Forever and a Duke Read online

  Which Rex had promised to the lady sharing a coach with him. She’d brushed his offer aside, though for salvaging a dukedom, Eleanora Hatfield deserved more than a few pounds and ink-stained fingers.

  “Impending negotiations do present a challenge.”

  “What a gift for understatement you have developed. The honorable Mr. Hornby is making calf eyes at my sister Lady Samantha, and even Lady Kathleen is apparently inspiring bad sonnets.”

  “All three at once, Your Grace?”

  “So it would appear. Tell me about compound rounding.”

  She rustled about some more. “The concept is straightforward. If you invest a hundred pounds at five percent, then calculating the interest is simple.”

  “Five pounds,” Rex said, as the coach picked up speed.

  “But what if the sum invested is an odd number? Say, eleven pounds and five pence?”

  “You deal in farthings.”

  “Or, if I end up with an odd number of farthings, I must eventually deal in decimals and rounding. If I consistently round down, while keeping a tally of all the pennies that result, the cash drawer will eventually have a greater sum than the ledger sheet reflects.”

  “But one doesn’t round downward unless the figure is below five. Otherwise, one rounds upward, and the two exercises eventually cancel each other out.”

  Perhaps Mrs. Hatfield was less self-conscious when discussing embezzlement, perhaps she yielded to the animal temptation to draw nearer to warmth, but draw nearer to Rex, she did.

  “To detect a scheme of this nature,” she went on, “you’d have to double-check every calculation and every rounding. To be productive, a compound rounding rig should be spread over many active accounts, at least hundreds.”

  What sort of mind devised these schemes? “The bank has thousands of accounts.”

  Mrs. Hatfield yawned behind her hand. “I beg your pardon. I was up late last night.”

  “Working on ledgers? I thought you took the Sabbath off.”

  “I could not resist the lure of your family seat, Your Grace. You will be relieved to know the books are holding up to scrutiny.”

  Meaning the fraud was happening elsewhere, probably on the properties Rex was most likely to choose as his sisters’ dower portions.

  Splendid. “The same person would have to be overseeing many accounts for this rounding business to be lucrative.”

  “A bank manager can supervise five hundred minor commercial accounts, if he’s conscientious and has good clerks. If compound rounding nets him a penny a week per account, that’s more than two pounds per week total, or a hundred pounds a year. Run the rig over a thousand accounts, and you can begin to live on the proceeds of your rig while investing your wages. Over ten thousand accounts—”

  “And the customers would never notice.”

  “Nor would most supervisors, managers, or directors. How many times have you seen a minor discrepancy, then shrugged and attributed it to rounding?”

  Many times. Too many times. “You are giving me dyspepsia.”

  “Perhaps it’s the movement of the coach, though I have never traveled this comfortably before.”

  The coach was well-sprung and luxuriously upholstered, true enough. “You’re no longer cold?”

  Nor was she making any pretense of keeping a distance between them. As Town gave way to winter-bleak fields, shaggy cattle, and wooly sheep, Mrs. Hatfield gradually listed against Rex’s left side.

  She prattled on about some mercer’s counting house, where the clerks had all been told to round down by the manager overseeing the accounts, until the manager had absconded with hundreds of pounds.

  When Mrs. Hatfield concluded that cheering recitation she fell silent, her breathing slowed, and she became a warm, comfortable weight against Rex’s side.

  “I begin to fear that my finances are not suffering as a result of haphazard practices or the occasional blunder,” Rex said, “but rather, as a town suffers under siege. The stores gradually diminish, morale erodes, betrayal from within becomes more and more likely.”

  For once, Rex got no argument from his auditor. She was snoring softly, her head on his shoulder, her hand casually resting on his thigh.

  “Mrs. Hatfield?”

  Nothing.

  “Eleanora?”

  A soft sigh.

  Rex curled an arm around her lest she be bounced off the seat by some disobliging rut. She knew every clever device for stealing coin from a legitimate enterprise, but he would not have predicted that she also had the knack of sleeping in a moving vehicle.

