The ledger under Delia's cloak weighed less than a pound, but it could destroy the man whose house she was walking toward.
She'd stolen it three nights ago from his land agent's office—one unguarded night in a building that should have been locked. The rain had covered her tracks then. It was covering them now, drumming on the granite walls that lined the road into Ardglass demesne.
The estate spread before her, ruined. Fieldstone cottages with half-collapsed roofs. Smoke rising thin from those still inhabited, the sour smell of wet turf. She'd walked the last two miles on foot, her hired trap left at the crossroads. If they didn't know she was here yet, they would soon enough. Delia Rourke had arrived six days early, and not for the wedding her father had arranged.
A woman stood in the doorway of the nearest cabin, watching her approach. Delia stopped.
"I'm looking for Mr. Merrick's house."
The woman didn't move. Forty, maybe. Worn past her years. "You'd be the American, then."
"I am." Delia kept her voice level. "Delia Rourke. From Boston."
"Brigid Sweeney." No curtsy, no deference. Just a flat stare that read her like a balance sheet. "The house is another mile up the road. Though if you've any sense, you'll turn back."
"I don't need sense. I need to know what rent Mr. Merrick's been charging you."
That got a reaction—a bitter twist of the mouth. "Charging? We're three months behind, miss. Land League says don't pay. Agent says we'll be put out come autumn if we don't. Tell me which master you serve, and I'll tell you what you want to hear."
Delia's hand tightened on the ledger through the fabric of her cloak. Three months behind. The book under her arm said Brigid Sweeney had been paid current through June. Someone was lying. She already knew who.
"I don't serve the League or the landlord," Delia said. "I'm here to see the books."
"Are you now." Brigid's gaze dropped to the bulge beneath Delia's cloak. "And what books would those be?"
"The ones that show who's stealing from you." Delia met her stare. "And from him."
She left Brigid standing in the doorway, silent. The rain picked up as Delia climbed toward the house—Ardglass House, seat of a family that had held this land for two hundred years and was about to lose it to a Boston contractor's daughter. The house rose ahead, gray stone and dark windows. No smoke from half the chimneys. A place dying by degrees, or so her father's solicitor had claimed.
But the ledger under her cloak told a different story. This house wasn't dying from boycott. It was being bled.
And Delia had two days to find her leverage before she signed the contract that would bind her to this house forever.
The porter at the front entrance looked at her cloak, her mud-caked hem, and the absence of luggage or escort. His face arranged itself into professional disapproval.
"Tradesman's entrance is round the back, miss."
"I'm not a tradesman." Delia met his stare and held it. "I'm Delia Rourke. Mr. Merrick is expecting me."
That wasn't true. Mr. Merrick was expecting a biddable Boston heiress in six days' time, not a mud-splattered auditor with his land agent's stolen accounts. But the porter didn't know that. He stepped aside.
The entrance hall was cold. Colder than the rain outside.
Delia sat in the entrance hall and waited.
No one had told her to sit. No one had offered. But the porter who'd stepped aside had also not returned, and she was wet through. She chose a bench against the wall where she could see both the stairs and the door.
The ledger came out from under her cloak.
She opened it across her lap. The pages were damp at the edges but legible. Columns of names and figures, dates running back years. Rents paid and rents owing. Evictions noted in a tidy hand.
Three months ago, Brigid Sweeney. Paid in full through June.
Delia's finger traced the line. The ink was steady. The entry matched a dozen others on the same page—all marked current, all from tenants who claimed they were behind.
Someone had been taking money twice.
She turned back further. The same names appeared again and again, each time with sums that didn't match the leases her father's solicitor had sent. Higher rents. Shorter terms. Notices served on tenants who, according to this book, had never missed a payment.
The figures went back a decade.
Her chest tightened. Not because the theft surprised her—she'd suspected as much when she'd let herself into the agent's office three nights ago. But because the scope of it was larger than she'd expected. Systematic. Methodical. The kind of scheme that didn't happen by accident.
This was the house her father intended to buy. The marriage contract he'd arranged would transfer title, clear the debts, and leave Fintan Merrick a gentleman farmer with a Boston bride who'd brought a fortune and no say in how it was spent.
Except she'd come early. And she had the books.
Delia flipped forward again, looking for the most recent entries. An eviction notice dated two months prior. A rack-rent increase on a holding that should have been protected under lease. The figures were damning. The kind you'd see in a courtroom. The kind people hanged for, if the Land League got hold of them first.
She heard footsteps on the floor above. Low voices. Then silence.
Someone was coming.
Fintan sat in his study and listened to Ambrose Croft explain how long he had left.
"Time is short, Mr. Merrick."
The words were precise. Bloodless. Croft had the manner of a man who delivered bad news often enough that he no longer felt it. He sat across the desk with a folder open in front of him, his gaze steady and entirely without sympathy.
"The receivership proceeds as scheduled," Croft continued. "Unless the debts are cleared in full, the estate passes to administration. You'll retain residence, but no authority. The land, the rents, the tenants—all of it will be managed by my office until a buyer is found."
Fintan kept his spine straight. It was the only thing he had left that resembled control. His hands were flat on the desk. His voice, when he spoke, was level.
"I'm aware of the terms."
"Then you'll understand my position." Croft closed the folder and stood. "I'll return shortly to inspect the books. They'll need to be in order. No discrepancies. If the debts are settled by then, we can halt proceedings. If not—" He didn't finish. He didn't need to.
Fintan rose as well. The military posture he'd learned in the North Mayo Rifles held him upright, though he'd never seen a day of combat. The uniform had been decorative. The discipline, at least, was real.
"Mr. Doheny has managed the estate's accounts for twenty years," Fintan said. "He'll have everything prepared."
Croft's expression didn't change. "See that he does."
He left without further ceremony. The door clicked shut behind him, and Fintan was alone in the cold room.
He stayed on his feet for a moment, staring at the place where Croft had been. Then he moved to the window. The view looked out over the drive, where the trees had once stood thick. They'd been felled years ago to pay the last round of debts. The stumps were still visible through the rain.
Doheny would have the books ready. He always did. For two decades, the man had been the spine of Ardglass—collecting rents, managing tenants, keeping the estate functional when Fintan's father had been too drunk to do it himself. And after Fintan inherited, when the debts had come due all at once, Doheny had been the one to hold the line.
He was the only reason they'd made it this far.
The thought steadied him. Whatever happened in the next two weeks, Doheny would manage it.
A knock broke the silence.
Fintan turned. "Come."
The door opened. One of the house staff—a man who usually kept to the kitchens—stepped inside. He looked rattled.
"Sir. There's a lady downstairs. She says she's expected."
Fintan frowned. "A lady?"
"The American, sir. Miss Rourke." The man hesitated. "She arrived alone. No escort. And she's got some kind of ledger with her."
The words landed like a fist to the chest.
"She's what?"
"Sat right down in the hall and started going through it, sir. Asked for you by name and nothing else since."
Fintan didn't move. His mind caught on the name—Rourke. The bride his solicitor had brokered. The contract that would clear the debts and save Ardglass, provided he married a woman he'd never met and handed her father a stake in the land.
She wasn't supposed to arrive until the wedding.
And she had no business with that ledger.
"Where is she now?"
"In the entrance hall, sir. She's been waiting."
Fintan was already moving toward the door.