Jilted in January (2 page)

She nodded and walked past him to the book-lined wall. “I wonder why Mr. Morehouse left the place in such a state? It’s almost as if he were searching for something.”

“Probably looking for money or items he could steal and pawn.” Colin bent to pick up a handful of scattered pages and placed them on the desk. “One has to suspect that his bookkeeping will be as irregular as his departure.”

“Agreed.” She stacked three books together, rearranged their order, and inserted them neatly onto the empty shelf. “I don’t envy you the task of sorting it all out.”

“I actually enjoy the intricacies of finance,” Colin confessed as he gathered up more loose pages. “There is a certain satisfaction in making the books balance at the end of a quarter.”

His father had scoffed at him for such a nonsensical notion, stating that tradesmen and menials
existed
to wait on their betters and should be grateful to have a peer’s patronage and be paid at all.

Miss Leyton continued putting the books away, bending and stretching in a graceful way that reminded Colin of the dancers he’d ogled on the London stage during his misspent youth. This revelation made him feel rather uncomfortable, seeing as Miss Leyton was undoubtedly a
lady
.

“Have you heard any more news about the duke?” Miss Leyton inquired. “We are all wondering who on earth he will be. Great-Aunt Maude is already combing the family tree to see if she can ascertain in which branch the heir resides.” She sighed. “It seems as if the Beckworth male line is remarkably thin.”

“Unlike my family where there are so many males that there is no room in the family Bible.”

“You come from a large family? How lovely.”

Colin grimaced at the warmth in her voice. “I’m the fifth son of an impoverished earl. I have seven siblings.”

“Good Lord.” Miss Leyton turned to him, her mouth open. “Then I assume you were expected to make your own way in the world.”

“It was that or starve.”

“And the army and the church did not appeal to you?”

“I have two brothers in the army and one in the church. My father had no funds left for a commission, or for me to go up to Cambridge.”

She neatly lined up another shelf of books. “Would you have liked to be in the military?”

“By Jove, yes.”

“Even during the current conflict?”

He scooped up several crumpled pieces of paper and attempted to straighten them out. “I would’ve been glad to serve our monarch against the French threat. I feel so… useless here.”

“At least you are safe.”

Despite the fact that she’d turned her back to him he looked up. “You have family in the military?”

“My brother and my betrothed, yes. They are best friends and are in the same regiment.”

“That must be hard for you.”

“Indeed, but I know they wouldn’t wish me to worry about them and that eventually they will come home.” Her tone was bracing as she continued to shelve the books. “They are currently in Portugal, so their letters tend to arrive together or not at all.”

“My brothers aren’t the kind of men who write letters.” Colin unfolded yet another piece of paper. “In fact Declan, who is a lieutenant in the Ninety-fifth, can barely form a sentence. For some reason he insists the letters get all muddled up in his head and writing becomes impossible.”

“My younger sister had the same problem. It didn’t matter how many times our governess corrected her work, she could not seem to learn.” Miss Leyton sighed. “Not that it stopped her making an extremely advantageous marriage. Beauty is its own passport to success in this world, isn’t it?”

Colin nodded as he set the strongbox on the table. “My brother looks so splendid decked out in his regimentals that the ladies seem to adore him as well.”

They shared a smile, and he realized she wasn’t quite as plain and mousey as he had first imagined. And as she was betrothed, he didn’t have to exert himself to win her favor or be anything other than his normal self with her. It was quite refreshing.

“How did you come to be living at Beckworth Park, Miss Leyton?”

“I resided with my brother and sister in our house in Hertfordshire, but when David went off to war and Violet married, I had to find alternative accommodation. The late duke’s great-aunt is a vague connection of my family, and she offered me a home.” She sighed as she contemplated the row of books. “To be perfectly frank, I didn’t expect to still be here at this point, but my brother has remained on the continent, and so has my betrothed.”

“I should imagine that with Napoleon now defeated and safely ensconced on Saint Helena the army will soon be coming home.”

“One would hope so.” She bit her lip. “I haven’t seen either of them for several years. I wonder how much the experience will have changed them?”

Colin decided not to answer that question. From everything he’d seen most men returning from the bloody conflict took refuge in drinking and fighting to dispel the nightmares and to prove how little they had changed. There was an unwritten law that a gentleman didn’t talk about his experiences at war, but the façade sometimes slipped.

The bookcase was now restored to its former pristine appearance, and Miss Leyton returned to his side. “What else can I do?”

Colin pointed at the piles of ledgers stacked on the floor and on the desk. “Can you sort these out? Check through the pages for any notes Mr. Morehouse might have left or any loose papers.”

She set to work, sitting on the floor and leafing through the first huge tome. “These records are from ten years ago and written in a different hand.”

“Probably by Morehouse’s predecessor.” Colin continued to sort through the loose papers but was glad to see order was slowly being restored. “If you can’t find anything that looks out of place, just stack the book against the side of the desk. I’d rather keep them all together so I can establish some kind of pattern or reason for his interest. Then I won’t have to search through everything again.”

Rose nodded as she lugged another large leather-bound volume off the carpet and onto her lap. She probably shouldn’t be sitting on the floor unchaperoned in a room with an unattached man, but she doubted anyone would care. She was betrothed, and Mr. Ford was far too handsome to be interested in the likes of her. Since the duke’s sudden death, the household had been in disarray—rather like a ship without a captain.

She stole a surreptitious glance at his profile and the black unruly curls that surrounded his face. He looked like one of the romantic poets with his high cheekbones, autocratic nose, and generous mouth. He might consider himself ineligible, but like her younger sister, he had something everyone coveted—true beauty.