  “I’ve worn you out,” he murmured.

  The miles rolled by, Eleanora slept, and Rex contemplated why it should be that the farther they trotted from London, the more peaceful and content he became, and the more pleased to be traveling to Ambledown with her.

  * * *

  Ambledown exuded the cozy rural domesticity Ellie had known in early childhood. The dwelling itself was a modest three stories at the end of a circular drive. Woods lined one side of the drive and climbed the hill behind the house, and rolling pastures fell away from the other. The manor was a sparkling white Tudor half-timbered structure, complete with mullioned windows, green shutters, and a bright red front door.

  Merry Olde England at its finest. Ellie was glad this place belonged to Elsmore, and pleased for his sake that its books were as spotless as its windows. She had not been pleased to find herself all but cuddled in his lap as the coach had rocked to a halt before the house.

  For him, the familiarity had likely been of no moment.

  He’d escorted her into the house, directed a smiling footman to convey the ledgers to the estate office, and commended Ellie into the keeping of the housekeeper. That good soul had been stout, friendly, and not quite able to hide her curiosity regarding the duke’s guest as she had provided a tour of the premises.

  Ellie had been an object of curiosity at every one of the Walden holdings, and had found that the most effective response to veiled glances and subtle hints was to ignore them. When a footman summoned her away from her ledgers mid-tally, she could not ignore the grumblings of her empty belly.

  “You might have told me I’m to take supper with you,” she said, once the footman had quit the dining parlor.

  His Grace of Elsmore stood at the head of the table, quietly resplendent in country attire. “Where else would you dine?” he asked.

  “At the second table, with the housekeeper, the butler, and the senior staff.” Remonstrating with him for holding her chair would have felt ridiculous.

  “You literally fell asleep on me on the drive out here,” he said, “and now you’d leave me to dine by myself. Is my company so objectionable, madam?”

  His company was becoming too interesting. At his Hampshire estate, he’d taken on the living for the local vicarage at the same time he’d rented an unused chapel to a Quaker gathering, charging them one shilling a year. What sort of man did that?

  “I apologize for my lapse in manners earlier.” Ellie whisked a monogrammed table napkin across her lap. “One moment, I was regaling you with some tale about compound rounding, and the next I was waking up to the sight of this charming estate.”

  He gestured with the wine bottle. Ellie nodded, because once the bottle had been opened, the spirits should be consumed.

  “And the moment we arrived,” Elsmore said, “you closeted yourself with the blasted ledgers.”

  “That was rather the point of the excursion, sir.” Then too, her nap, or perhaps the crisp country air, had left her refreshed and motivated. “Tell me about your extended family.”

  She’d amused him with that clumsy change of subject.

  He ladled out a portion of soup that smelled divine. “Why?”

  “Because they are involved in both your commercial and domestic affairs. In the alternative, we could assess the potential dower holdings and choose the three most likely to withstand close financial scrutiny. This soup is delicious.” The base mi
ght have been potatoes, but quantities of cream, cheddar, winter vegetables, and a dash of spirits made the fare rich and savory.

  Best of all, the course was served at the almost-too-hot temperature that made good soup on a cold day a taste of heaven.

  Elsmore buttered a slice of bread and dipped it into his soup, yeoman fashion. “If you allowed yourself the occasional respite from your labors, you wouldn’t fall asleep in moving coaches, Eleanora.”

  She ignored his use of her given name, though it pleased her all the more for being in that chiding tone. “If you paid more attention to your ledgers, you would not need to haul a busy auditor off to the countryside for the sole purpose of straightening out your books, Elsmore.”

  He laughed and passed Ellie the butter. “Good God, you are as relentless as Wellington’s infantry. I like your idea about sorting the dower properties, I loathe that you are so fatigued you can sleep for nearly two hours at midday.”

