For Your Arms Only by Linden, Caroline (best fiction books to read .TXT) 📗

window. “He likes the privacy and quiet of it. My grandmother never comes back here.” She turned to face him, her back to the window. “His papers are in the desk.”

“Right.” Alec crossed the room and sat at the desk, opening drawers and sifting through the contents with practiced speed. It was almost child’s play to search a room in daylight, even if he was all too conscious of the woman standing in front of the daylight. Women like her shouldn’t be allowed to stand in front of windows, where their figures were so well-outlined and the sun could catch every highlight in their hair.

He sorted through bills, bills, and more bills. There were a few letters, mostly from former army superiors responding to Sergeant Turner’s inquiries about employment opportunities. Turner had ambition, Alec realized, noting what sort of positions the man had sought. No hard labor for him; Turner asked about clerkships to governing boards and plum posts in the scaled-down army. Those seemed a bit out of reach for a sergeant, even a distinguished one, but the replies were all apologetic in their refusal, even deferential. It struck Alec as odd that Turner would think himself fit for these posts, and be refused with so much solicitude. He was sure mid-ranked officers would have been refused these patronage positions, which were highly sought for the combination of comfortable pay, modest status, and low work requirements. He tucked that thought away, adding to his still-forming picture of Sergeant Turner.

The bills were more interesting, but still told him little. Turner seemed to play things out just to the point of becoming unpleasant before he paid. He bought on credit almost exclusively, and apparently had no trouble getting it anywhere from Marston to London. Alec looked through the desk, but there was no ledger to verify the bills’ payments. “Would your father keep an account ledger?”

Cressida started at the question. He had been so quiet for so long. The way he went straight to work, sorting through the mess of Papa’s papers, was almost preternaturally silent and efficient. She had peeked at those papers herself, when Papa had been gone a month with no word, and knew they were in a horrible mess. She had given up trying to sort the bills into order—an exceptionally depressing task, given how many of them there were—when her grandmother scolded her for interfering in Papa’s affairs and shooed her out of the room. So far Major Hayes had flipped through every one of them and made three neat stacks on the desk, and now he was looking at her with that piercingly direct gaze. It was so unnerving, and so blue, she completely missed his question. “What?”

“An account ledger, to keep track of payments. I don’t see one.”

“Oh—yes. He does.”

He waved one hand across the desk top. “It’s not here.”

Cressida bit the inside of her lip. She knew it wasn’t there from the time she had tried to look through Papa’s things. It had bothered her then, too, for she knew he kept one; she had seen him making entries in it. But she had brushed it aside as inconsequential; Papa might have left it anywhere or even taken it with him. Perhaps that had been a mistake…She thought of all Callie had said, and what Major Hayes had said, and realized she must honor her decision to cooperate. She had accepted his help and must freely give him her cooperation. Otherwise she might as well be guilty of the horrible things he had suggested when he drove her into Marston. “I don’t know where it is,” she admitted. “I know he kept one, but I couldn’t find it when I looked.”

The major seemed to sit up a little straighter. “Might he have kept it somewhere else?”

“I don’t think so. This was his room. We weren’t to enter it, under normal circumstances.”

He was on his feet before she finished, turning in a slow circle and taking in the entire room. “But you did?”

“He kept his strongbox here. I had to come in and get money, after he left.” She didn’t mention that she’d had to pick the lock to get it open, nor that it had been nearly empty. It was highly unlikely Major Hayes hadn’t already deduced that much.

He stepped closer to the wall and ran one hand over the wainscoting. “Where was the strongbox?”

“In the lower desk drawer.” She watched in astonishment as he knelt on the floor and began tapping on the panels. “What are you looking for?”

“A hiding place.” He pulled off his coat and tossed it on the chair, then returned to the floor and leaned his ear against the wall before rapping on it with his knuckles.

Cressida gaped at his broad back. “Why?”

He rapped some more. “This is an odd room to choose for his study. It has no light. It’s more like an estate manager’s office than a gentleman’s study.” Another rap. He moved along the floor, smoothing his hand over the wall as he went, stopping to feel every crack and edge. “And if he kept his strongbox here, quite likely he kept the ledger with it. Unless you found it in his bedchamber?” He swung around so quickly Cressida jumped back, banging her elbow on the desk. She had followed his progress without realizing.

“N-No.” She rubbed her elbow as he nodded. There was a curious light in his eyes, almost elation, as though he had a plan.

“Many of these old houses have hidden cupboards. Not terribly secure, just an out-of-the-way place to keep something private.” He turned back to the wall and spread his hands over the wood. “I could be wrong, of course.”

Cressida watched, askance, as he leaned into the wall. That made sense, she supposed, even though he didn’t know Papa at all and couldn’t know how closemouthed her father was about certain things. “No,” she said slowly. “I think you may well be correct.”

She moved to the opposite wall and began rapping