Devil's Daughter (The Ravenels #5) - Lisa Kleypas Page 0,71

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?

A shock went through her as she realized she was actually considering it. Oh, God, she was turning into a cliché—the love-starved widow seeking company for her empty bed. A particular figure of mockery, since women were supposed to be above the kind of base physical desire that was considered far more natural and explicable in men. She herself had liked