“No,” Arch said.
“She already looks at you as if you know more than you reveal.”
That silenced the room in a different fashion.
Arch’s gaze moved slowly back to Baines. “Does she?”
Baines gave an innocent shrug. “At the theatre? Absolutely. She had the appearance of a woman measuring whether she ought to devour you on the spot or wait until somewhere private.”
Fielding made a soft sound that might have been laughter if it had not been so brief. Stuart, at least, had the decency to lower his eyes. Renforth spared them all with a return to business. “We move quietly. I will speak to those who must be warned. Give no alarm yet beyond the necessary circle.”
They all agreed to their various tasks as Arch sank at last into his chair and took up his brandy again, although he did not drink. The men had shifted from comfort to operation so gradually that the transition itself felt ominous. An hour before they had been half in jest over the theatre and Society. Now they sat speaking of assassination plots and possible riots.
Would Miss Vale divulge anything to him?
Would she tell him, if Kendall wrote to her or called upon her? Would she speak if Kendall pressed her for money or trust or secrecy in the name of reform? Would she think to seek out Arch himself—or would she decide, as proud women often did, that the problem must be borne alone? He did not know. Yet he knew, with a clarity that allowed no comfort, that the question would not wait long for an answer.
CHAPTER 12
Francesca was now certain she had neither authorized nor signed those three withdrawals that totalled thousands of pounds. It had to have been Kendall who had done so. Why had he not simply asked her? Was the money funding something she would not approve of? She had to know, but how to do so without breaking her word to Manners?
Francesca pressed her fingers lightly to the glass. She was becoming aware of Major Manners in a fashion she did not entirely welcome. It was not merely his presence, which had been impossible to ignore from the first, but rather his judgement, which had begun to intrude upon her thoughts with inconvenient persistence. She found herself recalling not only what he had said but how he had said it—without presumption, without condescension, and with a presence that had unsettled her more than a show of authority ever could. There was a peculiar confidence in it; one she had not granted him deliberately and yet one that had taken root all the same. She did not like it—or rather, she did not like how much she trusted it.
Francesca had never been inclined to defer to a gentleman’s opinion merely because he held it with conviction. She had seen too many convictions poorly founded and too many assurancesproven hollow. Yet Major Manners did not persuade by force of will. He had not demanded her compliance, nor had he dismissed her capability. Instead, he had placed the truth before her and left her to reach it of her own accord. That, perhaps, was the most disquieting part of all.
She turned from the window and back to her desk, though she did not immediately sit down. Her gaze fell again upon the ledgers, upon the careful lines and ordered sums that had once represented control and now suggested intrusion.
There was a knock on the door, and Francesca turned to see who it was.
“A Mr. Kendall to see you, miss.”
“Please show him in.”
“Good morning, Thomas. Please have a seat.”
Kendall did not take the seat she had indicated. Instead, he moved towards her desk.
Francesca watched him without appearing to do so. He crossed the room with an ease that spoke not merely of familiarity, but of long habit. There was no hesitation in him, no pause to ask permission, no awareness that the ground he trod might no longer be entirely his.
His gloved fingers rested lightly against the edge of the desk, as though testing its solidity, and then, with the most natural motion in the world, he reached towards the ledger she had left closed but not concealed.
“You are still at war with your accounts, I see,” he said, his tone mild.
Before she could answer, he opened it. The sound of the cover lifting was soft, but to Francesca it rang with an intolerable clarity. He turned a page, then another; not hurriedly, or furtively. He examined the columns with the same composed attention she had seen all her life, the same quiet authority thathad once reassured her, that had once made the burdens of management seem shared rather than borne alone.
“You have always been thorough,” he continued, as though this were nothing more than habit between them. “Your father would have been gratified to see it.”
Francesca did not move at once. She forced herself to remain where she stood, her hands lightly clasped and her posture composed. She allowed only her eyes to move, following his. There was no tension in him, no sign that he suspected anything had altered between them. He stood at her desk as though he still belonged there—as though the ledgers, the decisions, the authority they represented were still, in part, his to guide. He turned another page and paused, his gaze narrowing slightly in concentration. The gesture was so familiar that for a moment it threatened to undo her resolve. This was Thomas, her childhood friend, now man of business. He stood before her as though nothing had changed.
“Manchester has been demanding of late,” he said, still looking down at the page. “The mills require more attention than they once did. Expansion brings complications.”
Francesca shifted then, slowly and deliberately. “Yet the figures,” she said, her voice even, “do not reflect many changes. They appear quite orderly.”
He glanced up at that, and for a brief moment—no more than briefly—something changed in his expression. It was gone almost at once, replaced by that same composed attentiveness she knew so well.
“Orderly figures,” he replied, “are the result of careful management.”
“Indeed.”