  Not much more than an hour, by Ellie’s reckoning. “I loathe that your dukedom is being plundered. Who among your relations works at the bank, and do you trust them?”

  He dipped his bread again, and Ellie regretted the question. She could not afford to trust her family, but they were crooks, albeit crooks by necessity. They grasped that she’d crossed a divide that did not allow for her to trust them.

  Elsmore’s nature was to attribute to others the same honor he expected of himself. Grandpapa, unfortunately, had had the same decent outlook on his fellow man and that had not ended well at all.

  “Must we have this discussion now?” Elsmore said.

  “We must have it soon. Please give some thought to who might be motivated to steal from you. Who has excessive debts, a spouse unable to control her expenditures, too many daughters to launch, an inability to refrain from wagering?”

  “Half of London?”

  “Elsmore, this is not charm. This is evasion. What is amiss?”

  He set aside his empty soup bowl and took up the carving knife. “What if you are right?” he asked, starting on the joint of beef. “What if the domestic irregularities signal worse trouble at the bank? Scandal tarnishes a personal reputation, but for a family engaged in banking, scandal can also cause financial ruin. Generations of probity and hard work out the window like a pail of slops tossed on the midden.”

  He set a slice of perfectly done beef on Ellie’s plate.

  “The Butterfield business has you concerned,” Ellie said. “Good. If you’re concerned, you will be thorough in your examination of the books. Right now, your bank is solvent, the merchants are willing to extend you personal credit. Now is exactly when you should be quietly putting your house in order.”

  He served himself a greater portion of the roast, which the enterprising cook had produced without any warning that the master would be on hand to consume it.

  “I hope you send your compliments to the kitchen,” Ellie said. “This meat so far exceeds my usual chop shop fare that to discuss embezzlement in the same room is sacrilegious.”

  “I’m glad you’re enjoying it. You can say no, you know.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You can refuse the wine, the roast, the invitation to dinner. The kitchen had a tray ready in case you decided to remain with your ledgers. I had meant to discuss dinner with you, but my land steward got word I was on the premises.”

  “And you did not refuse his summons, did you?”

  “Touché, Mrs. Hatfield. Tell me how to spot an embezzler.”

  Ellie would rather not. She would rather enjoy the food and pretend, for once, that she and Elsmore were simply socializing for the pleasure of each other’s company.

  Foolish, foolish, foolish. Besides, needs must when the duke had nobody else to guide him.

  “Embezzlers come in two varieties,” she began, “the desperate and the greedy. The desperate are in perilous need of blunt. They might be involved with the moneylenders, who can turn a debt of five pounds into an obligation of two hundred pounds. You will know a desperate embezzler by his worn attire, especially his footwear. He might have only one coat decent enough to wear in public.

  “You casually note that he’s appropriately attired,” she continued, “and only realize that he’s always in the exact same coat when your sister mentions it. He wears no chain on his watch, having pawned that along with most of his rings, cravat pins, and sleeve buttons. He might instead wear a chain that has no watch attached to it. His person will never bear the fragrance of scented soaps or pomades, but you might detect a whiff of tallow or ale on him.”

  Elsmore set another half slice of beef on her plate, then added a serving of mashed potatoes. “Go on.”

  “A greedy embezzler, by contrast, has tastes that exceed his or her means. He might dress a little better than his station. He indulges in scents, new boots, a splendid mount, monogrammed linen, beeswax candles, good wine. When he gives a gift, it might be a touch too extravagant for good taste. His domicile will be a shade too commodious compared to others similarly situated.”

  “We are back to your talent for spotting what doesn’t fit a pattern.”

  Elsmore looked more at home in this relatively rustic setting than he had amid the splendor of Wentworth and Penrose’s business offices. The ceiling here was a mere eight feet, both hearths held roaring fires, a rosy-cheeked young couple in powdered wigs smiled down from the portrait over the sideboard.

  He also looked pensive.

  “Something troubles you,” Ellie said. “Something beyond untidy books.”

