Beck stopped on the back porch and took another series of deep breaths.
“How did you not kill them? Even a footman has a certain kind of honor. A damned potboy can know enough to earn his wages.”
North glanced up at the sky assessingly. “In my experience, a lack of personal integrity isn’t the exclusive province of the nobility. Are you ready to see the books?”
“I’m ready to hit something.” Or to find the brandy decanter and become thoroughly familiar with its contents—which would not solve the problem at hand and would plunge Beck into a pit of self-recrimination.
“If you truly want a round of fisticuffs, I’m happy to oblige.” North began to shrug out of his coat. “I’ve always wondered what Gentleman Jackson really accomplished with his young sprigs.”
“North,” Beck’s tone eased, “you needn’t oblige violent urges you didn’t inspire. Besides, I wouldn’t want to earn Miss Polly’s everlasting ire by rearranging the features the Creator gave you.”
North shrugged back into his coat. “As long as I can eat, Miss Polly will be content.”
“I don’t think you give your animal charm and sophisticated manners enough credit. She watches you eat the way I watch some women walk away.”
North glanced at him, his expression unreadable.
“It’s spring,” he said shortly. “You’re away from the pleasures of Town and seeing the sap rise wherever you look. But if I catch you watching Polly walk away with one hint of disrespect on your ugly face, Haddonfield, I will rearrange your features.”
“I’m all atremble.” Beck resisted the urge to probe, though Miss Polly’s sentiments toward Mr. North were apparently returned on some level. “I can only hope the twins are trembling as well.”
“My feelings regarding those two are mixed.” North opened the door to the back hallway. “On the one hand, I hope they stay and become useful. Finding good domestics here in the provinces is nigh impossible. On the other hand, I will never trust them, because they’ve shown they lack honor but can be motivated by fear.”
Beck followed him into the house. “You have a way of boiling things down to essentials that puts me in mind of Lady Warne herself, and perhaps my father.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” North tossed over his shoulder. “Shall we make a pot of tea to cheer us on?”
“And snitch a few of the biscuits Miss Polly baked this morning,” Beck said, lifting the lid of a large crockery jar.
“That’s only the decoy cache, you know.” North rinsed out the teapot and refilled it from the kettle on the hob.
“Of course I know.” Beck extracted a large handful of biscuits. “I also know Miss Polly would be insulted did we not raid it. Bring the honey. I refuse to face book work without something sweet in my tea, and do not think of reusing the damned leaves.”
“Oh, the Quality…” North muttered loudly enough for Beck to hear. He loaded their tea tray with cream, honey, and mugs nonetheless.
Beck took the tray from the counter. “What did your expert agrarian assessment of the sky foretell in terms of the weather?”
“The same thing it’s foretold for several weeks now.” North grabbed a tea towel, draped it over Beck’s shoulder, and followed him up the back stairs. “Spring is coming.”
“My grandmother employs genius at every turn,” Beck muttered loudly enough for North to hear.
“I might trip, you know?” North informed nobody in particular, “and bump into somebody else, who might drop our only good teapot.”
“My second-favorite teapot sits ready to serve in the pantry,” Beck tossed over his shoulder as they reached the library. “Please God, tell me you lit a damned fire in here.”
“Wood, we have,” North said, holding the door for him. “At least for another year or two, but when we catch up with the deadfall, we’ll be buying coal like everybody else.”
The room was high ceilinged, so the roaring fire in the hearth cast out only so much warmth, but the sofa facing it helped keep what there was from dissipating entirely. Beck set the tea service on the desk and poured them each a cup.
“You keep the books?” he asked, handing North his own cup to doctor.
“I do,” North said, adding both honey and cream, much to Beck’s satisfaction. “I incorporate the household expenses in the general ledger, but Sara has her own set of books, though why she bothers I do not know.”
Beck sipped and decided that with cream and honey, strong black tea was almost a substitute for a stout tot of brandy.
Almost.
“Why shouldn’t she track expenses and income?” Beck asked, moving to the sofa. North stayed by the desk, stirring his tea.
“I’ve met Lady Warne a handful of times,” he said, “so don’t come after me with fists flying when I say I’ve doubted her grasp of reality.”
“My fist is wrapped around a strong, hot cup of tea. Perfectly happy there, too. Why do you question Lady Warne’s sanity?”
“She must think a household runs on good cheer.” North sank onto the sofa near Beck. “She sends along notes updating the ladies on the latest fashion gaffes made by the strutting dandies and preening peacocks in Mayfair—as if Polly or Sara care a damn for any of that. But she neglects as often as she recalls to send the sums they need to sustain life here. I suspect they both use their salaries to augment what is intended to be the household budget.”
“As you use yours?”
“Drink your tea or it will get cold, and we’ll be forced to dust off that decanter, which goes against my grain, as the help mustn’t tipple.”
“You’re the help now? How movingly humble you’ve become, North. So show me these books and then to the brandy.”
He regretted those words. Drinking before dinner was ill-advised in the extreme. But he’d been good lately—appallingly good—and he still wanted to hit something and somebody as the enormity of the neglect all around him only became more obvious.
North had all but cheated the devil to keep any crop going on the place, and at a time when what a crop could fetch was precious little, and what it cost to farm was great.
“And it’s not going to get better for some time,” Beck said several hours later. “The general state of things, I mean. The weather for the past few years hasn’t helped, but you can’t cashier out thousands of able-bodied men who fought for damned near two decades and not see an impact. Then too, there are markets for what England produces, but it hardly pays to try to export with the taxes so high.”
“We still have the free trade on this coast,” North said. “Conditions on the Continent are far worse than what we suffer here, and there’s a market for almost anything you can sneak onto a boat.”
“I will ignore your casual observation.” Beck sat back and let North pour them each a tot of brandy. The drink was good quality, which helped a man sip it, regardless of all temptation to the contrary. “What a bloody mess.”
North enjoyed his brandy in silence, while Beck cogitated and drank.
With North’s dark gaze taking in every movement, Beck set his glass down on a corner of the table not covered with ledgers. “My father’s dying request was that I set the place to rights, because he felt the neglect here was a blot on his honor. I intend to see his wishes carried out.”
“Your father is dying?” North put the question casually, no more weight to it than, “Your horse is a bay?”
Well, hell. In for a penny…
“Bellefonte is at his last prayers.” Beck got the words out by staring at his half-empty glass. “Sent me off so I wouldn’t have to see the final indignities. Sent us all off, except for my sister Nita.”
“And this is why your brother is hunting a bride? You’re the spare, why aren’t you on the prowl with him?”