"Nor am I qualified to audit it."
"You noticed in three minutes what apparently escaped people paid to notice it."
Evelyn slid the final sheet into the packet. "That may say less about me than you think."
This time his smile reached his eyes. "Come to my study anyway."
Twenty minutes later, Evelyn stood across from William at a broad mahogany desk while rain tapped against tall windows. The relief ledger lay open between them. Mr. Bellamy had not appeared; instead, his clerk had sent word that the manager had been called unexpectedly into the village.
William turned another page. "Convenient."
"Perhaps genuinely."
"So, you defend him?"
"I distrust conclusions reached before evidence."
William glanced at her. "Yes, your letter made that painfully clear."
Evelyn leaned over the ledger. Mrs. Foster's name appeared twice, exactly as the committee sheet indicated: one entry approved twelve pounds of winter assistance; five days later, another hand had marked the application incomplete.
William placed one finger beside the second entry. "A clerical error."
Evelyn did not answer. She had noticed something farther down the page: three more widows, two elderly tenants, one injured laborer. Each application had first been approved, then altered. Each bore the same small black mark.
"Evelyn."
It was the first time he had used her Christian name. She looked up, but his attention was on her face rather than the ledger. Slowly, she turned the book toward him.
"Mrs. Foster is not the mistake."
William followed the column of altered entries. His expression went still.
Evelyn touched the final figure at the bottom of the page. "Your Grace, someone has been refusing money that your accounts say was already paid."
William did not move for several seconds. Rain whispered against the windows while the fire settled behind them with a soft crack.
"Paid to whom?" he asked.
Evelyn looked again at the column. "That is the question."
He pulled the ledger closer. "The estate account shows the full amount withdrawn, but Mrs. Foster received nothing."
"And neither, presumably, did these others."
His voice had gone quiet in a way Evelyn suspected made servants more nervous than shouting ever could. She studied the dates.
"Before accusing anyone, we should ask whether the payments were delayed, redirected, or entered incorrectly."
"You are remarkably determined to protect people you have never met."
"I am determined not to hang a man with arithmetic until the arithmetic is certain."
William leaned back. "Remind me never to put you on a jury."
"Remind me never to commit a crime badly enough to require one."
The silence that followed was different. William looked at her, and slowly, unwillingly, amusement softened his face.
A knock interrupted them. A footman entered with a tray. "Mrs. Foster has been given refreshment, Your Grace. The steward is checking her documents."
"Thank you. And Mr. Bellamy?"
"Not yet returned."
William's jaw tightened. "Have someone sent to the village."
When the door closed, Evelyn gathered her papers. "I should return to Bath."
"No." She looked up. "That sounded suspiciously like an order."
"It was badly phrased."
"Remarkably badly."
William exhaled through his nose. "Stay until tomorrow."
Evelyn stared at him. "Your Grace—"
"The roads are worsening, your aunt knows you are here, and I would like your help comparing these applications with the committee records you brought."
"Those are three separate arguments disguised as one invitation."
"Will any of them work?"
"The weather might."
"I shall endeavor to remain grateful to the rain."
By dinner, a guest room had been prepared for her, and word had spread through Westbridge faster than any official announcement could have managed.
In the drawing room, Lady Caroline regarded Evelyn's changed gown—a simple dove-gray dress borrowed from one of Aunt Helen's trunks kept at Westbridge for committee visits—with cool fascination.
"How fortunate that His Grace has found you useful."
Evelyn adjusted one cuff. "It has always been my ambition to compete with a ledger."
Caroline's smile thinned. "Do be careful, Miss Parker. Men may admire cleverness briefly. Marriage is another matter."
Evelyn met her gaze. "How fortunate, then, that I have not proposed to him."
At dinner, William placed Evelyn three seats from himself rather than near the distant end where an unmarried woman of modest means might have disappeared. He asked Caroline about London, another lady about her father's horses, and Evelyn nothing at all. Yet, when a servant offered wine, William's gaze flicked toward Evelyn's untouched glass of sherry from earlier, and he quietly instructed that tea be brought instead.
She noticed. Worse, she noticed that he noticed her noticing.
After dinner, she found him waiting in the study. A second chair had been placed beside his desk rather than across from it.
"That was not there this afternoon," she said.
"I learn quickly."
"From what?"
"You dislike being questioned from the other side of a desk."
Evelyn sat. "I dislike being treated like a petitioner."
William took the chair beside hers. "Then don't be one."
For the next hour, they compared names, dates, and amounts. Their shoulders nearly touched whenever both leaned toward the ledger. Once, Evelyn reached for a page at the same moment William did. His fingers brushed hers. Neither moved immediately. The fire popped; Evelyn withdrew first.
"This one," she said, perhaps too quickly.
William's attention returned to the page. "Another widow. A farm laborer, Thomas Reed. Eight pounds approved, then marked incomplete."
She opened the committee packet. "And here is another."
"How many?"
"Seven so far."
William rubbed a hand over his jaw. "Enough to be deliberate."
"Enough to ask better questions."
His gaze settled on her. "Is that what you always do?"
"What?"
"Find the question everyone else has missed."