by Bliss Bennet
Theo clenched his jaw. It had been a mistake, thinking to bare his soul to a man whose wits had gone wandering.
“Mather will keep them safe. He promised, Mather did,” Atherton continued to whisper as Theo stalked to the door. “Swore on the memory of his wife. Mather takes the Saybrook funds to the bank.”
Theo jerked to a halt, his hand on the doorknob. Swore on the memory of his wife? But Haviland had never been married.
Was it all just part of Mr. Atherton’s confusion? Or could he be thinking of a different Mather altogether?
Theo’s memory began to churn. Sir John declining to hire a new steward. Sir John complaining about the cost of the fete. Sir John, sitting in his threadbare library, its familiar ornaments no longer there.
He dropped to his knees beside the bed and reached for Harry’s father’s hand. “Mr. Atherton. Sir. Does Sir John take the Saybrook funds to the bank?”
Atherton’s rheumy eyes blinked, then seemed to bring Theo into focus. After a long, fraught pause, he gave a short nod. “Mather takes the Saybrook funds to the bank.”
The scrambled to his feet and rushed to the door. “Parsons. Parsons! Come quickly, I need you!”
The fellow must not have gone very far, for he reached Theo at the top of the stairs. “Stay with Mr. Atherton. I need to see Mather immediately.”
“But that’s why I’m here, my lord. Mr. Haviland Mather is downstairs and wishes to speak with you.”
Haviland? Damnation, Sir John would not be the only one ruined if Theo’s interpretation of Atherton’s cryptic murmurings was correct.
Theo raced down the stairs to find Haviland pacing the entry hall, worrying his hat in his hands. “Is she here, Saybrook?”
“Is who here?”
“Harriot. Is she here?” Haviland grabbed Theo by the arm, his eyes wild. “Surely she would have come to you first.”
“Havvy, you’re not making any sense. Of what are you speaking?”
“She came to the office and found the passbook for the account. For the Saybrook account.”
Theo jerked free. Oh, no. Haviland could not be involved, too?
“No, Theo. Not me. My father—” Haviland’s voice broke. “My father was the one who betrayed your trust. And Mr. Atherton’s. He’s been skimming money from the Saybrook bank deposits for a very long time. Since before your father died, even.”
Theo closed his eyes. “How long have you known?”
“I only came across the passbook on Saturday, when I was paying father a visit,” Haviland said, holding out his hands in appeasement. “But I couldn’t tell him I’d found it, not before I’d thought of a way to make it right. And I couldn’t tell you, not without betraying my father. So I brought it into my office, and spent all day yesterday, and almost all night, wracking my brain, trying to figure out how to pay you back without him being drawn into it all.”
“But you couldn’t. Because there isn’t one.”
“No. There isn’t.” Haviland hung his head. “So I went to my rooms for a few hours sleep early this morning. But when I came back to the office, it was gone.”
“And why do you think Harry has it?”
“Because she had just left, my clerk told me, after spending time alone in my office. And no one else had been in there since. She must have taken it.” Haviland shook his head. “I thought she would have brought it at once to you. Why didn’t she?”
Why? Theo closed his eyes and rubbed a hand against his temple. Why should she trust him when he had accused her of being unworthy of trust? When what he really meant was he wasn’t worthy of trust.
He had feared failing her, failing everyone he loved, because he couldn’t do sums or tell the time. But wasn’t the real failure his lack of trust in himself?
“Randall.” Theo turned to the butler, who was hovering by the front door. “Is Miss Atherton in the house?”
“No, my lord. She asked for a carriage this morning, and it has not yet returned.”
A strangled sound caught in Haviland’s throat. “You don’t think she would have confronted my father alone, do you?”
“Haviland.” Theo grabbed his friend by the shoulders, holding back the urge to shake him like a rag doll. “He’s not likely to do her harm, is he? Is he?”
Haviland shook his head. “No,” he whispered. But his eyes betrayed his doubt.
