Ellie was living a decent life, Clyde and Pammie were after honest work up north, and Mick wasn’t likely to return to London for some time. Jack picked up the plate of sandwiches and Edwards’s nearly full glass of ale and moved to the table closest to the fire.

He had a full belly, he was warm, and he’d not put a foot on the far side of the law for nearly half a year. The months of not watching every step, not living like a crook, not avoiding Ellie’s pointed questions and fulminating looks had been dull.

Blessedly, wonderfully dull.

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

Rex walked into the Dorset and Becker lobby, for once using the front door rather than the private entrance favored by the bank employees.

How would Eleanora see this place?

He’d parted from her a week ago, bowing over her hand in the corridor outside of her rooms because he had not trusted himself to see her into her apartment. His final moments with her had been free of begging, pleading, and idiot declarations only because Lord Stephen Wentworth might have overheard any conversation that took place at Eleanora’s door.

Rex stood for a moment in a corner of the bank lobby, an oppressive gloom affording him anonymity. The skylights hadn’t been cleaned within his memory. The clerestory windows, so necessary to ventilation in the warmer months, were all but covered with soot. The walls behind the sconces needed a good scrubbing, and half the candles in the chandelier were guttered.

This was all doubtless excused under the heading of economies, though Eleanora had pointed out that clerks could hardly keep accurate tallies of ledgers they couldn’t see.

The lobby smelled of coal smoke—all of London smelled of coal smoke—with an under-note of muddy boots, damp leather, and ink lending a cramped and tired air to what should have been a dignified and businesslike enterprise.

“Your Grace.” Old Mr. Ballentyre smiled up at him owlishly. “Good day. Might I help you with something?”

Ballentyre had been on his way out the door, though by Rex’s reckoning, the lunch hour was still twenty minutes off.

“Ballentyre, when did our establishment become so dingy?”

“Dingy, Your Grace?”

Rex took him by the elbow and steered him to the door that separated the bank’s public and private spaces.

“Dingy, dank, and uninviting. No wonder Mr. Butterfield was so easily impersonated. It’s a miracle the tellers can see their own accountings.”

For a week, Rex had avoided Dorset and Becker, focusing instead on settlements to propose for his sisters should the bachelors find their courage. In the back of his mind, Eleanora’s memory had chided him for not confronting what could be more complicated problems at Dorset and Becker.