Then afterward, if she still found herself falling in love with him while he continued to hold back… she supposed she would have no choice but to let him go, to create a world in which they could co-exist apart from one another.
For anything else would be far too painful.
After she dressed, she hummed a song to herself as she made her way, unhurried, down the stairs to the ground floor. Hearing voices in the breakfast room, she decided she didn’t have it within her to make pleasantries with Asher’s mother and continued on to find her puzzles for the day. Usually, they were sitting on a small desk in the library for her, having arrived withthe morning papers. She would either work on them there or bring them into the sitting room with Asher.
Her cheeks warmed again as she thought of last night, even more so as she wondered if they would have a repeat performance tonight.
She wasn’t ignorant of the fact that she could, potentially, be with child soon, now that they had been together so intimately. When she had married, she had known it could be a possibility, but now… the idea of creating a new life with Asher caused a tingling throughout her body that she had to shake off as she walked through the high shelves of the library, through the dust motes that floated through the sunlight streaming in the window, and sat down at the small desk in the corner near the window that had become hers over the past couple of weeks.
She picked up the puzzles, sifting through them to find the one she enjoyed the most, fromThe Lady’s Magazine. Frowning when she didn’t immediately see it, she stood and started to look around. Had it fallen? There – a scrap of paper under the cabinet a few feet away.
She bent down and retrieved it, but not before she noticed the tip of another piece of paper peeking out from the ridges of the cabinet. In a place that it was most definitely not supposed to be.
She leaned down and tugged on the edge of the paper, trying to work it free.
No luck.
She didn’t want to pull too hard and rip it completely, so she tried as gently as she could to move the paper from one side to the other until it finally came free.
What was this?
She ran her eyes down the page, which included a list of names, some she recognized, some she didn’t. Below appearedto be a series of accounts, but the figures beside each name didn’t make sense.
And there, on the very first page, was written without context, “The Duke of Ravenscar.” Which might have been Asher, but she guessed it was likely his father. Then a list that included the Earl of Norwood and the Marquess of Eastclere. All men who were tied to the Paragon Diamond.
If Evelyn had learned anything over the years, it was that coincidences were rarely so simple.
She hadn’t paid much attention in the past to the worn cabinet in the corner, which was full of various ledgers that she had suspected were old accounts dealing with the various estates.
Maybe there was more.
She felt as though she were intruding, but she reminded herself that she was the duchess and this was now her house, and she had a right to learn about her new family’s history, as she sifted through volumes that were clearly labelled and organized.
She moved a few out of the way, finding another row of old account books and loose ledgers behind.
One was labelled “Parliamentary Committee,” and she pulled it out, feeling a sense of success when she noted that the pages within matched the piece of paper she held in her hand, the torn page that had found its way under the cabinet.
It appeared that all the names written on the paper on the floor had their own labelled page within, each with columns of figures. Most of it was foreign to her, but it appeared to be payments routed through intermediaries, each attached to dates, although what they were, she couldn’t be entirely sure.
Something was wrong with the accounts she was perusing, but the frustrating aspect of it was that she didn’t understand enough to explain how or why. She had no idea what this parliamentary committee was about, nor what the money trailled to. She allowed her anger to briefly flare, resenting the limits placed on her education, even though her father had provided her with all he could within his means.
She supposed there was only one thing to do.
Ask Asher.
She turned around to seek him out, jumping in surprise to find the man she was seeking standing in the doorway of the library.
“There you are,” he said, practically prowling toward her, his gaze predatory, his eyes dark. Her heart beat harder as he approached, until he stopped in front of her, hesitating a beat before bringing his hands to her shoulders, running them down her arms. She wanted to raise herself onto her toes, to press her lips against his, but perhaps that was too much, here in the light of day.
She still wasn’t clear on where last night had left them.
“Good morning,” he said, his lips, far too plush to be fair for a man to own, curling up into a smile. “I was worried about you.”
“Why?”
“You didn’t come to breakfast, nor did you come to the sitting room with your daily puzzles.”
Her puzzles. Right. She had completely forgotten them once she had discovered these documents that told her there was more to them, that there was a reason she had found them, something she was supposed to do with them.
