Leah had tabulated the sums as the scones cooked. The repairs alone would be more than her entire annual budget for running Thistle Muir. From there, the ongoing staffing expenses were astonishing.
Fox poured himself more tea, adding two lumps of sugar and stirring before looking up at her.
“How imperiled are my finances then?” If he found it odd to be speaking about money so frankly with a woman, it didn’t show. “Show me.” He patted the bench beside his right hip.
Leah blinked.
He wanted her to sit close to him?
How long before the intimacy (and, yet, decidedlynotintimacy) of their married life stopped shocking her?
Regardless, she was all too eager to move around the table and sink onto the bench beside him, their shoulders all but touching.
She had been wrong, of course. Fox didn’t justlookdelicious; he smelled it, too. The scent of expensive shaving soap clung to him. She wanted to lean her nose into the space between his shoulder and jaw and inhale, just as he had done with the scones.
But, of course, she did nothing of the sort. If Fox had declined to kiss her after their vows, how appalled would he be by more effusive and ardent physical contact?
Granted, he felt sufficient ardor at some point . . . enough to perhaps sire a child. He simply feels no ardor for yourself.
Leah squelched her doom-laden inner voice again and did as Fox directed, opening her book between them. She may have also deliberately pressed her arm against his.
She pointed at the tallied sums.
“That’s the amount for required repairs. That will be your ongoing annual cost after hiring minimal staff. And that—” She drew a finger across a truly appalling number. “—would be the approximate price to refurbish and refurnish the castle tae bring it up to a modern style of living. But that would also increase your staffing costs by another fifteen percent, at the least.”
She expected Fox to flinch away, to inquire about ways to economize. After all, that had been her life at Thistle Muir. The harvest would be poor one year and so the Penn-Leiths would retrench—use less sugar in their tea, order a cheaper muslin for gowns (or none at all in The Year Without a Summer), forgo books and a newspaper subscription.
Leah dared a glance at Fox. He frowned at the neat lines in her notebook, his teacup poised mid-sip.
“You came up with all these numbers this . . . morning?” His tone was strained.
So . . .appalledthen? Well, he should be. These were sums of money that Leah had rarely seen in her life.Shewas appalled by them.
He sipped his tea.
“Aye, though these are only estimates,” she answered truthfully. “I will need tae consult with the slater, joiner, glazier, and so on afore I can give ye a precise amount. And I’m sure we’ll find additional problems as we go. I’ve tried tae account for some of that by increasing the amounts by ten percent overall, but as ye can see—”
Fox placed a hand on her wrist, stopping her mid-sentence.
The touch of his bare fingers on her skin sent scalding heat licking up her arm. Leah bit her bottom lip, willing herself not to blush.
In that moment, she viscerally hated every other woman who had experienced more of him than she ever would.
And then she hated how quickly jealousy had dug its ugly talons into her heart.
“Thank you.” He regarded her with those blue eyes.
She almost cringed at the unexpected words.
“Th-thank? Me? Why?” she stammered, ending on an incredulous laugh. “For showing ye the king’s ransom you’ll need to pay tae bring this castle into the current century?”
He smiled, so faintly. The barest twitch of his lips.
“I am merely astonished at how quickly you’ve taken this into hand. And as for the king’s ransom, I think we all should live in comfort. This—” He tapped the absurd number that represented a lavish refurbishment of the castle. “—is a small price to pay for such a thing.”
Leah stared at him in stunned silence.
Smallprice?! That sum was more than Thistle Muir would generate in three years, perhaps five.
