Forever and a Duke Read online

  “How long have you lived in London?” Elsmore asked.

  Well, yes. Small talk was safer than unintended confidences, and Ellie had long since settled on an answer to this question. A quarter hour of chit-chat and she’d be in her slippers before the fire, no dukes in sight.

  “I came down from York when Wentworth and Penrose moved its headquarters south. I was with the bank in York, and had seen enough northern winters.” She wished she’d come to London when the bank had moved to the capital. That had not been the case. She’d been sent south with Pammie, Jack, and Mick when one of Grandfather’s chancier schemes had collapsed, and thank heavens she’d found employment clerking for a mercer soon after.

  “Why is there no Mr. Hatfield?” Elsmore asked.

  “Because I prefer it that way.” Mostly. How could she explain Jack, Mick, and Pammie to a Mr. Hatfield? How could she keep a husband safe from her family’s relentless mischief?

  And yet, Ellie considered herself in the confidence of the Duchess of Walden, and that good lady became positively luminous on the topic of domesticating with her duke. In the presence of the Wentworth offspring, the duke himself was shockingly affectionate, and had been known to laugh out loud.

  Elsmore shifted his legs, which even in this behemoth conveyance, brushed Ellie’s skirts. “I might prefer not to have a wife, at least for the present. The Duke of Devonshire appears determined to maintain his bachelorhood and he’s a notably sanguine soul.”

  The coach rounded a corner and picked up speed, which caused the stack of ledgers to slide. Ellie reached for them at the same time Elsmore did, so her hand was trapped beneath his. She couldn’t pull back until the coach was again traveling straight.

  Ellie’s inherent curiosity absorbed Elsmore’s personal details rather than the awkwardness of the moment. According to his account books, the black glove covering her much-darned brown mitten had been made for the duke at Halverston’s. His top hat was a Dunsmore creation, and he’d recently ordered three more just like it.

  His soap came from Belleville’s Emporium, a custom blend for which he paid dearly. Note to the margin: Did he pay too dearly?

  She catalogued those facts as his words wedged past her perceptions to bump up against her weariness: I might prefer not to have a wife, at least for the present.

  She took two of the ledgers onto her lap and passed him the other two. “I thought this whole endeavor of sorting out your books was so you could take a wife without fear of scandal.”

  “It is, and your initial findings tell me the exercise was long overdue. I am obligated by my station to marry, and my dear mother would gladly see me wed to any suitable parti.”

  Ellie acknowledged a pang of envy toward the suitable parti, a woman who’d doubtless share many smiles with Elsmore and care not one whit that he had no privacy whatsoever.

  Time to return to the topic of business. “I’ll show you Lord Stephen’s private entrance and how to use his lift. How shall I summon you if I have questions?”

  “You don’t summon me.”

  The rain intensified, from a persistent drenching into one of London’s signature downpours.

  “Fine then,” Ellie said. “I’ll conjure answers from my imagination when I don’t know what a pair of initials means. I’ll make a jolly guess at any questionable entries, and two weeks from now, you can assure yourself your estate has been thoroughly audited, when in fact, I’ve simply joined the endless procession of retainers—but not relations, for they would never pilfer from an itinerant family head with acumen as astute as yours—who take your money and provide less than you deserve for it.”

  He had driven her to forgetting herself. Again. “Forgive me,” Ellie added. “I am weary and famished.”

  Was he also hungry and tired?

  “What I meant, madam, is that you cannot summon me and maintain the privacy necessary to your task. All of my correspondence is handled by the butler, who collects it at the door from whoever retrieved it from the posting inn. From the butler’s keeping, a footman takes it to my office, where either my personal secretary, my real estate secretary, or my commercial secretary will open it. If one secretary is out on an errand, the other two will open anything that seems urgent or worth gossiping about.”

  Three secretaries handled his correspondence? That was not good at all.

  “I can see you drawing more arrows, Mrs. Hatfield. Entire flights going skyward from my pockets.”

