A Fresh Perspective, A Regency Romance by Elisabeth Fairchild Page A

away, made more of an impression now than when she had spoken. He had lost something. Unaware, he had let her slip away.
    He found himself unable to draw--impatient with the Claude glass and clumsy with his charcoal. He kept sketching faces. The portraits were Megan’s. Without her there to offer his eyes a model, his renderings were sadly lacking in the truth of what he was missing.
    Closing up the sketchbooks, he turned once more to the addition and subtraction of lines of figures: food, furniture, artwork, clothing and servants--figures for household expenses, for the upkeep of the animals, for his tour abroad. Figures kept his mind orderly, his feelings at bay. Sums must be done for the purchase of new things and the mending of old. Sums must be tallied for the property holdings. All of it was familiar, making and consuming amazing amounts of money over time. Reed’s eyelids had begun to droop when he came to an entry marked “Repairs for the road,” after which followed a string of dates and figures, none of which made any sense. He sat up, shook the fog from his head and stretched his back and neck muscles. What repairs?
    He broached the topic with his mother later that afternoon. “I have been going over the ledgers.”
    “Ledgers?”
    “Yes, you may recall my mentioning them to you.”
    “The ones your father saddled you with?”
    “The very same.”
    “What of them?”
    “There are repairs mentioned. Sums of money spent. . .”
    “Yes, yes?”
    “Hundreds of pounds designated for repairs on the road.”
    She fell silent.
    “What road?” he pressed.
    She sighed. “I used the monies elsewhere.”
    “All of it? What for?”
    She flung herself about petulantly. “This and that. Entertainments, Reed. Do not be tiresome and insist you do not understand. By claiming the money was for road improvements, I have been saved the humiliation of begging your father for funds he would not have given me otherwise.”
    It dawned on Reed that he had seen no sums listed for music, dance or language instructors. “I see,” he said.
    “Your father?” Her voice was sharp. “Does he list his own entertainments? Does he number them, or write them in by name? There must be a hundred and more lightskirts to his credit.”
    Reed studied his shoes and held his tongue. His father did have accounts set up to pay leases on five separate residences in London, only one of which he lived in himself. There was a staggering amount tallied to Trinkets and Baubles, which covered God only knew what folly.
    His mother paced the room. Tidbit, toenails tapping, skittered along in her wake. “This is really not your concern, Reed. I do not understand why your father troubles you with this kind of thing.”
    “Perhaps because I have just gone begging him for more money to repair a road he has already, according to the records, sunk hundreds of pounds into,” Reed said reasonably. “I am, myself, concerned that our finances are not in better standing.”
    Her voice lowered dangerously. Her eyes narrowed. “Do you dare to pass judgment on me?”
    “I have given Mr. Moffit notice.”
    He caught her off guard. “Given Moffit notice? What has he to do with anything?”
    “If my preliminary figuring is correct, we can no longer afford the man--no longer afford, in fact, a great many things we have taken for granted.”
    She set her chin, tossed her head and sailed from the room, declaring, “Things are never as bad as that.”
    Wordless, Reed watched her go. Things were, he feared, far worse.
     

Chapter Seven
     
    A nxiety swiftly supplanted Lady Talcott’s initially professed confidence that there was nothing to concern her. Concern carried her up the stairs, any number of times, to ask Reed questions he could not yet answer.
    “I must look at the books myself,” she said.
    When the lists of sums were duly set before her, she eyed them through her lorgnette with a baffled look. “Explain what it is that I am examining,” was