A Lady of True Distinction Read online

  “Nonetheless,” Mrs. Hatfield said, “those cousins all know your movements, your preferred merchants, your schedule, your clubs. Your servants know details far more personal than those. People who have less, who are less, keep a close eye on people who have more. Children are more observant about adults than conversely. Women are vigilant regarding the actions of men because we have to be. The same is not true in the opposite direction, not in any flattering sense.”

  Her words resonated with his experience and, more than that, organized a vague sense of frustration into cause and effect. Rex had responsibility—he had power—but not privacy. When had he chosen to strike that bargain with life? Had he even had a choice?

  “You are saying whoever is fleecing me has had long acquaintance to learn my habits. That describes most of my staff.”

  She folded her arms. “And all of your family.”

  Rex sketched the curve of her jaw, which angled cleanly then flowed into a firm chin. “There, I must protest, madam. You will not impugn the honor of my family again, lest you inspire me to a display of temper.” Not that he’d had any such displays since the age of about, oh, six?

  “I would at least raise my voice if a family member betrayed my trust,” she retorted. “I’d not be sitting on my elegant backside, swilling tea, and doodling. I’d throw fragile objects, provided they weren’t worth much. I’d kick the wall and curse. To entrust another with money is an intimate act of faith. One’s security, one’s future, one’s…I needn’t tell you.”

  She thought his backside elegant. He could venture a similar opinion about hers, except that he sought to live to a vigorous old age.

  “Don’t forget that my dignity will also suffer when I find out which employee has been dipping a hand into my coffers. Dukes are supposed to have endless reserves of dignity.”

  “Dukes are people,” she said, taking up her pencil of doom. “I thought that condition applied only to His Grace of Walden, a rarity of among his peers. My theory no longer fits the available facts, for you are nearly as stubborn as he is.”

  Rex took a moment with her nose. Noses were easy to get wrong, easy to relegate to an afterthought, but a whole countenance could be rendered either noble or ridiculous by an artist’s handling of the nose.

  “Did you just pay me a compliment, Mrs. Hatfield? I daresay you did. You admitted me into membership in the human species, a very exclusive club indeed. I cannot recall when last I was so cleverly flattered.”

  He finished the tea and realized he’d finished the shortbread as well. Mrs. Hatfield put her glasses back on, but Rex decided not to draw her wearing them. The lady on the page was intriguing, even beautiful, but she was not smiling. Glasses would make her look too severe, too unhappy.

  “We must consider your family members among those responsible for mishandling your funds, sir.”

  “Who is stubborn now, Mrs. Hatfield? Do you think I wouldn’t notice if my sisters were padding accounts? Am I so oblivious to my own cousins that they could steal from me, abuse my generosity, and have me none the wiser?”

  Rex might resent his family, find their company tiresome, and even nip out to Ambledown occasionally to escape them, but he knew them well enough to trust them.

  “You need not feel ashamed, Your Grace. Your holdings are vast, your family large. We’ll find the source or sources of the irregularities and then you can decide what to do about them.”

  Sources, plural? “My family is above suspicion, Mrs. Hatfield. I’ll grant you that errors occur, miscalculations can be carried forward, but I pay sufficient attention to my loved ones that the misbehavior you suspect them of could not happen. Give me that much credit, at least. We limit our investigations to retainers, employees, and factors.”

  On her chart of money paid and received, she drew another arrow that ended in a question mark and then two more. One for each sister? Preposterous.

  “We can start with your staff, Your Grace.”

  A prudent cease-fire on her part, and doubtless not the last time Rex would have to limit her zeal with an application of common sense.

  “I applaud your thoroughness, Mrs. Hatfield, and your diplomacy. More tea?” The brew, the shortbread, and the passage of time had apparently routed his megrim.

  She drew another outward arrow on his money chart and labeled it with yet another a question mark. “Will you purloin my next cup too?”

  What in creation was she—? Rex looked at the cup in his hand. Hers, the one he’d fixed with milk and sugar. Empty. He, who professed to know his family so well, to be able to vouch for their inmost motivations and private actions, had drunk from her cup and finished her tea without even noticing his own error…

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