“Randall,” Theo shouted, even though the man was standing nearby. “Send to the stables and have my horse saddled. Haviland, you take—”
The front door flew open, and Harry, her hat hanging down her back, her hair disheveled, rushed in, nearly bowling over poor Randall. “Theo, I have something I must tell—”
But before she could get out the rest of her “something,” Theo pulled her tight into his arms, his throat thick with a jumble of words—sorry, and afraid, and Harry—he could not trust to his voice.
“Harriot, my dear child. And Lord Saybrook. Come to catch your breath after yesterday’s festivities by visiting your old neighbor? What a happy surprise. Let us sit by the window. Is there a hint of any breeze today?”
Harry stepped gingerly into Sir John Mather’s library, her hand clutched tight against Theo’s arm. When she’d agreed to accompany Theo to confront Sir John, she’d not expected to feel so discomfited.
She glanced up at Theo, but his usual easy smile still held sway. She wished she might hide her own disquiet with such apparent ease.
Theo placed his own hand over hers, squeezing in reassurance, then drew her into the room.
Sir John waited until she had been seated before he lowered his hefty bulk into a plush armchair. She’d also expected to find some sign of worry or guilt on the older man’s face, but he smiled and chatted and fussed about with all the ease of the innocent. How could such a bluff, affable gentleman have stooped to thievery?
“A warm day, to be sure. But what’s amiss, my dear? You look sadder than a skeleton at a banquet.”
“Sad as the angels for a good man’s sin, rather,” Theo murmured.
“Been sinning, eh?” Sir John chuckled. “Well, I’m no popish priest, to be hearing a young man’s confession. But if there’s something weighing on your conscience that would be a relief to share, I suppose I might lend an ear.”
Theo shook his head. “Not on my conscience, sir. But on the conscience of someone we value. Someone we respect. Or whom we respected once.”
Sir John steepled his hands. “Ah, you speak of Mr. Atherton. Yes, word has begun to spread that his management of your affairs has not been all that it should. But with his current ill health, Saybrook, surely you will not—”
“No, Sir John,” Harry said, her voice cracking. “No, not my father.”
“Then who, dear girl?”
Without a word, she opened her reticule and pulled out the damning passbook.
If she had not been looking for a sign of his guilt, she might have missed it, the way his posture stiffened for the merest instant. His affable face did not hint at the least surprise. And by the time she laid the passbook on the table beside them and sat back in her seat, that slight tension in his body had completely disappeared.
“A bank book, Harriot? Since when does Oundle and Thrapson welcome female depositors?” He glanced at it again, then raised his eyebrows. “No, not your own. Saybrook’s. What are you about, bringing me such a thing?”
“She is showing it to you it because it proves that her father is not the one responsible for the monies missing from the Saybrook accounts.” Theo sat up straight in his chair, his gaze never wavering from Sir John’s. “You are.”
“Me?” Sir John sputtered. “What, does madness run in both your families? Why, to accuse a baronet of such treachery!”
“I almost wish it had been my father, sir,” she said. “Lord Saybrook would have taken pity on a man whose disabilities caused him unintentional harm. But that is your name on the last few pages of the booklet, written in a clear, deliberate hand. Can you deny it?”
With a growl, Sir John snatched up the passbook and flipped to the pages in question. “My God. Mather, just as you say. How could Haviland have done such a thing?”
“Haviland?” she exclaimed. Would he truly try to throw the blame on his own son?
The baronet scrambled to his feet. “Of course, Haviland. Do you think I would ever stoop so low? Haviland, tell them. Tell them it was you, not me.”
Sir John’s son stood on the threshold of the library, his anxious eyes shifting from his father to Harry and back again. He couldn’t wait for them to resolve this on their own, as he had promised, could he?
“Sir— Father—”
“Tell them, Haviland. Tell them you are the one to blame, not I. Now, sirrah!”
