After Mama had stopped to admire the coiffure or whitework or necklace of five successive—unmarried—goddaughters, Rex turned her back toward the box.

“Have we really nothing better to do than parade about a chilly passage pretending to be thrilled to see people we saw twice last week?” he murmured.

“Nonsense, darling.” Mama smacked his arm with her fan. “What is a ducal son for, if not parading about at the theater? I do think Rachel will soon bring that nice Lord Jeremy up to scratch.”

Mama had thought Rachel would bring Nice Lord Somebody or Other up to scratch for the past five years. Rex had a firm understanding with his sisters, however. They married whomever and whenever they pleased, not before. If his ducal authority meant anything—and he wasn’t sure it did—it meant that he could preserve his sisters from the dreaded advantageous match.

“Lady Guilfoyle.” Rex bowed and endured a re-recitation of the same gossip he’d already heard several times in the past half hour. Lord Pritchard’s heir had stumbled into the Serpentine on Sunday trying to rescue a lady’s glove from peril. As a result—how unfortunate!—passersby had been treated to the sight of a soaking wet male form, and the glove—even more tragic!—had been ruined.

“But you know,” Mama said, “if one must be subjected to the particulars of the male physique, at least the specimen on display was a credit to his gender.”

Titters, faux kisses, bow-and-curtsey, smile, repeat.

Rex returned his mother to the box, the play resumed, and all the while, he had the oddest urge to make his excuses, walk back to the ducal residence, and closet himself with the ledgers he was collecting for Mrs. Hatfield. Those ledgers held truths about him and about his dukedom, while increasingly, the theater box held only a vast, inane boredom.

As did the ballrooms, the musicales, the carriage parade, the gentlemen’s clubs, the soirees, the card parties, Almack’s—God spare a hapless duke from Almack’s—the Venetian breakfasts, and churchyard socializing. Perhaps titled men took up parliamentary responsibilities in defense of their sanity.

The lady cousins continued to feud, Eddie teased his brother while Howell pretended to watch the play, and Rachel and Mama pretended to ignore James and his paramour, who politely ignored them in return.

On stage, Tony Lumpkin made up boisterous songs about the joys of life after inheriting a title, while the boring, dutiful character Hardcastle lamented the status of an observer, doomed to watch others laugh and joke away their days.

*  *  *

Elsmore set three thick ledgers bound in green leather on the bank’s conference table. “We have a problem.”

“You have a problem.” Ellie had tossed away half her night considering the dimensions of his problem. “I am generously attempting to solve it for you.”

He unbuttoned his greatcoat, a many-caped sartorial wonder that would have fetched significant coin in the re-sale shops.