  He crossed his knife and fork over a half-empty plate. “All three of my sisters are now apparently keeping company with doting swains, two of them in contemplation of courtship. After years of being received everywhere but having few creditable offers, my womenfolk are now besieged. Why now? The Little Season is hardly when most matches are made, and I can think of nothing in the family circumstances that has altered to make the ladies more attractive to lonely bachelors.”

  “You are correct that a pattern has abruptly changed, but I am hardly an authority on the passions of the human heart. Aren’t you having any potatoes?”

  He served himself, and he obliged Ellie’s demand to discuss his extended family. She and Elsmore took their raspberry fool with them to the estate office, where Ellie drew the Dorset family tree, from the elders right down to the latest arrivals.

  “How does your family tree compare to mine?” Elsmore asked, finishing his sweet. “Can you claim eleven male cousins? A trio of aunties named for famous battles?”

  He clearly loved those aunties and was fiercely protective of his cousins. “My family is smaller,” Ellie said, trying to make her dessert last. “We aren’t as close-knit as your family is.” Grandmother kept track of everybody, passing along news in her tidy script. A pang of homesickness assailed Ellie, though surely not homesickness for godforsaken Yorkshire?

  “What of parents?” Elsmore asked. “Do they post regular lectures to you about the perils of life in wicked old Londontowne?”

  The homesickness became old, brittle sorrow. Dry as dust, sharp as glass. “Let us attend to the task at hand, Elsmore, rather than wander off into irrelevancies. Do not think to steal the last of my fool, either, or I will deal severely with you.”

  “I live in hope. Did I mention a pair of elderly bachelor uncles? One suspects them of peculiar inclinations, but one doesn’t pry.” He cherished those eccentric uncles, clearly, just as he valued everybody from the current duchess down to the latest arrival born to a young cousin who held the living near Elsmore’s estate in Shropshire.

  All of these people, several dozen in number, looked to Elsmore for support, security, and influence. And he never refused them, apparently, which only made the state of his accounts that much harder to explain.

  Chapter Ten

  While Eleanora studied the plethora of family relationships that formed the fabric of Rex’s life, he thought back over the day. For the duration of ten rutted, slush
y country miles, he had wallowed in the pleasure of having Eleanora snoring against his side. She’d slept deeply, necessitating his arm around her shoulders as her hair had tickled his chin.

  He’d let his imagination roam, as if having her next to him anchored him bodily in a way that permitted mental flights of fancy.

  Details about her were becoming so much treasure: Her valise had a Parisian maker’s mark and hadn’t been used much. She’d also brought a lap desk with her, an antique with intricate carving adorning both sides. The quality of that article bespoke an eye for finer things or perhaps a lady fallen on hard times.

  Her departure from her cat had been a series of instructions: No dead mice upon my carpet, please. You will not consort with ruffians of any species in any alley. Then a cuddle—which the cat tolerated—and a kiss to her furry head.

  Be here when I come home. You are my sole companion, and I would worry endlessly should you abandon me.

  Rex had ignored that last admission, which he hadn’t been meant to overhear in any case, but it troubled him. Why would an intelligent, interesting, attractive female be without even a companion? He grasped that some women chose not to marry, but to be entirely alone? Where were her parents as she toiled year after year in London? What about siblings or cousins?

  He occasionally resented his family’s hovering, but to have no family at all? He would not wish that fate upon his sworn foe.

  “You are falling into a brown study,” Eleanora said, setting aside the family tree that traced maternal cousins and aunts. “Or I have bored you witless with my maunderings. I’m like a vicar with a sermon on my favorite obscure passage. The congregation has no choice but to indulge me.”

  She seemed so happy here among the ledger books, her feet curled beneath her in the reading chair, while Rex was increasingly discontent. For all that he had little solitude in Town, he was also without a companion, not even a cat. Nonetheless, he was prodigiously attracted to a prim auditor whose coiffure was for once slipping free of its pins.