Chapter Nine #2
Zeph knew the value of this question and answer. Her parents and she were the only ones who knew it. “My father had accused my mother of stealing money from his purse.”
“And?”
“And of committing adultery.” Zeph had to tell this tale, even though it was in front of her friends.
They would keep it safe, she trusted. “Yes, with his best friend, Joshua Haywood. My mother admitted both were true. She claimed the money she took was reimbursement of part of her dowry.” Zeph remembered the argument well.
Shouting, obscenities, a few bits of china flying to and fro.
“She left and never returned to Virginia. She died a year later. I never saw her again.”
“Your father kept you at home.”
“With him, yes. And when he left Virginia and came to Europe, he brought me with him. He put me in school in Paris. I rarely saw him. The last time was when he came to bid me adieu before he came here to London. He died soon after arrival.”
Friedlander tapped his finger on the ledger. “I thank you for your prompt answers.”
Zeph did not wish to focus on her parents’ past longer than necessary. “Are there other questions for me, sir?”
“No, Miss Butler.” He sat back, his blue eyes riveted to hers with a certain glee.
“Your father did bank with us.” Friedlander checked the book.
“Beginning in seventeen ninety-eight, he put his assets with Herr Rothschild. He allowed us to invest his profits. I can tell you what the totals are to the last day of last month for your father’s two accounts. ”
“Two?”
He pushed the ledger across his desk toward her. “This is what he deposited that first day he was here for the first account. It reflects the current worth of your grandfather’s Baltimore shipping company.”
A bubble of laughter rose up inside her. “Twelve thousand, four hundred Great British pounds?”
He nodded. “We keep our books in British currency.”
“That makes sense.” She could not wait to fly home and tell Rafe the news. “This is Grandpapa’s business, which is”—she swallowed—“now mine?”
“It is, Miss Butler. I have the papers for you to review and sign.”
She could hardly believe such fortune. “You said my father had two accounts.”
“He did.” Friedlander’s grin was wider than logic told her it should be.
She folded her hands, expecting the sum would be small.
Her father had complained bitterly, when last she saw him, that the American dollar and the American government had had an extremely difficult time recovering from the financial chaos and huge debt incurred by the revolution.
“My father was a good steward of his lands and his plantations, but he relied on others to care for his profits.”
“He did. Here is the value of your father’s banking accounts with us from his crop sales.” Friedlander turned the page of the ledger and leaned forward to point out the first amount and the last.
Shock went through her like a tidal wave. “How can that first sum now be the last?” Surely twenty-four thousand, especially added to her grandpapa’s twelve, was a huge amount of money.
“Your father invested in two different endeavors. The first is a major British import-export company. That firm has grown during the last nine years.”
“At twenty-four thousand, I would say it has astronomically grown.”
“I agree.”
She turned to her friends, who looked as if they were jumping out of their skin with curiosity.
“Mr. Friedlander, what is the name of this company?”
“Hawthorne Enterprises. In the City. Not far from here. Owned by Miss Scarlett Hawthorne.”
Her three friends took the news as if they’d known it all along.
“A woman.” Zeph could not have been prouder. This was the same woman Rafe had mentioned when they were in Brighton. He had said he wished to introduce her to the lady. Zeph welcomed that even more so now.
“A very successful woman.”
Amber took Zeph’s hand. “Each of us knows that lady very well. We could introduce you, but we would create an unruly gaggle, our husbands wanting to come along as well. So I would say it is a better plan for Sir Raphael to take you to Scarlett.”
“A good idea,” Zeph said, spreading her hands along the soft green wool of her new gown. She was free. Her father had seen to it in one way. Just as Rafe had in quite another.
Then she had a thought. “But you said there was another investment my father made. What was it?”
“In 1802, he gave us fourteen thousand American dollars. He told us to make use of it only one way. He said it was how your mother’s dowry had fared in American banks.”
That warmed her. She had profits from her father, her grandfather, and her mother to see her into a new life. Already the sums were great. Bigger than she had ever expected. Yet she questioned the principles of holding money made in unethical ways. “I see. And how did you use it?”
“Loans to the opponents of Bonaparte.”
Liesel grinned. Amber made a little squeak. Viv licked her lips.
Zeph was startled—and even more concerned about the ethics of her inherited fortune. “Is that profitable?”
“Indeed. When one charges interest. And we do. Furthermore, we collect it.”
Zeph leaned forward. “Show me the page.”
Grinning, he turned a creamy sheet in his ledger and pointed to a sum.
“Your father’s account now totals twenty-four thousand, nine hundred, and eighty-one pounds.”
“Mein Gott,” Liesel whispered.
“Good heavens.” Amber laughed.
“C’est incroyable.” Viv clapped her hands.
Zeph’s friends had an idea of this value. She knew this sum too was larger than its invested amounts, but the value mystified her. “Meaning that you loaned money to countries who paid the interest rates you asked.”
“And that you inherit from these three sources,” said Mr. Friedlander with a grin, “more money than many very titled Englishmen earn from their landed estates in ten years.”
She shot to her feet. She could not wait to leave here!
“I imagine, Miss Butler,” Friedlander said as he too rose with all the ladies, “you wish to leave your monies here?”
“I do. I definitely do, sir.” She was not changing anything until she decided what to do with it all.
“Good. Good. I am so very happy for you.”
She clasped her hands together. “I will return. I need pin money. I need presents for my friends from Fortnum’s and ever so much more!” She held back tears of happiness and giggled.
Amber, Liesel, and Viv readied to leave.
Friedlander walked Zeph to his door as the others preceded her. “It is fortuitous that you have come to us now.”
She stilled. “Why is that?”
“We recently had another inquiry into the matter of your father’s will.
I asked the lady for some kind of proof she was who he claimed to be.
When we posed the first question, she knew the answer, but then told us she was born on your Tidewater plantation.
When I looked skeptical, she suddenly became quite ill and had to leave.
To date, she has not reappeared to offer us any proof. ”
*
The knock at his study door was unmistakably Zeph’s.
Rafe grinned as she appeared before him.
Brimming with a shivering excitement, she folded her hands before her.
He was sure the pose was an attempt to contain herself.
But the rest of her, proud and effervescent—and yes, her breasts quivering above that damn deliciously low bodice—was a gorgeous woman ready to blurt out good news.
She was going to tell him, and do it while her eyes danced and his heart exploded.
He went to her and took her hands to his lips. “Where is my gift?”
“Gift?” she crooned. “Oh, my dear sir, I have a very, very good one.”
The contralto of her rough voice shot hot desire through him. Whatever she had for him today, or any day, she did not offer the union he needed. He had to sit lest she see exactly what that was. “Take the chair. Tell me. What is this that has you glowing?”
As they sat, she told him, “I went to Inès’s house.”
Of course you did. So this news was so big he would have to pull it out of her. Very well. He could play. “Is she well?”
“In labor. All of a sudden, as we were there! She is soon to birth her first child.”