She has needed someone to care for her, to teach her as her mother would have done had she been well--had she lived. But I see no way now to discover what you hope to, even if it were true, which I doubt. "

"There may be," said Frederica eagerly, lifting the letters from her lap, glad for an excuse to break away from that too intimate gaze.

"When I was going through your sister's boxes to find Molly Dolly, I discovered these. Is it not possible that if she had secretly married Captain Browning, the fact might be revealed in a letter? I wanted your permission to go through them-for Christabel's sake." She met his eyes again, this time pleadingly.

Gavin regarded the eager face before him and felt an odd stirring of emotion.

There was something about this girl that touched a place deep inside him.

True, she was no beauty, not with those freckles, that mousy brown hair, those spectacles--though her deep green eyes were strangely compelling. It was something far more fundamental than mere appearances that drew him; an inner beauty comprising strength of character and convictions, intelligence and kindness. He found he wanted to explore the feeling further.

"We'll go through them together," he said. "For Christabel's sake."

CHAPTER EIGHT.

OF THE FOK'TY or so letters in the stack that Frederica had found, it transpired that nearly a dozen were from Peter Browning. By reading through them in sequence, it was possible to trace the development of his romance with Amity Alexander. That there had been real affection, even love, between them was apparent--so apparent, in fact, that Frederiea found herself embarra.s.sed to be reading the effusions of this man, now nearly five years dead, to his beloved. Lord Sea brooke, it appeared, was sinailarly affected.

"This is making me deucedly uncomfortable, Cherry," he said as he picked up the fourth letter.

"I don't know whether to be angry at Browning for writing to my sister so, or to be sorry for them both. I only know that I cannot keep from feeling as if I am prying." Frederica nodded.

"I know what you mean. If it were not of such importance to Christabel, I could never feel that we were justified in doing this. Still. it is not as thou h either of them can be harmed it now."

she remembered that she had originally intended to read these letters when she believed Amity to be Lord Sea brooke's mistress, to turn them to her own ends. Where had her high principles been then?

"Would you prefer that I read through them, my lord, and bring anything of relevance to your attention? They will inspire no painful recollections in myself as they must for you." She could spare him that, at least.

The earl hesitated.

"Perhaps it would be best," he finally said.

"You may sit here, at this table, while I attend to some other business at my desk. That way you may apprise me at once of anything you find."

Frederica blinked at him in surprise. He wanted her to stay here in the library with him?

But she only said,

"As you wish, my lord," and settled back to reading the letter before her.

Gavin was similarly startled by his decision. It would have made more sense, he supposed, to send her back up to the nursery with the letters, so that she could read them at her leisure. He knew that he could trust her to bring the slightest clue to him in the unlikely event that she discow ered one. The only explanation he could find was that he enjoyed her company. It seemed most odd, for she was not at all the sort of female who normally appealed to him, but there it was.

Perhaps she simply made him feel comfortable, as a mot hera sister, even a friend might, he thought. That had to be it.

Shaking his head as though to clear it of such unwonted thoughts, he pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk and dug out the ledger containing the accounts of the Sea brooke holdings.

When he had first obtained it from the estate in order to bring the entries up to date, he had glanced through the earlier pages, but had not examined them in any detail. Now, after what his man of business had said that afternoon, he decided he had better do so.

This volume summarized the receipts, debts and payments made for the Sea brooke estate over the past decade. Presumably his new steward had books containing individual entries for each month and year and for each aspect of the estate, but this was a starting point. He could always request the entire set of accounts if it became necessary. Poring over the columns of numbers, he wondered what the devil he was looking for.

Gavin had never particularly concerned himself in the financial aspects of his father's small estate, for most of it had been sold to pay off various debts before he inherited it. What little remained had been fairly easy to manage; it was largely . matter of to raise from the surrounding farm to pay the few servants and maintain the manor house--a losing battle.

These accounts, on the other hand, implied an estate stretching far beyond Brookeside Manor itself, with numerous farm holdings, dairies, breeding stables and a whole village to work in them. He had not realized before what the Sea brooke estate had been in his grandfather's time--until only a few years ago, in fact. Where had all the money gone? There were not enough details in this summary ledger to tell him. "h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation," he muttered under his breath.

At once, Miss Cherrystone looked up.

"Is something amiss, my lord?"

she asked.

"I beg your pardon, Cherry," Gavin said quickly. He had nearly forgotten her presence in the library.

"I am merely trying to puzzle out my uncle's accounts and am not getting on at all. His old steward apparently used some sort of code in making his entries."

"Perhaps I can help," she offered, dabbing hastily at the corner of her eye with a handkerchief as she rose.

"I have some small experience with household accounts."

Gavin smiled, imagining the little cottage with its kitchen gardens that she had no doubt been used to.

"You are certainly welcome to try, but I fear these records are rather complex. They pertain to the entire Sea brooke estate, or what it used to be, at any event. Still, your a.s.sistance will be appreciated, as I cannot make head nor tail of the figures." He pushed the heavy book towards her.

Frederica was surprised to feel none of the triumph that she might have expected at being given such free access to Lord Sea brooke's financial records. She knew that she should consider this the very chance she had hoped for, to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the earl had betrothed himself to her under false pretenses to sh.o.r.e up a lack of fortune. To prove him a fortune-hunter of the basest kind. Instead, she found herself hoping that she really could help him, not only to ease his burdens, but also to win his approval.

The realization was most disturbing.

Scanning the columns of figures more carefully than she'd had a chance to do before, she again became aware of some discrepancies. The notations the steward had used, which the earl had referred to as code, were very similar to those she herself used in the Maple Hill account books, and she had little trouble deciphering them. She turned a page, looking farther back in an attempt to discover when the discrepancies had begun.

"Here, my lord," she said after a moment. "Do you see? Three years ago, fairly large sums of money began to be diverted from one of the farms. Then here, six months later, he began to draw off the profits of the stables, and then the dairies, here. Was your uncle a gamester, perchance?"

To her surprise, the earl's colour deepened as though he were embarra.s.sed at her question, but he answered readily enough.

"Actually, I never knew Uncle Edmund, so I can't answer for his character.

But from something I recall my mother once saying, it seems unlikely. You see, my father was quite an elbow shaker--lost a great deal to the dice, in fact--and that was apparently the princ.i.p.al reason for his estrangement from my uncle. I got the distinct impression that Uncle Edmund was quite disapproving of my father's penchant."

So that was it, thought Frederica with ready sympathy. Of course Lord Sea brooke would be embarra.s.sed by a reminder of his father's gambling. She had no notion that her words had struck even closer than that.

"It does seem unlikely, then. This notation here" -- she pointed to the ledger page before her"--usually means that some sort of investment was made.

If that were the case, it seems unlikely that it was a prolirable one, for no money seems to have been ploughed back into the estate."

Lord Sea brooke nodded, regarding her curiously out of the corner of his eye.

Indeed, she did have some knowledge of account books!

"Is there any way to tell what type of investment it might have been?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"Not from this. You would need the quarterly books to determine that, and it is possible it might not have been entered even there if it were something he was desirous of keeping from the world--if it smacked of trade, for instance.

Oh!"

Miss Cherrystone put a hand to her mouth.