Caro looked out the window as Phineas and Edmund both watched her.
“Let me talk to the man of bithneth.”
In the next office they visited, Phineas passed one of the most painful hours of his life, watching Caro’s dark head bent over a stack of bills and receipts, her long fingers running down columns in ledgers.
Finally, she raised her head.
“M-may Lord B-B-Burchethter and Lord Thudbury and I have thith room to t-t-talk privately?”
The man of business and the clerk who had assisted in bringing ledgers to Caro filed out of the room.
Caro stood from the table and looked at Phineas for the first time since they had left the bank. “You have no r-r-right hiring a chambermaid, let alone t-t-taking a wife.”
He had no reply ready. He wanted to take her in his arms and smooth her upset away with kisses but he knew she would not permit that. Not at this moment. Not in front of her brother.
“I’m that poor, am I?”
“Yeth.”
“And you’re very angry at me, aren’t you?”
“Yeth.”
There was a silence. She turned to her brother. “And I’m angry at you, Edmund. For not athking. For truthting your friend and that he could take care of me. You told him not to go too fatht in the phaeton but you didn’t think to athk how much that carriage cotht. You didn’t find out it hadn’t been paid for. Nor the team pulling it.”
Edmund coughed. “I’m sorry, Caro—”
She held her hand up. “But mothtly, I’m angry at mythelf.”
Phineas couldn’t have his bride blame herself for his foolishness, his extravagance.
“No, don’t be angry at yourself. This is entirely my fault—”
“I’m angry at mythelf becauthe I know b-b-better. I thould have athked about money before I thaid yeth. Inthtead, I mooned over rotheth. Thirty rotheth everyday for twelve weekth! Do you know how much that c-cotht?”
He didn’t know how much it had cost. He hadn’t cared. He had put off paying the pipers again and again. But he had had no idea what to do, so he had instead done what he wanted to do. Which was to court his wife.
“Is it hopeless, Caro?”
She looked down at the floorboards stained with drops of ink from the pens of countless clerks. “My dowry can’t fickth thith.”
“I don’t want your dowry to fix this. I need to fix this.”
She raised her head. Tears were streaming down her face. “At leatht I know now why you wanted to m-m-marry m-m-me.”
He kept his eyes on her face. “Edmund, please leave us.”
Phineas waited until he heard the door shut.
“I did not marry you for your dowry, Caroline Mary Josephine Haskett Edge. Absolutely not.”
She took in a deep, shuddering gulp of air. Still the tears poured out of her eyes.
“I don’t even know how much your dowry is, darling.”
She laughed. Again that strange laugh that came with no smile.
“You think thaying that m-maketh me feel better? That you didn’t read the marriage thettlement paperth before you thigned them? You thould know how much my dowry ith. I know. To the p-penny. You have no thenthe.”
