look as though you planned every detail, and that level of preparation can reveal rather more interest than is prudent, and we would not wish to hint at undue interest, would we, Fitzwilliam?”
“I changed my cravat because the first was poorly tied.”
“How unlike you, my dear.” Her eyes crinkled. “Sit down and do try not to look as though you are facing a tribunal.”
He assured himself he was facing nothing more than a routine trustee consultation—the first of what would be bi-weekly meetings every Monday and Thursday for the foreseeable future—not a bane, but an opportunity.
He wanted to see her. The realization was as sharp as winter frost. He longed to watch her eyes darken when she was thinking, and—perhaps more than was safe for his composure—to discover whether she could be persuaded to improve her opinion of him.
“I am merely ensuring the accounts are beyond reproach,” he said to fill the dead space between them. “Miss Bennet is… thorough. I should not like to leave her with the impression that her affairs are being handled with anything less than absolute rigor.”
Lady Sophia turned a page with exquisite nonchalance.
“I trust you will remain as chaperone,” he added.
“I shall remain as furniture, though I warn you my hearing has become quite unreliable in recent years and I shall catch nothing of what passes between you.”
“Your hearing is excellent.”
“What a kind thing to say. I did not catch it.” She smiled into her chocolate. “You have prepared the Bellwood accounts, the Consols, and the household expenditure?”
“I have.”
“And you are prepared for the possibility that my goddaughter may have opinions?”
“I expect nothing less.”
“Good. I have watched her since she arrived. She has been in my library at six o’clock every morning with a treatise on rural economy and a candle burning to its stub.
” Lady Sophia’s pale eyes met his over the rim of her cup.
“She does not intend to sit quietly while a man explains her fortune to her. You will find her formidable. Do try to breathe, Fitzwilliam. It is a biological necessity, even for trustees.”
He allowed the word formidable to slide off his back. He was used to formidable women—present company included. He opened the first ledger, smoothing the pages with a hand that felt uncharacteristically restless.
A few minutes later, Elizabeth entered in a morning dress of sprigged muslin, with a faint smudge of ink on the second finger of her right hand.
The sight of it—and the image of Elizabeth bent over paperwork at dawn—was a thought he vainly attempted to dismiss with about as much success as his tortured cravat.
“Mr. Darcy.” She took the chair opposite. “I understand we are to review my accounts.”
“Among other matters.” He pushed the first ledger across the desk. “The quarterly rents, the Consols portfolio, and the household expenditure. I have prepared summaries to save you the labor of the columns.”
“How efficient.” She perused the open ledger.
“Although I prefer the details where all the most interesting situations are hidden. The Bellwood rents are organized by tenant and quarter, but there is a discrepancy in the north field allotments. Mr. Hodges appears eleven pounds in arrears as of Lady Day.”
Darcy looked at her, prepared to offer patient explanations. He had rehearsed clear, dispassionate summaries, tempered to inform without condescension, because any condescension from him would be perceived as an act of war. He hadn’t expected her to have already spotted the discrepancy.
“You’ve been thorough.”
“I’ve been awake since six. Marshall’s treatise on rural economy isn’t exactly light reading, but it does clarify what a Lady Day quarter signifies. I admit I hadn’t paid much attention to it before.”
“Few landowners do. They employ stewards for precisely that reason.”
“I intend to employ a steward, Mr. Darcy. I don’t, however, intend to be ignorant of what he does with my money.” She met his gaze, and that directness struck him as it always did—not coy, but straightforward. “The discrepancy, if you please.”
He cleared his throat. “Mr. Hodges has farmed the north allotment for nine years. His rent was fixed at forty-two pounds per annum—generous, as the land could support fifty or fifty-five at current yields. He has been punctual until this quarter. The Bellwood steward reports a poor harvest, and a late frost damaged the barley. Hodges has requested an extension.”
“And your recommendation?”
“The terms should be renegotiated. The current rent is below market value, and the arrears suggest that the arrangement is no longer sustainable.”
Elizabeth’s eyebrow rose. “Renegotiated? That is a very long word for an increase in rent, Mr. Darcy. You would ask more of a man who has just told you he has nothing?”
“I would ask for a structure that survives a bad season,” he countered flatly. That she would immediately accuse him of raising the rent was galling, especially as it signified that she had not read his letter explaining why he had not ill-treated Wickham.
“Mr. Hodges has three children.” Elizabeth’s voice was mild, but it held a principled edge.
“The youngest is an infant. I read the tenancy record; Mrs. Hodges was confined in January, and the doctor attended twice. The frost damaged the barley. The rent was generous because Lady Sophia intended it to be so.”
“Lady Sophia’s generosity is not in question. The sustainability of such an arrangement?—”
“Depends entirely on what one believes the arrangement is for.” Her chin lifted. “If the purpose of a tenancy is to extract maximum revenue, your recommendation is sound. If the purpose is to sustain a family through a season of misfortune, then an increase is the very last thing required.”
Lady Sophia turned a page and did not look up.
The study fell silent. Nettle had trotted in behind Elizabeth and made directly for the desk. Instead of circling her mistress, she had laid her chin on Darcy’s boot where it currently rested. He did not move his foot; to do so would acknowledge the dog and the history she was attached to.
His father had managed the Pemberley tenancies with this principle, and his mother would have argued for it in exactly this tone.
It was exactly what he was about to recommend, as he was the one who had proposed the leniency to Lady Sophia.
But Elizabeth evidently still despised him, and so he had to proceed with caution.
“There is a middle path,” he considered.
“The arrears are forgiven. The rent remains at forty-two pounds. But I would suggest we instruct the steward to assess the drainage. Late frost damage often indicates a water management problem. If corrected, yields would improve sufficiently to make the rent comfortable rather than merely possible. The expense would come from the estate improvement fund, not from Hodges.”
“You are suggesting that instead of raising the rent, we invest in the land?”
“A secure tenant produces more than an anxious one. My father believed this, and I have managed Pemberley on the same principle.”
Her carefully guarded expression softened by a single, beautiful degree.
“That is a sensible suggestion,” she said. “I accept it. Will you write to the steward, or shall I?”
“As your trustee, the instruction should come from me.”
“As the owner of the estate, the decision is mine,” she parried lightly but not yielding.
“I did not suggest otherwise, Miss Bennet.”
“No. You did not.” She held his gaze a beat longer than business required, then returned to the ledger. “The Consols portfolio, next.”
“The Consols are Government bonds,” he explained. “Invested at five percent.”
“How much is the annual income generated?” she asked, noting the entries.
“Approximately half of your fifteen thousand a year. They are steady and do not fluctuate, unlike the canal shares or more speculative securities.”
“So, they form the basis of my security, independent of the expenditures required by the properties.”
“Yes, and Lady Sophia has been reinvesting what she can to grow the account.” Darcy glanced at his godmother, who remained a remarkably attentive piece of furniture.
“A wise prescription,” Elizabeth agreed. “Now, the household accounts and expenditures.”
“These require considerably more care,” Darcy said, his tone shifting to the protective. “Though you needn’t trouble yourself with the minutiae.”
“And yet, I find the mundane is often where the truth hides.” Elizabeth’s finger tapped the page.
“The accounts suggest a remarkable appetite for candlelight. According to last month’s requisition, this house consumes enough beeswax to illuminate a cathedral.
Even accounting for the late hours Lady Sophia keeps, I calculate a surplus of twenty pounds a month unaccounted for. ”
“Candles are a common leakage in a large establishment,” Darcy noted. “The servants often consider the ends their perquisite.”