“And I know a banker who is willing to take you on as a clerk,” added Mr. Moulton. “As it is an introductory position, the pay would be negligible—hardly enough to feed you, let alone keep you housed and clothed—but if we can set aside a few hundred pounds from the sale, the interest should allow you to live frugally.”
Frederick rubbed his forehead. “I know nothing about banking.”
“You are intelligent and have an aptitude for finance. I have no doubt you can learn it,” said Mr. Gleason. “And the profession is respectable—”
Hand falling to the desk with a thud, Frederick scoffed. “Do you think I care one jot about respectability? One cannot feed one’s family with social standing. I will do what I need to save us from penury, and if our friends and acquaintances are appalled at the lengths we must go, then they can hang.”
Mr. Gleason’s brows rose at that, though there was a gleam of appreciation in his eyes.
Meanwhile, Mr. Moulton gave him a half-smile. “Good for you, lad. Do what you must. And do it quickly.”
Nodding, Frederick rose to his feet. “Unless there is anything else we need to discuss, I would like to consider my options before I take action.”
“That is wise, but decide quickly,” said Mr. Gleason. “Midsummer is nearly upon us, so we cannot avoid the quarter interest payment, but we can save you from the next, and Michaelmas will be upon us in the blink of an eye.”
Selling Dunsby Hall was the logical conclusion—he knew it already—yet the steward spoke as though it was a foregone conclusion, and the words struck Frederick hard in his chest. By September, his home would be gone. Everything they owned, sold off.
“Can we make provisions for the staff?” asked Frederick, frowning to himself. “I do not know if we can guarantee the new master will keep them on, but I would hate to see them suffer for my father’s mistakes.” Pausing, Frederick considered the steward. “And you, for that matter. If I sell Dunsby Hall, will you lose your position?”
Mr. Gleason’s brows rose at that. “With a property this fine and in good repair, we will have our pick of buyers. It shouldn’tbe difficult to find one who will keep us on, sir. But I thank you for your concern.”
Nodding, Frederick shook their hands and gave a few words of farewell, though he didn’t know what he or they said. But on the threshold, Mr. Gleason paused and retrieved an envelope from his breast pocket.
“I reviewed the records thoroughly, and I am confident these are all the amounts noted in your father’s ledgers that do not appear in mine,” he said, handing it to Frederick. The fellow lingered a moment, eyes fixed on the paper, his mouth opening and closing as if to speak. Then with a sigh, Mr. Gleason shook his head and turned on his heel, striding from the study.
Slumping into his seat, Frederick set the envelope on the desk and stared at it for a long moment. All was quiet, save the faint ticking of the clock upon the mantelpiece and the soft rustle of leaves outside the tall windows. He sat motionless, staring at the room as though it might offer some hidden escape he had not yet uncovered, and the word “Michaelmas” echoed in his thoughts again and again, dull and unrelenting.
A few months, and his family’s legacy would be given over to a stranger as the Vosses were quietly erased from its halls.
Frederick pressed a hand to his brow as his throat tightened. Respectability meant little to him, but Mother would not bear the loss with dignity. The lady welcomed the sympathy that widowhood afforded her, but the world would not see the Vosses’ fall from grace as tragic. The same neighbors who once dined at their table would shake their heads and whisper of the family’s moral failing and weak stewardship—even labeling it as punishment from On High for some unknown sin.
Mr. Gleason’s envelope stared at him from the desk, poking and prodding him to break the seal. This was the undeniable proof that no correlation existed between his family’s ledgers and the church’s. None whatsoever.
And yet, his palms grew clammy as the silence pressed in on him.
Forcing himself to move, Frederick broke the seal and unfolded the page to see seven neat entries. Retrieving the church’s ledger, he opened it to the first date on Mr. Gleason’s list, and Frederick stared at an entry for “pew repairs.”
His heart sank—but rose again when the sums did not match. A coincidence. That was all. Just as it was a coincidence that none of the entries predated Father’s time as churchwarden. And if the price felt bloated, what did Frederick Voss know of the cost of repairs?
The figures blurred and re-formed, and as his finger slid down the columns, the reassurances grew thinner and thinner as the church’s expenses matched, shilling for shilling, the entries on Mr. Gleason’s list.
Leaning back in his chair, Frederick stared at the far wall, his eyes unfocusing as a question bobbed in his mind, demanding an answer. An honest one.How many coincidences must one see before one accepts the truth?
Yet how did one accept such a strong shift in one’s world?
Father had made terrible financial decisions, but that was a far cry from thieving. And there were no bills to prove the entries in the church’s ledger were anything other than what Father had claimed them to be.
Perhaps Mr. Gleason had misread the ledgers.
And yet the numbers stared back with such calm precision that his stomach churned. The ink seemed darker now, the weight of it holding his gaze fast as Frederick rubbed a hand over his mouth. There had to be an explanation.
Reaching into the drawers, Frederick tore apart the desk, digging into every nook and cranny. There had to be an answer. Something here he’d overlooked. Some solution that would prove his salvation. Though heaven knew what that might be.
“There is more strength in you than you know. You’ll manage in ways I never could. You’ll do just fine, Frederick. Better than I have.”
Father’s final words flitted through his thoughts, spurring him on as he tore through every inch of the desk. When that uncovered nothing, Frederick turned to the cabinets. Then the books along the shelves. As he fanned through the pages of his father’s last journal, a letter tumbled free and landed at his feet—with Frederick’s name scrawled across the front in his father’s tidy script.
Chapter 17
