Millie looked relieved. “Thank you.” She drew the door closed.
Gregory saw Caitlin was frowning, even as she drew her pencil and paper from her pocket.
“I wonder,” she mused, “whether, given the amount of alcohol Alice uses these days, we should speak to the Swithinses or the Bartons—or possibly both—about setting up a still.” Looking down, she scribbled a note on her paper.
He remembered he hadn’t seen her making notes while they’d been out that morning. “They all think you have a memory like a steel trap, don’t they? They never see you taking notes.”
A small smile curved her lips. After a moment, she murmured, “A little gloss never hurts one’s reputation.” She finished her jotting and tucked paper and pencil into her pocket. “Now.” She looked back at the accounts. “Where were we?”
She led him steadily through the months, elaborating on how the various expenses shifted between the individual businesses and how the earnings—some random and large, others steady but smaller—allowed a very sound and confident continuation through the year.
“And of course”—she pointed to one large expense in July—“with the accumulation of monies that we set aside, we’re able to invest in equipment like this new type of plough.”
The door opened, and Cromwell came in. “Miss, Henry Kirk has sent word that Miss Madge’s sculpture for Blainey Park is ready to go out. He wants to know if the payment’s been received and he can send it off with one of the grooms.”
Caitlin nodded. “Tell Henry the payment came in yesterday, so he can arrange for delivery.”
“Very good, miss.” Cromwell withdrew.
Gregory watched Caitlin as she plainly made some mental note—not a scribbled one, this time—then she looked back at the ledgers, and they continued on.
Over the next hour, they were interrupted three more times by estate people needing information, wanting to add to orders, and seeking permission to take several stones from the old ruins.
With the latter, Caitlin looked at Gregory, but he shook his head. “At this point, you’ll know better than I.”
She promptly gave permission, but with a range of sensible stipulations he wouldn’t have thought to make.
With his own words ringing in his ears, he realized that if he’d learned anything that afternoon, it was that the lynchpin of the entire estate was sitting beside him. And if she wasn’t there, he wasn’t at all sure the entire enterprise wouldn’t fall apart.
And he’d yet to learn of the “other businesses.”
He’d been jotting down various questions as they rose in his mind. As they both returned their attention to the ledgers—they’d progressed to September, and the harvest was coming up—the pencil he’d been using caught on his sleeve, and when he shook it free, it rolled toward the edge of the desk between them.
She reached to catch it, and he did, too.
His hand brushed—nearly cupped—the back of hers, and she jerked her hand away as if stung.
“Sorry!” she said.
“My apologies.” His words crossed over hers, his tone far too deep.
He fought to unclench his jaw, the effort of not reacting to the sudden, intense flare of awareness momentarily distracting him.
“Now!” She stabbed a finger at one entry. “This refers to…”
He fought to pay attention, but his gaze constantly slid to her face, her profile. She didn’t meet his eyes but doggedly continued to take him step by step through the accounts.
She was smarter than he was.
He was going to have to work alongside her—literally beside her, as they now were. He needed her insight; he couldn’t go forward to shape any sort of future at Bellamy Hall without her input.
There was no question whatsoever in his mind about getting rid of her; quite aside from the outcry he could all too easily imagine, he wasn’t that stupid. The role she filled wasn’t one he could simply take over—not in the short term and possibly not in the long term, either. The degree of detail she plainly grasped and deployed on a daily basis…she’d spent three years learning it, and he couldn’t hope to emulate her understanding.
While one part of his mind took in the income and expenses in November—noting the expected decline in agricultural returns, which was more than offset by a steep increase in income from the nonagricultural concerns that Caitlin identified as being due to gifts bought in the lead-up to the holiday season—on a deeper level, he took one last look at his earlier vision of a future Bellamy Hall estate under his management, then consigned that vision to the bonfire of discarded dreams.
As she turned the page to the December accounts, he accepted—specifically and finally and without reservation—that he had to deal with the situation as it was.
Whatever he built out of his inheritance, it had to be based on the Bellamy Hall that was such an amazing going concern.
