I blink. “Why?”
“Maybe she didn’t trust the estate manager and wanted to show Geoffroy why.”
I run my fingers down the edge of the column, noting that the entries are organized by week and clearly annotated.
Basil and I scan Eva’s ledger together. Rent income. Staff wages. Utility bills. Veterinary services. Even ink for the estate printer. All accounted for. Dates match up with Eric’s—mostly—but the totals don’t.
Because hers are correct.
I grab Eric’s mess again and compare.
“Look at this,” I say. “He lists the wine cellar expense here as seventy-five hundred Evorian francs.”
“Eva has four thousand eight hundred twenty,” Basil chimes in. “With a note:Negotiated discount.Château d’Emosson overcharged.”
I whistle. “She cross-checked invoices?”
“Looks like it,” Basil confirms.
“So, it wasn’t the duchess but the duke who was bleeding the estate dry,” I recap. “And his estate manager is a waste of space.”
Basil nods. “Actually, Her Grace might’ve been the only one trying to stop the bleeding.”
I open her ledger again and flip back to the beginning. Page one. Rent payments from five years ago. Balanced to the cent.
No, she definitely wasn’t the duchy’s problem. Basil is right. She might’ve been its last line of defense.
With a miffed sigh, I close the book.
That tightness in my chest—annoyance at my mistaken assumptions? Regret?—settles deeper. She said nothing to me about this. Not when I accused her of benefiting from the estate. Not even when I implied she was part of the reason it failed.
Why didn’t she show me her ledger to defend herself?
The answer is obvious. And damning to me. Eva didn’t think that I—theusurper, as she calls me—deserved her time or the indignity of proving herself.
I stand up. “Keep digging. See how long she kept these. I want everything compared.”
“And Eric Latour?”
“I’ll deal with him.”
Basil hesitates. “If Her Grace comes in while I’m here, should I tell her you’ve seen this?”
“Only if she asks.”
He gives me a feeble smile. “As you wish.”
I findEva in the castle library. Not at the reading table or the desk in the alcove. No, she’s curled into the corner of the sofa, one foot tucked underneath her, the other dangling shoeless. Her jeans are faded. Her gray sweater is oversize. Her hair’s in a messy bun. She’s holding a novel in one hand, flipping a page with the other.
Before I moved into Fort Vauclairt, I’d only ever seen her in silk and sharp tailoring that gave her a regal, almost untouchable air. Since moving in, I’ve learned casual clothes suit her, too. They don’t diminish her beauty. They just make her less polished, more approachable, and real.
And this is the most off duty I’ve seen her. Fully unarmored. Completely unscripted. And that makes her even harder to look away from.
I clear my throat.
She glances up, startled, then lifts her chin and closes the book over her finger.
“Didn’t mean to interrupt,” I say.
