Belle (The Daughters of Allamont Hall Book 2) by Mary Kingswood

sooner or later, perhaps in her father’s dressing room, or hidden in the pocket of a coat or waistcoat. In the meantime, she set about examining the bills her mother had left unpaid. One by one she read them in mounting horror, as she began to realise that two hundred pounds was not nearly enough to cover all the reckonings. The bill for coal alone amounted to more than half of her money. Then there were the servants to pay as well. How was she to manage?
    She was pacing anxiously about the room when the crunching of gravel on the drive announced the arrival of morning callers. A few minutes later, Young entered.
    “Miss Endercott and Mr Burford are here, Miss Belle. Shall I show them into the drawing room and light the fire there?”
    “No, the fire is already lit in here. Let us not waste coal on another so early in the day. Please show them in here.”
    Mr Burford entered eagerly, and looked all round the room before turning to Belle with disappointment on his face. “You are alone today, Miss Belle?”
    “Yes, everyone else is out enjoying the sunshine. We did not expect anyone this morning.”
    “We too were taking advantage of the improved weather,” Miss Endercott said. “Having come practically to your gates, it would have seemed discourteous to turn away without calling.” She looked around the room with lively interest. “Well, well, so this is where your father hid himself away. And not a picture anywhere on the walls.”
    “He always said that this was a place for thought and work, and pictures would distract him,” Belle said.
    “Which is precisely the purpose of a picture, in my opinion, to be a distraction, for what is the point of looking at wallpaper? It is very pleasant wallpaper, to be sure, but still it is merely a pretty pattern. Now a landscape or two would make all the difference. You are well, my dear? You look a little harassed.”
    “I have been wrestling with the household accounts, and I do not get on at all well. But that is of no interest to you.”
    “On the contrary,” Miss Endercott said, with a bark of laughter. “I can assure you that everything is of interest to me, child. You need not speak of it if you do not wish, but since Mr Wiseman’s quarrel with his wife the other day, and the cause of it, are widely known, I may guess at the reason for your employment.”
    Belle laughed. “I might have supposed that you would already know all about it. There are no secrets in a small village. It is true, there are many unpaid bills, and I fear I have not enough money to settle them. I do not know what I am to do.”
    “Not enough money! Your father had an income in excess of three thousand pounds a year, and he was not extravagant. Indeed, I should have said he lived well below his income.”
    Belle was startled by this pronouncement, and knew not how to answer.
    Mr Burford said, “Miss Endercott, I do not understand how you should say so, for you cannot know what any man spends on sugar or beef.”
    She chuckled, her gruff voice making a low rumble. “No, indeed. But I can count, Mr Burford. I know that Allamont Hall has only one footman, and one groom, and no laundry-maid, and only four horses, and many in the village can remember the time of Mr Walter Allamont, Miss Allamont’s grandfather, and that the household was much larger then. But your father was a careful manager, Miss Allamont, so I do not imagine for one moment that his economies were from straitened circumstances. He must have been very much in funds.”
    “But I do not at all know where the money might be,” Belle said. “I have found none here, and there is nothing left in the bank.”
    “There are several banks in Brinchester,” Mr Burford said. “It may be that he has another account elsewhere. Or several, perhaps.”
    “I do not think so,” Belle said. “Mr Martin said that my father greatly disliked and mistrusted banks.”
    “Then he will have coins in the house,” Mr Burford said. “You have