14. Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

‘It’s been a while. I’ll get it.’

Rosanna shoved Phineas’s arm. ‘Will you just let me try?’

With a reluctant sigh, he passed the thin steel lock-pick up to her. Rosanna scrunched the grey tartan skirt of her walking dress around her knees and crouched beside him.

‘Skirts are so awkward. I should have ignored you and dressed in trousers.’

‘Rule number one,’ he repeated his words from the house with a sullen frown. ‘Blend in.’

Rosanna angled the pick until the mechanism inside the lock clicked. With an easy twist, the door to the upstairs office of the Argonauts Trading Company swung open.

She handed his kit back to him. ‘Rule number two. Don’t allow important skills to atrophy.’

‘That is not rule number two.’ He folded the tools into a cloth and tucked them into his coat pocket. ‘How’d you learn?’

‘Father taught me when I was little. He taught Johannes, too. He said it was prudent to learn, in case there was a problem with keys at the hotel, but I sometimes wonder if he was struggling to adjust to a life on the straight and narrow, and passing on some wayward skills to his children made it easier to change his ways.’

Phineas nearly always kept the same impassive face, even when she deliberately provoked him, but as she said the words his children , he looked away, head bowed. As if he were studying the floor for clues.

It wasn’t a surprise that he knew her secret. How her mother had found herself abandoned, unemployed and with child, and Lawrence had helped her and claimed Rosanna as his own. Phineas seemed to know everything.

‘Save your discomfort,’ she snapped. ‘Maybe not by blood, but he’s my father in every other way. He’s never treated me any different from the others.’

‘He saved you from a terrible life. My mother was unwed when I was born. We lived in a poorhouse for a time. He’s a good man.’

‘If you think he’s such a good man, why are you always so horrible to him? He’d make friends with anyone on the street. He loves that place.’

‘Friendship brings hesitation. It’s easier to act when you don’t have to think of others.’ With a determined turn of his back, Phineas pushed the door open and slipped into the office. ‘Let’s find these ledgers.’

Rosanna steadied herself against the doorframe as her eyesight adjusted to the dark. A childhood in a poorhouse was a piece of his puzzle that she’d never imagined. While she had never known the deprivations her parents had shared, she had grown up in a household weighted by their experiences of limitations and thrift. An odd, off-kilter clash of irritation and tenderness collided in her, and she had to press her fingers into the cut of the doorframe to centre herself. A life that could have been her own had been his. Poverty beyond imagination, every day tainted with a stamp of unworthiness. Being labelled a bastard. So many parts of herself that ran counter to what the world valued were ingrained in him, too. Both of them hiding—her behind her confidence and bravado, while Phineas… Phineas just hid.

‘Are you waiting for an invitation, Hempel?’ he growled.

‘Are you extending one?’ she shot back.

He grunted, then continued to explore the room. Rosanna stepped inside the front office of the Argonauts Trading Company.

The moon painted a thin curve in the sky, so even though it was a clear night, shadows slanted at odd angles across the desk, and a faint shimmer reflected off the glass-fronted cabinets and bookcases. Phineas made for a tall filing cabinet tucked into a corner. Rosanna blinked a few times until she could follow the shapes of the wooden furniture, the frames on the wall and chairs set on either side of a desk. A hallway led away from the room, possibly to individual offices. Wood squeaked on wood as Phineas opened a drawer.

‘We have a book. At the hotel. Only at the main one, and only for us. We list important information about guest habits, little changes and observations. If we try something new on the menu, do guests spend more on wine? Is French brandy more popular in summer or winter? Hardly scandalous—Father has no interest in the guests’ secrets—but the sort of thing that would be useful for competitors. Not something you want just any member of staff to have access to, in case they take a position elsewhere and pass that information on. And we keep ours…’

Rosanna scanned the cabinets behind the desk and the heavy leather chair. In the hotel office, ledgers, accounts, and records were kept in easy reach to make daily work easier, in a side drawer or behind the desk. But something important that wasn’t needed every day would be too conspicuous in a drawer and only be a bother. Something important but not regularly referenced was better kept in sight, in a steady line of vision, to give some comfort that it was safe. Rosanna paced before the cabinet on the opposite side of the room. A sheen reflected off the glass, and foil and gold leaf gleamed and dulled as her shadow followed the curve of each book spine. She opened the centre cabinet and crouched, her skirts fluttering as air rushed from beneath them. A crystal decanter half full of amber spirits sat on the centre shelf, but beneath that, the ledge and panelling didn’t sit flush with the rest of the woodwork. The ends didn’t quite line up. Rosanna stripped a glove and ran her fingers over the woodgrain. A small, uneven notch had been carved into the edge, possibly by an unsteady hand with a penknife. Just large enough for a man’s finger to hook over to tug a drawer open…

‘What have you found?’ Phineas crossed the room just as she hauled the heavy book from the drawer.

