“Nobody plied anybody.” More’s the pity. “We enjoyed an informal meal, not the first or the last.” Lord Stephen in his present mood reminded Ellie of her nieces and nephews, a one-person swarm of intrusion. “If you are hungry, I can offer bread and butter, leftover soup, and the last of the wine.”

“I would never impose,” he said, apparently in all seriousness. “Tomorrow is my day to review the bank books, my feeble effort to compensate for your absence at Wentworth and Penrose. Have you any guidance for me?”

Ellie knew his lordship well enough to see the distraction in that question. She would focus on the topic he raised—the bank ledgers, her favorite subject in the world—while he circled around to pounce on the information he was truly interested in.

“If I provide you warnings,” she said, “such as that Mr. Cummings tends to argue with his wife on Thursday night, which is skittles night at his favorite pub, so his accounts are slightly the worse on Friday mornings, or that all the clerks bear closer scrutiny on Friday morning, then you will not see the errors Cummings makes on Tuesday, or the rest of them make on Saturday.”

He wheeled over to position his chair opposite Ellie’s near the hearth. “You think me incompetent?”

That possibility amused him. “I think you human. We all have a tendency, once our vigilance is rewarded, to relax our guard. When I find an error in one column, I often miss the error in the very next one, but am back on my mettle by the time I turn the page. Sophisticated crooks know this, so they leave small errors in plain sight, the better to hide the large deceptions lurking nearby.”

“Do you trust me, Mrs. Hatfield?”

And there was the Congreve rocket aimed at Ellie’s self-possession, fired from a harmless thicket of nosiness and shop talk.

“In some capacities, of course.”

“Fair enough. Have I ever given you reason to doubt my honor?”

Ellie reviewed what she knew of him and what she knew of his ledgers. “I trusted you with the Wentworth and Penrose books, so I would say my opinion of your honor is positive.”

“I am gratified rather than insulted that you had to think about that answer. One likes to be considered a bit menacing when one cannot cross a room without stumbling.”

“You menace my peace, your lordship. If you have any other questions regarding the bank accounting, I am happy to answer them.” Happy was an overstatement.

“My sisters bide in the north for much of the year,” he said. “You’ve seen their estate books.”

Ladies Althea and Constance had the same fierce quality Lord Stephen did, though their acumen expressed itself more subtly. Ellie liked them, in part because neither woman was the least bit intimidated by their ducal brother’s consequence or Lord Stephen’s intellect.