Stephen pushed his plate aside, though the steak was all but untouched—that much more for the kitchen staff.

“You must enjoy your trifle in solitude, not because I suspect you of abandoning your principles, though I do, but because the damned snow is making travel on foot treacherous. The sooner I’m back in my eyrie the better.”

“Do you know how badly I long to beat the hell out of you?”

“The sentiment is mutual, dear brother, but Jane would never forgive me for taking advantage of an old man’s slower reflexes.” Stephen arranged his canes and pushed to his feet. “My love to Jane and the girls.”

“Jane and I have had this discussion, Stephen, about Elsmore.”

Quinn’s marriage was a clock Stephen could not take apart. The mechanisms were mysterious and invisible, and a prudent sibling didn’t pry.

“And?”

“Jane is of the opinion that Elsmore’s discretion is to be trusted.”

“His discretion—which means the discretion of fourteen footmen, three coachies, eight grooms, a legion of personal secretaries, a valet and under-valet, three chambermaids, and a housekeeper, not to mention his own mother, from whom Jane herself has collected a store of interesting rumors. All that discretion is very reassuring indeed, but what of Elsmore’s honor?”

“Elsmore’s honor is to be trusted, and yet, it’s my own darling brother bruiting the lady’s business about in a club.”

“In the deserted dining room of a private club.” And if the discretion of a gentlemen’s club could not be trusted, civilization was at an end.

“Besides,” Quinn said, “Eleanora’s discretion is to be trusted as well. She has never been careless of her reputation before.”

Spare me from happily married older brothers. “Quinn, Elsmore enters the building at a pace that can only be described as eager, and two hours later, he slouches out into the elements, head down, scarf drawn up, not even watching where he’s going.”

“Then perhaps it’s Elsmore who’s headed for trouble, and not our Mrs. Hatfield, hmm?”

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

His Grace of Elsmore was becoming troublesome.

With each little scheme and device Ellie uncovered, she expected him to thank her kindly and send her packing. All the arrows pointed in the wrong directions, and his whole financial landscape was beclouded by poor accounting.

“And it is a vast landscape,” she informed the cat. On the street below, Elsmore disappeared into the chop shop, his head bare, his scarf flapping about his neck. “A landscape on which I can leave no footprints.”

Ellie wanted to. She liked his humor, his energy, his honesty. He considered her findings, grumbled, and then accepted what she showed him as trustworthy.

In other words, he accorded her respect.