“It will salvage Wil’s pride.”
“His sister’s, too, I suspect,” Benson said.
She didn’t deny it.
*
Eli set onthe worktable in the center of the store his candle and the bundle of bedding Fanny Hancock had provided and looked around. Bolts of cotton, linen, silk, and wool lined shelves against the back wall. A sort of lectern or pedestal stood in the corner. A quick inspection beneath it yielded paper printed with the store’s name and pencils for receipts. He suspected the cashbox would sit on top.
The table in the center had drawers built in. He pulled one out and lifted his candle to peer inside. One held shears and other tools of the trade. The goods within one included fancy lace-hemmed table covers and handkerchiefs. Another held silk scarves and shawls; a third contained hosiery. Hancock’s did not, Fanny had explained, deal in tailoring of any kind. He would need her help tallying the value of the inventory.
He dropped onto the chair in the corner, weighted down by the reality that faced him—not the work. No, Eli Benson could balance the goods on hand against the debt easily. Once he had a clear picture, the financial decisions would slip into place.
The reality causing his throat to ache and his heart to sink was of an entirely different nature. Fanny Hancock believed a boost from Clarion would enable her to rescue her grandfather’s failing concern and carry on, shouldering the business and the raising of two children.How am I going to convince her it can’t be done?
The voice in his head, the one that generally kept him focused on the slow and steady tasks, that enabled him to solve knotty and complex problems, chided him.You don’t know that yet. Perhaps…
Eli sincerely doubted Miss Hancock could save the store on her own, but until he ascertained the full amount of the debt, he couldn’t judge whether Clarion could afford what it would take to rescue the business. A small bequest might be throwing good money after bad if it was pouring cash into a doomed business. The mortgage would be one hurdle; cash reserves to restock would be another.
Dealing with Cunningham successfully had been a stroke of luck. Benson couldn’t count on more of those. Innocents were ever the prey of the unscrupulous. Fanny Hancock was a peculiar mix of that kind of innocence and hard-nosed common sense. At least he thought she was, but how well did he know her really?
He laid the bedding on the floor next to the table and snuffed out the candle, planning to begin the accounting in the morning. His unruly thoughts kept returning to the woman who slept upstairs. What other options did she have? And how might the Clarion estate assist? They’d found a teaching position for Alice Wilcox, now married to a vicar on the other side of Nottingham. The earl would be well served in finding Fanny Hancock a husband. That solution would be tidy, but for some reason, it didn’t please him as much as it ought.
He awoke to banging on the door and a sleepy Wil Hancock stumbling down to answer it. He scrambled to his feet to forestall the lad, pulling up his trousers, but the boy had sense.
“We aren’t open,” Wil announced through the door, one hand on the stock of the blunderbuss that still leaned against the wall next to the entrance.
“You ain’t been open all week, and from the looks of that window, you won’t be anytime soon. Cunningham says Miss Fanny came home. I need to talk with her or him that came with her. You lot owe me money. I want it before the bloodsuckers at the bank get to you.”
“When we open; not now,” Wil said, his eyes pleading with Eli.
Eli strode to the door. “Who makes these demands?” he challenged.
Silence met the sound of what must be—to the noisy debt collector, at least—a stranger’s voice. It didn’t last.
“Jeremy Cramer, dealer in coal, and that family hasn’t paid me since winter.”
“You will be heard, Mr. Cramer, but you may have to get in line. We will make ourselves available at three o’clock.”We should be ready by then. I hope.
“I were here first,” Cramer whined through the door.
“Three o’clock, Mr. Cramer. Do be prompt,” Eli said with a wink at Wil, who grinned in delight.
Cramer’s profane muttering faded. The man walked away. For now.
“How are we going to pay him, Mr. Benson? I know you got some cash out of Cunningham, but Fanny says the mortgage comes first.”
“We aren’t, at least not immediately. Our first goal is to figure out the whole picture, the size of your father’s debt. Then we’ll see what may be possible.”
*
Fanny upended thebox full of receipts, bills, and messages dunning her to make good on Horace Rundle’s debts. Benson wanted a list, and so he would have one. He had taken Wil off to search for glass to repair the window, leaving her to it.
If only every item didn’t turn her stomach. She might feel better if she had eaten breakfast, but she hadn’t been able to down more than a bite after he’d told her he’d invited Jeremy Cramer to come at three to discuss payment. Her gut knew word would spread and half the neighborhood would descend on her.
Eli Benson is no hero. He’s a stubborn man of business. She wished him to the devil. He could join Horace Rundle.
Fanny fiddled with her pencil, unable to decide how to start. She’d rather be writing.The Duke’s Dreadful Debaclewould not write itself and was just as likely to help them financially as sorting this pile of debt.
