Page 61 of Contracted as His Countess

On the second circuit he thought he saw it, his way in, but he would wait until after dark to try it. Whistling softly under his breath, he dug his heels into Diabolo and sent the stallion off towards the woods at a gallop.

* * *

From the archives room’s window, high in a tower, Madelyn saw him go and sighed.

‘You really care about him, don’t you?’ Richard put down his pen and pushed aside a pile of notes.

‘I love him,’ she said bleakly.

‘Does he know?’

‘I told him. He did not believe me. I had thought perhaps he was becoming fond of me. He even apologised for his anger, for assuming I knew what a mess I had made with the money by telling Lansing to pay off everything. But it was clear he was making himself do that because, somehow, we have to keep living together. If he

loved me, why did he not say so then?’

‘Because he’s a man,’ Richard said with a grimace. ‘Why didn’t you persist, explain how you feel?’

‘And have him think I was saying it to get into his good graces?’ Madelyn sat down on the other side of the desk and prodded the stack of ledgers. ‘Are you finding anything?’

‘I think so. I’m having to dig back through the manorial papers for about twenty years to make doubly certain. Does Lansing assume that all women are without the capacity to understand business matters?’

‘Definitely. To be fair, so did my father to some extent, so he encouraged Lansing to be exceedingly...’

‘Patronising? Paternalistic?’ Richard suggested.

‘Yes, both of those,’ she said, thinking back. Lansing’s attitude had always been to undermine her confidence in understanding the accounts and she had been too adrift in those months following her father’s death to make herself tackle both Lansing and the ledgers.

‘I suspect we can add opportunistic and dishonest to those. I’ll have the answers in another hour, I think.’ He gave her a sideways glance. ‘Before your husband turns up with siege engines and scaling ladders, at least.’

‘Do not joke,’ she said, suddenly even more anxious. She had imagined Jack’s anger if she failed to find evidence of Lansing’s dubious dealings, but she had not considered how he might view Richard’s involvement. ‘He might call you out.’

Richard grinned, glancing up from a closely written document. ‘He can call all he likes. I am not foolish enough to go up against an enraged husband who has already knocked me down once. Besides,’ he added, dipping his pen in the ink to make another note, ‘I can just imagine the Company’s attitude if I fail to report to the office next week because I have allowed an earl to put holes in me.’

Chapter Twenty-Two

‘I thought it was strange to light a fire at this time of year.’ Richard stretched out a hand to the blaze on the hearth of the central fireplace in the Great Hall. ‘But this place seems to drink up the heat.’

The staff had set up a smaller table in front of the fireplace, one that two people could dine at in comfort.

‘Dinner should be ready in a few minutes. Surely now you can tell me what you have found.’ Madelyn joined him beside the hearth, although, unless this was very good news indeed, she would need more than the blazing logs to warm her.

‘Your father bought an estate called Abberley, twenty miles to the east of here towards London. It has been terribly neglected, but it appears to have good farmland and what could be a very desirable house if it is restored. Mr Aylmer appears to have purchased it as an investment by means of mortgages—it is not linked to this estate in any way. Then he took out loans to carry out the work on it.’

‘And it was those I ordered to be paid off? I can sell it?’

‘Yes, but—’

He had no chance to finish. Madelyn threw her arms around his neck with a gasp of delight. ‘Oh, Richard!’

‘Put my wife down.’

Richard dropped her and they both staggered, clutching at each other for balance.

The great double doors stood open and Jack was walking towards them, barefooted, dressed only in shirt and breeches, soaking wet with his hair slicked close to his head. He dragged the back of his hand across his eyes and flicked the water away with an impatient gesture.

‘Jack? How did you get in?’ It was the wrong thing to say, but his appearance had all the shock of a magic trick.

‘I swam the moat at the north-eastern corner. There is an opening about six feet up. I climbed to that. It should have a grille over it.’

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