  She wanted Elsmore out of the coach, but the horses had apparently forgotten how to trot. She wanted her bowl of soup—even plain porridge would do—and she wanted for Elsmore’s money to remain in his pockets until he chose to send it elsewhere.

  “Do you have any idea where the practice of mapping money began?” she asked, even knowing her mouth was about to outstrip her better judgment.

  “In your fertile imagination?”

  “In the larcenous imaginations of successful embezzlers, Your Grace. The smart ones won’t begin the complicated, dangerous, and time-consuming crime of stealing from an enterprise until the entire financial vista is sketched in, complete with rivers of coin, mountains of cash, fields of neglect, and clouds of inattention. They start with the simple map, and they embellish with relevant details over time. They ease their scheme across the landscape like a changing season, subtle at first, but destructive of the previous order. Your canvas is an embezzler’s delight.”

  Ellie was clutching at the ledgers in her lap too tightly, the better to deal with fatigue and exasperation. Her head had begun to ache, and finding something to eat had become imperative.

  Now the horses lifted into a trot, which added jouncing and swaying to her discomfort.

  “I will pay a call on you each afternoon,” Elsmore said, after a beat of rainy quiet, “or morning if you prefer. You set the time, and I will abide by it as best I can. If you must contact me otherwise, send me a brief, general note from a Mr. Patrick Entwhistle. Avoid using a Wentworth and Penrose messenger to deliver it and keep the content vague.”

  “I can do that.”

  They traveled the rest of the distance without conversation, the rhythm of the rain nearly putting Ellie to sleep. Before that mercy could befall her, Elsmore was handing her down from the coach. The cobbles in the porte cochere were slick, and she accepted his assistance without a fuss—for now.

  “This way,” she said, leading him into the carriage house. “The whole edifice was one grand house until about thirty years ago. Renovations were undertaken piecemeal, until his lordship bought the building.”

  The porte cochere attached the carriage house to the back of the main building. Those coming and going thus had privacy, which Ellie valued as much as the relative luxury of her apartment.

  She showed Elsmore where the spare key was and explained how to work Lord Stephen’s lift. Moments later, His Grace stood with her in her modest parlor, holding the ledgers while Ellie lit candles and hoped the cat hadn’t left any feline calling cards of an inappropriate nature.

  The duke set the ledgers on her desk. “This is where you’ll work?”

  “For the next two weeks.” The premises were chilly, but not frigid. Lord Stephen’s rooms on the next floor up were always kept roaringly warm, as were the rooms of the writer living on the floor below. Ellie benefited by proximity, though she also lit the parlor stove on truly cold days.

  “I have a question for you, Mrs. Hatfield.” Elsmore lounged back against her desk, a battered old article rescued from some alley.

  The cat emerged from under the sofa and sniffed at Elsmore’s boots. The beast was all black with green eyes, an aloof creature by nature, but drawn to novelty.

  “That is Voltaire,” Ellie said. “She’s quite the mouser.”

  Elsmore picked up the cat, who nuzzled the wool of his lapel as if he were her long lost kitten. “A worthy companion. I’m curious about something.”

  The cat commenced purring and rubbing her head against His Grace’s chin.


  “I’ve asked you many questions,” Ellie said. “I suppose you are permitted to ask me a few in return.” The chop shop across the street would be open for another hour, but they sometimes ran out of soup at the end of the day. Ellie did not fancy a dinner of stale bread any more than she fancied watching the cat flirt with the duke.

  “This is a very friendly feline, but then, animals usually like me.”

  Ellie liked him. Liked that he was slow to anger, liked that he had a sense of humor. She liked that Elsmore was trying to manage his situation responsibly, and liked—grudgingly—that he insisted on courtesies. This liking was yet another problem, because an auditor must remain disinterested if she was to be effective.

  Not, of course, that she’d do anything about liking him.

  “How is it that a woman so closely associated with one of the wealthiest bankers in London, a woman entrusted with more responsibility than many titled men will bear in a lifetime, has intimate knowledge of an embezzler’s trade? I find that very curious.”

