‘And spoil the fun?’
‘I am supposed to enjoy this?’ she asked, giving it a frustrated shake.
‘You are holding a Chinese puzzle box,’ he said patiently. ‘Perhaps you are not familiar with them, but I have seen them brought from the Orient by sailors.’ He held a hand out for the box.
She hesitated. She had spent half a day up a chimney, rooting around in the dirt. She had run back and forth from the house, twice. All she wanted was a cup of tea and a wash and some sign that this quest was nearing its end. Instead, this clean and poised stranger stood ready to take it away and finish it for her.
She pulled it back. ‘Thank you, Potts, but that will not be necessary.’
‘I thought we agreed to share,’ he said, giving her a smile that could melt the snow off a roof.
She shook the box again, hearing only the faint rattle of the trick marquetry that hid the latches. ‘As you can hear, there is nothing inside. And, even if the box is rare enough to be valuable, it will no longer be so if you try to take half.’
‘Are you sure it is empty?’ he asked with a raised eyebrow. ‘Perhaps something you do not wish me to see?’
She shook her head and gave him a pitying smile. ‘Even full to the brim, a box this size could not hold very much. If you wish the money to return to America, I am afraid you will have to get it by doing what the Earl expected: an inventory of the entail.’
‘Well, I must say, Miss Strickland, what got off to a promising start has been a most disappointing afternoon.’
‘That could be said of most afternoons at Comstock Manor,’ she said. ‘But there is no point in spending any more time here. Let us return to the main house. Dinner at eight, Potts. And tomorrow, we will begin the inventory.’
If her sisters had been here, they would have known how to handle this.
Charity had never needed their advice before. It might seem immodest to think so, but wisdom usually flowed from her in their direction and not from them to her. Though she was youngest, she was better read and better educated than either of them. In matters that truly mattered, she was better at observing and understanding the world and the people in it. It was how she had known, before either of them, which men they were likely to marry. One had simply to watch dispassionately and draw conclusions from the data collected.
But that was not required at the moment. Tonight, she needed to be a polite and gracious hostess to a male stranger. She had never before had to deal single-handedly with a man in a social setting. On the rare times she had been forced from the house to go through the motions of the London Season, Faith and Hope had been there to chaperon and guide her, preventing a merely uncomfortable situation from turning into a fiasco.
But they were not here tonight and she had never felt so alone in her life.
Her first instinct had been to announce that Mr Potts could have dinner served on a tray in the location of his choosing. She would eat in the library, as she usually did, and go to bed after she had managed to solve the puzzle they had found in the chimney.
Now that she was in her room, she had taken the time to examine it. She’d run her hands over the inlaid wood panels, giving it a shake and weighing it with her hands. There was nothing about the sounds it made to indicate that they came from shifting contents and not the puzzle mechanisms themselves. Perhaps the things she’d hoped to find were packed tight in cotton wool, but she would have expected there to be more weight.
The problem deserved several hours’ study in the privacy of the library. But she had announced earlier that dinner was a formal arrangement and that he was expected to attend it. To cancel it and devote herself to solving the puzzle would announce to this interloper just how important a matter it was. When she had thought success was imminent, she’d felt that there was no choice but to accept his help. Instead, she had been given a locked box and a small reprieve. If she could make it through supper, she could plead exhaustion and retire to her room to open the box. There was a chance she might still complete her task without his even knowing.
But it was a slim chance, at best. The auditor was not like the rest of her family, who had long ago given up trying to understand her. When she had tried to outwit Potts, he had not just been able to keep pace with her, he had got one step ahead.
Perhaps it had been mere luck on his part. She prayed that when she came down to dinner she would find him as easy to gull as the rest of her acquaintance. But the little voice at the back of her mind whispered that her true wish was just the opposite. She wanted him to be just as clever at supper as he had seemed this afternoon. She wanted to spend more time with him, not less.
That alone was reason enough to avoid him. She was not thinking sensibly and it was all his fault. If she was not sure that she could best him in a battle of wits, what other weapons did she have?
At times like these, her sisters could fall back on their looks and flirt their way out of trouble. A flutter of eyelashes, a few shy smiles, and even the smartest of men around them tended to forget whatever it was that had been troubling them.
Charity sighed. Flirting required that she pretend to be someone she was not: sweet, biddable and somewhat in awe of the men around her. Even if she could manage those things, she was not pretty enough to dazzle a gentleman, especially not one that could dazzle in his own right.
Potts was astoundingly good looking for an auditor. The men in her family were handsome enough, in a refined sort of way, with brown hair and eyes. But looking at Potts was a study in the contrast of light and shadow. His eyes were so dark that it was a challenge to see where irises ended and pupils began, but they seemed almost black against his pale skin. And though he had smiled often, she’d got only glimpses of his teeth, which were very white and very straight.
Perhaps it was not that he was smarter than she. Perhaps her wits were slowed by the sight of him. The thought was cheering, but highly unlikely. She had yet to meet a man so handsome that she was rendered stupid in his presence. If anything, her mind had been working even faster than usual, now that he had arrived, gathering all the information it could about the man before deciding on a course of action concerning him. Dinner would be an excellent time to learn more, pretending that her interrogation was nothing more than polite chatter over the meal.
Charity went to the bell pull in the corner of her room and gave the single sharp yank that would summon her maid. Then she sat on the bed to wait, idly scratching the ears of Pepper, who was already sleeping there. No other female in her family had to go the bother of waiting for a servant. Her sister’s maids seemed to be always under foot, often one step ahead of their mistresses when it came to choosing the perfect gown for every occasion. But since Charity rarely bothered with her appearance, she had no right to be surprised that the maid was not pressing ribbons and starching petticoats.
* * *
After nearly twenty minutes, the door opened a crack and Dill appeared, staring at her mistress in silence.
Charity stared back at the maid, raising an eyebrow expectantly.
‘You rang, miss?’
‘Yes, Dill. I wish to dress for dinner.’
‘You do?’
Surely the request was not so very odd. ‘Yes, Dill. That is why I summoned you.’
‘You never dress for dinner, miss. Especially not when we are alone.’
‘We are not alone,’ Charity reminded her. ‘The auditor has arrived.’
‘And he will be dining with you?’
‘Yes, Dill.’
‘In the dining room?’
‘That is