Page 30 of The Jilted Duchess
"Here," Alexandra said, showing her thoughts by moving her finger around the page, poking at each figure vigorously as she grew more absorbed. "Here she has said that fourteen pounds of salmon was eight shillings per pounds, where in fact at this time of year, it is no more than four at most. And here - here you see? Ten pounds of almonds at six shillings each? Why, it is no more than three shillings at the moment. That is a full three shillings above what it should be. Here you can see shehas put down butter for two shillings a pound," her voice rose in indignation, and she slapped a hand on the desk loudly, rage boiling in her at the thought of it. "Butter is one shilling and no more!" She stopped, breathing heavily. She could feel a flush of indignation in her cheeks and was aware that she had quite lost her composure.
When she raised her eyes, Hector looked at her with the most curious expression. It was like he was trying not to smile, but his eyes were sparkling brightly. "Go on," he said encouragingly.
Go on?
Go on, not - cease talking about things you couldn't understand or this is none of your business or keep your hands out of my desk?
For the first time in her life, she found herself encouraged instead of silenced, and it felt like flying. "Oh! Yes—so here. Here, she has raised the salary of a housemaid tothirty pounds per annum, which is well above what anyone would pay a housemaid. It is quite clear that she is expanding her expenses on almost every front that I can see and stealing the extra from your pockets!"
He was fully smiling now, his hand reaching out to tuck a loose hair back from her face and leaving her tingling and flustered. "I know."
"You know?" Alexandra blinked, a little surprised. Any time she had brought her thoughts on expenses to her father, he hadsimply told her he knew best, especially if she found places where he was clearly trying to skim things for his wine or gambling. "Did you know she was also stealing from your father? I looked back in this ledger -" she pulled out an older book and opened it. "It is even more egregious here. She hired a footman for fifty pounds here, she spent a full hundred pounds on linen here which unless she clothed an entire orphanage with the materials is surely more than one household could ever use - and here you can see her pin money accounts are actively altered to make them look more reasonable. Why would she need to steal so much when she must have a perfectly reasonable allowance?"
"I know about this, too," Hector said, touching the ledger lightly as though unsure that he was allowed. "How did you learn so much about this business, Alexandra?" His eyes were searching her once again, heavy and weighty.
What was he looking for?
Alexandra realized that they were standing close together, heads bowed over the same book, their bodies so near that she could feel the warmth from him. She stepped back and brushed her hands down her skirt. It felt as though this was an important question, no matter how lightly Hector had asked it. It felt that he was asking more than just how a fourth daughter knew so much about managing a household and understanding what things should cost. She needed - she needed to be honest, as honest as she could.
For the first time, it felt like he might not fully trust her, and Alexandra was surprised to find just how deeply she needed him to.
Ever since he had entered the study to find his wife going through his papers, a cold weight had settled in Hector's stomach. It was not likely, neverlikelythat his stepmother would have planted a lass at a party, orchestrated the whole mess of a scandal just to ensure he marry a woman of her choosing who could sniff out his business and report back to her. For one thing, it didn't seem likely that a sister to the wives of three of his friends would be the sort, and for another thing, it rested on a pretty thin possibility of him insisting on then marrying the lass when Benedict didn't show up.
And yet, it had never been completely impossible. He had alwaysknownhow scheming the Dowager could be. And he knew how hard up the Balfour family had been in the past. He could not even have fully blamed the lass if she had taken the position in order to help out her family. The world was hard, and stomachs had to be fed.
He had been telling himself he was a paranoid fool, but here she was. Looking at his stuff. And then finding all the ways that the Dowager had been cheating and stealing without seeming to try. Was she genuine? Was she trying to draw him out, making him trust her fully?
He could see her thinking about what to say, that serious expression on her face that always looked as though she was thinking about something large and sad. It made him want to hold her in his arms and smooth away her cares, but he held back.
That wouldn't help now.
"I - Evelina managed the estate first," she said slowly. "That and everything else. But since I was about ten, I took it over. It always - spoke to me. I love numbers and the patterns that they make - the way that you can see how seasons affect the price of food or how a missing fleet of merchants impacts materials. I used to pore over the books and ledgers at night next to a candle. We - we were a team back then. I would learn all the ways we could make things more efficient and she would teach me. Then, eventually, I was teaching her."
She paused, took a breath. She looked both soft and sad, a little shamefaced. Someone had told his girl at one time, or perhaps more often, that she was wrong for who she was, and Hector felt as though in that moment he could kill whoever that was.
"When Evelina got married, I took over the financial side of things. James -Father- well. You may know a little about his inclinations. After mother died when I was little, just three years old, he became more distant. Then he began drinking and gambling no matter how little that left to keep the household with. I had to keep the expenses slim so that we could cover his increasing debts. We did not have much meat, just many soups with a little fish and a great deal of potatoes and breads. Iknow how to see where someone has amended a ledger to take more than they should, I know how to balance and make the numbers work. I - " she paused a little and wrinkled her nose. "I am not good with people. I don't know how to understand them outside of the rules of society and those that I am close to. People are unpredictable. They change, they become hard to understand. They can be hurtful for no clear reason. Numbers are just numbers. They always mean the same thing. I have always enjoyed my sums a great deal more than people."
Hector had an image in his mind: a little girl of scant dozen years old, bent over a large desk in a chair that dwarfed her, penciling sums into a giant ledger book by candlelight. It was an image that made him ache for her, made his heart squeeze in sympathy no matter how much she clearly treasured having been able to do this thing for her elder sister.
These children should have been protected by their parents. They should have been treasured, not left to manage adult matters on their own while a distant father stole bread from their mouths.
Not for the first time, he wished he could punch James Balfour in the face.
"You must be exceptionally clever, lass," he said instead. "It takes a trained eye to immediately see what the Dowager has been up to."
"Well, I'm quite used to it," Alexandra said softly. "Did you -" she paused and studied him with that puzzled expression shesometimes had. For the first time, he wondered if it was because she was trying to make him fit into her orderly world like her numbers, and not because she found him out of place in this great dukedom. "Did you have suspicions about me?"
There was a vulnerable note to her voice, soft and fragile. Hector found himself wishing that he never had, feeling that she would find it painful to have had ill thoughts of her. She was so rigidly upright, so determined to be just.
Still. Lies had no place in a true relationship. It was time for them to be honest with each other in full. "I was, to start with, lass," he said gently, his face softening into a gentle smile. "Me stepmaither has been keen to have someone in me household since I took over. I dinnae want to think it, but I was wary in case I needed to protect myself and you as well from her machinations. I couldnae take a risk on a stranger, ye see."
"Oh." It was a small hurt noise, and he wanted to step in and protect her, soothe that hurt away.
"I am nae suspicious of ye anymore," he said quickly, hoping that this might ease the matter. "The more I ken ye, the more I come to see how ye couldnae be a spy if someone paid ye to be."
She laughed a little, her small pale face regaining color. "That is true. I have never been particularly good at fabricating myself."
"No, you are true to who ye are," Hector said warmly. "I see who you are now. You are not working for the dowager and I knowmore about what ye like to do, so I'm glad that you came in here to tidy up for me."
