Forever and a Duke

by Grace Burrowes

  “Well…yes.”

  “The Butterfield who closed the account seemed elderly,” she went on. “The weather having turned, he arrived swathed in scarves and a hat, wearing a nondescript greatcoat with the collar turned up. If he’s a careful sort of swindler, he wore finger gloves beneath his mittens. He might also be bearded, stooped, and wear tinted spectacles, so your teller can barely describe the man who first came in to close the account.”

  She’d even got the tinted spectacles right. “Has the same scheme been attempted at Wentworth and Penrose? Perhaps Mr. Butterfield’s impostor is working a city-wide swindle.” A marginally cheering thought.

  “Stealing a wealthy old man’s identity is not complicated when that old man has removed himself from society. His son, secretary, or favorite nephew could pull it off. When the schemer disappears into the night, the old fellow realizes that his funds are at risk. By that time, it’s too late.”

  Rex finished the last of his tisane and saluted Mrs. Hatfield with the empty cup. “I am apparently the only bank director in all of London unaware of even the simplest frauds. How in the hell is every teller to know every customer at sight?”

  “They can’t,” she said, taking the empty mug from him and setting it on the sideboard. “But there is good news. The bounder who duped you will not run the same rig on you again. He doesn’t dare.”

  “He’ll move on to another bank?”

  “Very likely to another city, even another country. How much did he get?”

  “A couple hundred pounds and half of my self-respect.”

  “It could have been thousands, but a smart crook doesn’t want to carry that much ready cash. Because the bank will cover the loss rather than publicize its error, the injured party is the bank, not the old man. Criminals prefer to steal from institutions rather than people, the honorable ones, anyway.”

  She knelt to poke up the fire, and the cat leaped down from the reading chair to strop itself against her skirts.

  “On that disheartening note,” Rex said, “I should be going. I’m expected at the theater later this evening.” Where the hum of gossip all but obscured the dialogue from the stage half the time—not that Rex was interested in the dialogue. “How does a thief decide which old man to impersonate?”

  “Cautiously. Impersonation is a long game, involving employment in the household of the dupe, or a careful observation of him. Will I see you tomorrow?”

  “Yes, though I hope you rest from your labors on the Sabbath.”

  She brought him his greatcoat and held it up for him. “I do. Even I know that the mind needs periods of repose. Enjoy the theater.”

  She passed him his scarf, then his gloves.

  “Do you ever go—to the theater?”

  “I do not,” she replied, picking up the cat. “I sometimes think about attending an opera, but the seats are dear, and it’s not a venue a woman can frequent on her own.”

  “The opera, Mrs. Hatfield?” Rex took satisfaction from knowing this about her, from knowing that even she had an unfulfilled wish or two.

  “Don’t take a two-hundred-pound rig too much to heart, Your Grace. If that’s the worst setback the bank experiences, your institution will thrive for generations. The tellers should be instructed to chat up every customer and get to know their situations. Keep the fires going in the public areas so nobody has an excuse to remain swaddled in a disguise.”

  She carried all of this wisdom around in her head, as easily as Rex carried the ducal succession in his. Her knowledge was useful while his…

  “This whole business will get worse, won’t it?” he asked, hand on the door latch. “You will soon make me face far more than a few returned dresses and some loose pin money.”

  Mrs. Hatfield cradled the cat against her middle. “Your entire problem might be a matter of loose pin money going awry in three dozen directions, or it might involve that plus more sophisticated schemes. We’ll have a better sense of that by this time next week.”

  So yes, the reality of his books would soon grow considerably worse. “Do you know how much I value your honesty?”

  “As much as I value your coin?”

  More. Far more. He didn’t dare say that to her when the admission was something of a shock even to him. “Until tomorrow afternoon, Mrs. Hatfield.”

  She touched his sleeve. “An audit is a difficult tonic, Your Grace, but the sooner you take it, the greater the likelihood your sons and grandsons will be spared the same problems. We’ll get your dukedom sorted out.”

  She went up on her toes and kissed his cheek, then held the door for him, and waved him on his way.

