Samuel looked toward him.
“You asked whether I knew the cost of the glasses.”
“I answered.”
Charles glanced around the room.
Guests were watching now.
Not laughing.
He lowered his voice.
“You are employed in this house tonight.”
“Yes.”
“Then behave accordingly.”
Samuel nodded once.
“I intended to.”
Charles’s jaw tightened.
Samuel should have left.
That had been his plan.
He had promised himself he would not turn the banquet into a confrontation.
He had spent eight weeks trying to reach Charles privately.
Three letters.
One request delivered through the Harrow counting house.
One visit during which a clerk told him Mr. Harrow did not receive petitioners without appointments.
Samuel had even written to Eleanor.
No answer.
So when the household steward advertised for temporary servants for the company anniversary dinner, Samuel applied.
He had not intended revenge.
He wanted one conversation.
Charles had made it public.
Now Charles leaned closer.
“Whatever story your mother has filled your head with does not belong in my ballroom.”
Samuel’s eyes changed.
“My mother never filled my head with stories.”
Charles scoffed.
“No?”
“She showed me receipts.”
That was when Eleanor began walking toward them.
Henry followed.
Charles saw his daughter approaching and appeared to make a decision.
He laughed.
Loudly.
“There.”
He turned toward his guests.
“That is the Mercer blood.”
Several men shifted uncomfortably.
Charles continued.
“Always a receipt.”
“Always a grievance.”
“Always convinced a ruined venture becomes someone else’s responsibility if enough paper is produced.”
Samuel stared.
Charles smiled.
“Tell me, Mercer.”
“If your father was such a brilliant accountant, why did he die owing half the city?”
Samuel’s face went pale.
Eleanor stopped ten feet away.
Charles raised his glass.
“Perhaps the next generation will manage better.”
One man laughed.
Only one.
Samuel looked at Charles for several seconds.
Then he said:
“Mrs. Harrow thought my father was owed enough that she sent my mother twenty dollars every January for twelve years.”
Eleanor’s eyes widened.
Charles stopped breathing.
The room disappeared around her.
Twenty dollars.
Every January.
Eleanor knew that number.
She had seen it in her mother’s household book.
January 1814.
Twenty dollars.
January 1815.
Twenty.
The entries continued every year beneath initials Eleanor never understood.
A.M.
Sometimes:
For A.M. — private.
Once:
For Abigail. Edmund must not alter.
Eleanor had been sixteen when she first noticed them.
Her mother, Charlotte Harrow, had closed the ledger immediately.
“Household charity.”
That was all she said.
Charlotte died two years later.
Eleanor had forgotten.
Until now.
She stared at Samuel.
“What is your mother’s name?”
Charles turned sharply.
“Eleanor.”
She ignored him.
Samuel looked at her.
“Abigail Mercer.”
Eleanor felt the blood leave her face.
A.M.
Abigail Mercer.
Her mother had not been giving anonymous charity.
She had been paying the widow of the man Charles just accused of ruining himself.