Page 81 of The Defiant Daughter
The minister’s booming voice reached the end of the sermon, and the congregation rose. Eli opened his hymnbook for the closing song, “God’s Help in Ages Past,” caught sight of Prudence Granger—Charley’s mother—in her much-patched Sunday gown, and cast a prayer of thanks heavenward. If they hadn’t uncovered the fruits of dishonest dealing, Eli would not have been able to help her. He wouldn’t have had a job at all.
Conveying property to heirs should have been a simple affair. The old earl’s man of business, however, conniving with the widowed countess, had set out to rob every one of them, creating fraudulent copies of the will, skimming funds, and substituting cheap jewelry and so on. Rob Benson and the new Earl of Clarion had uncovered the mess, but it had fallen to Eli to sort out the details.
The Grangers had been given false information about the properties Charley had inherited and sold well below their values to a company that had eventually led back to the countess. The sharp increase in rents had hurt everyone in Ashmead. The teacher had gotten a broken-down nag, while the prime stock had been sold and the proceeds pocketed. The honest value had been repaid. Alice’s pearls had proven to be fake; she and her mother had been on the brink of starvation until the new earl (or Eli, truth be told) had found Alice a teaching position the other side of Nottingham. She was now married. And so it went. Eli’s efforts had put it all to rights, even giving a modest amount to Prudence Granger as Charley’s heir.
Eli’s voice rose on the final notes of the song as he was humbly aware his accomplishments had rested on luck. The countess, as it had turned out, had amassed a tidy amount embezzled from the estate for many years before the notorious will. Those funds and the fundamental decency of the current earl had provided Eli with the tools he’d needed to rectify the fraud. Without that, he had no idea what they would have done. He had even made progress in stabilizing the earl’s own finances.
Walter Hammond, as always, greeted Eli effusively in the churchyard. Reverend Sykes shook Eli’s hand, the vicar’s respect warming Eli’s heart more than the well-meaning foster father’s gratitude. Eli declined the regular invitation to dinner at the vicarage, anxious to be back at his place at Clarion Hall. The goodwill of the people of Ashmead over the entire affair had fallen on Eli for the most part, the earl being in London much of the year and a distant figure in any case.
Doctor Farley rode with him back through the village, and they chatted amiably, professional man to professional man, until they reached The Willow and the Rose, the inn that had been Eli’s childhood home, where they parted company. Good memories and bonds of family drew Eli to join Farley in the dining room, but he was now a man with reports to write and a career to consider. He moved on.
He tipped his face to the sun as he rode across the bridge and continued uphill to the hall. The last of the heirs had been found and given just compensation. He looked forward to a year as steward without the tedious paperwork that had plagued him in previous months, grateful for the opportunities given to him by the earl. There was much to learn, and Eli planned to make the best of it. He looked forward to a quiet afternoon.
The sight that greeted him boded ill for that hope. John, the first footman, who served as a sort of underbutler when the senior staff went off to London with the earl, stood on the front steps of the hall in heated conversation with a slip of a girl.
Eli dismounted instead of riding around to the stables and climbed up to investigate. The girl, a bit of a thing, didn’t come up to John’s shoulder, but she confronted him with a straight back and commanding voice. Though slender, she had the sturdy build of someone used to hard work. She wore a plain, rather rumpled gown. He suspected she had been traveling for some time. An unadorned straw bonnet covered her head.
“Is there a problem here, John?” Eli asked.
“Aye, Mr. Benson. I was explaining to this person—”
“I demand to see the earl,” the chit said at the same time. Face to face, Eli judged her to be fifteen or so. She had cheek for one so young.
“May I ask your business with the earl?” Eli studied her closely. Her face had character. He’d give her that.
“Who are you?” she asked, fire flashing from her eyes. Her very attractive green eyes…Oh no.
“Show some respect, girl,” John said. “This is Mr. Benson, the steward. The earl’s man of business. I’ve been telling you. The earl isn’t here.”
“Man of business, is it? Then you’ll have to help me.” Disappointment inched across her face, driving the determination to the side but not away. She glared up at the footman.
“I’ll deal with this, John. Please see to my horse,” Eli said.
She bounded past John into the foyer, where she came to an abrupt halt, wide eyes taking in the magnificence that was Clarion Hall’s entranceway: the parquet floors, the marble mantle, the gleaming banister curving upward beside carpeted stairs…
She spun toward Eli, that fire raging in her eyes. “He will help me. He has to.”
She pulled the ribbon on her bonnet and took it off, shaking her head and loosening a glorious fall of hair. Glorious auburn hair.Oh no…
Eli’s peace had just been upended by a problem—one cursed with Caulfield hair and Caulfield eyes. One encased in the dainty body of a beautiful young woman with the heart of a warrior.
Damn.
