Page 10 of Impossible
“No. I had a pain in my gut. It’s a result of my present company. I must excuse myself.”
“I’ll have a list for you by this evening.” She returned her attention to the book on the table. “And I’ll look forward to reading your responses.”
He felt dismissed, which annoyed him even more. Before he could say something else, which would only prolong this irritating conversation, he stalked back to his office. He slapped her missive with its interminable list of queries onto the desk.
Sitting down, he took the cover from his breakfast and wondered how he would endure the next twelve days.
Chapter3
Ada stepped from the bright sunlight into the cool dimness of the stable. A horse whinnied, and she looked toward the sound. It was too shadowy to see which animal had greeted her.
“What do you want?”
The loud barking question startled her, but Ada recovered quickly, smiling at the older man striding toward her. Tall and grizzled, with a wide-brimmed hat, he wore a deep frown.
“Are you Og?” she asked pleasantly, refusing to be deterred by his rudeness.
“Who’s asking?”
“I’m Miss Treadway—Lord Warfield’s guest. I’m a bookkeeper, and I’ve come to, ah, organize his ledgers.”
He put his hands on his hips, which made him seem wider. Did he do that to compensate for his thinness? Perhaps he felt as though he had to make himself look more substantial. “What in the devil are you doing here, then?”
She held a partially filled ledger, the one the former steward had used and which should contain information from the estate for the past year but didn’t. “I understand you’ve been collecting the rents, and I wanted to see your accounting.”
He stared at her. “What?”
“Surely you have a ledger where you recorded who paid how much and when you collected it?”
“I wrote it down on a piece of parchment. What I could remember anyway.”
Ada resisted the urge to explain why this was a poor system because she still needed more information. “I don’t suppose you have these records?”
He shrugged. “I probably gave them to his lordship.” He rubbed his hand down his cheek. “Or they’re around here somewhere. Why does it matter?”
Clinging to her patience by a thread, Ada smiled benignly. “As I said, I’m organizing his ledgers. All receipts and records matter. If you find them, please bring them to the house. I would deeply appreciate it.” In the meantime, she’d move on to her next objective. “I’m also here to take an inventory of the stables.”
He twisted his mouth into a rather surly frown. “That’s my job.”
“I assumed so,” she responded sunnily in an effort to keep him from stamping away in irritation. “You can help me, and I’ll be on my way.”
“Don’t have time for that.”
“I understand.” She did not. “I’ll just see myself around.”
“The hell you will.” He practically growled, and she began to think there was a local dialect for exceedingly grumpy men.
She took the pencil from her pocket and opened the ledger, balancing it on her left hand against her chest. “I’d be happy to record your inventory. How many horses and what kind?”
He swore, and Ada scowled at him. “There’s no call to be offensive. You can either help me in this endeavor or allow me to continue on my errand without interruption. I assure you that his lordship understands the need for me to gather this information.”
His expression soured, which she would not have thought possible since it was already quite harassed. “You can have a quarter hour to poke your nose about, but I’ll be following you.”
Or you could just tell me what I want to know and save both of us the aggravation.Ada wondered what had happened to make Og so disagreeable. With his lordship, she knew it was the war. At least, she assumed it was. Perhaps she oughtn’t assume. It was only that she’d been told he was quite pleasant before going to war. Logically, she deduced that the war had changed him. And why wouldn’t it?
“Were you in the army, Og?”
He grunted. “No.”