  The only sounds when Elsmore fell silent were the cat, purring contentedly in his arms, and the rain beating against the windows.

  Chapter Five

  Mrs. Hatfield took an inordinate amount of time unpinning her bonnet, fussing at her hair, and removing mittens and gloves. Rex ought to leave her to her privacy, but seeing her in her own surroundings outshone the tired charm of rare steak and stale gossip at his club.

  “The essence of effective auditing is simply paying attention,” she said, hanging her bonnet on a hook beside the door. “Paying attention to patterns, and to details that contradict those patterns. Clerks, for example, are humble fellows by trade. They thrive on being told exactly which work to do, in what order, with what specific goal. They accept modest wages, but should be paid enough that they need not compromise their honor for their next meal. Any clerk whose behavior does not fit that pattern bears closer scrutiny.”

  Why did no one explain this to a peer’s heir, for he would employ many clerks? “So the sullen, tired, restless clerk bears watching?” Fortunately, Rex could think of no one in his employ who fit that description.

  The humid weather had dealt Mrs. Hatfield’s severe bun a few blows, turning ruthless order into tendrils, waves, and an errant curl or two. She smoothed her hair over her ears, which did nothing to tame the chaos.

  “One watches the surly ones, but the better thief will be too cheerful, too punctual. He will announce to his fellows that he loves his position—which he does—and hopes to spend his entire career seeing the employer’s enterprise thrive—which he also does.”

  Well, damn. That described nearly every retainer on every property Rex owned. “How do you tell the difference between the happily loyal and the cheerfully untrustworthy?”

  “Careful observation, luck, and determination, Your Grace.”

  She unbuttoned her cloak next, and without thinking, Rex drew it from her shoulders, gave it a shake, and hung it on the drying pegs beneath the mantel. A small silver teapot sat in the middle of the mantel, a sketch on either side in plain wooden frames. He wanted to study those drawings, but not when Eleanora could see him doing it.

  He braced himself for a scold as he passed her a shawl that had been draped over the back of a reading chair. “Shall I light the fire?” he asked, for want of anything else to say.

  By the limited illumination of a few candles, she looked weary. “I’ll be going out again, just across the street, and I don’t light the hearth until I’m in for the night.”

  Eleanora Hatfield, like much of London, had no cooking facilities in her domicile. Of course, she’d go out to fetch a hot meal.

  “I’m still dressed for the weather,” Rex said. “I’ll get us some food, while you consider a strategy for organizing our efforts over the next two weeks.”

  He bowed and left before she could argue. By the time he returned, she’d curled up in a chair, her shawl about her shoulders, her hearth crackling. She’d also fallen asleep.

  He dealt with the cat first, unwrapping a morsel of fish and leaving it on its paper in a corner. For himself and his hostess, salty fried potatoes came next and slices of hot roasted beef followed. The scents were humble and tantalizing, and apparently enough to tempt Mrs. Hatfield from her slumbers.

  “You bought beef and potatoes.”

  She looked at him as if he’d served her one of those fancy dinners Mama made such a fuss over. Four removes, three feuding chefs, footmen run ragged, the sommelier pinching the maids, and all the guests more interested in flirtation than food.

  “Voltaire has started on the fish course,” Rex said. The cat was, in fact, growling as she ate, and sounding quite serious about her meal.

  “Her manners were formed in a hard school,” Mrs. Hatfield said, sitting up. “Where are my—?”

  Rex passed her the spectacles, though he preferred her without them.

  “Have you cutlery,” he asked, “or do we shun etiquette for the sake of survival?”

  “In the sideboard.” She took a plate from him. “I can put the kettle on if—you brought wine.”

  “A humble claret, but humility is a virtue, I’m told.”

  The shared meal reminded Rex of something that ought to also be part of a peer’s curriculum: Some people had the luxury of chatting and laughing as abundant food was put before them. Other people had such infrequent acquaintance with adequate nutrition that the notion of focusing on anything other than appreciation for food was a sort of blasphemy.

