“Amelia said you fashioned the rooms exactly as they had been.”
“Yes.”
“Why? If you had a fresh start, why did you merely emulate what had come before? Why did you not take the opportunity to make it more yours?”
He was silent for so long, she thought he might not speak. When he did, his voice was low. “When I inherited the house and everything it contained, I became its caretaker. The best way I knew of preserving my mother’s memory was to restore the house to the glory she’d envisioned for it.” He took a breath, and she was oddly aware of his proximity, the way heat sank into her side. “If, however, there are substantial changes you would like to make—”
“You mentioned the moat.”
“That was not of my mother’s design. I have no love for it.”
“Then I will contrive its removal.” Christiana, like his mother, had no love of it—it struck her as pretentious and impractical and would require upkeep. This house was no castle; it required no moat.
They stopped outside the door to her apartments, and she looked up into his face, now shadowed and utterly impenetrable. The oddest temptation to lean up to press her lips against his flooded her, and she took a step back before she could do something she might regret. What did it matter to her if he wished to preserve his mother’s memory by noting all the changes she had made to the house and restoring them after her death?
If the lump in her throat was anything to go by, it mattered a great deal.
“You may trust me,” she said softly. “I would not make any changes to the house that would compromise your mother’s memory.”
He sighed. “Amelia tells me I should not live in the past.”
“Amelia does not remember the way you do.” Before she could help herself, she brought a hand to his jaw, stroking the unburned skin, not daring to caress his burns in case it should hurt. “I am not an expert, but I believe marriage ought to be for the betterment of both parties. Help me, and I will help you.”
For the longest moment, he looked down at her, brows drawn. She dropped her hand, and—perhaps it was her imagination—but she felt as though he leaned forward slightly, as though to capture her touch for a fraction longer.
Then he stepped away, and the moment was gone. “Goodnight, Chris,” he said, his voice a little rough. “I hope you sleep well.”
Christiana watched him as he strode down the hall until he was out of sight.
Chapter Fifteen
Now that Christianahad an eye for the house and the accounts, she reviewed the expenses over the past two years. In part, because she wished to have a better idea of how much running a house of this size would cost—the scope of this estate compared to that of her father’s house was so different as to be incomparable. And in part because when reviewing the accounts, she had discovered some discrepancies.
The historic expenses revealed still more.
To a less discerning eye, perhaps, the discrepancies were small enough to go unnoticed. A slightly higher coal budget, ordered in equal amounts for all rooms, despite only some being regularly heated. These numbers did not also dip as much as Christiana had been expecting over summer. Thiswassummer, and Christiana could see that the fires were infrequently lit, often only in mornings and evenings when the temperature dropped.
And the number of candles ordered per room seemed a trifle high, too. Again, not by enough to cause alarm, but enough that Christiana, with her keen eye for figures, noticed.
To be sure, she checked the price of coal and candles over the past two years; if the prices had risen over the periods where too much had been ordered, that might have explained it.
Only they hadn’t.
And when Christiana visited the coal stores, she did not find an amount that, in her eye, matched the amount that had been ordered.
Or that hadostensiblybeen ordered.
She chewed her lip. Another delivery of coal was due in two weeks. Hugh, evidently, trusted the old retainers and had never thought to question if the funds they requested reflected the amount spent on these everyday household items.
Linen, too.
If Christiana was right, someone—likely Mrs. Patridge or Penwick, or perhaps even both—was skimming off the top of the household. Given the scope of the figures they were dealing with, over at least the five years of accounts Christiana had checked, it would amount to a nice little nest egg.
She thought back to the way Mrs. Partridge had reluctantly handed her the books of accounts, at first trying to claim they hadn’t existed. It was only after Christiana had begun to look herself that the accounts had magically revealed themselves.
Penwick was harder to read. He didn’t like her, that much was obvious, but he had nothing to do with her. If anything, he went out of his way to have nothing to do with her.
In short, she had suppositions and very little proof. More to the point, Hugh evidently valued his retainers a great deal, referring to them as part of the family. By the sounds of it, Penwick had been working for the Westfields since before Hugh had been born.