A Lady without a Lord (The Penningtons Book 3)

by Bliss Bennet

  Sir John’s son took off his glasses and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Father, surely Lord Saybrook does not have the time to plan such an elaborate celebration. Especially with all the work the election—”

  “Nonsense.” Sir John dismissed Haviland with another careless wave. “Ask Atherton’s chit to organize it. Capable, managing sort of girl, your daughter.”

  “Yes,” Mr. Atherton said. “I’m certain Harriot would be happy to help.”

  Sir John took a last sip from his glass, then rose from his seat. “Now, Atherton, shall we adjourn to the library and discuss what qualities should we praise in our toast to the new Lord Saybrook?”

  “And I know just the man for the fireworks,” Benedict added as he joined Sir John and Mr. Atherton.

  Haviland glanced at backs of the retreating men, then moved to sit next to Theo. “I must apologize for my father’s officious interference. I should not have allowed him to drink so much . . .”

  Haviland trailed off as Theo waved a forgiving hand. He was growing tired of the way Haviland kept taking the blame for his own father’s words and actions. Which was the adult, and which the child?

  “I’ll leave you to your wine.” Haviland bowed, then followed the other men from the room.

  Theo tipped his head and banged it once, twice, and a third time against the hard mahogany of the dining table. When had his life turned into the stuff of farce?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Harry started as a gust of wind sent a sheet of rain slapping against the windows of the Saybrook House steward’s office. It wasn’t like her to be so easily rattled, especially by something so familiar as a Lincolnshire summer storm. But after her ill-advised tryst with Theo two nights ago had ended so disastrously, was it any wonder she felt unsettled?

  Worrying at her lip, Harry shuffled through the piles of paper on her father’s desk. Receiving a note from Haviland Mather this morning, asking if she knew where he might find the receipts of all the estate’s bank deposits from the past three years, had only set her further on edge. How was she to have known that banks issued receipts, let alone that she should have been keeping them for future reference? Whenever he’d taken money to Mr. Thrapson, Father had simply told her how much he’d be depositing, and she’d dutifully copied said amount into the ledger.

  Scouring the cottage all morning had uncovered nothing that looked anything like a bank receipt. And so she’d made her way through a driving summer rain to the Saybrook estate office, hoping to find a cache of receipts stuffed in a drawer, or hidden behind a stack of books. And praying all the while that Haviland had not found a discrepancy between the amounts recorded in her ledgers and the monies the bank had received that she’d somehow overlooked.

  A tickling in the back of her throat sped up to her nose. She fought against it, but could not hold back a sneeze, one that shook her entire body. Oh yes, dust she’d discovered in abundance. But of anything like a bank receipt she could not find the least sign.

  The sound of approaching footsteps in the passageway had her jerking to her feet. Had father recovered already from the fit of abstraction he’d fallen into after luncheon?

  But when the door opened, it revealed not her father, but Haviland Mather.

  “Harriot,” Haviland said, his face pinching at the sight of her. “I did not think to find you here today.”

  Harry frowned. “But your note—”

  “Note? Sending billet doux to a lady, Havvy?” A large hand clapped against Haviland’s back. “Not at all the thing, my boy.”

  She rubbed her dusty fingers across her forehead, trying to smooth away the ache that threatened. Of course Theo Pennington would be here, too. Not the person she wanted to see. Not after his drugging kisses had almost made her forget the danger he posed to her father. Or, it appeared, to her own better judgment.

  “Saybrook,” Haviland stuttered, nearly dropping the armful of ledgers he’d lugged into the office. “You must know I would never do anything so improper.”

  “I know you wouldn’t,” Theo said as he herded the solicitor further into the room. “But you would rise to the bait of being teased about it.”

  He nudged Haviland with a playful elbow. But none of the mischief that so often animated his eyes and smile accompanied the act. Still smarting over the home truths she’d forced on him? She certainly was.

  To busy herself, she grabbed a pile of papers and shuffled them into a neat stack. “Set those ledgers down, Haviland, before they pull your arms right out of the sockets.”