  Eleanora Hatfield ate with that degree of concentration. She did not hurry, she did not compromise her manners, but she focused on her meal with the same single-mindedness she turned on her ledgers.

  “You have known poverty,” Rex said, buttering the last slice of bread and passing it to her. “Not merely hard times or lean years. You have known the bleakest of realities.”

  She took the bread, tore it in two, and passed half back to him. “There’s no shame in poverty.”

  “I doubt there’s much joy in it, either.”

  “We managed, and I am impoverished no longer.” She launched into a lecture about concentric rings of responsibility, redundant documentation, and heaven knew what else. Rex poured her more wine, put an attentive expression on his face—he excelled at appearing attentive—and let his curiosity roam over the mystery of Eleanora Hatfield.

  She’d known hardship, and she’d probably known embezzlers. She’d decided to wrap herself in the fiction of widowhood or wifehood, but not the reality, and she was truly passionate about setting Rex’s books to rights.

  The longer she talked about the many ways his estates could have been pillaged—while he’d waltzed, played piquet, and debated the Corn Laws—the more he appreciated her fierceness and the more he wondered how she’d come by it.

  “When should I call upon you tomorrow?” he asked, rising and gathering up the orts and leavings of their meal.

  “At the end of the day,” she said, standing to take the greasy paper from him. “I’ll use this for kindling, and I leave any empty bottles in the alley for the street children to sell. In cold weather, their lives grow more perilous than usual.”

  She drew her shawl up and looked away, as if those last words should have been kept behind her teeth.

  Rex shrugged into his greatcoat, wrapped a cashmere scarf about his neck, and pulled on gloves lined with rabbit fur. Autumn had not only turned up nasty, winter was in the offing.

  “I want you to consider something,” he said. “Something in addition to the many ways my trusty staff is bilking me of a fortune.”

  “Not all of them, we haven’t established that.”

  Not yet. Anybody seeking to steal from the Elsmore fortune was doomed to eventual discovery, now that Eleanora Hatfield was on the scent.

  “Please consider a theoretical question: If instead of allowing my coffers to be pillaged by the enterprising thieves in my employ, I had donated that money to charity, where would you have me put t
hose funds?”

  He had her attention now, and having Eleanora Hatfield’s attention was not a casual state of affairs.

  “You are asking about thousands of pounds, Your Grace.”

  “No, actually, I am asking for your trust. You will soon know all of my secrets, Eleanora. You will know where I have been lax, where I have been less than conscientious about my duties. You will know who has betrayed me. Not even my priest knows me that well, not even my siblings. I am asking much of you, and in return, all I can offer is an assurance that your secrets would be safe with me.”

  Her gaze was momentarily dumbstruck, then puzzled, then troubled. “Thank you, Your Grace, but in my line of work, I can afford to trust no one.”

  Interesting choice of verb—afford. “You like it that way.”

  “I need it that way.”

  How honest, and how lonely. Elsmore brushed her hair back over her ear, and when she did not protest that presumption he bent nearer. She stood still, eyes downcast, though he well knew she was capable of pinning back his ears.

  “Eleanora?”

  She closed her eyes, and he realized that was as much permission as he would get from her. He kissed her cheek and let himself out into the chilly corridor, pausing only long enough to make sure she locked the door after him.

  As if her mind had imparted its restlessness to his own, he walked the distance to his home, turning over questions and ignoring the persistent freezing drizzle. Two streets from his own doorway, he took off his gloves and scarf and left them in an alley.

  Why had he kissed Eleanora Hatfield? Even a chaste gesture such as he’d bestowed on the lady was an intimacy, and with the least intimacy-prone female he knew. Why cross that line? Why blur those boundaries? His musings yielded no satisfactory answers, but then, a man who failed to notice his trusted staff dipping into his coffers, a man who overlooked drinking from the wrong teacup, was probably overdue for an audit of his own sentiments and motivations.