Despite his good looks, he had always been polite and respectful to all the members of the duke’s household. She had become used to being ignored, overlooked, or treated like a poor relation, and his politeness had been an unexpected balm to her soul. She hoped he wouldn’t be held accountable for the sudden desertion of the duke’s former land agent.

Time passed, and soon the office looked respectable again apart from the growing mounds of paperwork accumulating on the desk. Rose stood and studied Mr. Ford’s bent head.

“Why are so many of the pieces of paper crumpled up?”

“Because Mr. Morehouse was attempting to cover his tracks. Unfortunately for him there was no coal or kindling in the fireplace, so everything he threw in that general direction survived.”

He looked up briefly, his blue gaze settling on her face. “The biggest pile so far is unpaid bills. I don’t think he’s paid a single tradesman since last summer.”

“That’s appalling.”

“I agree. I’ll have to tally up the amounts and let the solicitors in London know how bad things are.” He raked a hand through his curls. “He must have been stealing from the estate for years.”

She tentatively laid a hand on his shoulder, which was surprisingly solid. “All you can do is report the matter to the duke’s solicitors. I can hardly believe they will place any blame on you. In truth, they will probably be relieved that someone has made an attempt to sort out the mess for them.”

“I appreciate your concern, Miss Leyton. One can only hope that you are right.”

A clock whirred on the mantelpiece and struck six times. Mr. Ford looked up. “May I escort you to dinner? You have been remarkably helpful today.”

He rose from his seat. He wasn’t terribly tall, which was nice because she didn’t have to crane her neck to see his face.

“Miss Leyton?”

She curtsied and placed her hand on his sleeve, noticing the white cuff of his shirt was now stained with ink. “Thank you kindly, sir.”

As they walked out of the estate office and into the long corridor that connected the offices to the central wing on the house, she glanced up at him.

“If you permit, I will come and help you again tomorrow.”

“Only if you have the time, Miss Leyton. I would not wish to take you from your duties or your pleasures.”

She snorted. “I have few of either. I sew furiously, like Penelope awaiting the return of Odysseus, and walk my great-aunt’s obnoxious pugs. Neither of these activities consumes my hands or my intellect.”

“Then you are more than welcome to assist me.” He hesitated. “The fewer people who know about this muddle the better.”

“That is very wise, sir. We don’t wish anyone to think the estate is in trouble, or we’ll have all the local tradesmen at our door demanding to be paid when there are not the funds to do so.”

“You noticed that, did you?” Mr. Ford paused before the door into the dining room.

“That the strongbox was empty?” She smiled up at him. “It was quite hard to miss.”

“Mrs. Pemberley said she has enough money to cover the servants’ wages, but I will still need to talk to the London solicitors.” He heaved a sigh. “I am not looking forward to that at all.”

A yapping sound echoed around the drafty hallway, and Rose looked behind her. “Great-Aunt Maude approaches. We should go in before she demands to know what we are whispering about.”

He smiled, bowed, and took her hand, bringing it to his lips. She might not be a beauty, but she had wit and common sense, which were a lot more useful and less likely to fade with time. “Your wish is my command, Miss Leyton. Shall we proceed?”

Chapter Two

“Thank you, Mr. Denton, and have a good day.”

Colin ushered the old farmer out of the door and returned to his desk. After two weeks of hard and patient work, he had a much better understanding of the extent of the problems at Beckworth and how he might set about dealing with them. He’d received a very polite reply to his initial letter to the London solicitors and had been provided with a limited amount of funds to tide him over the current financial crisis.

In truth, everything was proceeding much more smoothly than he might have anticipated. He couldn’t deny that Miss Leyton had been of great help to him. She was highly intelligent and instinctively understood the issues without him having to explain them more than once. It was a pity she was not a man, because she would have made an excellent land agent and friend.

Colin dipped his pen in the inkwell and paused in thought. Not that he
wished
her to be a man. His pleasure in her company went far beyond that. They had developed a familiarity and friendship beyond anything he had experienced before with a female, and he valued her immensely. He wrote a quick note about his last meeting with Mr. Denton from Blackberry Farm in the ledger. Miss Leyton’s intended was a fool not to return and claim her before another man saw her worth and snatched her up.

Moving the ledger to one side, he frowned down at his plans for planting out the main fields. Mr. Denton had suggested his upper field was too dry to use for crops and recommended it be used it for grazing land instead. Colin would have to investigate the records and see what the field had been used for in the past…

The clock struck eleven, and he looked up with a frown. Where
was
Miss Leyton? He was supposed to be taking her out to view the farm cottages where she would help him talk to the occupants and make a list of the improvements that were needed. He rolled up the map. Had he suggested they meet in the stables?

Picking up his coat and hat, he decided to walk down to the stable yard and see if Miss Leyton awaited him there. After carefully locking his door because one never knew if the old land agent might decide to come back, he took a shortcut through the gardens behind the house. It was all very well, the old duke’s family insisting he treat the house as his own, but he still tried to avoid them en masse if he could manage it.

A stiff breeze and a hint of an icy drizzle in the leaden skies made him cram his hat down more firmly on his head. He left the path between the rose garden and a line of poplars and made his way past the high Tudor brick walls of the old kitchen garden, which had barely survived the remorseless remodeling of the previous duke.

A flash of a patterned muslin skirt disappearing into the copse of trees to the right of the stable yard had him pausing, his brow furrowed. He abruptly altered course and headed the same way.