Free Barbara Metzger by Father Christmas Page A

shame.”
    “Ah-ha, so I was right! You
have
done something underhanded with the money!”
    “The money?” If he’d said he wanted her opinion on the Corn Laws, Graceanne couldn’t have been more surprised. She sat back down. “What money?”
    “It’s a little late to play the innocent, Mrs. Warrington.” He took up his position in front of the mantel, then started pacing. “Or did you think I was such a here-and-thereian, I’d never ask where the money was going?” He didn’t wait for Graceanne’s answer, which was just as well, for she didn’t have one. “I’ve been racking my brain to think what it could be. Clothes? Jewelry?” He gave her one disdainful look in passing. “Not likely. I’ve seen your Posy, so it’s not fast horses. You say you don’t gamble, and I believe you.”
    “Am I supposed to be thankful for that?” Graceanne murmured into his tirade, her head rotating from side to side with his long strides.
    “So I asked myself, what could it be? Is she paying off some terrible debt? Buying Consols for her old age? Keeping a lover?”
    “Your Grace!”
    He came to a halt in front of her, glowering down. “So tell me, what in the blazes are you doing with Tony’s money?”
    “Oh,
that
money!” Graceanne sighed in relief. “You must know I didn’t have any dowry to speak of, just a pittance from Mama’s family. The settlements, therefore, were negligible. Papa says my widow’s jointure barely covers the cost of what the twins break—that is, what they breakfast on.”
    “Cut line, ma’am, I know to the shilling what your portion is. I ought to, my man of business helped draw up the marriage papers. What I am talking about, if you wish to play the game to its conclusion, is Tony’s money. The money I hold as trustee and whose interest I deposit at your bank monthly, having started the account with a substantial sum. The money that is supposed to ensure Tony’s children a happy, healthy childhood and his widow security. The money, in short, that is withdrawn and never spent!”
    “I…I never knew Tony had any money. He never spoke to me about it. We never wanted for anything, but neither did we live grandly. I thought his army pay…”
    “The army pays chicken feed. Of course Tony had money of his own; his grandfather was a duke. There was no property, since they lived at Ware House in London, but a tidy competence. How do you think Tony bought his commission?”
    Graceanne stared at her fingers. “I thought you must have purchased it for him.” She shook her head. “And his mother lived in a rented house.”
    Now it was Leland’s turn to study the Turkey carpet he had almost worn out. “Aunt Eudora moved into Ware House” was all he said. It was enough.
    Graceanne was so silent for a moment, obviously thinking, that Leland could hear a clock ticking, and feet pounding down a hall somewhere. Many feet. He let her think. Then he handed over his handkerchief. Damn and blast, he never meant to make her cry. It wasn’t as though he was going to have her clapped in irons, either, especially if what he now suspected was true. He started pacing again.
    Graceanne dabbed at the tears that trickled down her cheeks and snuffled into the fine linen. “Thank you,” she said automatically, staring at a private hell so intensely that she didn’t hear the shouts in the hall. Many shouts.
    At last she spoke: “That’s why he didn’t want me to spend time in your company. He didn’t care about my good reputation, or your bad one. He just didn’t want us to converse. It’s his collection, of course. I’ve heard that some men get like that over gambling, where they will lie and cheat their own families to support their wagering. He told me there wasn’t enough money to bother about, that he would handle everything for me the way he always did, that women had no head for business anyway. My own father. The temptation must have been too great.”
    “That’s not much of an