“I would at least raise my voice if a family member betrayed my trust,” she retorted. “I’d not be sitting on my elegant backside, swilling tea, and doodling. I’d throw fragile objects, provided they weren’t worth much. I’d kick the wall and curse. To entrust another with money is an intimate act of faith. One’s security, one’s future, one’s…I needn’t tell you.”

She thought his backside elegant. He could venture a similar opinion about hers, except that he sought to live to a vigorous old age.

“Don’t forget that my dignity will also suffer when I find out which employee has been dipping a hand into my coffers. Dukes are supposed to have endless reserves of dignity.”

“Dukes are people,” she said, taking up her pencil of doom. “I thought that condition applied only to His Grace of Walden, a rarity among his peers. My theory no longer fits the available facts, for you are nearly as stubborn as he is.”

Rex took a moment with her nose. Noses were easy to get wrong, easy to relegate to an afterthought, but a whole countenance could be rendered either noble or ridiculous by an artist’s handling of the nose.

“Did you just pay me a compliment, Mrs. Hatfield? I daresay you did. You admitted me into membership in the human species, a very exclusive club indeed. I cannot recall when last I was so cleverly flattered.”

He finished the tea and realized he’d finished the shortbread as well. Mrs. Hatfield put her glasses back on, but Rex decided not to draw her wearing them. The lady on the page was intriguing, even beautiful, but she was not smiling. Glasses would make her look too severe, too unhappy.

“We must consider your family members among those responsible for mishandling your funds, sir.”

“Who is stubborn now, Mrs. Hatfield? Do you think I wouldn’t notice if my sisters were padding accounts? Am I so oblivious to my own cousins that they could steal from me, abuse my generosity, and have me none the wiser?”

Rex might resent his family, find their company tiresome, and even nip out to Ambledown occasionally to escape them, but he knew them well enough to trust them.

“You need not feel ashamed, Your Grace. Your holdings are vast, your family large. We’ll find the source or sources of the irregularities and then you can decide what to do about them.”

Sources, plural? “My family is above suspicion, Mrs. Hatfield. I’ll grant you that errors occur, miscalculations can be carried forward, but I pay sufficient attention to my loved ones that the misbehavior you suspect them of could not happen. Give me that much credit, at least. We limit our investigations to retainers, employees, and factors.”

She drew another arrow that ended in a question mark and then two more. One for each sister? Preposterous.

“We can start with your staff, Your Grace.”