  “No danger of that, Harriot, I assure you,” he replied as he put down his burden, then placed a hand on her elbow. “Now, if you will excuse us, Lord Saybrook and I have business to discuss. And will you send your father down when he arrives?”

  They expected Father? She stared down at the account books, her heart pounding. “Does this return of the ledgers mean you’ve concluded your audit?”

  “Yes.” Theo frowned and folded his arms across his chest.

  She folded her own arms. “Then I wish to be present when you discuss the results, if you please.”

  Haviland tugged on her arm. “Harriot, I hardly think—”

  “Why?” Theo interrupted.

  “Harriot, please.” Haviland’s eyes, blinking behind his glasses, begged her to keep her own counsel. But tension, and fear for her father, would allow her to remain silent no longer. Far better to tell the truth and hear the worst than to totter any longer on this awful tightrope of suspense.

  “Because I’m the one who has been keeping the accounts,” she said, shrugging free of Haviland’s grasp. After setting her palms flat on the desk, she leaned over it, daring Theo to give voice to the incredulity chasing across his mobile features. “Me, not my father. So if there are any errors in them, they are mine, not his. And I should be the first one to hear of them.”

  “Harriot, please,” Haviland said, his face tight with worry. “This is hardly necessary—”

  “Yes, it is necessary,” she said. “I will not have my father blamed for something that is not his fault.”

  “Not his fault?” Theo swore under his breath. “You told her why I needed the audit, too, Haviland?” He scowled at the solicitor’s unhappy nod.

  “Please do not be angry with him.” She reached out a hand. “He did not mean to betray your confidence. It’s only that he suspected my role in keeping the books, and four thousand pounds is such a vast amount! He wished me to be prepared—”

  “Prepared?” Theo jerked away from her touch. “Tell me, how does one prepare to be ridiculed for one’s errors? Or even worse, to be hauled off to gaol for embezzlement?”

  “Embezzlement?” She stared, her hand hanging in the air. So it was true. He did think her father—no, now she—had been stealing from him.

  The sharp slap of a palm against the pile of ledgers jerked her free from her shock.

  “Let us have no more talk of gaol,” Haviland said, his voice tight as he pinned first her, then Theo, with a reprimanding glare. “For my audit has revealed no sign of embezzlement. Nor have I found any errors in the ledgers. Not a misplaced comma, not a miscarried number, not an incorrect totting of a single column of figures. Never have I seen such a neat, nor such an accurate, set of account books. Harriot, you are to be commended.”

  Not her fault. Not her fault. She let out the breath she hardly knew she had been holding and sagged into a chair.

  But Haviland’s words did not calm Theo, who began pacing back and forth in front of the desk. “Then why is my London account so woefully lacking?”

  “I’m not sure,” Haviland said. “I need to speak with Mr. Thrapson at the bank, look at his ledgers, check them against this one. Perhaps even review the records at your London bank.”

  “Thrapson!” She clutched at the arms of her chair. “So that’s why he hasn’t come. He’s been stealing from your accounts!”

  Haviland frowned at her, then turned to Theo. “You expected Mr. Thrapson? Had
you already made an appointment with him?”

  “No,” Theo answered, turning to her with eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Although I did receive a note earlier in the week, stating that I could expect him here this afternoon. I assumed it was merely a social call, but perhaps Harry might know differently?”

  Her face warmed under the weight of his glare. “Oh. I expected him to send word to my father, not you.”

  “Which would allow you to intercept it? And then meet with him yourself, behind your father’s back and mine? For what purpose?”

  Why, he made her sound almost duplicitous. But she’d only been trying to protect her father, and to help Theo track down his missing funds. She rose to her feet, refusing to look away from his accusing eyes. “Yes. That was my plan. As I could find no error in my own accounts, I thought perhaps one of his clerks—”

  “Harriot,” Haviland broke in. “What reason did you give Mr. Thrapson for the need to meet? Did you mention the missing money?”

