The study was Papa’s private domain. It was where he met with his steward. Where he wrote letters and balanced the accounts. Sophie had seen the ledgers once. They’d been filled with red ink and scribbled notations. She didn’t think she’d ever shut a book so quickly. The contents had horrified her.
There were no ledgers on his desk now. She crept up to the tall burled walnut monstrosity and scanned the surface. It was riddled with crystal paperweights, inkwells, and haphazard stacks of what looked to be tradesman’s bills. Her fingers itched to go through them, but she restrained herself.
Across the floor of the study was a standing globe in a heavy frame, a line of short bookcases with glass doors locked tight, and an inlaid drum table on which a map was draped. No. Not a map. Something finer. A drawing or a sketch of some kind.
Curious, she moved closer, her eyes drifting over the fine lines and angles.
It was Appersett House. A detailed plan of the layout, complete with cross-sections of the interior of the walls and the spaces beneath the floorboards.
“Sophia!” Papa bellowed from the doorway. “What are you doing in here?”
Sophie turned around with a start.
Her father closed the distance between them in a few hurried strides and snatched the plans from the table. “Why aren’t you with the others?”
“They don’t require me at the moment. I was going to the library to read awhile.” She followed her father as he folded up the plans and went to his desk. He sat heavily in the chair behind it. “Are those plans for the new plumbing?”
He scowled. “What do you know of that?”
“Only what you’ve said on occasion. And…what Mr. Sharpe has told me.”
“Sharpe’s been telling tales about my project, has he?” Papa looked outraged. “Can’t say I’m surprised. He’s got no vision. No appreciation for progress. Murray, on the other hand…”
Sophie’s eyes narrowed. “What about Mr. Murray?”
“He’s the son of a stonemason. As wealthy as Sharpe in his own right, but with an appreciation for building and renovation.” Her father scrubbed at his face. He looked tired and irritable. Not the best time to approach him with her problems. Even so…
“Papa, you don’t really think having plumbing installed is a good idea, do you?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
She rested her fingers lightly on the edge of his desk, casting about for a diplomatic way to phrase things. There wasn’t one. “Because we can’t afford it. Surely you must see—”
“Of course we can afford it! Why do you think I permitted Sharpe to court you? He’s got more than enough to cover the plumbing, and all the rest of it besides.”
Her breath stopped. For several seconds, she could do nothing but stare at her father. “The rest of it? What rest of it?”
Papa had the grace to redden. “Trifles,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Paint. Roof tiles. Gravelling the drive. Nothing that will bankrupt the fellow.”
She pressed a hand to her midriff. Her corset felt suddenly as if it had been laced two inches too tight. “We don’t need it.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“We don’t need it,” she said again.
Something in her voice made her father sit up straight at his desk. Any hint of embarrassment about his plans evaporated. “Don’t take that tone with me, young miss.”
In the past, Sophie might have quailed at the hint of iron in his words. But today, try as she might to respect him, there was no backing down. “You won’t be content until you ruin us. Until you ruin him.”
“I’m in no mood for dramatics,” Papa snapped.
Sophie didn’t care what he was in the mood for. “You’ll make him despise me, do you realize that? Any hope there might be for my happiness…you’ll destroy it with your constant demands on him.”
“I have a responsibility to the estate.”
“You have a responsibility to us! To Mama, Emily, and me. How can you not see that?”
Papa gritted his teeth. “I have no heir,” he ground out.
“You have me. And you have Emily. And—”
“Two daughters. What use are you to me? You’ll marry and take your husband’s name. You aren’t my heirs. This house will be my only legacy. The only thing of value left when I’m gone. The only thing that will endure. I have a duty to see it right.”
“Oh, Papa.” She shook her head. “I love Appersett House, too, but it’s not flesh and blood. Emily and I are what’s real. Mama is what’s real. This house is—”