  Chapter Six

  “Pamela, tell me the truth,” Ellie said in her sternest Your-Sister-Knows-All tones. “Did Jack play the Old Man on a fellow named Purcell Butterfield?”

  “Now, Eleanora, you mustn’t be wroth.” Pamela plucked the infant from Ellie’s arms, and Ellie let the child go. “The baby will be upset by your harsh words, and then I’ll get no peace.”

  “My words are not harsh. I’m merely asking a question.”

  Pamela took the only other seat in the sitting room, and one-handed began to unbutton her bodice. The child waved tiny fists, while two older siblings played some game involving pebbles on the threadbare hearthrug. The only spot of grace about the place was a pair of sketches hanging beside the door, one of Pamela, one of the two older children.

  Jack had done both and had likely completed each one in less than five minutes.

  “Who knows what Jack and them get up to?” Pamela asked, putting the child to her breast. “They have the sense not to gabble about it. Jack has been looking like a clerk lately, a proper secretary. He takes honest work sometimes, but then his reputation catches up with him.”

  “Or his criminal tendencies do.”

  Pamela stroked the baby’s downy crown. Another redhead, from the looks of him. “Easy for you to judge, Ellie. You were lucky. Jack works hard, and he’d work honest all the time if he could. You’re not to tell him I said that.”

  The little apartment smelled of boiled cabbage and bacon, the signature scents of Ellie’s later childhood.

  “Do you hear anything from York?” Ellie asked.

  “Had a note last week. It’s on the mantel.”

  “You had a note and you didn’t tell me?”

  Pamela wrapped the infant more closely in his blanket, which had been a gift from Ellie to Pamela’s firstborn.

  “Slipped what’s left of my mind. You try having three babies in six years. Makes ya fair daft, it does.”

  Pamela could affect the speech of a Mayfair debutante when she chose to, but here at home, the broad vowels of Yorkshire shone through.

  “I wish they’d write to me,” Ellie said, taking down a single folded sheet of foolscap. Grandmama crossed her letters to save on postage, but she still had the handwriting of a lady. Ellie carried the note to the window, where grimy glass let in weak sunshine.

  “The usual,” Ellie murmured. “Grandpapa dislikes the cold, Grandmama’s knees bother her. She hopes the winter won’t be as snowy as last.” No hidden messages, no encoded directions for Jack or Pamela or Mick, no word that any of the cousins had been arrested. No bad news, thank the celestial powers. “I wish they’d move south.”

  “You wish Jack would move north, and probably me and Clyde as well. Mick has nipped off to Bristol or Antwerp, I forget where.”

  Meaning Mick was safely away, if he’d impersonated Mr. Butterfield.

  Clyde was a charming Scotsman, which in Ellie’s experience was a redundant term. Charming and unscrupulous were, alas, also often found in close proximity.

  “What is Clyde up to these days?”

  “Odd jobbing, man of all work,” Pamela said, switching the baby to the second breast. “He drives a cab for any fellow who’s down with an ague, he shovels coal, sweeps crossings…this and that.”

  Clyde Andrews was also a cheerful and affectionate father, a faithful spouse
from what Pamela said, and he only got drunk on the Sabbath, when no work was to be done for hire.

  Ellie did not trust him, though she distrusted him less than she distrusted her cousins. “Keep Clyde away from Jack, Pamela. Jack is not a good influence.” Though to Ellie’s knowledge, Jack had never involved Clyde in an illegal scheme. Clyde was the sole support of three children and thus, according to Jack’s reckoning, not a man to be taking on risky ventures.

  “Our cousins are enterprising lads, Ellie. We don’t all have your good fortune. Ouch.” Pamela gently batted the child on the nose—very gently.

  “I am lucky,” Ellie said. “I am also careful, and I work hard.”

  “You wouldn’t have to work so hard, but you alone of all the Naylors insist on ignoring opportunity when it all but falls into your lap.”

  “I ignore the opportunity to end my days with a rope around my neck.”

  The oldest child glanced up from the pebble game, then looked to her mother.

  “Aunt Ellie is cross this morning,” Pamela said. “She works too hard.”

