“Where are you going?” Albina asked after her.
“Outside,” Florentia said simply. “The day is lovely, and I really should be taking advantage. Care to join me?”
Her friend beamed her delight and scrambled to her feet. “I would love to.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“There is one more thing that we need to discuss,” Mr. Andrews began with what Hudson could tell was great caution.
“Speak,” Hudson said.
“I know this is not my place,” Mr. Andrews said. “And if I have overstepped, please tell me so. But considering our current relationship, I feel that it behooves me to bring attention to the matter. I would not feel right if I simply said nothing?—”
“Out with it, man,” Hudson groaned and rubbed his eyes. “Or I shall open the door to this carriage and kick you from it.”
Mr. Andrews chuckled nervously, searching for the joke. But Hudson looked back at him flatly, no sense of humor in his stare, because he was not joking. Granted, the carriage was moving at a gentle trot, so if Mr. Andrews was to suddenly be sent from inside, he would not seriously hurt himself. It was more what thegesture implied than anything, that Hudson was not in the mood for games.
“This past month has seen your personal expenses expand to levels that, to be perfectly honest with you, are beginning to cause concern,” Mr. Andrews said.
“Is that right?”
“I am not your accountant,” he clarified. “Nor do I pretend to be. But I do have a vested interest in your finances—as I am paid to have. Nothing I have seen this past month is cause for immediate alarm, mind you. It is rather the fact that these expenditures, as random as they appear, continue to grow. My job is to make you money, Your Grace. That is it. A simple enough task, to be fair, but one made infinitely harder by what appears to be a third party with little care or worry for where the money comes from.”
Hudson stuck his tongue into the side of his mouth with frustration. Partly at himself. Partly at the fact that Mr. Andrews had noticed the recent spending from his accounts and partly that he had seen fit to bring it up—to bring attention to it. It made Hudson feel exposed, as if Mr. Andrews was judging him.
Never mind the worry he felt that word of this might spread among his peers in the ton. If they heard about his wife’s tantrum, and then caught wind of her spending, the assumption might be that Hudson had folded like a deck of cards under her will. That would make him look weak. And that was something that he could not abide.
“It is fine,” Hudson said. “I am aware of it. I am keeping an eye on it. There is no need to worry.”
Mr. Andrews sucked through his teeth. “It is just that?—”
“I said it is fine!” Hudson barked, which saw Mr. Andrews yelp and cower back in his seat.
Hudson rolled his eyes at the little man’s theatrics, and he very nearly apologized. After all, Mr. Andrews was only doing his job. This past month had seen the broker go above and beyond for Hudson, securing gigantic swaths of land for him, partnering him in numerous new business ventures and lucrative trades, very nearly doubling Hudson’s finances...while making a pretty penny for himself also.
He did not apologize, however. Not only did he not care to, but he thought that Mr. Andrews had overstepped. As the man said, he was not Hudson’s accountant and where Hudson spent his money should have been of no concern.
Then again, it wasn’t as if Hudson was the one who was spending the money. Which was likely why Mr. Andrews had decided to stick his nose in.
It had been a vexing month for Hudson, in ways he had not counted on. This marriage... it came with a sharpened edge, he was beginning to learn, one which cut both ways.
On the one hand, it had proven lucrative and bolstered his name as he had intended for it to; truly, it was perhaps the smartest investment he had ever made. While on the other, his relationship with his wife was as pitiful and hopeless as was possible.
That was the cause for all this spending.
It had been a month now since he and Florentia had wed, a month in which the two had avoided each other as the sun avoided the moon. A month in which the two had lived in the same manor while somehow able to live as if the other did not exist. A month in which Hudson had tried his best to put her out of his mind entirely but was constantly reminded of her existence through no fault of his own.
She was just so busy. If she wasn’t redecorating every room in the manor, she was hiring new staff for tasks he did not know or care to ask about. If she wasn’t buying new horses to fill the stables with, she was having new stables constructed for them. Clothes. Exotic foods. More books than he could count. The bills piled up on his desk at an alarming rate, and with each new expenditure, Hudson found his patience being tested.
It is as if she is trying to annoy me into speaking with her. Is that her task? To break me slowly so I will give in? So I will decide it’s better to occupy her with a child than to see myself go bankrupt?
But he would not break. He would not yield. Hudson had been firm with her that first evening for good reason, and no amountof lucrative spending would change his mind. He did not want to have a child. Dammit, he did not want to be married in the first place! Why could she not see that?
And yes, at times, he did feel bad for the way things had happened, and he cursed himself for not being more upfront with her from the beginning. But there wasn’t anything they could do about it now, and he would not give into such childish acts as she was currently engaged with. That simply wasn’t his way.
“Here we are,” Mr. Andrews said with a sigh of relief as the carriage pulled into Worthington Manor. “Leave these papers with me, Your Grace. I shall comb through them as if my life depends on it.”
“Or as if you are being paid to do so,” Hudson muttered. The two men were just now coming back from a business meeting in London, yet another opportunity presented on account of Hudson’s marriage.