She thrust it into his arms. ‘This.’

Phineas grasped the leather-bound ledger in both arms. It must have been two foot high, and he thumped it onto the desk and flipped it open. He struck a match and lit a candle stump, and the flame danced a mix of amber and shadows across his skin. His brow furrowed in concentration, but behind the sternness, a spark shone in his eyes.

Something came alive in Phineas when he focused on numbers, ledgers, and calculations. She understood columns and tallies and could make a tidy sum, but his comprehension was so different, so much deeper than her own. Like he saw beyond the numbers into an entirely new world. He ran a finger down a margin, turned the page, then traced another, all the while muttering to himself in low tones.

Rosanna leant over. She followed the staggered sums, the rough workings and notes to the bottom column. ‘What is it? I can’t see in this light.’

Phineas drew a breath, as if he was about to start one of his explanations, then paused. With a nod at the book, he stepped to one side. The light he’d been blocking spilled over the desk. ‘See if you can figure it out.’

In the orange candlelight, the pale blue ledger paper took on a green tinge. The first few columns were names, addresses, and occupations. The next few columns were all numbers—finances. Rosanna raised the candle so that its glow cast a wider circle and found the familiar symbols that tallied up pounds, shillings, and pence.

‘The date. The share price. The number purchased. Dividends, and when they were credited. It’s a record of investment returns.’

Rosanna turned a page. Yet, it wasn’t quite the same as how they ran the books at the hotel. They had extra columns for expenses and wages, and additional books to record the details of costs in the kitchens or the laundry. Rosanna flipped to the front of the book. Here, Father kept a table of wages and set costs for easy reference, but this book didn’t have one of those. She flipped to the back. Just more columns and lists, and a swathe of empty pages.

‘There are no expenses recorded. Do you think there’s another book? Why would they pay dividends before they’ve taken out the costs? Abberton & Co. were a trading company. There should be figures for imports and exports, or even warehousing. They are still trading, aren’t they? Surely it must cost something to run—’ Rosanna bit her lip and flipped a few more pages. ‘There. Mr Collins. His payout is a far greater percentile than the five per cent paid to Miss Jennifer Lancaster or to Mr George Jones or to any of these smaller investors. And Mr Vincent is receiving a substantial amount, too. They’re drawing off thousands of pounds.’ And with a turn of the page, all the disparate pieces fluttered into place. ‘They’re using new investments to pay out the dividends. They’re not paying their expenses. The entire operation is a shambles.’

A grunt and a smile from Phineas—likely the only acknowledgement she would ever receive from him. Rosanna muffled the perverse burst of pride in her chest that sparked with his small compliment. Phineas pointed at the page. ‘See this column? Since the additional shares were made available, almost everyone has reinvested their supposed earnings. Investors think they’re making money, but it’s only on paper. None of it is real. That’s why they need new investors to contribute cash to fund the next round of payments. If one or two of them sell their shares, they get paid out of the money coming in, as the board has drawn most holdings off and into their own accounts. There’s no collateral or reserves. If everyone sells at once, the company will collapse.’

‘Why would anyone invest in a business like this instead of something more stable?’ she asked.

Phineas placed his hand over the names, almost protectively. ‘They would take their money elsewhere if they knew. Companies can choose what information they provide to investors. The law does not force them to tell shareholders everything, or even anything. And when men like your Lord Richard become involved, many less affluent people see the shine of the aristocracy and follow with their savings. Look at these addresses. Not the slums, but hardly Mayfair. His involvement is like a stamp of approval in a sea of swindlers and schemes.’

