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“Hmm,” Lord Wyndleton said. “Four thousand transactions.” He glanced up at William, and then shook his head as if it were somehow William’s fault he’d been so efficient. “What a bloody nuisance.”
With that, the man turned his head down to the books. Minutes passed. His eyes moved slowly down column after column. He turned one page, then another. At the turn of the tenth page, William sighed and sat down without permission.
The old marquess might have turned him off for that offense in an instant; his grandson didn’t even appear to notice.
At the twentieth page, William began to wish he hadn’t been so meticulous in his accounting. If he’d missed a shilling on the first page, at least he would have been able to leave.
At the twenty-sixth page, Lord Wyndleton sighed loudly. “I bloody hate this,” he muttered.
How sweet. They had something in common. It was time to escalate his plan to get sacked.
William was already bored. And he had nothing to lose. “I hear you are interested in scientific pursuit.”
Lord Wyndleton’s eyes moved only to glance down the page of numbers in front of him. He turned his hand over. It might have been an unconscious gesture. It might have been the barest acknowledgment of William’s uttered words.
William decided to take it as acknowledgment. “Well, then. I should think you’d enjoy numbers.”
Lord Wyndleton shrugged but still did not look up. He flipped to the front of the book, then back to page twenty-six. For a long while William thought the man was going to ignore him.
But the viscount finally spoke without lifting his eyes from the page. “I do like numbers. I like numbers when they are attached to little t and double-dot-x. Maybe a calculation of probability.” He spoke in swift, clipped tones, his voice unemotional and unvarying. “I dislike arithmetic. Finance bores me. It has no rules to discover. Just opportunity for error.”
“Ah,” William said. “You prefer calculus?”
Lord Wyndleton sighed and turned to page twenty-seven. Then he looked up—although he didn’t look directly at William. Instead, he leaned his head back and fixed his gaze on the ceiling. “Let me tell you what I dislike. I dislike servants who make obscure mistakes, forcing me to spend Christmas Eve morn studying dusty accounting tomes. My dislike accelerates when said servant attempts to distract me from my duty by yammering on. That means, Bill, I dislike you.”
“That,” said William, “makes us a pair. I despise men who let their vast fortunes go to waste. You’re so helpless, you can’t even get thirty miles on a Christmas Eve. You’re spending your morning glowering at books instead of going to Tattersall’s and purchasing a very swift horse.”
“If my grandfather did not control my fortune, I would have done precisely that.”
The viscount was angry. He was, also, William realized, entirely serious.
William stared at him for a few moments, his own pique dissipating. “You really don’t like finance,” he finally said. “Your grandfather doesn’t control your fortune.”
“Ha.” Lord Wyndleton undoubtedly intended that single syllable to be a dismissal.
“It wasn’t I who made the mistake. It was the marquess.”
“Do be quiet.”
“He ought never have left you alone with me.”
Lord Wyndleton slammed his pen down. “Oh, Lord almighty,” he muttered to the desktop. “What are you going to do to me? Annoy me to death?”
“You see,” William continued, “I’ve recorded the accounting for your trust every month since I started here. Those funds became yours, free and clear, upon your majority.”
Viscount Wyndleton cocked his head and turned it. It was a gesture reminiscent of his grandfather—and yet on him, it seemed attentive rather than predatory. His eyes were steady and almost golden-brown. For a few seconds he stared at William, his lips parted.
William knew precisely what that look meant. He was entertaining hopes. Then he let out a breath and shook his head. “No. When the trust was established, the money would have become mine on my majority. But six years ago I came to an agreement with my grandfather. I signed over control of my funds after my majority. In exchange he let me—well, never mind that. Your information is wrong.”
He paused, tapping his pen against his wrist. “Next time, if you have something to say, come out and say it. I don’t hold with talking in such a roundabout fashion, as if you’re a cat circling your prey. Pounce already and be done with it.”