  The middle child scrambled to his feet. “Aunt El rides in fancy coaches with fancy gentlemen!” This occasioned dancing about and general shrieking on the parts of the older two. “Cousin Jackie says Aunt El rides in a fancy coach with fancy coves!”

  “Both of you go play on the landing,” Pamela said. “Go now, before you upset the baby.”

  “They upset me,” Ellie said, when the door had been stoutly slammed by the departing children. “Has Jack been spying on me?”

  Fancy gentlemen, the children had said, plural. Not the occasional coach ride shared with His Grace of Walden, but gentlemen.

  “Jack keeps an eye on us all. Grandpapa told him to.”

  “That was more than ten years ago, and Grandpapa told me the same thing. I don’t lurk in alleys watching what you get up to.”

  “Take the baby,” Pamela said, passing the infant over. “I can’t say Jack has been lurking in any alleys, but you do ride about in fancy coaches. I saw you myself just yesterday. The Walden crest is well known, and there you were, pretty as a princess in the middle of the afternoon.”

  Ellie put the baby to her shoulder and softly patted his little back. “Her Grace lends me the carriage on occasion when the weather is inclement.”

  “In-clem-ent,” Pamela drawled. “You really have left Yorkshire behind, haven’t you?”

  The baby was precious and sweet, and to have this argument when the little fellow was due to drift off for a nap struck Ellie as wrong.

  “If Jack is spying on me, then I have dragged Yorkshire and all its miseries right to my own doorstep, haven’t I? Tell him to leave me alone, Pamela, or he could ruin everything I’ve worked years to build.”

  A bank auditor with criminal connections would not be a bank auditor for long. The Wentworth and Penrose owners would give Ellie generous severance, and they’d regret cutting her loose, but they would think first, last, and always of their bank’s reputation.

  “You want the grandparents to move down to London, but you want Jack to pretend he’s a stranger. Fine way to treat a man you were once engaged to.”

  Not this. Not now, when the baby was sighing so sweetly near Ellie’s ear. “He left me for one of his schemes, Pamela. You know that. Left me without a word in parting, and came jaunting back three months later with no explanation and little apology.”

  A bullet dodged, though Ellie would never say that to Jack. She kept her peace on the matter not to spare Jack the guilt and shame of having abandoned her, but because it flattered him to think she’d pined for him.

  “Men do what they must,” Pamela said, buttoning and tucking in her bodice. “How are matters at the bank?”

  “The same. Wentworth and Penrose thrives, and I pride myself on contributing to its good standing. One word from Jack, and I have no livelihood and no reputation.”

  The baby gave a tiny burp, then a sigh.

  “They are always so good for you,” Pamela said. “The babies, that is. Jack simply looks after you for old times’ sake.”

  No, he did not. Ellie wasn’t sure what exactly Jack was about. She refused to have anything to do with his schemes, and he refused disappear from her life. He was like a half-tame dog. She worried when he dropped out of sight for too long, but she wasn’t comfortable when he was underfoot either.

  “Our family was respectable once, Pammie. We can be respectable again, but not if Jack and his cohorts keep running their rigs.”

  Pamela stared at the door. “The little heathens have gone upstairs to bother Mrs. Hilton. Where that woman gets her patience, I do not know. I think I might be expecting again. Mrs. H says I have the look.”

  “Mrs. H is on the nest,” Ellie said. “She sees babies everywhere. For your sake, I hope you haven’t conceived again so soon.”

  Pamela tied her bodice ribbon in a bow. “Clyde can be persuasive.”

  But could he provide adequately for the fruits of his persuasion? “Take this,” Ellie said, passing over a gold sovereign. “For the children.”

  The coin disappeared into one of Pamela’s pockets. “You needn’t, you know. Mick left us a bit of a windfall before he went traveling. We’ll be in clover through the New Year.”

  An eternity of good fortune by the standards of a Naylor. “Keep the coin. Winter is long and coal is expensive.” Ellie passed the now-sleeping child to his mother. “Don’t you ever want better for your children, Pamela? Want them to grow up without the fear that their uncle might end up transported or worse?”

