The Duke Didn't Want Love — He Wanted a Practical Wife. Then Her Carriage Arrived 40 Minutes Late
Chapter 14
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Mercer then compared the duplicated payments under two supplier descriptions. Further letters established that both were connected to one trading concern used by William Vane, Lionel's nephew. The younger man's debts had been known in small commercial circles, and money had passed through the concern while work remained unpaid. The money trail showed a steward protecting his position at the expense of households still waiting for the work they had been promised.The note was dated Wednesday, the 1st of October. Helena had spent that morning at Marian's house, sorting the older lady's correspondence; she had not visited Briarcombe. Marian's dated replies and her household's recollections agreed. But Avery no longer needed a clever comparison of her initials to understand the principal facts: there had been no October delivery to witness, and Helena had told the truth.He sat with this knowledge while Mercer arranged for further verification. He should have felt triumphant; instead, he could scarcely bear to remember Helena standing before him and asking why he had not believed her."I knew the manner of her dismissal," he said. "I had promised to ask before assuming the worst. When the moment came, I demanded that she explain a stranger's lie."Mercer closed the ledger. "Then the figures may be the smaller part of what you must put right."Only after securing the ledgers and restricting further payments did Avery summon Lionel Vane to the office where the steward had guided him as a boy. He did not shout; he laid the June receipt beside the October note and asked what could be said for the missing delivery.Vane looked older in the quiet that followed. "The estate has weathered difficult years," he said. "I kept matters moving. A debt could have been met and the sums restored.""They were not restored.""I never intended harm to the tenants.""They lived beneath leaking roofs."Vane rubbed his forehead. "I taught you to trust me."Avery felt the full weight of the truth. He had loved the older man, if never by that name: Vane had been present after his father's death, when the title seemed too large for his shoulders; that affection was real—so was the betrayal."And I let that excuse me from checking," Avery said.He restricted Vane's access to the records immediately. On Mercer's advice, the steward was relieved of his duties while the estate pursued a full accounting and considered lawful remedies.Avery did not pretend the matter could be resolved by a dramatic confession in one afternoon: there were sums to trace, tradesmen to pay, and injured households to repair. When the office was empty, he looked toward the window where Helena had once sat with a glove in her lap; her absence had changed the room more completely than her arrival ever had.He could now prove that she was innocent. But innocence was what she had offered him freely, and what he had failed to receive.