“I don’t believe so. I certainly didn’t tell him.”
“Very judicious of you.” She debated what to do. But she didn’t want Mr. Bonham anywhere near her without Sheridan there. Especially now that she knew he couldn’t be trusted. “Why don’t you tell him to wait, Phipps? Say that my husband is busy doing something else and will be with him shortly.”
“Very good, Your Grace.”
As soon as the butler left, she went back to perusing the ledger. She should probably find another ledger from an earlier time. She stood and went to the bookshelf where Sheridan kept them to see if she could find one. It would help determine if—
“Where is His Grace?” a hard voice asked.
She jumped. “Good heavens, you startled me, Mr. Bonham,” she said, her heart pounding in her ears. She took a second to compose herself before turning to face him with what she hoped was a duchess’s imperious manner. “Phipps must have misunderstood when I told him to have you wait.”
“He stuck me in a parlor and left. The duke is never late for our appointments, so where is he?”
“That’s none of your concern,” she said, copying Mama’s tone of aristocratic condescension. “He’ll be here shortly, I’m sure. Perhaps you would prefer to wait in the parlor until he arrives.”
Ignoring her tone, he entered the room. “What are you doing with the duke’s ledgers?”
“I’m tidying up, of course,” she said. “He had a number of them strewn on his desk, and he asked me to put them away.”
Mr. Bonham looked a bit suspicious still. “Can’t imagine why he’d need more than the current ledger.”
“I can’t either,” she said blithely. “Not that I would know anything about bookkeeping. It’s all Greek to me.”
“Is it?” He edged nearer the desk.
That was when she realized that her piece of paper, where she’d worked out what the true numbers were supposed to be, lay right there in plain sight.
But he hadn’t seemed to have noticed it yet. She walked back over to the desk as nonchalantly as she could manage. “I’m sure my husband will be here any minute. Would you like some refreshment? Tea? Coffee?”
Meanwhile, she slid the sheet of paper beneath the ledger, trying to be unobtrusive.
Apparently not unobtrusive enough, for Mr. Bonham loomed up next to the desk and said, “What’s that you’re hiding?”
“Hiding! Why would I be hiding anything?”
“That’s an excellent question,” he snapped. “Why would you?” And before she could even react, he slid the piece of paper out from under the ledger and into his hand.
He perused it carefully. Then he met her gaze. “The duke knows. Or at least suspects.”
“Knows what? Suspects what?” she said, fighting to appear flighty.
“You can stop pretending to be stupid now, Duchess. I am no fool. And I want to know everything you and the duke have figured out about my accounting practices.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
As soon as Sheridan’s coach pulled up in front of Armitage House, they spotted Bonham’s phaeton parked there and his groom sitting on a step awaiting his master. At the sight, Sheridan’s blood turned to ice.
Not bothering to wait for Joshua and Gwyn, as soon as the coach stopped, Sheridan leapt out and ran up the steps. When he entered, his butler said, “Oh, there you are, Your Grace. Mr. Bonham is awaiting you.”
“Awaiting me where?”
“In the parlor, of course. Since you hadn’t arrived yet, the duchess told me to put him there until you did.”
“Thank God,” Sheridan muttered and strode to the parlor they used for tradesmen and the like.
But it was empty.
Sheridan hurried back to the entryway. “He’s not there.”
