Had she ever before used the verb to love in his hearing? “What else do you love? Books that balance to the penny?”

She picked up the cat, and it occurred to him that her dark wool dress would also not show cat hair.

“I enjoy bookkeeping, Your Grace, and I’m good at it. My talent lies there. I need to make an honest living, so that’s what I do. Maybe you feel the same way about being a duke?”

The question was posed casually, and yet, in her studied attention to the cat, in her half-turned posture, Rex caught a hint of genuine interest.

“Precisely. The title is my lot, to complain would be ridiculous, and I’m honor-bound to make the best of it. Will sandwiches do?”

She nuzzled the cat, who nuzzled her back. Was this how the aunties had started down the path of eccentricity? Only a cat to keep them company?

“If the shop has a good soup—pepper pot, fish chowder, beef and barley—I’d like some of that as well.”

Rex shrugged into his coat and left the buttons undone. “And another bottle of wine. The last vintage was surprisingly good. Can you answer a question for me?”

“Of course, Your Grace.”

“Why did you kiss me?” Despite getting to bed well past a decent hour, despite the eternities of socializing Rex’s evening had demanded, that question had robbed him of sleep.

“You kissed me first, sir.”

A gratifyingly nonsensical answer. “I kissed you because a gesture of affection under the circumstances seemed appropriate. I hope I did not offend.”

The ever articulate, always competent, not-to-be-daunted Mrs. Hatfield looked away. “You did not, and I hope I did not presume.”

“You rather did,” he said, tossing his scarf around his neck. “I adore you for it. Feel free to presume again whenever the mood strikes you.”

He left her by the window, looking once again quite self-possessed. She was doubtless deciding how to explain to him that yet another trusted hireling was plundering the ducal coffers. So why was Rex’s imagination fixed instead on images of Eleanora Hatfield plundering the ducal person?

*  *  *

Lord Stephen Wentworth’s first toy had been a wooden duck on a string. He’d acquired this treasure at the age of eight, far too old for such a nursery diversion. His father had been dead for a month, and thus—for the first time in Stephen’s life—personal possessions had become possible. He’d been too lame to do more than jerk the duck two feet at one go as he’d hobbled from chair to chair.