“I wish I could,” Haviland said, his voice laced with despair. “But Miss Atherton knows my handwriting. And so does Lord Saybrook.”
She held her breath. Without his son to take the blame, Sir John must acknowledge his own wrongdoing.
But instead of looking abashed, the man only seemed to grow angrier. “You know, this is all your fault, Theodosius. I would never have interfered if you had been a dutiful son as Haviland is.”
“Sir John!” she cried. How could the man insult Theo so?
Rather than take offense, though, Theo simply rose from his chair and knelt at the old man’s feet. “Why did you interfere, sir?”
“He worried, your father, worried that the estate would go to the dogs after his death. You were never the most attentive of heirs, even you must admit that.”
“Indeed,” Theo acknowledged.
“Your poor father begged his steward to stay on as steward after his death, though Atherton knew he was not up to the job. And when you stayed away, and sent no one to oversee your interests, and Atherton began to decline, well—I knew what I needed to do.”
She jerked to her feet. What, was the man a liar as well as a thief? “But this started long before the late Lord Saybrook—”
Theo cut off her words with a restraining hand. But he raised his eyebrows, showing that he understood her. For some reason of his own, though, he did not wish to provoke Sir John.
He was asking her to trust him. As she had not that afternoon at the fete.
She took a deep breath, then settled back in her chair. “Please, Sir John. Tell us how you intended to help.”
The elder Mather glanced between herself and Theo, frowning. But he seemed to come to some decision, turning his attention solely to Theo. “I was on my way to Lincoln and stopped in to ask Atherton if I might do anything for him during my visit. I knew he had just collected the rents, and that he hated traveling to the city, and of course, he trusted me as your father always had. So he asked me to take the monies to the bank. And I did. But rather than deposit the entire amount, I kept a portion back.”
“Father!” Haviland cried, clutching tight at the back of a chair. Yes, he knew the gravity of his father’s blithe confession, even if Sir John seemed unaware. “Theo, please, you won’t—”
Theo again held up a hand, and Haviland, too subsided.
“Once, sir?” he asked the elder Mather.
“No, not just once,” Sir John said, his words querulous, as if Theo was being deliberately obtuse. “Every rent day since. If I hadn’t, you would have frittered it all away, Theodosius, you know you would have. Your father despaired of it. But I, I prevented it.”
“And what did you do with the monies you held back? Did you keep them here? Or in a bank account of your own?” Theo asked.
“No. I invested them. Bought bonds in those newly independent countries of Spanish America, Chili, and Columbia, and Poyais and the like. You will be rich, my boy, and so will I!”
“Have you realized any returns on these investments?” she interjected.
“Oh, it is much too soon for that. But the prospectuses all promise at least a return of six percent, and perhaps even as high as ten!” Sir John enthused.
Theo looked up, hope in his eyes. But she could only shake her head. She had read last week in the Times of the mad soar and swoop of Latin American bond prices, many of them losing their value almost as soon as they had been issued. If Sir John had been taking such dangerous risks with Theo’s money, and with his own, she doubted either would recover even the principle, never mind earn a decent return on it.
Theo nodded, then rose and stared down at Sir John. “When you acted so, you had my best interests at heart? And the interests of Saybrook?”
“Of course I did,” Sir John sputtered. “Why, you should be grateful I took a hand. No one else would have done as much.”
“You know, Sir John, that might have been true, at least when you started.” For the first time all afternoon, the bite of anger sharpened his words. “But not now. For you said nothing about this so-called help you were offering until we confronted you. Nothing, after you must have known from Haviland that I knew monies were missing from the accounts. Nothing, after we could find no reason in the audit to account for their absence. And worst of all, nothing after we all assumed that Miss Atherton’s father was the one at fault. What gentleman allow an innocent to be accused of a crime he never committed? Especially if said crime was not, as you claim, a crime at all, but an act of benevolence?”
Sir John’s eyes narrowed. “What should it matter to a man half out of his wits?”