‘Stop calling him my Lord Richard. He’s not mine. I don’t want him.’ She knew she spoke too bitterly and with too much anger. For once, Phineas didn’t deserve her ire. He spoke so casually with an ignorant tap of his finger at the amount Lord Richard had invested. For once, Phineas didn’t know everything.

His investment matched her dowry to the pound.

The amount he likely owed Pennington.

He’d spent her worth before he’d even begged her hand.

The building creaked. With the sharp fizz of light extinguished, Phineas snuffed out the candle with his fingers. Hush . The word was barely a breath, as quiet as the wick’s hiss.

Rosanna forced calm into her body, through her chest, all the way to her feet in her boots, which still longed to stamp and rage at the ledgers. Her anger coiled in on itself, and its bitter bite turned to sadness. She reached for Phineas—just to find the anchor of some kindness in the dark. He wrapped his arms around her.

‘Apologies, Hempel. In the future, I’ll mind my tongue.’ He spoke with a low rumble, barely a whisper, the shape of his words caressing her cheek. His stubble, prickly and unwelcoming, scratched her skin.

‘Am I worth nothing more than an entry in a column? A tally of pounds and pence?’

Phineas’s shoulders tensed. They always did when she interrupted his thoughts or talked too much. They’d done so last night, when he’d still been arguing with her about bedding, and then again right before he took her nipple in his mouth. His arms—strong and bracing—tightened around her as he drew her closer, his hands resting against her back with the same protective splay that he’d shown the names in the ledgers. On her next breath, she inhaled his stiff resolve, his practical soap and clean linen.

‘What’s rule number one?’ he asked.

‘Blend in,’ she replied.

‘And rule number two?’

‘What does that matter?’

‘Just think on it.’ He pressed his forehead against hers. ‘It’s more important than the first, although comes after it. What could be more essential than blending in?’

Intense, cold, indifferent. Rosanna searched the unemotional angles of Phineas’s expression as the question turned in her mind. Blend in, he always said to her. She’d always craved the opposite, but how much of Phineas’s demeanour was about blending in, and what had he shown her that was different? How much was a facade to keep others at a distance? His closeness compressed her skirts, and she held his level stare in the low light, hands touching but not holding, just humming living energy into the small shard of space between them.

What did the efficient bank clerk obscure?

He let Spencer drink milk from his table every morning.

His sharp tongue was one edge to a perceptive mind.

He didn’t have to help her when Mrs Crofts accosted her in the park.

He listened to her body until she was both screaming and speechless.

‘Never be what they expect you are,’ she said.

His mouth twisted into a slight smirk of acknowledgement. ‘And beneath all the prattle and gowns, you are nothing like I expected.’ And he eased into her just a little more, so that his cheekbone pressed firm against her tingling skin. His lips skimmed the shell of her ear. A meandering hunger, a tingle of want tentatively fizzed and flickered through her. ‘We shouldn’t,’ he whispered.

Rosanna hooked a finger around his. ‘No, we shouldn’t.’

Phineas turned his cheek, and the bristle on his chin scuffed her lips. Stiff, unmoving, he retreated into himself, even though they remained pressed together. ‘Just the pipes,’ he said, then shook her free. ‘We have what we need.’

Rosanna slid the ledger back into the drawer. Phineas cast his gaze across the desk, and slightly adjusted the placement of the candle and a blotter. She waited for him by the door. Her heart beat out of sync in an odd patter, and she rubbed at her breastbone to try and quell its unease. When he ushered her out of the office and hunched to work at the lock, she lingered in the finesse of his fingers as they twisted and adjusted his tools. The thin wisps of hair behind his ears needed a trim, but he’d probably have Felix eradicate them in the morning. Her heart stuttered again. She inhaled until it steadied.

Phineas stood and returned his tools to his coat pocket. Rosanna slid her hand into the crook of his arm. They walked in silence for some time. Argonauts had maintained the offices of Abberton Trading, which were a convenient walk away, and after a few blocks, they reached the far end of Honeysuckle Street. The lamps threw small circles of yellow onto the path, and their shadows merged and bunched as they shifted from light to dark.

‘That number upset you.’ Phineas said. The words were a statement, not a question. ‘Lord Richard’s investment.’

‘It was the same amount as my dowry, to the pound. Seeing it there, so stark, reminded me how foolish I was. I detest feeling like that.’

