“A few details that literally didn’t add up.” And a persistent suspicion that a prudent peer would spend less time waltzing and more time with an abacus. “A tally here, a shortfall there. Must we trouble ourselves over those specifics now?”

Mrs. Hatfield put down her pencil. She checked her watch and compared the time with that told by a great monstrosity ticking away on the mantel. Rex had the sense she was choosing her words, or perhaps counting to ten.

“The word auditor comes from the Latin audire,” she said, “meaning to hear. An auditor listens, Your Grace. In former times, we listened to the accounts read out while we kept tallies in our heads. Now we not only pay attention to the books, we also attend to what happens around those books. Anybody can make a mistake in calculations or transcription. You can see a seven where I see a one. But if what’s occurring is something other than random errors, then I must discern the pattern, and that means I need all the information you have.”

She spoke so earnestly, as if instructing a slow scholar who very, very much needed passing marks.

Rex rose, having tolerated as much inactivity as he could. “You want to know how much I lost at the club last night? What I spent at the haberdasher’s? What baubles I purchased for my current chère amie?”

“Yes, though I doubt you have a mistress in keeping at present.”

A frisson of unease had Rex pretending to examine a sketch of a small girl with a large dog. In a few strokes, the artist had caught the dog’s protectiveness and the child’s trust, also her resemblance to the current Duchess of Walden.

“Mrs. Hatfield, you cannot possibly divine that I’m without a current attachment merely by looking at me.”

“Of course not,” she said, using a penknife to sharpen her pencil point. “I merely read the newspaper. You are escorting only the most eligible of the blue-blooded young ladies these days, but not singling any woman out for special attention. Your set considers it good form to approach marriage without other entanglements, and you are of an age to take a wife. You have no direct heir, no younger brother even. Hence, my conclusion. Now, might we resume our discussion of your books?”

Rex’s social life apparently did not interest her beyond what was reported in the tattlers, but then, the vast, ceaseless whirl of his entertainments seldom interested him. He wandered back to the table and sent the lady a questioning glance.

“Mind if I sit?”

“Your Grace, if you insist on silly rituals we will accomplish little. You must treat me as if I were a chambermaid or a footman, an employee, though one who labors with her mind rather than her hands. No more of your chair-holding, bobbing about, or pretending you need my permission to sit.”