Theo placed his arm around Harry, pulling her tight to his side. “Did you give no thought to his daughter?”
“I am so sorry, Harriot,” Haviland said. “I suspected my father was in financial straits, but I had no idea he would ever—”
“You’re not the only one who’s been keeping secrets about his father,” she said.
“No,” Haviland disagreed. “The situations are utterly different. I, I am entirely to blame.”
“Yes, you are,” Sir John cried, slamming his fists against the arms of his chair. “You are to blame, you weak-willed mollusk of a man. I could have filled my coffers forever if you’d only kept your mouth shut when you found that bankbook. Atherton’s been foundering for years, and heaven knows Theodosius here is too stupid to have ever figured it out. Do you know, he cannot even add simple sums? How often his father despaired of his heir’s imbecility.”
Theo set his hands on both arms of the man’s chair and leaned over until they were eye to eye. “And I tell you, sir, I would far rather be plagued by disabilities of mind than to be so utterly lacking in morals as you. To put the blame for this on Haviland, when it was all your doing!”
Sir John shrunk back in his seat, finally recognizing the wisdom of holding his tongue.
“You have to take responsibility for your own weaknesses and failures, not blame them all on someone else,” Theo said.
Haviland hung his head, a blush of shame staining his cheeks. “You’ll want this, Saybrook, when you speak to the magistrate,” he whispered as he held up the incriminating passbook.
Theo glanced at Harry, a question in his eyes. She gave a quick shake of her head, which he answered with a short, sharp nod.
“We’ve no wish to involve a magistrate, or to pursue any legal action against your father, not with the election nearly upon us,” Theo said as he tucked the small book inside his waistcoat. “But I will have Sir John’s admission, in writing, of his actions in this matter, as a safeguard against any similar interference in future. You understand why I cannot not trust to his word alone that he will not meddle again.”
Haviland looked up, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “Yes. Before the day is out. I promise.”
“I think, then, it is time for us to leave.” Theo said, stooping to retrieve her reticule from where it had fallen to the carpet. “I have another difficult conversation ahead of me, this one with my sister. A conversation that would be far less daunting, Harry,” he whispered, “if I knew you would be by my side while I speak.”
She curled her hand around his arm and squeezed.
“Difficult conversations are always easier wh
en you are surrounded by those who care for you,” she whispered, low enough so only he could hear.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Good night, father.”
The light from Harry’s candle painted shadows across her calm, steady face as she pulled the door to Mr. Atherton’s bedchamber closed. Theo shook his head. How could she still be so composed after all that had happened today? But that was Harry. Responsible to a fault, she would never miss her evening visit with her father. And she’d maintain an air of tranquility while undertaking it, too.
If only he might convince himself to be so calm. But even now, he couldn’t stop thinking what if—what if his unkind words at the fete had driven her away? What if she had confronted half-mad Sir John herself, instead of coming to him? His mind, his heart, neither could quite believe she was safe.
He needed to hold her, to feel her warmth, her heart beating loud and strong against his own.
But would she allow it?
“Harry,” he said, stepping from the shadows. “As I so rudely missed our time together this morning, may I make it up to you now?”
Uncertainty wavered across her face. But she nodded all the same.
Before she could place her hand on his arm, Theo grabbed hold of it, lacing his fingers between hers. Like fitting the final piece into a dissected puzzle, it was, the heat of her skin against his. Making sense of the chaos. Bringing the entire picture of himself, of who he wanted to be, into clear focus.
And who he wanted to be for Harry—if she’d still agree to have him.
“Theo, are we not returning to the company downstairs? Where are you taking me?”
The door to her own chamber lay only a few steps down the passageway, but he’d turned her in the opposite direction, toward the rooms traditionally inhabited by Viscount Saybrook and his lady. Until now, he’d not asked that his possessions to be moved here—just one more way he’d tried to shirk the new responsibilities his father’s death had thrust upon him.
