“Then if you promise not to throw anything else this evening, I shall return to bed.”
“Sleep well.”
After she’d gone, all he could think about were the damned ledgers. Kick them to the floor, throw them out a bloody window, and the facts would remain the same. There were irregularities. Even with his ineptitude in mathematics, it was clear the columns didn’t add up. But the numerical notations were hell to decipher. Not only were they scribbled in a messy hand, some had been scratched out. Even the bits that were legible challenged him. Over the years, he’d gotten better at deciphering words on a page. He’d improved at jotting down his own thoughts too, but when he was exhausted, when problems stacked themselves up over his head, everything was a damnable pain in the arse.
What he needed was someone with a mind for numbers and fine details. He didn’t trust Edgecombe’s steward. Not only had the man hied off on a holiday prior to Rhys’s arrival, but he was either oblivious to the errors in the estate’s ledgers or he’d been swindling the Claremont dukedom for years. He’d met him once years earlier, and despite impeccable manners, the man hadn’t impressed.
Now the only question was whether Mr. Radley would return to his post or disappear with Claremont money, if he was indeed the one diverting funds from the accounts.
“Bloody blighted hell.”
Rhys lowered his boots to the tiles and stood, eyeing the bottle of bourbon he’d emptied earlier. He considered calling a maid to fetch another, but a fuzzy mind wouldn’t help him unravel the mystery before him.
He’d always been damned awful at puzzles, unlike the girl who’d brightened every day of his childhood. Instinctively, he turned his head left, staring at the glass and metal walls of the conservatory but seeing much farther in his mind’s eye. He looked past Edgecombe’s brick facade toward Hillcrest, the neighboring estate.
What might she be doing this evening?
The last day he’d seen her, she’d been happy, celebrating. Her parents had spared no expense for the elaborate garden party and, for once, Arry had allowed herself to relish the kind of attention she normally shied from.
He clenched his hands into fists when the memory sharpened. The disappointment in her eyes. The tears she swiped away with the back of her hand.
God, what a wretch he’d been. And he’d never even apologized.
On instinct, he reached for his suit coat and didn’t bother with finding his discarded neck cloth. He exited the conservatory and kept striding, the click of his bootheels echoing through Edgecombe’s empty marble-lined halls, until he reached the front door.
Hillcrest was too far off for him to see the estate, even on a clear moonlit night, but he knew the route by heart. His pulse thudded faster, anticipation nudging him out the door and down the steps. Deep inside, a guilty voice of warning whispered to turn back, but Rhys dipped his head and started off against the cold breeze.
If he was going to remain at Edgecombe for any amount of time, if he intended to be any kind of duke at all, making amends with the most prosperous and well-loved family in the village made sense.
Not that he was sensible. Taking a carriage and not showing up on their doorstep disheveled and unshaven would have been sensible.
But he followed his instincts and his gut told him not to stop.
He kept on, striding through the fields west of Edgecombe. He could see lights now, the long windows of Hillcrest’s facade illuminated with a warm glow. He stumbled over uneven ground and realized he’d walked so far that these were no longer the neatly pressed lawns Edgecombe’s gardener took pride in under his feet. He’d reached the stony fields, an unforgiving patch of earth that forever provided a plentitude of rocks for the mile-long fence dividing the ducal acreage from its neighbor.
The bulky outline of the wall stood out in the moonlight. So much smaller than it loomed in his memory. How many times had he scaled the jagged structure to reach the Prescott estate? How many times had he helped a girl with copper-colored curls scramble over to his side?
Before Meg came along, his childhood had been a lonely round of nannies and tutors. It was natural that Arabella had become his playmate, his closest companion. She’d merrily joined Rhys’s childhood antics, a partner to romp with across the countryside. Four years his junior and she’d still been able to best him at everything. Fearless and too clever for her own good, she’d been adventurous and the most loyal of friends.
She’d been the only one he’d confided in about his struggle with reading and how desperately he wished to please his father. Only Bella had been allowed to read the scraps of poetry and unfinished stories he’d felt compelled to write in his youth. She’d never laughed at him or lost patience. Indeed, she’d encouraged him in every endeavor.
Rhys could feign blind confidence well enough, but Bella Prescott was a woman who truly could accomplish anything she set her mind to.
Unfortunately, she’d put her mind toward avoiding him. And he’d just as determinedly tried to ignore her. She’d once attended a ball he’d been a guest at too. At one point he’d been certain she noticed him, but then she’d turned away. They’d never acknowledged or spoken a word to one another.
He understood. The memory of what he’d done filled him with disgust and he was loath to revisit it.
Bella had idolized him, looked up to him, and as he had a tendency to do with all those he cared for, he’d disappointed her. So severely he’d broken all the trust and camaraderie they’d built over years of friendship.
He’d been so young and brash, he hadn’t even expressed real regret. She’d been too angry to let him.
Five years seemed long enough to leave that task undone.
“Your mother has truly outdone herself,” Louisa whispered as she leaned closer to Bella on the settee they shared. She was a frenetic young woman, always on the move, and tonight she was virtually vibrating on the cushion next to Bella’s.
“She certainly outwitted me.” Bella smiled. Or rather she continued smiling. The truth was she’d been smiling so long, she feared her face would soon freeze in an expression of unconvincing mirth.
“Lady Yardley isn’t usually the scheming sort. You’ve made her desperate, Bell. She’s organized the next fortnight like a military maneuver.”
“Oh, I’m well aware.” She was also aware that she should be working on her book and drafting letters to publishers, but instead she found herself seated in her family’s best drawing room with several pairs of masculine eyes turned her way.
She had agreed to try, but three days into the house party and she knew nothing for certain except that none of the men her mother had invited made her want to change her mind about matrimony.
“Two are missing,” Louisa noted.
“Perhaps they don’t care for musical evenings.” Her mother had provided for entertainment on each night of the house party. Tonight, one of the gentlemen visitors was doing an admirable job performing Schumann on the room’s grand piano. “They departed as soon as the music started. They’ll be back.”
Bella suspected her mother had informed each suitor bluntly that their only purpose during the fortnight was to vie for her affection. Some had already begun the onslaught. Lord Wentworth had the temerity to burst into song when he’d come across her in the hall, apparently trying to win her heart with an exceedingly long aria. Another had presented her with flowers this morning. Roses that she’d planted and preferred on the stem where she could look at them during her walks rather than watching them wilt in a vase.