Cordelia Larkin had never liked fools. She disliked them for the same reason she
disliked errors in arithmetic: both wasted time, and both created problems that
sensible people were later expected to repair.

Within five minutes of arriving at Wynstead she decided its young Duke was one.
He was lying beneath a broken farm cart. Not beside it. Beneath it — holding the
axle off an injured farmhand's hand until the man was free.

Her father had sent her across England to put that man's accounts in order. What
she found instead was a ledger full of forgiven rents, paid doctors and quiet
kindnesses that no sensible steward would ever have allowed — and, underneath
all of it, money disappearing under clean company names in a perfect hand.

A slow early-Victorian story about kindness that keeps no records, arithmetic
that cannot measure a man, and the difference between a fool and a good one.

Written and produced for quiet listening. Full story, one sitting, no cliffhanger.

DISCLAIMER
This is an original work of fiction. All characters, titles, houses and events
are invented. Any resemblance to real persons or real peerages is coincidental.
Narration is AI-assisted. Story, structure and dialogue are original.