Proper Scoundrel Read Online Free PDF Page A

dropped the dangerous subject, Marcus wondered if her father’s desertion made her expect others to abandon her as well.
     
    With no quick answer or remedy at hand, he returned to the desk and shut the last of the ledgers. “Do you have more ledgers that I can check? I believe this predicament goes further back than you think.”
     
    “We only sold the land option to the railroad eight months ago.”
     
    “Right,” Marcus said, truly sorry that her finances seemed to be in such a muddle. “It now appears that you have an old problem to go with your new one.”
     
    Jade dropped into a cordovan leather chair, forgetting for a minute to remain strong.
     
    Marcus wanted to comfort her. His body wanted a certain comfort of its own. He quelled both urges. “How much money has gone missing from your sale to the railroad?”
     
    “I don’t know. I haven’t been able to find the land option since I confronted my former man of affairs with its existence and discharged him.” Agitated, she rose and went to rummage through a box Marcus had already searched. “It has to be here somewhere.”
     
    “It’s not,” he said.
     
    “You barely sifted through these.”
     
    “The railroad’s parchment is distinctive. It has a—” He saw her surprise. “It’s not there.”
     
    “How do you know what their parchment looks like?”
     
    Marcus shrugged, certain she could see right through him. “The South Downs Railroad has options on some of Attleboro’s land. I handled it. There’s a bright side, you know. You may not realize it, but when that option is exercised, you stand to make a great deal of money. It’s going to happen, Jade, and soon. The railroad is the future. This is only the beginning. Where did you say the other ledgers were kept?”
     
    Jade left Marcus sifting through another series of her grandmother’s papers while she went to fetch the account books he wanted.
     
    Beyond her remarkable reaction to his potent male presence, she felt restless, nervous … sick. Mention of the railroad did that, but never more so than now. The railroad is nearly here, he’d said. It will go through.
     
    Oh Gram, I wish you hadn’t told me your secret. Jade rubbed her arms, admitting she needed to know so she could deal with the railroad and put period to the greedy expectations of one Giles Dudley, fourth cousin twice removed. The letters from Dudley’s solicitor made his threat plain. He intended to inherit in her stead by proving her grandmother insane at the time she made her will, which would destroy the lives of the women and children in her care.
     
    Her grandmother? Insane? The world would surely think so if they knew her secret.
     
    Unless Jade could stop the railroad, the construction crew would surely dig up the proof Dudley needed.
     
    She’d have to take care of it tonight, Jade realized.
     
    After her decision to move forward, she stood in the centre of her storeroom and tried to remember why. She scanned the shelves for a clue. Ah, ledgers. She needed the one dating back to the year before Neil Kirby’s employment. Now she remembered.
     
    She dragged a chair across the small room. Gram used to laugh, almost with pride, at how much Jade disliked Kirby, reminding her that men were often necessary evils in doing business.
     
    Though Jade had been aghast over the land option Kirby engineered, she wasn’t surprised at his dishonesty, nor the least sorry to dispatch him when she discovered it. He knew bloody well he should have come to her, not her dying grandmother, when the railroad made the offer.
     
    Gram had clearly been too ill to know what she was signing.
     
    To save Peacehaven, Jade needed that land option back. The only other way to stop the railroad from cutting into her land meant she must continue to be very clever, extremely careful ... and only a bit more destructive.
     
    The whole thing scared her witless.
     
    She almost wished she could tell Marcus everything, Gram’s