“There is my dear Mrs. Hatfield, sporting her true colors. I blame Elsmore for your temporary docility. Your family is steeped in scandal. Your grandfather was utterly ruined and should probably have swung for his crimes, but some wealthy patron or other hushed the whole business up, and Jacob Erasmus Naylor was permitted to slink off into penurious obscurity.”

With numerous dependents and a wife to feed. “Mr. Penrose and His Grace of Walden are acquainted with my family history.”

“No, they are not. They are acquainted with your grandfather’s history. I’m sure there’s much more to the story, Eleanora, and you can either tell me that tale, or allow me the pleasure of discovering it through my own means, for I will.”

Ellie had known this day would come, when somebody—it would be a titled, wealthy, male somebody, of course—unveiled a past she’d worked so hard to leave behind. She had the means to move to the Continent. She had skills that the more enlightened French would likely pay her for, and she even had a few words of French.

But she did not want to go, not in disgrace, not on terms dictated by this preening meddler, not before she’d untangled the web of incompetence and deceit wrapped around Elsmore’s finances.

I will kill Mick if I ever see him again. “Why?” she said, rising. “Why destroy my life simply because you can? Is that your idea of amusement? Will your lofty brother thank you for running off the single greatest claim to integrity Wentworth and Penrose has?”

“The greatest claim to integrity the bank has is my brother’s damned honor. You are the greatest claim it has to trustworthiness, though you mistake my motives entirely.”

“Then for the sake of all that tallies accurately, tell me your perishing motives before I pitch you out the window, my lord. I am not my grandfather. I am not my cousins. I have done nothing to earn anybody’s distrust, and you are no gentleman to imply otherwise.”

Ellie paced, battling back more angry words. For years, she’d kept her temper in check, but what was the point, if all that self-restraint was to be rewarded with another aristocrat playing God with a commoner’s life?

Lord Stephen turned his chair to face her. “You daft, demented woman, I am not your enemy. You are without allies, you hold a position of immense trust, you’ve taken on the thankless business of laundering Elsmore’s financial linen, and you do this while balancing on a tightrope over a flaming pit of family scandal. I thought you could use a friend.”

He held out a white square of linen with a crest and initials embroidered on one corner.

Ellie snatched the handkerchief from him and wiped her eyes. “Do you always make your lady friends cry, my lord?”