“Do you mind if I use this office for a bit?” James asked. “My own is lamentably chilly and I find I’m in the mood to think bankerly thoughts for a bit.”

Eddie rose. “Never let it be said I denied you an opportunity to indulge a bankerly impulse. I expect I’ll be here again tomorrow.”

James studied him. “Will you? Getting ready to bolt, Eddie?”

And if I am? “My work for the bank is above reproach, James. That I occasionally facilitate relations between a borrower and a lender beyond what the bank can accommodate is certainly no cause for alarm. Many bankers do likewise.”

And were careful never to document any of it, because the law did so frown on usury.

“Of course they do,” James said. “I’ll see you Monday, assuming we aren’t dragooned into Sunday dinner with the ducal relations.” He slid his sleeve buttons free, turned back his cuffs, and reached for the ledger he’d brought with him.

Eddie itched to know what was in the account book. Whatever it was, it had the power to keep James at the bank well after dark, his handsome nose buried in figures for the first time in all the years Eddie had worked with him.

Perhaps Elsmore should be alerted to this development. On that thought, Eddie turned to leave.

“Eddie, before you go, one other thing.”

Eddie pretended a concern he didn’t feel. “If you need some blunt—”

“Hardly, but thank you. I’ve had occasion lately to rub shoulders with some of the clerks and tellers from other institutions.”

The institutions James was planning to fleece, no doubt. “If I’m the object of gossip, I’d rather you just say so.”

James lounged back in the chair and propped his boots on Eddie’s desk. “Don’t flatter yourself. The gossip had to do with Elsmore.”

“Doesn’t it always? He would do us all a favor if he got leg-shackled.” Though then, a direct heir was likely to appear in short order, and James would be demoted to spare. What a pity that would be.

James dragged the ledger into his lap. “The talk had to do with Elsmore and the auditor at Wentworth and Penrose, a female. He’s been seen sharing a coach with her, and the clerks at Wentworth’s say a couple weeks back he met with her for most of two afternoons. They are petrified of the woman. They claim she can find a missing farthing in pitch darkness amid gale-force winds.”

Eddie’s desire to leave became urgent. Leave the bank, leave London, perhaps even leave England. “I can’t say I’d care for such a woman.”

“She took a holiday from Wentworth’s at the same time my eyes and ears at Dorset House claim His Grace collected all the ducal ledgers for his personal review.”

“But those ledgers…”