“Not before I was born. I was ten years old when the earl ruined us, and I recall our fall from grace well. One day I was a happy girl living on a pleasant property at the edge of town. The next, everything was being sold, except my favorite doll. I do not relish the thought of a similar fate befalling the Dorset family.”

The duke set a crock of soup on the blotter and removed the lid, sending savory steam wafting to Ellie’s nose. Pepper pot, her favorite.

“I’ll fetch the butter,” she said, for Ned Wentworth had purchased bread and cheese to go with the soup.

Also a bottle of wine.

*  *  *

If the public learned that a bank employee—doubtless one of Rex’s own cousins—was embezzling from the Dorset family, the bank would be ruined. Rex’s womenfolk would be dragged into that affray and his own name blackened, but all he could think about, all he could see, was that Eleanora was miserable.

She hadn’t been sleeping well, clearly, and she probably wasn’t eating regularly. Lord Stephen might be able to confirm that last suspicion, but Rex wasn’t about to give his lordship another opportunity to spread innuendo in Eleanora’s direction.

She’s still afraid of the scandal…

“Why France?” Rex asked, as he ladled servings of soup into two bowls. “Why not Scotland, Ireland, Italy? Why France?”

“I’ve always wanted to go,” Eleanora replied, helping herself to one of the bowls. “The Duchess of Walden has been teaching me a little parlor French. I’m told one can live very economically there.”

Rex took the chair opposite the desk and sampled his soup. Not quite as hot as he liked it, but tolerable.

“One can hide in France,” he said. “Are you hiding from me, Eleanora?” Or was she hiding from the law, another victim of some scoundrel with more consequence than conscience? The question destroyed his appetite.

“Your sisters will soon be settled, Your Grace. They will doubtless turn their attention to seeing you settled then, and your account books—all of them—will be subjected to a most thorough examination. Perhaps you should focus your energies on the challenge of enduring that ordeal.”

In theory, she raised a daunting prospect: How would Rex find a duchess if his bank was sunk in ruin and his family no longer received? Polite society could be that vindictive, and his ducal rank would only make the retribution of the club gossips and hostesses more gleeful.

But then, he had found his duchess. She was sitting across from him, nibbling buttered bread, looking pre-occupied and disgruntled.

“I can weather old scandal, Eleanora. Hell, I’m about to weather new scandal, if I can’t figure out who among my cousins, uncles, family friends, and my mother’s godsons has stolen from the family accounts.”