Page 143 of Courting the Wrong Duke

“I am not entirely certain.” Isabella narrowed her eyes at one particular line. “Where does your father keep his accounts?”

“His accounts?”

“Ledgers, correspondence, anything written regularly in his own hand.”

“In his study.”

“Take me there.”

This time Rosalind did not question her.

Papa’s study remained almost exactly as he had left it. The familiar scent of leather, paper, and the faint remnants of his tobacco greeted Rosalind as she entered, and the ache that accompanied it was so familiar now that she scarcely allowed herself to acknowledge it.

Isabella was already crossing toward the desk.

“Find me something he wrote frequently. Preferably something he had no reason to think about while writing.”

Rosalind retrieved the household ledger from the shelf behind the desk. “This?”

“Perfect.”

Isabella opened it and turned through several pages until she found one filled predominantly in Papa’s hand. She placed the letter beside it and bent over both.

Rosalind joined her.

At first, she saw nothing.

The handwriting was Papa’s. She would have sworn to it. The same elegant slant, the same elongated strokes, the same peculiar shape of his capital letters. Even his habit of allowing certain words to drift slightly upward appeared to have been preserved.

Yet Isabella remained silent.

“What is it?”

Instead of answering, Isabella drew the lamp closer and pointed to one of the words in the ledger.

“Look at the strokes. Your father writes quickly. He does not form every letter with the same pressure because he does not need to think about how he forms them. His hand already knows.”

Rosalind looked where she indicated.

Isabella moved her finger to the letter. “This person thought about every stroke.”

A chill moved over Rosalind’s skin. “What do you mean, this person?”

“Look.”

Now that Isabella guided her, Rosalind began to see it. The differences were minute, almost absurdly so. A curve made too carefully. A line pressed too firmly into the paper. Two letters Papa ordinarily joined without thought separated by the faintest hesitation.

“But it looks exactly like his writing.”

“Yes.” Isabella’s voice had become very quiet. “Because whoever wrote it intended that it should.”

Rosalind looked at her.

Isabella was no longer merely curious.

She was frightened.

“I spend hours studying lines,” she continued. “Shape, proportion, pressure. I have to know when something is natural and when someone is trying to reproduce what they see. Whoever wrote this knew your father’s hand extraordinarily well.”