“I can swing for a little nosing about on His Grace’s behalf,” Jack said, “or I can be found frozen to death in some church doorway, my clothing stolen before I breathed my last. Forgive me, Ellie, if I at least hear what your duke has to say.”

He sauntered across the room and took the chair behind the desk, while Elsmore closed the door.

*  *  *

“Why aren’t you at the theater?” Eddie asked, for James wasn’t dressed to attend the theater, and James did very much like to be seen on Drury Lane. He usually flirted the evening away with his mistress, whose box was opposite Elsmore’s. Now he stood in the doorway to Eddie’s office, a ledger tucked against his hip.

“Why are you still here?” James settled into the chair across from Eddie’s desk and set the ledger on a corner of the blotter. “You are hardly what I’d call a dedicated bank employee, my boy, and the hour grows late.”

That was the point—for the hour to be so late that nobody else was on the bank premises. An old watchman snored his nights away in a chair by the hearth in the lobby, periodically rousing himself to trim a few wicks or take a piss in the alley. Other than that, the bank should be deserted this late on a Friday evening.

“I am better able to concentrate when the place is quiet,” Eddie replied. “I have considered the possibility you’ve raised that Ballentyre will retire or be rendered too infirm by gout to do his job. When that happens, a fresh set of eyes might be looking over our books, James, and my ledgers need some attention.”

A lot of attention. Eddie had nearly finished tidying up the past year, but that left four previous years in disarray.

“I thought you or I would get Ballentyre’s post,” James said, crossing an ankle over one knee. “You’re welcome to it, by the way. I’m content with my lot for now.” He spoke as if the bank belonged to him, and any post he pleased to have could be his.

“I am not content. My books are in order, more or less, but your haphazard review of them has left every inaccuracy and error in plain view. Howell says yours are in worse condition yet.”

James sat up. “When the hell did Howell go poking his nose into my ledgers?”

“When you were indisposed a few Saturdays ago. I gathered up your account books, but Howell apparently got his mitts on the one dealing with the Oxford allowances. I don’t know as he suspects anything more than sloppiness, but—”

“You are only telling me this now? Plodding, dull, dear Howell has had a thorough look at one of my accountings, and you didn’t think to mention this to me?”