Page 89 of Undercover Duke
“It’s not nothing. Some people have trouble with numbers. My great-uncle used to have a terrible time. Then my great-aunt would complain of how he drove her mad whenever he had to meet with his estate manager.” She pointed to a figure. “What is this?”
“It’s seven hundred and twenty-six pounds.”
“No, my dear. It’s seven hundred and sixty-two pounds.”
He looked at it again. “You’re right. I can see it now, but I’d swear it was—”
“Here, let’s try another one.” This time she took a ruler and laid it underneath a figure. “What’s this one?”
“That’s five thousand and twenty-five pounds.”
“Look at it again.”
He scowled. “What’s the use? Every time I look at a number, I can’t trust what I see.”
“That’s just a simple matter of having someone look at the numbers for you. Honestly, you shouldn’t even be bothering with this. You have a man of affairs. It’s his job.”
“My father always said any man of property ought to be able to look at the account ledgers and tell whether someone was cheating him or he could be doing some aspect of estate management more efficiently.”
“I suppose your father had a point, but I don’t see why you should have to take it this far.” She raised an eyebrow. “Besides, for how long did your father manage an estate?”
That brought Sheridan up short. “Six months or so. I always assumed my grandfather had passed down his own rules of estate management, but if he had, he would have passed them down to Uncle Armie, not my father.”
“So your father really had very little experience at all.”
“I don’t suppose he had.” He’d never thought of it like that.
“Your Uncle Armie was the other person you and your siblings think was murdered?”
“Yes. He’s the one who ran the estate into the ground.”
“Are you sure of that?”
Sheridan sat back in his chair. “I am. Before I inherited, Father knew it, the tenants knew it, and Bonham knew it. If I could just figure out Bonham’s system,Iwould know it. He has tried time and again to explain it to me, but apparently my issue with numbers keeps me from being able to make sense of it.”
“Hmm.” She looked skeptical. “If you want, I could read over the ledgers for you, and see ifIcan figure it out. I’m good with numbers, and I used to do the books for Papa.”
“Forgive me, sweetheart, but that’s not a ringing endorsement, given that your parents struggled under your father’s management.”
She set her hands on her lovely hips. “That was because of Papa’s mistresses and Mama’s overspending.”
“Uncle Armie had plenty of mistresses himself, and overspending was how he operated.”
With fire in her eyes, Vanessa rested one hip on the desk. “Yes, but he had a duke’s income behind him—plenty of tenants and other investments. Whereas Papa, as a second son, only had our country house in Suffolk left to him by his mother. He had no tenants. He couldn’t afford either overspending or mistresses, but that didn’t stop him. Why do you think he tried to steal Grey’s unentailed properties?”
She did have a point there.
“And believe me,” she went on, “I did my best to make the argument that we would have plenty to live on if he would stop spending so much on ‘Mama.’ We both knew he wasn’t spending all of it on Mama and me, but he pretended otherwise, and I let him. No one stood up to Papa, least of all me.”
“Grey did,” Sheridan said softly.
“And he suffered for it, as you know.” She thrust out her chin. “What little we were left to live on was only available because I . . . hid assets to keep us from debtors’ prison. It’s possible Mr. Bonham did something similar to keep the dukedom afloat. Hehasbeen with the Armitage dukes for decades, after all.”
“Surely he would have said something about it to me if he had.”
She shrugged. “Perhaps he’s waiting to see if he can trust you, whether you’re going to be able to handle the extra funds if he reveals them to you.”
Sheridan doubted that, but he could tell she was hopeful. A month ago, he would have assumed that her hope stemmed from a desire for money. Now he knew she simply wanted to help him, which was very sweet, but probably a lost cause.
