Devil's Daughter (The Ravenels #5) - Lisa Kleypas Page 0,70
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.
“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