For a second William thought the young lord intended to leave his words at a rebuke. But then Lord Wyndleton looked up again. “But thank you,” he said. “It was well-meant.”
So the grandson was not the grandfather, however alike they might have seemed at first. What had started as resentment on William’s part had turned into something—something more. He wasn’t sure what it was yet.
William stood. “I’ve seen the statements. I’ve recorded the accounts. I know every detail, and they’re in your own name.”
“Couldn’t be. There must be some legal nicety you’re missing. Blakely is too meticulous. I signed a contract, and I have no doubt the matter it covered was executed immediately. He wouldn’t miss the opportunity to keep me under his thumb.”
“This contract—you signed it six years ago?” The hackles on William’s neck rose. His calm dissipated. A great and sudden weight tensed on his shoulders. “You’re two-and-twenty now?”
Lord Wyndleton waved his hand and turned back to the books, dismissing William. “This isn’t getting me any closer to my mother’s home.”
William strode forward and slapped his hand over the page Lord Wyndleton was reading. “I’m pouncing. The agreement wasn’t executed because it couldn’t have been. Legally you were an infant. The contract was a nullity. It’s the rankest abuse of power for your guardian to have required you to give away what was rightfully yours in exchange for…for something else that is rightfully yours.”
Lord Wyndleton let out his breath, slowly. “Are you sure?”
“I can prove it,” William said. “Tell them you need to verify my figures against another set of books. They won’t deny you.”
A curt nod, and William left the room. Forty-five minutes later, with the books spread out in front of him, Lord Wyndleton believed. He looked up.
“Aren’t you some kind of lowly clerk or some such? How do you know arcane details about the legalities of contracts?”
William smiled faintly. I made love to a beautiful woman hardly seemed to be an answer that would keep him in his lordship’s good graces. “I read,” he finally said. It was true. Just not the whole truth. “I’ve been training myself to take over an estate.”
“Expectations?”
“No, my lord. None. Just…” William nodded once. “Just hopes, really.”
Lord Wyndleton drummed his fingers against the desk. “If I had my way,” he said quietly, “I’d leave England entirely. I’ve wanted to explore the Americas—but lacking funds, of course, it?
??s never been an option. It is now. But I need someone here. He would have to be someone who could be trusted to make sure my funds arrived wherever I had need of them. Someone who could not be suborned by my grandfather. Someone competent and efficient—perhaps even someone who likes finance—even if he does make the occasional mistake sometime between the months of January and April. Now—” Lord Wyndleton leaned back and looked at the ceiling “—if only I knew someone like that.”
The viscount was curt, rude and demanding. But he was not a tyrant like his grandfather. And he was fundamentally fair in a way that the marquess had not been. William shrugged. “And here I thought you didn’t like roundaboutation.”
“Well,” Lord Wyndleton said, “are you in need of a position?”
“As it happens, yes. Although I regret to inform you, my previous employer is not likely to speak highly of my character, as I helped his grandson uncover the secret of his financial independence. It was a shocking lapse of judgment on my part.”
Lord Wyndleton pursed his lips and nodded. “A shocking lapse. Can I trust you, Mr. White?”
“Of course you can,” William said, holding his breath. “You’re going to pay me seventy-five pounds a year.”
The viscount leaned back in his chair. “I am?”
William had chosen the salary to be deliberately, obscenely high. He’d had no doubts his lordship would argue him down to a reasonable thirty—perhaps forty—pounds. Forty pounds. On forty pounds, a man might rent decent quarters for himself and a wife. He might have children without worrying about whether he could provide for them. Forty pounds a year meant Lavinia. He was about to open his mouth to lower his demand when the young lord spoke again.
“Seventy-five pounds a year.” Lord Wyndleton sounded distinctly amused. “Is that supposed to be a lot of money?”
“You’re joking. God, yes.”
His lordship waved a hand negligently. “My mother and sister live in Aldershot. If you are good enough to get me out of London before my grandfather notices,” he said quietly, “I’ll treble that.”
