"About toast?"
"About the estate."
"Then the estate is making you hungry in a very unusual way."
Nathaniel looked at her plate. She had eaten twice as much as he had. "You are very judgmental."
"I am observant."
"You corrected the cook yesterday."
"He burned the potatoes."
"He has cooked for this family for fifteen years."
"Then he has had fifteen years to improve."
Nathaniel stared. She took another bite.
"Do not look at me like that."
"I am trying to understand you."
"We married without understanding each other. That was the arrangement."
"And now," he paused, "now I am beginning to regret that."
She smiled. "Good."
He could not tell whether she was teasing him. That became one of the problems: he wanted to know what she meant.
The estate also changed around her. Evelyn began walking through the kitchens. She learned the names of the maids. She noticed when the stable boy limped. She discovered that one of the tenant cottages needed a new chimney and that a widow named Mrs. Hale had been paying for repairs herself. Nathaniel knew none of this—not because he did not care, but because the information had always been filtered through stewards and clerks.
Evelyn hated that. "You should speak to the tenants yourself."
"I do. Once a year."
"That is not never, but it is nearly never."
He leaned against the study door. "You have been duchess for twelve days, and you have already found five problems."
"I found seven."
"Seven?"
"Two were small."
"That is not reassuring."
She handed him a list. Nathaniel read it:
"The roof at the west cottage."
"Yes."
"The broken well pump."
"Yes."
"The missing school books."
"Yes."
"The accounts."
"Yes."
"The cook."
"He is not a financial problem yet."
Nathaniel laughed. "You are enjoying this."
"Only because you look offended by arithmetic."
"I am not offended by arithmetic. You hired three clerks to manage it."
"They are competent."
"One of them is stealing."
His amusement disappeared. "What?"
She pointed to the ledger. "This amount appears twice."
"That could be an accounting error."
"It could." She turned another page. "This one appears three times."
Nathaniel took the ledger. "Where did you find this?"
"In your library."
"Why were you reading the accounts?"
"I told you: I was looking for a book."
"You find strange books."