Flametouched Read online

  The dressmaker promised to finish it in two weeks if she could find all the materials she needed nearby. Afterward, they loitered around town with little purpose, returning home for dinner near dark.

  Arianne sent Garvis to invite Baron Carver to supper, but he again declined, taking his food in the drawing room. While Arianne felt the disappointment Elaine’s face demonstrated, she couldn’t blame him. If her mother wasn’t bad enough, Arianne knew that he felt uncomfortable in the presence of the woman whose husband he had killed. He wouldn’t even meet her eye. She wondered if she would feel the same way if he were dressed in his Lordly garb and were clean-shaven as he was that fateful night. As it was, he hardly seemed like the same person.

  They spent the balance of the evening reading in a separate living room by a warm fire. Dalia retired near ten, Elaine, stifling yawns, waited eagerly for her departure from the room.

  “Can we go see the carving now, Arianne?” her sister asked.

  Arianne snapped her book shut. “You go get ready for bed and I’ll bring it to you. Come on. I’ll help you up the stairs. You’re so tired I think you might just take a fall.”

  “Should we say goodnight to Mr. Harper?”

  “I’m sure he’s long gone, dear,” Arianne replied. “We’ll see him in the morning.”

  Arianne directed Missa into Elaine’s room to prepare her for bed while she fetched the figurine. Upon entering her room, she found it lying on the bed rather than the armoire where she had left it and wondered if one of the servants had handled it. She retrieved it and regarded it with fascination. A really excellent piece of work, though she didn’t count herself an expert in such matters.

  Elaine took it greedily when Arianne entered her room, and Missa stopped brushing the young girl’s hair to admire it.

  “I shall keep it by my bed to watch over me while I sleep,” Elaine stated, though she didn’t appear ready to let go of her treasure quite yet. “You know,” she finally said, “I think Mr. Harper is more than what he says he is.”

  Arianne’s heart skipped a beat. “He seems a perfectly normal clerk to me,” she lied.

  Missa, done with Elaine’s hair, unpinned Arianne’s and set to work.

  “Really?” Elaine said. “I think he’s an army captain in disguise. He is too brawny and tall to be a clerk. Besides, clerks are grumpy, pasty old men. Maybe he got caught secretly wooing a general’s daughter and had to run for his life.”

  Arianne shook her head. “Don’t let your imagination run away with you, dear. I assure you that clerks come in all shapes and sizes. And please do not bother Mr. Harper with your idle speculations when he returns tomorrow morning.”

  “I don’t believe he’s left, Milady,” Missa added. “Garvis took him some brandy just before you retired.”

  Arianne was surprised. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, Milady.”

  “Can I go say goodnight to him?” Elaine begged.

  “In your bedclothes? You stay put. I’ll have Garvis check in on him and see what he intends.” She kissed her sister. “Goodnight. Sleep well—if you can with such a ferocious beast staring at you in the dark.”

  The house was nearly pitch black when she left Elaine’s room, so she fetched the candle from her own quarters and padded down the stairs, noticing a glow coming from the direction of the drawing room. She thought of finding Garvis but changed her mind. Quietly, she walked in the direction of the drawing room, hearing no movement. Perhaps he had gone, after all.

  The chill in the house goosebumped her skin. The door to the drawing room was open, and she turned the corner to find Baron Carver still at the desk, though his mind and his gaze were far away. The room was cold, the fire long extinguished. A trio of candles on the desk cast a warm glow on his face. His glasses were off, and he balanced his chin on crossed hands.

  Arianne watched him from the doorway for a long while, wondering what prompted his worried expression. He had a handsome face beneath his ridiculous beard, though he held little in common with the urbane Lords she associated with at court. He might play at being a clerk, but anyone who got to know “David Harper” would no doubt come to the same conclusion as Elaine: this was not common man. They might not mistake him for a Lord, but few would put a clerk’s hat on his head.

  He rubbed his eyes and started to collect his papers, at last noticing her. “Lady Hightower! I am sorry I am here so late. I will leave presently.”

