“I am not going to make the mistake,” Cecily said carefully, “of deciding that kindness is something more than what it is. Or that a man who is honorable by nature has developed feelings simply because he has been honorable.” She met her sister’s eyes. “Iknow the difference between a man who is decent to you and a man who loves you, and I am not going to confuse them simply because–” She stopped again.
“Simply because?”
Saying the truth was hard.
Cecily looked at the fire. “Simply because it would be very easy to,” she said quietly.
Beatrice was still for a moment. Then she reached out, put her hand briefly over Cecily’s, and said nothing, which was exactly the right thing.
The fire popped. Cecily straightened. “Can I ask you something else?”
“Of course.”
“The orphanage fund—the charitable account for the orphanage on the Blackmoor estate.” She kept her voice even, practical, the voice of a woman asking an administrative question rather than a woman who had been thinking about this since a drawing room in London three days ago.
Beatrice looked at her. The change in subject had not gone unnoticed—nothing ever went unnoticed with Beatrice—but she followed it because she understood, as she always had, when Cecily needed a door and when she needed a wall.
“I’ve been wanting to see it since I arrived. I asked Mr. Harwood about it when I met him—how many children, how the funding works, that sort of thing. He simply said it was in order and well managed, and that it need not concern me, and I realized I know almost nothing about how these things actually operate.”
Cecily looked at her sister. “You know these funds, Bea. You’ve managed them in your estate for years. You know how they should work. How closely are they usually managed? Is it possible—if someone wanted to, is it possible to redirect money from a charitable account without it being immediately visible in the main estate accounts?”
Beatrice looked at her steadily. “Yes,” she replied. “If the steward is the one presenting the accounts and the family is trusting rather than verifying, then yes. It would take some time to become apparent, if it became apparent at all.”
The words hung heavily in the air.
“Some estates manage it directly through the household accounts, some through a separate endowment. The matron or the superintendent usually handles the day-to-day transactions, but the money flows from the estate, and someone has to ensure it arrives where it’s meant to.”
“And oversight? Does the family usually stay involved?”
“The good ones do,” Beatrice said. “Others leave it entirely to the steward, which is fine when the steward is thorough and less fine when he isn’t.” She paused. “Why the sudden interest?”
“It isn’t sudden,” Cecily sighed. “I’ve always cared about this sort of work. I just never had a household of my own to do anything useful with.” She looked at the window. “I want to be involved. Actually involved, not simply lending my name to it. I want to see it, understand how it runs, and get to know the children.” A pause. “William has agreed to stop there on the way home this evening.”
Beatrice looked at her with the warm, quiet expression she wore when something had pleased her more than she intended to show. “Good,” she said simply.
“You think it’s a good idea.”
“I think that a household with someone in it who pays attention to where the money goes is a healthier household than one without.” She picked up her cup. “And I think you have always been better at paying attention than you give yourself credit for.”
Cecily looked at the window again. The light was thinning above the garden wall, the afternoon almost gone.
She thought about children she had not yet met, in a building she had not yet seen, supported by funds she did not yet understand. She thought about the kind of duchess she wanted to be—not decorative, not convenient, not the polished surface of a household that ran without her—and felt the quiet, solid purpose of it settle in her chest like something that had been waiting for a place to land.
She stood up.
“We should say our goodbyes,” she declared, “before the light fades entirely.”
CHAPTER 16
“Ready?” William asked, leaning closer to her.
“Yes.”
Cecily was not entirely ready. She had wanted this visit, had asked for it, had thought about it since the study, Harwood’s careful evasions, and her conversation with Beatrice in the warm drawing room.
But wanting a thing and standing in front of it were different experiences. The building in front of her had the specific appearance of a place that was going to ask something of her once she went inside, and she was still deciding what she had to give.
The orphanage was on Granger Street. Cecily had expected something institutional—the particular blank-faced utility of a building designed for function rather than welcome—and in that she was not wrong.
