Page 51 of Counting on Love

“I want you to know, I did come up with the correct answer on my first try.” His voice was softly jocular. “But arithmetic is not my strength, so when I add long lists, I always tally up at least twice.” He slid a piece of paper out of the ledger and along the table in front of her. “See?”

She shut her eyes. Then realized how idiotic she must look, so she opened them. He added in groups. Next added the sums. Amateur.

Oh, God help her. She couldn’t bear it. “There.” She pointed to one of the groups. “There is your mistake.”

He stared at it a moment. She could practically see gears grinding in his brain. Then he smiled. It dazzled her.

“Yes, I see! How embarrassing. God.” He pushed that page aside and the ledger forward. “What about this?”

He pointed to the sum at the bottom of the left page. Tempting her. No, encouraging her. Then he glanced away, picking up his coffee to sip, as if aware that an audience could fluster someone working a puzzle. Ha! As if sums so simple could possibly daunt her. She could not have turned away from the numbers if she tried.

Well, then. She scanned the column eagerly, her dizziness gone. The numbers fell into place like old friends. “That’s correct,” she told him.

“It should be. I got the same answer three times. And this one?” He turned back several pages.

She shook her head. “Close. You’re off by three pounds. Because there.” She put her index finger on the offending row then jerked her hand back, resisting the strange urge to caress the page. How she missed this! “That five should be an eight.”

He squinted. “Yes. That isn’t my handwriting. That was Bradwell. But how did you know?”

“Because…” She hesitated. But it was too late now. She’d gone too far and the devil of it all was, this was more interesting than anything she had done since her debut last year. Perhaps even before that. “Because it was an eight on that previous page.”

He flipped the page then flipped it back again. “Recurring expense. But you can’t tell me you memorized the whole column.”

“No. It’s not memory. More like recognizing a pattern. From those groups you added before.”

He looked at his scratch sheet, then back at his ledger, then sat heavily beside her.

“That’s extraordinary. I’ve never seen—”

“Oh, please!” she groaned. She was making herself ridiculous. “Please don’t tell anyone. It’s horribly pushing of me to have corrected you. And then to display this…these…” She echoed her mother’s long-ago disparagement. “Parlor tricks.”

“Parlor tricks?” His mouth twisted. “Whoever used those words is sadly ignorant.”

“The Duchess.”

He reddened. Then he said, “If she stands by her words, I stand by mine.”

“Ladies do not show such an interest in numbers.” She said it as though it was something despicable; it’s what her mother would have said had she been in the room.

“Ladies help keep household accounts.”

“Not in their heads.” She stared at the tabletop. How mortifying.

His mouth shut. Then he smiled again as if to reassure her. “I should think you would have guessed by now that Taverstons are not sticklers.”

“On the contrary,” she retorted, annoyed that he did not see what an embarrassment this was. “Lord Taverston seems to me to be quite a stickler.”

Reginald’s face shuttered down. “I see. Yes. Well, he isn’t, really. Not when you get to know him better.”

Jeffrey blundered back into the room with a maid, who was carrying an empty tray. “These. And coffee. Thank you. I can take it up myself.”

“It’s no bother, sir.”

Reginald said, “Gertie, I knocked that plate on the floor. Would you take care of it?”

“Yes, milord. I’ll bring a broom.”

“You can take the tray up to the lad first. The mess can wait.”