  Ellie wanted better for her nieces and nephews, and for her sister and cousins.

  “No, Ellie, I don’t. We were respectable a lifetime ago, and then, because the nobs can literally get away with anything, we weren’t respectable any more. We could all toil away, minding the rules, working ourselves to death, and maybe our grandchildren would someday be halfway acceptable. Then another earl or duke or even a bloody shop owner could start making accusations, and we’d be ruined again. That’s how it works. Enjoy your fancy coaches while they last.”

  Ellie had no argument to that reasoning because it was based on experience and fact. “They aren’t my coaches.”

  “They aren’t your fancy gents either,” Pamela said, passing Ellie her coat, “but not a one of us would begrudge you a little time spent lightening their pockets. We’d cheer you on, in fact.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Maybe it should be like that, Ellie. You ever think of that? If you’re not inclined to marry, you should at least enjoy the occasional frolic and be paid for your troubles. Nothing illegal in that, and the fancy gents have more coin than they know what to do with.”

  “Frolics have consequences. I’ll keep my job at the bank, thank you very much.” Until some cousin or in-law ended up drenching the whole family in scandal once more.

  “Come see us again soon,” Pamela said, offering Ellie a brief, one-armed squeeze. “Come around on a Sunday, and we’ll set a place for you.”

  Ellie left without committing to that plan, because another mouth to feed was another mouth to feed. She’d made it two streets past the corner before Jack fell in step beside her, looking every inch the modest clerk.

  “So who’s the new fancy gent, Eleanora? Have you taken to collecting dukes now?”

  “None of your business, and I’ll thank you not to spy on me. Don’t bother begging me to hand an innocent young woman into your keeping either, Jack Naylor.”

  “I didn’t want to trouble the woman, only borrow her purse for a bit. Though as to that, an older lady might have more jewels and coin. I’m not particular about the lady as long as the purse is worth my while.”

  The game Jack contemplated was uncomplicated: Have some urchin steal a lady’s purse when she was in a public location. Give dramatic chase, then return the purloined item on a cloud of selfless gallantry. Because returning stolen items was to be encouraged, a reward usually followed. What the scheme
lacked in certainty it made up for in simplicity and immediacy of the benefit, if any benefit was to be had.

  Best of all, the urchin took all the risk, and a very significant risk it was. Too often as children, the cousins had done the snatching, and Ellie had done the worrying.

  “So Mick has departed this sceptered isle for the nonce?” she asked.

  “He took a notion to travel, as restless young men sometimes do.”

  “After he took a notion to work a rig on a Mr. Purcell Butterfield?”

  The name had Jack stopping in the middle of the walkway. “How do you know about that?”

  In the name of fractions, decimals, and irrational numbers. “Shall I share my suspicions with the magistrate?”

  “Nora Naylor, for shame.” Genuine dismay colored Jack’s features, or as close to genuine dismay as he ever came. “A bank can stand to lose a few bob to an enterprising fellow with family to look after. Not like the old cove was out a single farthing.”

  Despair and exasperation stole the last of Ellie’s self-restraint. “Some teller is likely without a job because of Mick’s scheme, and that man has family to feed too—family he worked hard to feed. If the bank doesn’t fire the teller for being too honest to sniff out your crooked scheme, then his pay will be docked until the day he dies, and all of his peers will hold him in contempt. He might well have been let go without a character, and then Mick with his little scheme is no better than the Earl of Winston, is he? Victimizing the blameless for his own gain, going merrily on his way and leaving other lives in ruins.”

  In this neighborhood, nobody would pay attention to family members having a public spat, but Jack looked up and down the street anyway.

  “Watch your mouth, Ellie. Mick works hard, but unless you’re respectable and you have all the pretty letters in your pocket, you cannot find decent work, not decent work that pays.”

  “You’re saying you’d take honest work if it was offered? You, Jack?” Ellie resumed walking though she wanted to take off at a dead run.

  “If the pay was fair. Too many want you to work yourself to death for nothing, then they hang you anyway when you poach a few rabbits.”