Chapter Three
Without looking, Annabel was aware of the moment Jasper left the doorway. It was irritating. But worse, the echo of the front door closing sent a cloud skittering across her day. She took a deep breath and exhaled.
He was an incorrigible flirt and a magnet for scandal. He was also, quite possibly, a traitor.
And she preferred cloudy climates anyway.
Annabel trailed her fingers across the spines at eye level, focusing on the embossed lettering teasing her fingertips. Worn spines stood next to new bindings, and she found her favorite authors easily. However, two shelves down, the alphabet began again—a section on history, if the titles were any indication.
Closer to the back of the room, and nearer to the desk, fewer new books were on the shelves. Some of the spines were so cracked and worn that it was impossible to learn the titles without squinting.
It was also impossible to ignore the desk. Father kept everything important in his desk.
Just look and be done with it.
Annabel stared warily into the empty hallway as she reached for the drawer closest to her. The house was so quiet she could hear the wood creak as she tugged the handle. It didn’t budge.
Every drawer along the top row was locked. If this desk was like her father’s, the lower row would be as well. Annabel sighed as she knelt behind the desk. Skullduggery required thoroughness.
“It requires a professional,” she muttered. “You were daft to do this in the first place. You should have packed your things and left. Poverty be hanged.” She punctuated her sentence with a yeoman’s pull on the last—locked—drawer. “Drat.”
Taking advantage of her position, Annabel swept her hands along the underside of the desk and down the sides, searching for a key. No matter how far she reached, she found nothing but dust. The thought of spiders lurking in corners sent her sliding back to safety.
One last place to look. She wriggled backward a few inches, lifted the edge of the rug, and folded it backward. There was nothing underneath and nothing tied to the bottom.
He would be daft to leave his secrets unguarded with a house full of guests. “He never struck me as particularly bright anyway,” Annabel said as she pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“Hello? Is anyone in here?” called the butler from the doorway.
She froze, thankful for the large desk and the simple shape of her day dress. Even the hideous gray color helped her become part of the shadows. She might as well be the mouse everyone considered her to be.
The butler lingered in the doorway a moment longer, but it was just enough for Annabel to recall her last words. Guilt singed her ears. As a first son, Jasper Warren would have been well educated at the best schools. Even if he didn’t pay close attention, some of it was bound to sink in. He was also well read, given the condition of the books closest to hand. Not to mention, he was the relation of a dear friend, and he’d been kind to her.
Kindness and friendship were difficult to come by these days. When offered, it shouldn’t be met by snide assumptions.
He was likely intelligent enough, but careless. That wasn’t a crime. Most members of the ton believed themselves above reproach or ill fortune.
That was why her family’s invitations had all but vanished, taking her sisters’ Seasons with them. No one wanted to be reminded that everything they valued could be lost with just one tick in a ledger sheet.
The library door closed. Annabel sat quietly, listening for footfalls against the rug or a creak of a chair, until the silence was a weight on her shoulders. She straightened her posture and looked over the top of the desk, then, finding no one, stood upright. After dusting off her skirt, she glanced at the shelves again, this time focusing on the ones nearest the ceiling. Wooden boxes separated groups of books with unlabeled spines. The size hinted they could be ledgers, possibly journals. The boxes might hold clues as well.
“It would be careless to write anything down,” she counseled herself. Still, she found the library ladder and pushed it to the proper shelf. Society men were particularly prone to carelessness, since they were blessed simply by being born.
Annabel climbed the ladder, careful to keep her eyes on the shelf and her boot heels clear of the rungs. Her ribs pressed against her stays in the same quick, shallow rhythm that occurred whenever her feet left the ground.
Father had been born to his title, but she’d never considered him careless. He knew his tenants by name and ensured the family frequented the village shops. They were well loved in Chilworth. But when the fortune dwindled, he’d ignored his man of business, his banker, and his solicitor and gambled everything on a quick solution.
And lost.
Now near the top of the ladder, Annabel kept a white-knuckled grip on the rung at eye level, and reached for the nearest burgundy, leather-clad ledger. It was larger and heavier than she’d expected. There was little hope of descending with it in her arms. That only left one option.
Heart in her throat, she forced her feet to move upward until she could grasp the last rung. She slid the ledger forward, balanced it against her chest, and used the shelf as a reading table.
It was indeed a ledger, which gave Annabel hope. She didn’t always write every detail in her journal. There was something unnerving about seeing her innermost thoughts in stark strokes on a white page, and there was always a chance that a nosy interloper, like one of her sisters, would scavenge through her room and find it.
But ledgers… No one ever kept numbers a secret. Even if they tried, the truth eventually emerged in the columns.
Opening the heavy cover and flipping the large pages required her to lean back on her perch. The ladder never wobbled, but Annabel gritted her teeth to help keep her nerves steady. Why on earth had she agreed to do this? She didn’t have the constitution required for skulking about.
This particular volume was from several years ago and, given the unsteady handwriting, had been kept by the previous marquess. Still, the rows and columns were neat and easy to follow. The man had been parsimonious when it came to his household and his staff, but it was clear he had weaknesses for three things: art, horses, and his grandson Jasper.
It was also clear that Jasper spent a great deal of money, given the number of payments made to him and the frequency of those payments. “Surely he’s not taking funds and putting them in the bank,” Annabel whispered as she scanned the rows.
She leaned back again, balancing with one hand while she flipped several pages at once, going further in the marquess’s records. The book shifted lower, resting under her breasts, its weight threatening to topple her. It left her no alternative but to use her body to push it back into place. It was unladylike, but there was no one here to call her out or follow her example.
Annabel frowned at the date on the page. She hadn’t gone forward in time—she’d gone backward. She lifted the corners of a few other pages to confirm her suspicion and sighed. The old marquess had filled his ledgers from back to front, keeping the most recent accounts at the beginning. That meant going forward in time would require opening another volume.
Which meant moving the ladder and climbing again.
“Drat and damn,” Annabel huffed as she wrestled the ledger back into place. It had been easier to pull it out one-handed than it was to put it back.
It was also easier to climb the ladder than it was to descend. Taking a deep breath and keeping a tight grip on the rung above, Annabel lifted one foot and felt for the rung below.
“What the devil are you doing up there?”
Startled, Annabel looked down and into the stern stare of Kit Yarwood. Her head spun, and her boot slipped on the rung. She tightened her hold on her only lifeline and drew a shaky breath. “At the moment, trying not to fall.”
He didn’t budge from his spot near the door. “Then I suggest you come down. Quickly.”