‘Why did you want to marry a lord? Of all the people in this world, why a noble? And why marry at all? Why not—’

‘Live my life on my own terms? Become my father’s protégé? Why not shun a life of domesticity for business?’ Rosanna tapped out the pithy arguments she’d heard before from women like Elise and Petunia or her own sister, Beatrice. ‘Why must I choose? I didn’t want to marry a lord, I wanted to be loved. I want a family. And I wanted to keep working with my family, to continue to be a part of what I’ve helped to build at Aster. I wanted both those things. No one would ever ask Johannes to choose. Lord Richard said all the right things, had a good name, bought beautiful gifts. I was stupid enough to believe him.’

He patted the back of her hand, then flexed his palm to resting. He stroked the contour of her gloves, and when he burrowed his fingers beneath hers, she couldn’t tell if he was giving her solace or seeking a place to hide. They crossed the street before Number 8 and walked by the Hartrights and their bright pink door. Then past Mrs Crofts’s home, the only door in the row that was still painted in its original black.

‘Mama told me during my first season that some nobles wouldn’t see past our name,’ she continued. ‘Not even the name, because it was fresher than a rosebud. I thought I understood, but I didn’t. I learnt fast, though. At my first ball, a viscount’s heir from a very old family tore my hem as he tried to compromise me in the bushes, and later that same evening, I received a declaration of eternal love from a man before we’d finished a cup of tea together. There were so many more after them. They weren’t even eager or rash. Just desperate. I was nothing more to them than a full purse. I still held hope that things might be different for me. That someone might love me. And I figured that the sort of man who might do so was one who did not need my money. Is that so terrible? To want love?’

‘That’s not how love works.’ Phineas kept his head bowed as he spoke. ‘Love is painful. It’s sacrifice.’

‘You are an expert, I suppose.’

‘Not at all. I don’t think I’ve ever…’ He looked up and met her eyes as his sentence trailed off. Dark and fathomless, she lost herself in their sparkle for too long until he focused on the path again. ‘I have no right to claim expertise on matters of the heart. But think what you’ve seen, just on this street.’ He kicked at a stone, and it rolled along the path before tipping into the gutter. ‘Your father puts his family above everything. Arley didn’t cut ties because it made his life easier. Iris and Hamish could commit Albert in a moment and retire to the Dalton estate, and no one would judge them. All of them have much simpler choices available. Yet they tread harder paths. And for what?’

Again her heart kicked and spluttered to that unfamiliar beat. Her skin felt so warm it almost itched, prickling despite the late summer breeze that met them at the edge of the park and greeted them as they reached the end of Honeysuckle Street.

‘Given that we’re both so terrible at matters of the heart, we should practice. Do you know how you could show the world you are an affectionate husband?’

Phineas slowed his step. ‘I do try, Rosanna. For appearances. I try to be kind and considerate of you. What more could I do?’ As soft as a kiss, a tender hesitancy caressed his confession. Her heart seemed to pause, suspended, before galloping in her chest. When they stopped in front of the stairs to Number 1, she drew him to face her, eyes level.

‘Let me paint the entryway. I was thinking bright yellow. And maybe hang some prints. It would be so much more welcoming to step into a room like that at the end of the day.’

Phineas grumbled, threw his hands in the air, and stomped ahead, shaking his head and muttering to himself as he trudged up the stairs. Spencer leapt from the bushes onto the landing, and Phineas shooed him away. Spencer flicked an ear. Rosanna chuckled to herself. She’d always thought him emotionless, but now she could read the discomfort that sat so close beneath his skin, and the agitation that circled him like the cat winding around his legs until Phineas ushered him over the threshold. He kept everyone at a distance, yet she’d been the one to see past his stiffness to raise his hackles and make him laugh. A flick of memory teased her mind, and with a shudder, she relished the thought of his fingers working at her, of the burning he’d both stoked and quenched.

Her heart thumped hard, just once, then turned, like a cog shifting and falling into place with a dull clunk.

‘Oh no.’ Rosanna covered her mouth with her hand to smother the realisation, even though there was no one close by to witness her unravelling. And the cog creaked, wound tight, then rolled into motion, as unstoppable as an engine.

This was bad.

This was very, very bad.

The worst thing imaginable had happened.

She was falling in love with her husband.