"Yes."
Eleanor's fingers curled against her skirt. "For one moment, you wondered whether I knew."
"For one moment, I wondered what I did not know."
"There is a difference when you are the person being doubted."
Samuel stopped searching. Nathaniel barely noticed.
"Eleanor, do not—"
She stepped away from the table. "I have endured gentlemen assuming I was ignorant because my father rented his fields. I have endured Mercer calling concern hysteria because it came from a woman. None of that surprised me." Her breath caught, and she seemed irritated by the betrayal of it. "You surprised me."
Nathaniel went still. That was worse than an accusation, because he understood what lay beneath it: she had begun to trust him.
"I am sorry."
Eleanor looked toward the rain-dark window. "That does not make the document disappear."
"No, which is why we follow it."
Samuel finally found a bank counterfoil beneath several receipts. "Your Grace."
Nathaniel took it. The five hundred pounds had not been collected by Henry Reed. It had been transferred into an account bearing the name Reed Agricultural Supply.
Eleanor stared at the words. "There is no such business."
Samuel frowned. "There was. Registered in the neighboring county four years ago."
"By whom?" Nathaniel asked.
Samuel shook his head. "The old records may say."
Eleanor gave a humorless laugh. "How convenient. Someone used my father's name."
Nathaniel examined the authorization again. "And now anyone seeing this without the counterfoil would believe your family profited from Blackmir."
Eleanor's eyes met his. "Someone already intended exactly that."
By noon the next day, they learned how quickly paper could become poison. Copies of the authorization appeared in the village and among several of Nathaniel's remaining house guests. By afternoon, a London creditor had written asking whether Miss Reed's recent influence over Blackmir was connected to previous financial arrangements with her family.
Nathaniel crushed the letter in his hand. "I will issue a statement."
"No." Eleanor stood across from his desk in the study. "You will investigate."
"Your reputation is being destroyed."
"Then facts will repair it better than your title."
"My title can stop this by tonight."
"Your title can frighten people into silence. It cannot make them believe me."
Nathaniel came around the desk. "What would you have me do?"
"Trust the evidence you told me to follow."
"I do."
Her gaze held his. "Do you trust me?"
The question emptied the room. Nathaniel remembered the half-second in the library: his eyes dropping to the authorization, his mind asking the question before loyalty could answer it. Eleanor saw the truth before he spoke. Her chin lifted.
"That is what I thought."
"Eleanor, wait."
She reached for her cloak. Nathaniel caught himself before touching her arm. His hand remained suspended between them, then slowly fell.
"I need proof," he said.