  “I only told him my father had a question about the deposits and asked him to bring the account book—Oh!”

  “Oh, indeed.” Haviland slumped into a chair, catching his head in his hands.

  “Oh, what?” Theo’s eyes shifted between Haviland and herself, clearly not understanding the potential repercussions of what looked more and more to be her rash act. And Haviland, gentleman that he was, would not implicate her by explaining. No, that would be up to her.

  Harry took a deep breath, then fixed her eyes on Theo’s. “If Thrapson is the one who has been skimming from your accounts, then by asking him to meet, I’ve warned him that someone here has noticed. And I’ve given him five whole days in which to cover his tracks.”

  The clock on the mantlepiece of the Saybrook House library had the loudest tic Harry had ever heard. Almost as loud as the slap of Theo’s boots against the oak floor as he paced restlessly between the room’s three north-facing windows. If only those windows afforded a view of the drive, or even the lane that led to it. Would Mr. Thrapson never come?

  “Perhaps the weather has delayed him,” Haviland offered as another gust of wind sent a slap of rain slashing against the panes.

  “For almost an hour?” Harry’s teacup rattled against its saucer as she set both down on the low table beside her. “It shouldn’t take him much longer than that to travel the entire distance from Lincoln to here.”

  “The road might be flooded.”

  “Or he may not intend to come at all.”

  Haviland gave a weary nod. “If he is not here soon, I will ride into Lincoln myself and track him down.”

  “And leave us behind to wait?”

  A hand landed on her shoulder, reassuring in his weight and warmth. “If he is not here soon, I will call for the carriage, and we will all go to Lincoln together. You, me, Haviland, and the account ledgers.”

  Harry took a deep breath, fighting against the urge to lay her cheek against that hand. She’d done enough already today to shock poor Haviland. “Thank you, Th—”

  Her voice jerked to a halt at the knock on the Saybrook House library door.

  At Theo’s curt come, Parsons, the footman, entered and bowed. “Mr. Thrapson, my lord.”

  The banker took a few steps into the room, his hair damp and face ruddy from his ride from Lincoln. Could such a respectable member of their community truly be responsible for stealing Theo’s funds? She searched his expression for any sign of guilt, or even mild discomposure, but could find none. But then a man brash enough to embezzle four thousand pounds would have to be skilled in keeping his true emotions hidden, would he not?

  “Lord Saybrook. Mr. Mather. And Miss Atherton? Please excuse my tardiness. My horse lost a shoe just outside of Rollington, and I had to walk the rest of the way.”

  “You should have gone back to the village and sent word,” Theo said after returning the man’s bow. “I would have ordered a carriage for you.”

  “Not at all. Refreshing, in fact, to fight one’s way through a gusty English storm.”

  “Well, I am gratified that you troubled to make the journey at all. The way this rain has been pelting down all day, one might be forgiven for thinking one had been magically transported to the tropics.” Theo waved a hand toward the library table, beside which they had placed several chairs. “Please, take a seat.”

  “Is Mr. Atherton to join us?” Mr. Thrapson asked, his brows raising as his eyes fixed on Harry.

  “Mr. Atherton has still not fully recovered from his accident,” Theo said with a glibness that gave no indication he was lying. “Mr. Mather has recently conducted an audit of the accounts, and will stand in his stead. And I’ve asked Miss Atherton to join us, for she has been transcribing the account books for her father.”

  “Very good, my lord.” But the banker’s tone suggested precisely the opposite. One of those who believed a lady’s sole ambition should be centered in beauty, no doubt, and looked askance at any who dared wade in more intellectual waters. A belief it seemed he and her father shared.

  Mr. Thrapson placed his leather satchel, damp from the rain, on the library table. “Now, I believe there is some question about the deposits?”

  Theo nodded at Haviland, who drew out the Saybrook account books and laid them on the table. “We are not sure where the confusion has come in. But there appears to be less in Lord Saybrook’s London account than what the estate ledgers here suggest there should be.”

