Georgiana gave her a wry glance. “Try not to paint the house pink in my absence.”

Recognizing the attempt at humor as a peace overture, Phoebe smiled. “I won’t.”

She felt Edward’s gentle touch at her elbow. “Good-bye, my dear.”

Turning toward him, Phoebe gave him both her hands. “Safe and happy travels, Edward.”

Lifting her hands, he kissed the backs of them gently. “Don’t hesitate to call on my family if there’s anything you need. They’re anxious to be of service.” He hesitated, looking sheepish. “I forgot the account ledgers again.”

“No need to worry,” Phoebe assured him blandly. “I knew you were busy with preparations for the trip.” She didn’t think it necessary to mention that as soon as he and Georgiana left, she was going to retrieve the books herself.

She took the children out to the front portico, while Edward helped Georgiana into the carriage. The dowager had to have her lap blanket arranged just so. The level of the window curtains had to be adjusted meticulously. An eternity seemed to pass until the team of matched bays finally drew the vehicle away, its iron-rimmed wheels crunching on the graveled drive. Phoebe and Justin waved cheerfully at the departing carriage, while Stephen waggled his fingers. At last, the vehicle passed a copse of trees and disappeared.

Filled with elation, Phoebe lowered Stephen to the ground and spread a flurry of kisses over his face, making him chortle.

Justin crowded against them and received the same treatment, giggling as the storm of kisses engulfed him. “Why are you so happy, Mama?”

“Because now we’re free to do anything we want, with no one to complain or say we can’t.” It was such a relief to have both Edward and Georgiana gone. More than a relief. It was glorious.

“What are we going to do?” Justin asked.

Phoebe smiled into her children’s expectant faces. “Shall we go on a picnic today?”

“Oh, yes, let’s do that!” Justin enthused, and Stephen chimed in, “Mama, picnic!”

“I’ll tell Cook to pack a nice big basket for us. We’ll take Nanny, and Ernestine too. Now, let’s go upstairs, so you can be change out of these stiff clothes into your play suits. I have an errand in town to take care of, and after that we’ll have our picnic lunch in your Papa’s topiary garden.”

To her surprise, Justin wrinkled his nose and asked, “Do we have to have it there?”

“No, but . . . don’t you like the topiaries?”

Justin shook his head. “Nanny says they used to be shaped like animals. But now they all look like turnips.”

“Oh, dear. I suppose they’re overgrown. I’ll speak to the gardener.” Phoebe stood and took their hands in hers. “Come, you two. A new day has begun.”

After taking the children up to the nursery, Phoebe asked for her carriage to be brought around, and told the butler she would need two footmen to accompany her to town, as she would be returning with heavy parcels.

The day was pleasant and sunny, with flowering leafless crocus mantling the roadside on the way to town. However, Phoebe took little notice of the scenery during the ride to the Larson offices. Her mind was buzzing with thoughts. It would be a relief to have all the information she needed to start making accurate assessments of the home farm and all the leaseholds. But she also dreaded what the account books would reveal.

Despite Edward’s reassurances, Phoebe didn’t believe the tenants and leaseholds were doing nearly as well as he’d claimed. Every time she rode out in the company of a footman to take a look at the estate leaseholds, she saw a multitude of problems with her own eyes. Most of the steadings and structures on the tenant farms were badly in need of repair. The narrow, unfinished estate roads couldn’t begin to accommodate the wheels of heavy agricultural machinery. She had seen pools of standing water in poorly drained fields, and sparse-looking crops. Even during haymaking season, one of the busiest times of the year, a listless, defeated feeling seemed to drift over the Clare lands.

The carriage passed picturesque greens, and streets lined with timber-framed shops and houses. After entering a square of symmetrical buildings faced with stucco and fronted with fluted columns, the vehicle stopped in front of the handsome brass-plated door of the Larson offices.

Once inside, Phoebe was obliged to wait only for a minute before Edward’s father, Frederick, came out to greet her. He was tall and stout, his face square, the upper lip canopied by a handsome silver mustache with deftly waxed tips. As an established member of the Essex squirearchy, Frederick was a creature of habit who liked Sunday roast and his pipe after dinner, foxhunting in the winter, and croquet in the summer. At his insistence, traditions were maintained in the Lawson household with the fervor of religious belief. Frederick hated anything intellectual or foreign, and he especially disliked newfangled inventions that had accelerated the pace of life, such as the telegraph or railway.

Phoebe had always gotten on well with the old gentleman, who was impressed by her father’s title and connections. Since Frederick hoped to have her as a daughter-in-law someday, she was fairly certain he wouldn’t risk antagonizing her by withholding the account ledgers.

“Uncle Frederick!” Phoebe exclaimed cheerfully. “I’ve surprised you, haven’t I?”