  Thinking of the sabercat, she couldn’t help but unleash a little joke she had rolled around in her head all afternoon. “So you’re a carver, then?”

  It produced the desired effect. He froze, his eyes widening. After letting the stunned silence drag for a few moments, she strode inside and let him off the hook. “There’s no need for embarrassment, Mr. Harper. You are quite an artisan. The sabercat you gave Elaine this afternoon was as good a figurine as I have ever seen. A profession to fall back on in case you tire of clerking?”

  Profound relief returned his expression to normal. “Well, no. To own the truth, that’s the first thing I’ve ever attempted to carve.”

  He stood and began cramming papers into his satchel. The first thing he’s carved? She took a seat near the desk and set her candle down on a nearby table.

  “That is extraordinary, Mr. Harper,” she said. “You have a gift.”

  “Perhaps.”

  He was trying to escape. “So why isn’t there a fire going in here for you? I will have to have a word with Mr. Garvis. I’m afraid you haven’t received the hospitality you deserve today.”

  “Do not trouble Mr. Garvis, my Lady. I told him not to bother. I am perfectly comfortable. I lost track of the time and have overstayed my welcome.”

  Arianne creased her brow. “What is wrong, Mr. Harper? Have you discovered something?”

  He stopped and exhaled. “Maybe. I don’t wish to trouble you about it this evening. I can stop by in the morning before I return to Bellshire.”

  “Return to Bellshire?” He couldn’t possibly have finished. “I understood this would take several days.”

  “I’ll explain in the morning, my Lady.”

  “Look at me, Mr. Harper,” Arianne commanded. He turned his gaze upon her and Arianne held it. It was the first time he had looked at her fully. His eyes widened momentarily; he had finally noticed her as a man notices a woman. “Come sit down over here and explain it to me now. I am not tired, and I can hardly sleep without knowing what you’ve discovered.”

  Baron Carver put his satchel on the ground and occupied a chair opposite her. “I need to ask you a couple of questions you may consider sensitive, so forgive me.”

  “Do not fear me, Mr. Harper. Ask your questions.”

  He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands in his lap. “Do you have a separate set of funds you set apart from the normal income of your estate that you use for personal interests of your own?”

  “I do not.”

  “Did your husband have such an account before his…death?” he pressed.

  “Not that I am aware of, but my husband was not forthcoming about many of his personal affairs.” Arianne creased her brow. “To what do these questions tend, may I ask?”

  Baron Carver rubbed his beard pensively for a moment. “I do not wish to alarm you, Lady Hightower, but the reason I was able to finish this in a day is that the discrepancy I found was quite glaring. That is a good sign, actually.”

  “Good sign?” she said. “What discrepancy?”

  “For the last few years your income from this estate has totaled a little over thirty-thousand pounds a year. Are you aware that nearly two thousand pounds a year is going unaccounted for from your estate’s earnings?”

  “What?” Arianne exclaimed, shocked. “Since when? How?”

  “It’s been going on since about a year after your marriage to Lord Hightower and continues on to this day. Your accounts are short around one hundred fifty pounds a month. The amount surprised me. You didn’t know?”
/>   Arianne was flabbergasted. “No! I assure you. I’ve never wanted for anything here and never took a hand in the finances. I guess I am like the little boy in your story this morning. Am I being robbed by my steward or my clerk?”

  He leaned forward and raised his hands soothingly. “Be at ease, Lady Hightower. The reason I said the ease of detection was a good sign was that if you were being robbed, whoever is disposing of the money certainly could have tried harder to conceal the theft. Even an underclerk such as myself was able to pick this out with very little work. Many lords keep a separate ledger where they may record other financial transactions they want hidden from the general clerkship of their houses, such as investments or gambling debts or…other items.”

  Arianne crossed her arms. “Come now, Mr. Harper. I’m not a prude. You mean a record of what they pay to keep up their mistresses.”

  Baron Carver looked away, embarrassed. “Yes, but I don’t think that is the case here.”

