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Another annoying spell of tremors shook Reina as they proceeded to the breakfast room. She’d never been nervous around William before. She had also never confronted him like this. There had always been lines of respect neither of them had wanted to cross. In the next few minutes, she would be burning bridges behind her and ahead.

Her heart thudded so loudly in her ears, she could hardly hear the butler announce them.

“Miss Martin,” William said warmly, rising from his chair at the breakfast table, “what an unexpected pleasure. Will you have some breakfast? Tea and toast? Pembroke, old boy, you’re welcome to take tea downstairs with the other servants.”

He came to her, beautifully dressed in a black frock coat, a pearl-gray vest, and trousers with needle-thin gray stripes. She smelled the familiar almond-tobacco sweetness of his coumarin cologne, custom-blended by Floris Perfumers.

Had Reina allowed herself, she could have burst into tears on the spot.

“William,” she said carefully, trying to sound natural even though nothing about the situation was natural, “I’m afraid we’re not here for a pleasant reason.”

He regarded her with concern. “Tell me what I can do to help.”

“Mr. Pembroke is here with me because . . .” Reina fell silent. Words dashed inside her head like birds flying against a window, fighting their own reflections.

What was the matter with her? She had always handled adversity so well. Even after her father’s loss she hadn’t wasted time grieving; she’d worked night and day to support herself and Mamaíta. But at the moment she could only stand there, paralyzed.

In the face of her silence, William became even more concerned, almost tender, as he said, “Reina, come sit with me.” He turned to John. “Pembroke, you’ll have to leave while I speak to Miss Martin in private.” He paused, looking at John more sharply. “Why the devil are you dressed like that?”

Instead of a conservative and deliberately undistinguished butler’s uniform, John wore a sleek, dark suit of navy-blue wool, well-tailored with sharp lapels. The differences were subtle—but in a culture attuned to the signals of accent, vocabulary, posture, and grooming, the message was clear: A disguise had been shed.

“Sir,” John said in a measured tone, “as I recently disclosed to Miss Martin, I was obliged to seek a position at Westbrook House under false pretenses. The truth is, I’m a detective officer with the Manchester Police.”

William gave a slight shake of his head, as if John had spoken gibberish.

John continued calmly. “The Metropolitan Criminal Investigation Department asked me to take a position in Miss Martin’s household as part of an investigation. There were reports of irregularities at the bank and questions about your connection with Miss Martin—”

“What in God’s name are you talking about?” William asked in amazement. “Irregularities? At Farlow’s? I run my bank with the highest degree of professionalism. The ledgers are balanced to the penny.”

“In the absence of an external audit, the CID hasn’t been able to verify that.”

“Of course they haven’t,” William said in a caustic tone. “Farlow’s is a private bank, and how I run it is my own damn business. Audits are done in-house, as is standard and legal. Furthermore, if you think Miss Martin will help you drum up some invented rubbish about my bank, you’re sorely mistaken.”

“William,” Reina said with difficulty, “please listen—”

“I want you to leave, Pembroke. Any questions you have may be addressed to my lawyers. Reina, you will remain here with me until Pembroke removes his belongings from your house and returns to bloody Manchester.”

“William.” The urgency in Reina’s voice caught his attention. Holding his gaze, she said gently, “We’ve seen the books—the real ones. I’ve looked at the suspense account ledger. You can’t carry on down this path any further.”

He gave her a baffled glance. “My dear girl . . . this is lunacy. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Obviously you’ve been deceived. Whatever they’ve shown you, whatever you think you’ve seen, it’s not real. I’ll have it sorted out.”

“You can’t sort out a two-million-pound deficit,” she forced herself to say.

William turned bleach-white. His jaw worked a little, like a loose cog trying to catch its gear. “I don’t know how you came by that figure,” he finally said. “It’s not accurate. But if there were a deficit, it would make Farlow’s no different from any other bank in London. You don’t know how things are done.”

“I know what you’ve taught me. And none of what I saw in those ledgers supports it.”

“How did you . . .” He paused, his astonishment shrinking and cooling into stony defensiveness. “These accusations have been made out of ignorance. I’m guiding my bank through the ordinary rhythms of commerce. Every banker has to make adjustments. It’s prudent management.”

Reina could hardly find words to reply. What he’d done was the exact opposite of prudent management. Was he consciously lying to her, or had he somehow deluded himself into believing it?

“William,” she said carefully, “you’ve been relying on schemes to attract new customers, so you could use their money to make payments to existing customers. ‘Never rob Peter to pay Paul’—that’s what you’ve always told me. You said a bank should only pay out from the surplus, never the reserves.”

“I do what’s best for my customers,” he said, his voice sharpening. “No one is entitled to question my decisions where the bank is concerned. Not even you.”

“You told me you always balanced ambition with safety. ‘One hand on the ladder, one on the rope.’ But that’s not what you’ve been doing. You’ve made risky loans. You keep two sets of books. I don’t understand how it all came to this point, but the bank is over-leveraged, and now—”

“That’s correct,” he shot back. “You don’t understand. In many ways you’re still a child—a clever child who parrots back what she’s heard, without knowing what she’s saying.”