Joshua Penrose stood when Ellie entered the conference room, as did another man. Ellie took one look at the stranger and cursed herself for a fool, though Elsmore bowed politely and thanked her for being willing to “lend her assistance.”

She’d been wrong, and she hated being wrong. Elsmore was neither a fop, nor prancing, nor a buffoon, and two weeks in his employ would be the longest fortnight of her life.

*  *  *

Rex had waited in the Wentworth and Penrose conference room like a brawling schoolboy awaited a headmaster’s judgment, though no schoolyard pugilist had ever enjoyed such luxurious surroundings. The walls were wainscoted in oak and covered with green silk. The floors sported first-quality cream, gold, and green Axminster from wall to wall. The furniture was heavy, well padded, and polished to a gleaming shine.

This might have been any conference room in any bank, except—Rex hadn’t noticed this until he’d been in the room many times—the windows were clean, inside and out, despite being one floor above a busy street. London coal smoke dirtied everything it touched, from laundry to ladies’ gloves to Mayfair mansions.

The result of clean windows, though, was a rare sense of light and freshness within Wentworth and Penrose’s walls. Unlike most commercial establishments—including Dorset and Becker, come to think of it—this bank was maintained to the standards of a wealthy domicile rather than a busy shop. The difference was both subtle and profound.

Cathedrals, unheated and often set apart from major cities, had the same clean, benevolent light.

The Duke of Walden himself held the door for a smallish female who preceded him into the room as if he were her footman rather than a wealthy peer.

Rex liked women—almost all women, which was handy when a fellow was knee-deep in sisters, aunties, and cousins of the feminine persuasion. He would have stood had any female joined the meeting, because manners were the least courtesy the ladies were due.

With this woman, a man would sit about on his lazy backside at his peril. She did not walk, she marched, plain gray skirts swishing like finest silk. Her posture would have done credit to Wellington reviewing the troops before a battle. She wore her dark hair in a ruthlessly tidy bun; a pair of spotless spectacles perched halfway down a slightly aquiline nose.

She had the figure of an opera dancer and the bearing of a thoroughly vexed mother superior.

Rex took in these details—and interesting details they were—as the lady crossed the room and snapped off a shallow curtsey. She declined to offer her hand, as was a woman’s prerogative.

He bowed, and for once refrained from smiling at a female. He had an arsenal of smiles. Friendly, flirtatious, bored, condescending, menacing—that one was not for use with the ladies—but this woman would likely slap him silly for such posturing.