  “And why is that?” she asked. “My husband and I married as part of a family arrangement. It is common for Lords to…supplement…the affection they receive from their wives.” Her remark troubled him, and she wondered why.

  “I do not mean to suggest that it was impossible that your husband had mistresses, rather, that the amount would be extravagant in the extreme for the upkeep of a mistress—at least I imagine so. But even more to the point, it would be very unusual for someone to continue to pay the upkeep of these mistresses for years after your husband’s death.”

  “Unless there were some embarrassing circumstances behind it, such as a child,” she added. It would have been just like her husband to do something so stupid. “Perhaps he left instructions for my steward in a secret will I am unaware of.”

  Baron Carver leaned back and frowned. “Still unlikely, I think. The amount is more indicative of a serious investment, but there is no return on that investment in the income statements, and so it seems that the money is unaccountably disappearing.”

  A creak in the hallway caught her attention. It was extremely improper for her to sit alone with a commoner at night, but she was more concerned that the servants might get wind of Baron Carver’s information. She retrieved the candle.

  “One moment, Mr. Harper,” she whispered. A brief inspection of the hallway revealed nothing, and she returned. “I apologize. I thought I heard someone. Is the money for the Aid Society part of this missing income?”

  “No. That is recorded dutifully.”

  “And there’s been no word as to what that little scam was about?”

  He shook his head. “Not when I left three days ago.”

  Arianne paced around the room to think, feeling used. Her money was washing away down a ditch and she had no idea. “I feel like a fool, Mr. Harper. An absolute fool. I’ve taken a lot of pride in being an independent woman of means, thinking I was administering my estate quite well. And then this. I am humiliated and becoming more than a little angry. Two thousand pounds a year, right from under my very nose!”

  He turned toward her, tone consoling. “Please, do not take it ill, Lady Hightower. There may yet be some perfectly innocent explanation for this whole affair, though I’m afraid the next move falls to you.”

  “I suppose I am to talk with my steward and my clerk?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Ask them to account for the losses. See if they are aware of any hidden ledger your late husband kept secret or that they kept secret for him. I do not know the character of either man, so have care.”

  Arianne had half a mind to pull Mr. Barles, her steward, and Mr. Cranton, her clerk, from their beds in town that very instant and drag them in to confront her in the middle of the night. She was angry enough for anything. “I will speak with them first thing in the morning.”

  He stood. “Very good. Please send what you find to the clerk’s office in Bellshire. I—”

  “One moment, Mr. Harper. Please sit down,” Arianne requested forcefully. He complied. “I believe you were to be engaged here for at least five days. I see no reason for you to hurry back to Bellshire before I can get to the bottom of this.”

  “I…well,” he stammered, “it seemed I was the source of some discomfort to you and your family, and I didn’t wish to burden you with my presence unnecessarily.”

  Arianne returned to her seat across from him and grinned. “Mr. Harper, don’t let my mother run you off! She is a bit hard to abide at times, but rest assured that the rest of us are quite comfortable with you here. Besides, if you were to leave four days early, I think you might lose the good opinion of one Elaine Hale. I thank you for your gift. She rarely sees genuine kindness when she is at home in Brighton.”

  He nodded. “After seeing her eyes light up when I showed it to her, I knew it was hers.”

  Arianne laughed, feeling the worry lessen. “Bear with us a little while longer, if you will, Mr. Harper. This money problem is certainly due to some idiotic scheme of my late husband. He was always carried away in the moment and thought little of what lay ahead. He is dead now, and I must sort this out.”

  “I am truly sorry for your loss, my Lady,” Baron Carver said, face dour.

  She thought twice about asking her next question, but she had to see how he would react. “Are you aware of how he died?”

  He squirmed uncomfortably and looked away. “I heard some maniacal lord killed him in a duel.”

  Maniacal. So that is how he judges his actions, then. “Well, maniacally in love, perhaps. The late Lord Hightower imprudently insulted his fiancée. My husband was an affable man in general, but when he drank…well, he never learned to cross himself, drunk or sober. He wouldn’t apologize and wanted to show Baron Carver he was his superior. I’m afraid your sex, Mr. Harper, is prone to these bouts of stupidity.”

