Mrs. Hatfield stole a glance at him, then checked her watch. That glance told him she was re-arranging her artillery, choosing the words best suited to conveying a difficult message to a difficult duke.

“The two dukedoms differ, sir, in that the Walden money hasn’t had three hundred years to develop bad habits and poor deportment. People deride new money as if it doesn’t spend as well as the other kind, but give me new money over old any day. New money has no dark past, no airs and graces, no social bonds that transcend law and custom to afford it powers money ought not to have.”

What an extraordinary perspective, and how passionately she adhered to it. “You disdain to help me because my lineage dates back centuries? Walden outranks me. His title is thirty-seven years older than mine, and yet you work for him. What is it that truly troubles you? You must know I will pay handsomely for your services.”

She rubbed her fingers across her forehead, the first sign of human frailty he’d seen from her.

“Listen to me, Your Grace. The Walden dukedom had but five properties when I undertook its rehabilitation, none managed by family. His Grace and I, or Lord Stephen and I, went property by property examining revenue and expenses. We sacked the stewards whose books were suspicious—which was all of them—and hired people whom I could train to keep proper books.”

She switched to using her thumb to make slow circles on her temple. “Bringing that situation to rights was relatively simple. The Wentworth family books have always been spotless, and the bank has always been well run. By comparison…”

She sent him a look of sheer pity, which was both novel and unsettling. Nobody pitied a duke. “By comparison?”

“The situation with the Walden dukedom was like a seventy-four gunner that needed some caulking below the water line. We looked in the usual places, sealed up the boards, and made a basically sound vessel seaworthy again.”

“And my dukedom?”

“A splendidly appointed seagoing yacht to appearances, full of your family and employees on holiday. The vessel hasn’t had any maintenance since the day it was launched, is not scheduled for dry dock anytime soon, and has headed for the open ocean while taking on water in three dozen places, with a storm bearing down fast.”

Rex liked that she was honest. He did not like that her opinion confirmed his own suspicions. “I still seem to have pots of money.”

“If you can gradually diversify your holdings beyond crops and livestock, you will likely always have pots of money, but you do not have control of that money to the extent that you should. I would have to undertake extensive study to ascertain how much of the problem is due to plain error and how much comes from other sources.”

That much honesty was a bit daunting.