Page 71 of An Earl Like You
But he had planted a seed that had already sprouted a vile vine, thorny and malignant, and the only way to kill it was to dig it out, roots and all.
It took no time at all to return to St. James’s Street. Wilkins was surprised to see her again, and alone, but she told him she had a headache. Mary hurried off to prepare a soothing cup of tea, and Eliza went to her room.
Willy jumped up and barked eagerly at her appearance. Angus must have gone to bed if Willy was already in his basket by her hearth. Eliza’s heart softened at the sight of him; her dog was only allowed into her bedroom at night, spending the rest of the day out with Angus. She went down on her knees and Willy flung himself at her, licking her face wildly until she had to laugh.
“What should I believe, Willy?” she whispered, resting her face in his soft black-and-white fur. “Would Papa do such a thing?”
Willy sat back and regarded her quizzically, his tongue hanging out. He woofed at her. “You’re right,” she said softly, hating every word. “He would. But would Hugh cooperate with such a scheme?”
The dog licked her face again. He didn’t know, either.
She thought of Hugh, her husband, who declared he wanted her to himself for a day and took her to Primrose Hill. Who made love to her and told her he loved her. Could that man have been lying to her? She closed her eyes and remembered their first waltz, when he had taken her out into the mist on Lady Thayne’s terrace and kissed her so passionately, like a lover. He had wanted her then; she vividly recalled the feel of his aroused body against hers...
But wanting was not the same as loving. And he hadn’t said he loved her, or even cared for her, until well after they were wed.
Perhaps he hadn’t loved her when he proposed but had fallen in love with her since. Even if it began as an untruth, it was real now. Eliza wanted desperately to believe that her husband’s avowals of love had not been lies, or at least not complete lies. She could pardon old lies, she thought wildly, as long as he’d meant it when he said he loved her tonight...
But if she believed Papa could have bought all of Hugh’s debts and forced him to marry her, it was hard to believe Hugh would have forgiven that so easily and quickly.
As if in a trance, Eliza got to her feet and picked up a lamp. Willy followed her across the room, his tail wagging, and she didn’t tell him to stay. She opened the door and went down the corridor, meeting Mary with a tray in her hands.
“I’ve brought your tea, my lady,” said her startled maid. “Do you not want it in your room?”
“Hmm? Oh yes, in my room will be lovely, Mary.” Eliza smiled absently. “I’m just going to get a book from His Lordship’s study.”
She had seen Hugh in his study at his desk. He kept the ledgers himself. If his debts had been as enormous as Sir Richard said they were, Hugh must have made payments on them, and they would be recorded in the ledgers. She would just look at them. If there were no debts, she would know Sir Richard had lied to her. There would be no need to confront Papa or Hugh about anything. She would be quietly resting in bed, sipping her tea, when her devoted husband came to check on her.
The study was dark and hushed, making her feel like a criminal breaking in with nefarious intent. She put the lamp down on the desk. Where were the ledgers? The bookcase seemed an obvious place; she scanned the shelves and found several ledgers. They were all neatly kept, and all for past years. Only one was in handwriting she recognized as Hugh’s, and she set it on the desk.
It took a few minutes to decipher his notation. She had kept the household accounts at Greenwich, but the dowager countess still held the books here. Eliza was not accustomed to the scope of an earl’s estate, but she began to make it out. There were payments to servants, bills from the modiste, the butcher, the farrier. Eliza flipped the pages, scanning as quickly as she could.
The first one made her blink; mortgage on Rosemere. It was a large amount. Henrietta had told her Rosemere was let to tenants, which was a great pity because they all loved Cornwall dearly. There was a mortgage on another property as well—Norcross Hall, the Hastings seat in Essex. Now that she knew what to look for, the debts began leaping out at her. Eliza’s lips moved silently as she tried to add up the amounts paid and guess at the underlying debt. She gave up when the amount climbed over thirty thousand pounds.
Willy put his head in her lap and she stroked his head, staring blindly at the pages in front of her.
Well, plenty of estates were mortgaged. Georgiana said her brother was always writing to his bankers, negotiating new loans. Just because Hugh had debt didn’t mean he was in trouble. The wealthiest peers had incomes of tens of thousands of pounds a year, more than sufficient to pay their mortgages. If that were true, though, the income must be recorded somewhere else.
“I need the current ledger,” she whispered. Willy cocked his head and she gave him a decisive nod. “Yes. If everything continued on after our wedding as it had before, then it means our marriage changed nothing.”
She was making excuses for him and she hated herself for it.
The current ledger was not on the shelves with the other ones. Eliza returned to the big leather chair and opened a drawer of the desk. Nothing. Another drawer; still nothing. The third drawer held a familiar book, and she took it out with trembling hands. As she did so, a packet came with it, and fell to the floor.
She recognized her father’s handwriting first. It was only the wordHastings, written in Papa’s jagged scrawl on the outer wrapping, but it made her flinch. Slowly she unfolded the paper to see what her father had given Hugh. It might be a commendation to his boot maker, or a list of fine wines...
Paid in Full, read the top paper, a promissory note for two thousand pounds.Paid in Full, scrawled across a large bill from the carriage maker.Paid, on a summary of charges from the wine merchant.Satisfied in Entirety, across a deed for the property in Essex.
Eliza’s hand was over her mouth.Paid in Full. Paid in Full.Every page of the packet, dozens of bills and loans and promissory notes, all marked paid. She let them slide through her fingers, a flurry of damning proof that her father had bought Hugh’s debts just as Sir Richard Nesbit said. Feverishly she opened the current ledger, praying that there would be a notation indicating that Hugh was repaying her father, that perhaps Papa had done it as a token of kindness to his future son-in-law.
There was none. She did see clear annotations of some of her dowry funds, put into different accounts. Hugh tracked everything, down to the farthing. But there were no payments on any loan or mortgage since Hugh had come to call at Greenwich.
And Eliza knew, to her very bones, that Nesbit had told her the truth.
Chapter 27
Hugh was beginning to wonder where Eliza had gone.
The ladies’ retiring room, she’d said. With two sisters, Hugh knew that could lead to a long delay, so he was not surprised when she didn’t return quickly. He greeted friends, refilled his glass of wine, and managed to avoid coming face-to-face with Lord Livingston, who was holding court in a far corner of the room.
