She took the bread, tore it in two, and passed half back to him. “There’s no shame in poverty.”

“I doubt there’s much joy in it, either.”

“We managed, and I am impoverished no longer.” She launched into a lecture about concentric rings of responsibility, redundant documentation, and heaven knew what else. Rex poured her more wine, put an attentive expression on his face—he excelled at appearing attentive—and let his curiosity roam over the mystery of Eleanora Hatfield.

She’d known hardship, and she’d probably known embezzlers. She’d decided to wrap herself in the fiction of widowhood or wifehood, but not the reality, and she was truly passionate about setting Rex’s books to rights.

The longer she talked about the many ways his estates could have been pillaged—while he’d waltzed, played piquet, and debated the Corn Laws—the more he appreciated her fierceness and the more he wondered how she’d come by it.

“When should I call upon you tomorrow?” he asked, rising and gathering up the orts and leavings of their meal.

“At the end of the day,” she said, standing to take the greasy paper from him. “I’ll use this for kindling, and I leave any empty bottles in the alley for the street children to sell. In cold weather, their lives grow more perilous than usual.”

She drew her shawl up and looked away, as if those last words should have been kept behind her teeth.

Rex shrugged into his greatcoat, wrapped a cashmere scarf about his neck, and pulled on gloves lined with rabbit fur. Autumn had not only turned up nasty, winter was in the offing.

“I want you to consider something,” he said. “Something in addition to the many ways my trusty staff is bilking me of a fortune.”

“Not all of them, we haven’t established that.”

Not yet. Anybody seeking to steal from the Elsmore fortune was doomed to eventual discovery, now that Eleanora Hatfield was on the scent.

“Please consider a theoretical question: If instead of allowing my coffers to be pillaged by the enterprising thieves in my employ, I had donated that money to charity, where would you have me put those funds?”

He had her attention now, and having Eleanora Hatfield’s attention was not a casual state of affairs.

“You are asking about thousands of pounds, Your Grace.”

“No, actually, I am asking for your trust. You will soon know all of my secrets, Eleanora. You will know where I have been lax, where I have been less than conscientious about my duties. You will know who has betrayed me. Not even my priest knows me that well, not even my siblings. I am asking much of you, and in return, all I can offer is an assurance that your secrets would be safe with me.”