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“Perhaps I do not grasp the problem. The local candle-maker, for example, does not appear to have been paid in over a year.”
“A case in point. How on earth could we have used two hundred tallow candles? Acting as the guardian of your estate, I could not allow chicanery to continue. Either the servants are stealing candles, or the chandler is defrauding us. Either way, the bill remains unpaid until I am satisfied about the matter. Your father was very firm, very firm indeed, when it came to matters of thievery. He couldn’t abide a thief!”
“Of course not,” Simeon murmured. “Do you have any idea, Mother, why he didn’t pay the estate bills? There are a great number unanswered, from well before his death.”
“Only the thieves,” she said dismissively. “They charge us double, you know, because of the title. They think they can get away with robbery because the dukedom is so well respected.”
He doubted that. In fact, he had no doubt but that the majority of the people living around the duchy loathed the name, seeing that they had been defrauded of proper payments for years.
“And now…your apology.” She looked at him expectantly.
For the life of him, he didn’t know what he was supposed to apologize for.
He cleared his throat.
“You are just like your father!” she exclaimed. “I used to have to instruct him in the precise wording of this sort of thing as well. You have come to apologize for the dissolute manner by which you showed your lower limbs not only to myself, but to the household staff. The lower orders are highly susceptible.”
“Susceptible to what?”
“Immorality and vice, of course.”
“And my bare knees?”
“Your knees, Cosway, are not only unattractive but uninteresting. I am certain that the footmen would rather not see them, and neither would I.”
“And the immorality thereof?” Simeon enquired.
“To be unclothed before the lower orders, except in necessary situations, is to be avoided at all costs.”
“I apologize for my bare knees,” Simeon said obediently. “Your Grace, would you like me to take care of such correspondence as you are unable to manage?” He nodded toward the desk.
His mother raised an eyebrow. “Do I appear to be an invalid? No? Well, then, why on earth would I wish you to take care of my correspondence?”
“I merely thought—”
“Don’t,” his mother said magisterially. “There is rather too much thinking going on in this household. Honeydew has always been prone to thought, and I’m sure it’s bad for his digestion, as I’ve told him time and again.”
Poor Honeydew, Simeon thought. Probably spent a bit too much time thinking about how to pay bills. Guilt curdled his stomach. “Now you must forgive me,” he said, rising.
She shrieked. Simeon dropped back into his seat.
“You may not rise while I am seated,” she said, patting her chest. “Nor may you leave until I dismiss you.”
Simeon ground his teeth. “I must needs retire, Your Grace.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” She came to her feet nimbly enough. “You are dismissed.”
He bowed and left, feeling as angry—and as small—as a schoolboy.
Chapter Six
Revels House
February 24, 1784
The next morning the weather changed, and with it the odor in the house swelled and grew to a stench, the kind that reached out, grabbed a man’s breath, and took it away. It wasn’t that Simeon hadn’t smelled it—or worse—before. But he hadn’t expected to smell it in his own home.
He was literally staring down into a pile of shit. He dragged a hand through his hair and turned to Godfrey.
