Page 67 of My One and Only Duke
Until he’d absconded for the Antipodes several months ago, likely taking the last of the Walden fortune with him.
“My numbers tally as well,” Joshua said, “but who pays a Yorkshire housemaid twenty pounds a year?”
“Nobody, unless she’s doing considerably more than polishing the silver.”
Joshua picked up the pencil and threaded it over, under, and through his fingers. “The former duke was ancient, and he dwelled mostly at the Berkshire property. That well-paid army of maids in Yorkshire wasn’t dusting and polishing him.”
“Arbuthnot lived at the Yorkshire estate. The maid is probably on his arm as we speak, enjoying a life of ease in New South Wales. She might well be wearing some of the Walden family jewels too.”
Joshua’s pencil stilled, the point end protruding between his third and fourth fingers. “Leaving Quinn to put the whole mess to rights. I want Mrs. Hatfield to look over these books.”
Mrs. Hatfield hadn’t said more than six words to Duncan at any one time. She prowled the bank like a cat that had caught a whiff of a mouse in the environs of the larder, her fingers ink-stained, her spectacles spotless.
“The figures tally,” Duncan said. “I thought auditors looked for figures that don’t add up.”
“Mrs. Hatfield has an instinct for what’s going on behind the numbers. She’ll spot when the maid’s salary was increased, put that together with the duke’s health failing as indicated by increased physician’s bills, and establish cause and effect in a manner that boggles the mind.”
Stephen had the same unnerving propensity, which made maintaining any sort of privacy around him—any sort of secrecy—nearly impossible.
“You admire this about her.”
“I am in awe of that woman, and not a little intimidated.”
Comforting, to know that something or someone could intimidate Joshua Penrose.
“You would not take her away from bank business simply to indulge idle curiosity about embezzlements of yesteryear.” And the year before that, for several years before the previous duke’s demise.
When Duncan and Stephen had discussed the ducal succession months ago, the fate of the real assets had been of particular interest to Stephen, while for Duncan, the peregrinations of the title itself had been fascinating.
Quinn’s good luck truly was astonishing.
“Timing is everything,” Joshua said, tossing the pencil in the air and catching it. “The estates were plundered, systematically and thoroughly, until three months ago, at which time Arbuthnot decamped in the dead of night. I suspect we’ll find the stewards at the other estates all similarly slunk into the hedgerows about the same time. How did Arbuthnot know that the College was on the trail of an heir? He might have instead assumed the estate was languishing for the mandatory seven years prior to reverting to the Crown.”
The conference room abruptly felt too close, too cut off from natural light and fresh air. “Perhaps he didn’t know, perhaps he’d reached the limit of his greed, but what matters now is that he’s gone and the debts remain—and that Quinn is alive.”
Joshua tossed the pencil again. “Greed has no limit, no expiration date, much like Quinn’s need for justice.”
“For revenge, you mean.”
The pencil rose in the air a third time, but Joshua let it fall to the ledger book, where it landed squarely in the crease of last year’s journal.
“He was hanged, Duncan, for a crime he didn’t commit. The College of Arms found him in the very nick. Five minutes later, two minutes later, and Stephen would be the duke.”
Duncan closed the volume he’d been studying and began a slow circuit of the room. Sometimes his knee eased up with moderate activity. If bad luck were to befall Stephen, the title devolved to Duncan, another observation left unspoken.
“What’s your point?”
“I have several. First, the College should not have taken years to find Quinn Wentworth. Jack Wentworth has been dead for nearly a decade, and you can still find people in York who spit at the mention of his name. He was notorious in a relatively small town. Why did it take so long to find Quinn?”
“Quinn no longer dwells in Yorkshire, and few would connect Jack Wentworth’s grubby boy with your business partner.” Quinn didn’t hide his antecedents, but he assuredly did not advertise them.
“Somebody connected them in time for Arbuthnot and his merry band of felons to abscond before Quinn assumed the title.”
Duncan’s knee had gone from twinging to throbbing. “You think somebody threw the College of Arms off the scent, and then warned Arbuthnot when the herald doubled back and picked up Quinn’s trail. Who would be in a position to do that?”
Who indeed.
“The aristocracy is inbred,” Joshua said, “especially in the north, where titles are few and ancient. A countess with blunt to spare could easily keep track of who had called on the vicar, who had nosed about the parish records of births, deaths, and marriages. I can guarantee you she’s kept track of Quinn. Arbuthnot might have piked off in an abundance of caution. More likely he was warned by a friendly neighbor.”
