Rex leaned over Mrs. Hatfield’s desk, his hands braced on the blotter. “Madam, do you know what the consequences are for aggravating a duke?”

She tidied a stack of foolscap. “Indeed, I do. An annoyed duke will fume and splutter like a rejected flirt. He assays brooding silences and gimlet-eyed glowers, while all the mice cower and attempt to placate him. That drama goes dull after the third performance.”

Rex straightened. “Do you mean to tell me that His Grace of Walden carries on like that before bank employees?”

Next, she took up a penknife and pared a fresh point on her pencils, one by one. “Of course not, but the bank has among its patrons a sprinkling of titled ninnyhammers. Their tantrums exhibit a lamentable sameness.”

Rex resumed his seat, half amused by her self-possession, half awed by it. “I am not having a tantrum. You postulate that my own sisters are stealing from me. Allow me to be affronted on behalf of all concerned.”

The quill pens were her next project, each one sharpened with a few deft strokes of the knife. “Not stealing. I did not say stealing. Your sisters look to be engaged in one of the oldest ploys known to womanhood for amassing private funds.”

Her fingers weren’t ink-stained today, but she had turned back the cuff of her right sleeve, revealing a slender wrist. A tiny smear of ink graced the soft, pale underside of that wrist.

“And you posit that my siblings learned this scheme from my own mother.” A simple enough plan, as Mrs. Hatfield had explained it: Mark down in the books that pin money was spent on dresses and, indeed, order and have delivered a garment or three from some fashionable establishment, complete with a detailed invoice marked paid in full.

Return the garment for coin rather than credit. Pocket the coin.

“I suggested you investigate the possibility,” Mrs. Hatfield said, folding her hands like a dame school headmistress. “Have a look at the invoices and consult your memory to see if any of the dresses described ever graced the persons for whom they were sewn. The modiste your sisters favor is renowned for being very understanding about returned merchandise, and even the Duchess of Walden doesn’t go through dresses at the rate your sisters do.”

Rex’s head had begun to pound before he’d left the hallowed corridors of Dorset and Becker that afternoon. An argument with his valet over the choice of cravat pin hadn’t helped—Rex did not favor gaudy displays—and now this: allegations of pilfering aimed at the present Duchess of Elsmore and her daughters.

“I cannot recall what my sisters wore at breakfast much less to the last ball. They have an endless progression of pretty frocks, and it is my pleasure to pay for the lot.”