Page 65 of Of Iron and Moonlight

Her throat tightened. “It means more than I can say.”

“And,” she added softly, “Kora. Please.”

He smiled, and the conversation eased to a close. Turning back to his desk, he began shutting the ledgers one by one and setting his papers in order. Kora scanned the spread of ink and parchment and found the resolve to raise a thought she had held for some time.

“Are you still investigating the discrepancy Osric mentioned?” she asked. Then, surprising herself with how steady her voice held, “Perhaps I could help.”

Duncan’s brow lifted, wry interest passing over his face. “You assisted your father with his accounts, I know. But ducal ledgers are a rather different dragon.”

“I didn’t assist,” she countered mildly, the corner of her mouth lifting. “I oversaw them.”

He paused, studying her again with sharper curiosity.

“Or is it not customary?” she added, just enough mischief in her tone.

He huffed. “Certainly not customary.” Then, narrowing his eyes, “Your father truly trusted you to manage his books?”

Kora nodded, keeping her composure despite the spark of pride.

His eyes flicked upward, mouth tightening as he weighed her proposal. For a moment it seemed he might refuse. Then he rose, pushed an open folio toward her, and stepped aside. “Very well,” he said. “It won’t suffer from another set of eyes.” After a beat, testing the sound of it, “Kora.”

She stood, smoothed her skirts, and leaned over the pages. The columns and sums met her like a language she had not spoken in some time, yet still knew by heart.

The room quieted to the scrape of her fingertip tracing the margins. A sudden flare rose from the hearth, the stronger flame casting a brighter glow across the study.

Chapter 33

Duncan

The next morning, Duncan found his wife exactly where he had left her.

At his desk.

She had fallen asleep with one cheek against an open ledger, one hand still curled around the quill, its tip blotted into the margin as though she might wake and resume the thought she had abandoned. Her hair spilled across the desk like a pool of ink.

Guilt pricked at him. He remembered what she had told him the night before: a mother whose attention had been obligation rather than affection, a father who had made competence the measure of worth. A childhood spent earning what should have been freely given. And now here she was, bent over work that was his burden, giving herself to it as though belonging might be proved through usefulness.

He crossed the room quietly and laid a gentle hand on her arm.

Kora stirred, blinking. Her eyes widened as she took in the desk, the ledger, the quill in her hand. “Oh,” she breathed, mortified. “I must have… I did not mean to…”

Duncan’s mouth curved. “I gathered as much.” Then, more apologetically, “I should not have set you to a problem that kept you here through the night. If you did not find the cause, that is no failing. I am beginning to think we may have to let it rest.”

Kora blinked again, then straightened so quickly the drowsiness left her at once. “Oh, no.” She slid the ledger toward him and marked a line with her finger. “Here.”

Duncan bent over the pages. “The contract with Earl Hunrick derLensen of Duskmere?”

She nodded. “We purchase a fixed weight of stone from his quarries, then resell it to our masons at a modest margin. We are paying the agreed price, and on paper, receiving the agreed weight. But”—she opened a second ledger and ran her fingertip down the columns—“the return on those sales is consistently lower than it should be.” She looked up. “I believe the tallies are being altered between handoff and receipt. Just enough to siphon profit without drawing notice.”

Duncan stared at her. It was obvious once spoken aloud. He had been mired in figures, hunting miscalculations, never stepping back to question the weights themselves.

A knock interrupted the silence. Mathilde entered with a breakfast tray and stopped short at the sight of the duchess still at the desk.

“Mathilde,” Duncan said before she could speak, “fetch Osric. Quickly.”

She set down the tray, curtsied, and slipped away.

Duncan stepped closer. “Show me.”