Daniel’s charitable foundation would supply the building, while the trustees would supervise the work.
“I have asked them to consider you,” he said.
“I have not told them what decision to make.”
Emily looked at the letter for a long moment.
“Why me?”
“Because Mrs. Bell tells me you taught three servants to read without accepting payment.”
Emily was startled.
“That was hardly an achievement.”
“It mattered to the people who learned.”
She folded the letter again.
“I will speak to the trustees.”
Daniel stood.
“Whatever you decide, your legal claim will proceed independently.”
Emily nodded.
At the door, he paused.
“Miss Harrington, I am sorry your father used me to humiliate you.”
“He used me,” she answered.
“You were merely the instrument he chose.”
Daniel’s expression changed.
He seemed to understand that she was not asking him to avenge her.
She was asking him to recognize what had happened.
“I will remember that,” he said.
The investigation moved more quickly than Emily expected.
Mrs. Fenwick obtained copies of the estate ledgers from a clerk who had once worked for Arthur.
The documents showed years of rents transferred from Eleanor’s trust into the household accounts.
Some entries had been disguised as repairs to cottages that had never been repaired.
Others paid for Clara’s dresses, Arthur’s hunting debts, and interest on loans taken to preserve the family’s appearance.
The amount was larger than Emily had imagined.
Mrs. Fenwick placed the total before her and waited.
Emily stared at the figures until they stopped resembling money and became a record of choices.
Every pound represented a moment when her father could have treated her fairly and decided not to.
“Can the tenants be protected?” she asked.
Mrs. Fenwick looked surprised.
“The cottages are yours, if the claim is upheld.”
“They have been paying rent for years.”
“I do not want them punished because my father stole the income.”
The solicitor made a note.
“We shall separate their obligations from his.”
Meanwhile, Daniel’s people found the carriage driver alive in a farmhouse twelve miles away.
His name was Peter Sloane, and his left arm had been broken in the attack.
He remembered a peculiar detail.
One of the highwaymen had shouted that the papers were in the dispatch box beneath the seat.
Ordinary thieves would not have known that.
The box had contained a surveyor’s report, a proposed financing agreement, and correspondence concerning the eastern boundary.
The men had taken the papers and abandoned a silver flask worth more than the contents of Daniel’s purse.
