Devil's Daughter (The Ravenels #5)(47)

Phoebe laughed. There was something different in his manner with her today, a friendliness accompanied by a slight distance. She was relieved; it would make everything easier. “It was accidental flirting,” she said.

“It could happen to anyone,” he allowed graciously.

As Phoebe’s gaze moved to a towering stack of ledgers, she winced. “My goodness.”

“We keep a separate book for every department of the estate. Household, crops, dairy and poultry, livestock, pay list, inventory, and so forth.” West gave her a questioning glance. “That’s not how they do it at the Clare estate?”

“I’ve never actually seen the Clare account books,” Phoebe admitted. “Only the household ledger, which the housekeeper and I used to oversee together. Edward Larson has handled the rest of the bookkeeping ever since Henry’s health declined.”

“Why didn’t you have an estate manager handle it?”

“He was quite old and wanted to retire. It was a great relief when Edward offered to step in and manage things. Henry trusted him completely.”

“They were first cousins?”

“Yes, but they were more like brothers. Henry didn’t like to mix with people outside of his family or mine. He preferred to keep his world small and safe.”

West’s head tilted slightly, the light sliding over the rich chocolate luster of his hair. “And therefore, so was yours,” he said in a neutral tone.

“I didn’t mind.”

He regarded her thoughtfully. “As much as I like the pace of life in the country, I’d go mad if I didn’t occasionally visit friends in London and enjoy more sophisticated amusements than can be found here.”

“There are things I miss about London,” Phoebe said. “But now I’m obliged to stay away, especially during the Season. As a widow and the mother of an heir presumptive, I’ll be the target of every fortune hunter in England.”

“If it makes you feel better, I promise never to propose to you.”

“Thank you,” Phoebe said with a laugh.

Turning businesslike, West pulled a broad ledger from a stack and set it in front of her.

“When do you move to Essex?”

“In a fortnight.”

“Once you’re settled, ask for the general account books. One of them will contain yearly statements of the estate’s profits and losses. You’ll want to look at the past four or five years to—why are you frowning? It’s too soon to be frowning.”

Phoebe picked up a stray pencil and fiddled with it, tapping the blunt end against the edge of the ledger. “It’s the idea of asking Edward for the account books. I know it will upset him. He’ll take it as a sign that I don’t trust him.”

“It has nothing to do with trust. He should encourage your involvement.”

“Most men wouldn’t have that attitude.”

“Any man with common sense would. No one will watch over Justin and Stephen’s interests better than their mother.”

“Thank you. I happen to agree.” Her mouth twisted. “Unfortunately, Edward won’t approve, and neither will Henry’s mother. In fact, no one connected to the Clare estate will like it.” Phoebe didn’t realize she was clenching the pencil in a death grip until West gently extricated it from her fist.

“I know how intimidating it is to have to learn all this,” he said. “But it’s nothing compared to what you’ve already faced.” His warm hand slid over hers. “You have a backbone of steel. You went through months of hell looking after a small child, a dying husband and an entire household, with unholy patience. You missed meals and went without sleep, but you never forgot to read Justin a bedtime story and tuck him in at night. When you let yourself cry or fall apart, it was only in private, for a few minutes, and then you washed your face, put your broken heart back together, and went out with a cheerful expression and a half dozen handkerchiefs in your pockets. And you did all of it while feeling queasy most of the time because you were expecting another child. You never failed the people who needed you. You’re not going to fail them now.”

Shocked down to her soul, Phoebe could only manage a whisper. “Who told you all that?”

“No one.” The smile lines at the corners of his eyes deepened. “Phoebe . . . anyone who knows you, even a little, would know those things about you.”



“Peruvian guano,” Phoebe read aloud from a list of expenditures. “You spent one hundred pounds on imported bat droppings?”

West grinned. “I would have bought more, had it been available.”

They had spent hours in the study, and the time seemed to have flown by. West had answered Phoebe’s questions in detail, without condescension. He had opened ledgers, spread maps of the estate and the tenant farms on the floor, and pulled books with titles such as Agricultural Chemistry and Drainage Operations of Arable Land from the shelves. Phoebe had expected it to be a dull session of tallying long columns of numbers and filling out forms. However, as it turned out, estate accounting was about far more than numbers. It was about people, animals, food, weather, science, markets . . . it was about the future. And the man explaining it to her was so articulate and keen on the subject, he could even make bookkeeping methods interesting.