  He nodded, face sober. “But stupidity shouldn’t cost a good Lady her husband. If Baron Carver had been more sensible to what killing Lord Cornton would do to you, I’m sure he would have acted differently.”

  “Perhaps,” she said, finding Baron Carver nothing like she had expected. “But Baron Carver had every right to defend his betrothed’s honor, though I did think it heavy handed at the time. Both men are dead now. We received word some months ago that Baron Carver had met his end.”

  He nodded and ran his hand through his hair. “I’m sure that was a comfort to you and best for all involved,” he said, though it seemed to Arianne that he wasn’t addressing her anymore.

  “Well, enough idle chatter,” she said. “Come by tomorrow for dinner. I will let you know what intelligence I have gathered, and Elaine can bid you a proper farewell.”

  “As you wish,” he said a bit unsteadily, retreating to the desk and donning his glasses and his wide brimmed hat. “I’ll let myself out. Don’t trouble Garvis.”

  “I will trouble Garvis,” she stated as she headed for the door. “Your horse will be saddled and waiting for you. I will not have you leave Hightower until your opinion of its hospitality improves.”

  Arianne strode out before Baron Carver could trouble her with any polite reassurances.

  Chapter 17

  The meeting with her steward and clerk went more horribly than Arianne could possibly have imagined. The two recalcitrant men denied any knowledge of secret ledgers and accounts until she threatened to fetch the sheriff and search their persons and their homes.

  Shamed and angry, they turned over five ledgers hidden away in a chest of the turret office and said that they had persisted in the keeping of the accounts in the manner Lord Hightower had instructed them. Arianne reminded them quite vociferously that Lord Hightower was dead and that she was the master of the estate.

  While their lies and excuses she had expected, their immediate resignation and departure she had not. She sat scouring the books for the balance of the morning but realized she needed Baron Carver’s help to make sense of it all. She sent word to the Blue Ferry Inn in town to see if he could come sooner than dinner to start sorting the whole my
stery out. She itched to know what the two rascals had kept from her for the last three years and still had half a mind to bring the sheriff into the picture immediately. But she decided against it in case something damaging to her family’s reputation was at stake.

  Two messages arrived over an hour later. One from the inn stated that Mr. Harper had left early in the morning for parts unknown. The other letter was addressed to her mother, who, after reading it, continued the day’s agitation by suddenly packing up and leaving at a breathtaking pace. The Lady Brighton offered no explanation and barely any goodbye, but she did leave a delighted Elaine behind.

  The result of all the commotion was a dull ache in the back of Arianne’s head and an unsettled stomach. She felt ill at ease, her distress compounded by uncertainty. She imagined all manner of horrible scenarios involving the late Lord Cornton, from multiple mistresses to a horde of bastard children to some draining speculation that had yet to pay any dividends.

  She took a walk through the grounds and gardens to allow nature its chance to distract and calm her mind. The afternoon heat was just giving way to a cool evening breeze, a smear of purple and orange tingeing the edges of the clouds. The fragrant lilacs and lemon bushes settled her. She loved Hightower. Green, rolling hills, gurgling streams, pleasant mornings and brilliant evenings, and all at a fair distance from the bustling of the city proper. Did she really want to give this up to spend the rest of her life with Uticus?

  The sound of hooves on the lane spurred her heart to racing again and returned the weight of the day’s worry to her brow. Straightening her dress and taming a wild strand of hair, she quickly walked to the front of the manor to await the disguised Lord Carver. While the horse he rode and the clothing he wore were modest, his comfort and command on his mount betrayed a little of the nobleman astride it. As he neared, he quickly dug his useless spectacles out of his traveling bag and awkwardly affixed them to his face. Arianne shook her head; he really was terrible at disguises.

  After a tip of his hat he dismounted, a servant taking the reins. She noted the Baron’s relaxed face and felt a little annoyed; he had clearly spent the day enjoying himself while her stomach had been doing irritated backflips for hours. He doffed his hat and inclined his head as required by protocol.