“My dear niece! A most welcome surprise this is.” He guided her into his private office, lined with black walnut cabinets and shelves, and sat her in a leather upholstered chair.

After Phoebe had explained the reason for her visit, Frederick seemed flummoxed by her desire to collect the Clare-estate account books. “Phoebe, complex accounting is a strain to the female mind. If you tried to read one of those ledgers, you would soon have a headache.”

“I keep the household account books and they don’t give me headaches,” she pointed out.

“Ah, but household expenses are in the feminine realm. Business accounting pertains to matters in the masculine realm, outside the home.”

Phoebe had to bite her lip to keep from asking if the rules of mathematics changed when one ventured past the front door. Instead, she said, “Uncle, the empty shelves in the study at Clare manor look so bereft. It seems only right and proper for the account ledgers to kept there, as they always have been.” She paused delicately. “One hates to break with decades, if not centuries, of tradition.”

As she had hoped, that argument held more sway with him than anything else.

“Tradition is the thing,” Frederick agreed heartily, and thought for a few moments. “I suppose it would do no harm to let the books reside on their old shelves at Clare Manor.”

Seizing on a sudden inspiration, Phoebe said, “It would also oblige Edward to visit me more often, wouldn’t it?”

“Indeed it would,” he exclaimed. “My son could attend to the account books at Clare Manor, and enjoy your company at the same time. Two birds—I rather wonder that he hadn’t thought of it yet. How slow witted young men are nowadays! It’s settled, then. Shall my clerks convey the ledgers out to your carriage?”

“My footmen can do it. Thank you, Uncle.”

Eager to leave, Phoebe began to edge toward the door of his office. However, it appeared she would not escape without additional conversation.

“How are your young lads?” Frederick asked.

“Quite well. It will take some time for them to adjust fully to their new life in Essex.”

“I expect so. I have concerns about what might become of growing boys with no paternal figure in the house. A father’s influence cannot be too highly estimated.”

“I’m concerned about that as well,” Phoebe admitted. “However, I’m not yet ready to marry again.”

“There are times in life, my dear, when one must set emotion aside and view the situation from a rational perspective.”

“My reasons are quite rational—”

“As you know,” he continued, “my Edward is every inch of him a gentleman. An ornament to his class. His qualities have often been remarked on. Many a marriage-minded young woman has set her cap for him—I wouldn’t expect him to stay on the market forever.”

“I wouldn’t either.”

“It would be a great pity for you to realize too late what a treasure you might have had in Edward. As the captain of your family’s ship, he would steer a steady course. There would never be surprises with him. No arguments, no unconventional ideas. You would live in perfect serenity.”

Yes, Phoebe thought, that’s exactly the problem.

On the ride back to Clare Manor, Phoebe sorted through the cumbersome pile of ledgers on the seat beside her until she found one with yearly statements of the estate’s profits and losses. After hefting it onto her lap, she began to page through it slowly.

To her dismay, the information was laid out very differently from the ledgers West Ravenel had shown her. A frown worked across her brow. Was the word “liability” used interchangeably with “debt, or did they mean different things in this system of bookkeeping? Did “capital” refer only to property, or did it include cash? She didn’t know how Henry or Edward had defined such terms, and to make matters worse, the pages were littered with acronyms.

“I need a Rosetta Stone to translate all of this,” Phoebe muttered. A sinking feeling came over her as she looked through another ledger, the crop book. Mystifyingly, some of the tenant farmers’ yields had been reported four times, and each number was different.

As the carriage continued along the flint-graveled road, Phoebe considered what to do. She could ask the estate’s land manager, Mr. Patch, to answer some of her questions, but he was quite old and infirm, and a conversation lasting more than few minutes would exhaust him.

There was always the option of waiting for Edward to return, but she didn’t want to do that, especially since he believed she shouldn’t be bothering with accounting in the first place. And in light of the way she’d commandeered the estate ledgers and brought them home herself, Edward would probably be just a bit smug, and one could hardly blame him.

This would be a convenient excuse to send for West.

Holding an account ledger in her lap, Phoebe leaned back against the carriage seat and felt a pang of yearning so sharp, it hurt to breathe.

She wasn’t at all certain West would come, but if he did . . .

How strange it would be to have him at Clare Manor: a collision of worlds, West Ravenel in Henry’s house. It was scandalous for an unmarried man to stay in the home of a young widow, with no chaperone in sight. Edward would be appalled when he found out. Georgiana would have apoplexy on the spot.

Thinking back to that last morning with West, Phoebe recalled him saying something to the effect that he had nothing to offer except a relationship that would insult and lower her.

Love affairs were common among the upper class, who usually married for reasons of family interests and connections and sought personal fulfillment outside of wedlock. Phoebe had never imagined herself doing such a thing or having needs that might outweigh the risk of scandal. But neither she nor West were married; no vows would be broken. No one would be harmed . . . would they?