In Shining Armor by E. L. Phillips

Author:E. L. Phillips [Phillips, E. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626398269
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2016-04-25T00:00:00+00:00

Part II

Chapter Fourteen

I sat in the accountant’s cramped office, quill pen in my left hand, while I used the right to scan down the long list of tiny numbers in the household leger. Despite sitting in front of the window and the lamp burning on Islwyn’s desk, it was still tough to make out his writing. No wonder the old man was going slowly, but steadily blind.

But, I reminded myself, paper is at a premium in this time. Of course he had to write small. And carefully. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Only a bit more legibly, I hope.

So I scratched out my figures and sums, keeping an eye on Islwyn’s figures and sums as I did so. It was easy enough work. Mind-numbing, tempting to zone out on, but I knew if I made a mistake that cost the lord some ungodly sum, I’d be in the shit.

As sweat formed on my forehead, I absently wiped it away so it wouldn’t drip on the page. Though it’d been cool enough in the spring and early summer, at the height of summer, Lord John’s castle was almost unbearably hot during the day. Especially now, when the sun was on the wester, shining in through the lead glass window that only partially illuminated what I was working on.

I kept at it, moving from accounts to payroll fluidly, managing to both focus on my work and tune out everything else till the clock in the great hall gonged six sonorous times. Both surprised and relieved by the passage of time, I decided I’d finish up what I was doing before calling it quits. And I was a few lines away from being done I heard a knock on the door.

“Nodwch ar eich menter eich hun!” I called. Enter at your own risk! It was a phrase I’d had Bleddyn teach me almost three months ago, when I’d first become Islwyn’s ‘prentice. It’d made him laugh when I’d asked, then practiced saying it in my no doubt awful Cymraeg accent. Even after all this time, it still made Bleddyn giggle and snort to hear me say it in my best approximation of a cranky, old Welshman. I’d, of course, picked up such an impersonation from observing my then new boss, Islwyn.

“Don’t I always, Master Krishnan?” a low voice called, and my heart immediately began to beat faster. I put my pen in its holder and blew on the ink a little to hasten its drying.

“Come in!” I called back. “Or on! Or near!”

Chuckling but looking stern, Bleddyn entered Islwyn’s office, closing the door behind him after a glance down the hall in both directions. Then those dark, semi-playful eyes were on me, both heated and slightly reproving. “My love, you know we must be careful, even in Lord John’s castle,” he tsked. I grinned and stood up, skirting Islwyn’s big, space-devouring desk.

“I know, I know. But at this point, everyone knows, Bleddyn. Even Lord John, probably. They’re just turning a blind eye.

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