“And well you should have other custom, when your inventory is so impressive.” He paid a little generously, and would have sauntered on down the street, except that Penrose was trying ineffectually to affix his carnation to his lapel.

“Let me,” Rex said, taking the flower in one hand and the pin in the other. This necessitated holding his own boutonniere with his teeth.

Penrose’s expression had For God’s sake, Elsmore written all over it, poor fellow.

“You’ve been working with Walden for too long,” Rex said, stepping back. “A little color in a gentleman’s daytime attire preserves him from utter forgettable-ness. I notice your partner always has flowers on his desk when I call upon him at the bank.”

A detail, but telling. Quinn Wentworth, Duke of Walden, had been raised in the slums and was known to pinch a penny until it took a solemn oath never to be spent again. And yet, the man paid good coin for the lilies of the field.

“Walden wants the bank’s customers to feel comfortable,” Penrose said. “About Mrs. Hatfield.”

“The bringer of agony.” Rex tipped his hat to a pair of dowagers, and because they smiled at him, he also tipped his hat to the pug one of the ladies held. This occasioned giggling from two beldames who probably hadn’t giggled in public for decades.

“As long as Mrs. Hatfield is competent to find the errors in my books,” Rex went on, “and she can do so without alerting the London Gazette, I will consider myself eternally in her debt.”

Perhaps he could make the fearsome Mrs. Hatfield giggle or at least smile. The day—and the night—went ever so much more smoothly when the ladies were smiling.

Penrose tried to walk more quickly; Rex refused to oblige him. They were early, the autumn weather was gloriously temperate for the time of year—a false summer that could not last—and what awaited Rex at the bank was hardly cause for eagerness.

“Mrs. Hatfield,” Penrose said, “is one of those annoying people who can glance at an entire page of figures and spot where somebody read a three as a five. Her acumen is unnerving, and she doesn’t understand how unusual she is.”

Penrose was a lean, tall blond who did justice to exquisitely tailored morning attire, especially now that he’d deigned to adorn himself with a lowly carnation. His origins were vague, but he looked every inch the London nabob. Rex knew Penrose’s partner better than he knew Penrose, but he trusted both men.

Under the circumstances, Rex had no choice but to trust them.