  The banker’s back stiffened. “Confusion? Or do you suspect misappropriation?”

  “That is what we hope you can help us discover, sir,” Theo said. “If we might compare the entries in the Saybrook ledgers to those from the bank’s books…”

  “Certainly. I had my clerk write out a list of all the deposits we’ve credited to the Saybrook account since it was first opened in 1816. And I checked them against the books myself, so you can be certain there are no discrepancies.”

  Harry’s nails bit into her palms as Thrapson pulled a sheet of foolscap from his satchel. She’d learned to read numbers upside down, but the library table was too wide for her to bring any of the numbers into focus, even when she leaned over it in a manner most unbecoming a lady. At least to the mind of Mr. Thrapson, whose eyes flicked up to her, then back down at his figures, his nostrils flaring.

  Rather than join the other two men, Theo moved to rest a hip on the table beside her. She spared him a quick glance, surprised to find his eyes fixed not on the papers, but on the rain still slapping against the window. How could he stand not to look?

  “Thrapson, see here.”

  Harry’s own eyes shot back to the ledger. Haviland had taken up a pencil and made check marks next to the first few entries on Thrapson’s list. But a quarter of the way down the page, Haviland was drawing a circle.

  “This figure does not match.” He flipped through the estate ledger to the next deposit entry. “Nor this one.” Flip. “Nor the next, either.”

  Harry forced her voice to hold steady. “And the discrepancy is consistent? Always in one account’s favor?”

  Haviland gave a grim nod. “The amounts vary, but yes, they all benefit one account. Lord Saybrook’s.”

  Oh, father.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Theo looked from Harry to Haviland, and then back again to the woman sitting beside him, her hands clutched tight in her lap. He had not quite followed their rapid exchange about discrepancies in the accounting, but Harry’s drawn eyebrows and pinched lips told him her hopes of finding Mr. Thrapson at fault had not been realized.

  And who she now feared was to blame.

  Damn it all to hell. What cause could Atherton have to steal?

  “You are not a magistrate, are you, Saybrook?” Thrapson’s voice broke the tight silence.

  “A magistrate?” Theo blinked. “Good God, no.”

  Harry jerked to her feet, her face as white as a shroud. “Why should we need a magistrate?”

  “Because, Miss Atherton, such discrepancies a
s we have uncovered here today are not simply a matter of confusion, as Mr. Mather so blandly described them.” Thrapson struck a finger against the ledger. “This is a clear case of theft, theft on an appallingly large scale.”

  Theo stood and placed a calming hand on Harry’s back. “Now we do not know that for certain, Mr. Thrapson. Not without speaking to the parties involved.”

  “As the parties involved are in my employ or in yours, Saybrook, I think it best that an outside party be called in to investigate.”

  Harry’s entire body shuddered under his palm. He had to stop this, and stop it now.

  With palms flat, he leaned over the desk, using his far larger size to crowd into the banker’s space. “Do you question my honor, sir?”

  “Of course not, my lord.” Thrapson took a step back, the belligerence in his tone quieting. “But surely you can see that the honor of my bank, nay, my own honor as a gentleman, is at stake here.”

  “Gentlemen.” Haviland stepped between them, holding out a conciliating hand. “Before we impugn any man’s honor, let us examine the account books more closely, and discover the true extent—”

  A bang—door against wall?—brought Haviland up short. Theo’s head snapped toward the sound.

  Mr. Atherton stood framed in the open library doorway. Coatless, hatless, his wet shirt plastered against a surprisingly gaunt chest, he looked as bedraggled as a drowned rat. And was he truly only wearing one boot?

  “Thrapson! What in Satan’s name are you doing here?”

  “I’m sorry, my lord, I told him you were occupied—” Parsons, the footman, apologized as the steward strode past him into the room.

  “Don’t be an idiot, man.” Atherton frowned over his shoulder, his single boot squelching with wet. “Naturally Lord Saybrook would want me to attend him for a meeting with his banker. Why did you not have me summoned as soon as he arrived?”