Page 42 of The Scandalous Love of a Duke
She nodded, but she looked as though she did not wish to.
9
John leaned back in the armchair, his elbows resting on the arms. A glass of port was balanced in one hand, and one ankle rested on the opposite knee.
The house was silent and seeing as there was no one here to care but himself, he had lit a cigar.
He was in the library, looking up at the life-size portrait of his grandfather, digesting the events of the day.
He could not fathom why his pragmatic, intolerant grandfather had kept a man like Wareham on all these years.
John drew on the cigar, let his head fall back and blew the smoke upwards.
According to Finch, Wareham had left without a word of complaint.
None of the servants knew why Wareham had gone. John had not even told Finch the details. Here, it was no one’s concern but his. However, he had written to Harvey the minute he had returned from seeing Katherine, informing him of Wareham’s dismissal and asking Harvey to advise all the other stewards of Wareham’s departure. He had also asked Harvey to find a replacement.
John had a feeling he had missed something, though. He sipped his port and his mind swung to childhood memories. Ghosts always haunted him at night here, just as they had done in Egypt. But tonight he called them forward. He was convinced there was something he had forgotten.
The problem with memories was they came with the feelings which supported them. Feelings he had not been allowed as a child but had had nonetheless, loneliness, emptiness and hurt.
He stared at his grandfather’s image and took another drag on the cigar.
John had been intensely glad of his capacity to hide and bury his feelings today.Perhaps I ought to thank you.
He lifted his glass in a mocking toast.
His thoughts returned to the issue at hand. There was something… it was on the very edge of his conscious thought.
Wareham had always been present when John reviewed the books in his youth, and when John had reached the end of each page Wareham would check the lines John had written and total them.
‘Bloody hell!’ John stood. He had not checked the totals.
He threw the remainder of the cigar into the empty hearth, put down his glass and left the room.
The clever bastard.
Wareham had never taught John to add up the columns or check the totals.
John’s heart beat harder as he jogged upstairs. He was certain this was it.
In his private sitting room he withdrew the key to his safe from his waistcoat pocket.
He had the ledgers on the desk in a moment and ran his finger down the first page, mentally calculating quickly. His count and the figure did not match. He checked it again. It still did not.
Turning the page, he checked another total, no match, and the next, still no match. He looked at several and none of them tallied.
Oh my God.Wareham had been fleecing the old man for years. The old man would be turning in his grave.
The differences in the sums were miniscule but add every page together, and times that by years, it ran into hundreds, perhaps thousands.
John’s fingers swept back his fallen fringe. He remembered Katherine’s fingers sweeping it back from his brow earlier as she had said goodbye.
It was strange thinking of her. Why this moment? ‘And I have wanted you like this since I saw you swimming in the lake before you even went abroad.’
John pushed the thought of her aside, and sat down to write another letter to Harvey, certain there must be copies of these ledgers somewhere. Wareham would have needed to keep track of how much he stole.
There must be a bank account somewhere too, from which Wareham made the loan which had never been repaid.
