Read Chapter 14: An Unexpected Ally

The brass knocker on Lord Whitmore’s door was a lion’s head worn smooth by a century of gloved hands. Eleanor gripped it, let it fall, and listened to the sound echo somewhere deep inside the Mayfair townhouse. She had not sent a calling card. She had not written ahead. She had simply walked here from the corner where she’d dismissed her mother’s carriage—an act of desperation disguised as spontaneity.

The butler who answered was old enough to remember when Whitmore had been merely Mr. Whitmore, a banker with a modest office on Lombard Street and an eye for American enterprise. He looked at Eleanor’s damp hem, her flushed cheeks, her absence of a chaperone, and said nothing. But his eyebrows spoke volumes.

“Miss Wentworth to see Lord Whitmore,” Eleanor said, before he could ask. “He knew my father. I must see him on a matter of some urgency.”

The butler hesitated. Then something in her expression—the same ferocity her father must have worn when he’d first pitched his railway scheme to a skeptical young banker—seemed to decide him. “This way, miss.”

Lord Whitmore’s study smelled of tobacco and old ledgers. He rose from behind a desk that would have made an excellent fortress, a man in his seventies with white hair combed severely back and eyes that had seen every swindle, every panic, every foolish bet London had ever placed. He peered at her over his spectacles.

“Eleanor Wentworth,” he said. Not a question. “You look like your father. You look like him haunted.”

“I need your help, my lord.”

“Then you may sit.” He gestured to a leather chair that creaked when she settled into it. “I read about your mother’s ball in the society pages. Quite the evening, I gather. A duke, a waltz, a dramatic exit. You’ve made yourself remarkably visible for a young lady who is supposed to be invisible.”

Eleanor’s cheeks burned. “That evening was not of my choosing.”

“No. They rarely are.” He set down his pen. “What do you need?”

She had rehearsed a dozen opening lines on the walk over. She discarded all of them. “You knew my father.”

“Well. He was a reckless man with a brilliant mind. He lost a fortune three times over and made it back four. I will not insult his memory by pretending he was prudent—but he was honest. When he gave his word, he kept it.” Whitmore tilted his head. “You have his mouth. Tell me what you’ve done.”

“I haven’t done anything,” Eleanor said. “That’s the problem.”

She told him. Not everything—not the Duke of Ashworth’s ultimatum, not the waltz, not the tears. But she told him about the column. About Ellery. About the name she’d borrowed and the reputation she’d built and the bonds that had vanished with Thaddeus Finch. She told him about Wexham and the moneylender’s note and the midday deadline she had already missed.

Whitmore listened without interruption. His face gave away nothing, but his fingers had gone still on the desk.

“You are Mr. Ellery,” he said at last.

“Yes.”

“The City’s most audacious financial voice. The man who told the railway barons their consolidations were overvalued and the copper syndicate to sell before the summer crash. The man who predicted the Cornish tin collapse to the week.” He said it slowly, as if tasting each phrase. “You are a young American woman who has not yet seen her twenty-third birthday.”

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Eleanor whispered.

Whitmore laughed. It was a dry, rattling sound, like gravel shifting. “My dear girl—I have been waiting for this moment for over a year.”

She blinked. “What?”

He rose and crossed to a cabinet, returning with a leather folder. He opened it on the desk between them. Inside, neatly clipped and annotated in his own hand, were copies of every column she had ever written under the Ellery name. The margins were filled with notes in blue ink.

“You made me a great deal of money, Mr. Ellery,” Whitmore said. “I bought the copper shares short the week after you predicted the crash. I sold my railway holdings when you warned of over-leverage. I have been following your counsel more closely than the advice of my own partners, which is saying something, as one of them is a fool and the other is my nephew.” He tapped the folder. “I wrote to Ellery four times offering to back his ventures. I received no reply. Now I understand why.”

Eleanor’s heart was hammering. “You wrote to me?”

“Indeed. And I was vastly disappointed by your silence. I had begun to suspect the author was a woman, you know. No man writes with that much common sense and so little ego.” He smiled a thin, wry smile. “You have an unusual voice, Miss Wentworth. It reads like someone who has had to fight for everything she possesses and intends to keep it.”

Eleanor sat very still. The room seemed to tilt slightly. “Then you believe me?”

“I believe you are who you claim to be. I also believe you are in serious trouble. Wexham is a parasite who preys on those who cannot defend themselves. The question is not whether he has trapped you—the question is whether you have the spine to escape.”

“I have the spine,” Eleanor said. “I lack the capital.”

“Yes. I imagined that was why you came.” Whitmore closed the folder and folded his hands over it. “I am prepared to pay off your debt to Wexham. I am prepared to do so today, before you accrue another day of interest or another moment of his ‘attention.’ I am prepared to give you a line of credit to keep Ellery solvent while you sort out this mess.”

Eleanor’s mouth opened. Closed. She felt something crack in her chest, something that had been held tightly for weeks. “I don’t—I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you’ll do one thing for me in return.”

“Anything.”

Whitmore’s eyes grew sharp. “Find out what happened to Thaddeus Finch.”

The name hit her like a slap. “You knew him?”

“I employed him. Briefly. He was a junior clerk in my office, a quiet young man with a talent for arithmetic and a weakness for conspiracy theories. He left my employ six months ago to work for a firm that specializes in railway bonds—and then he vanished. His mother still comes to see me once a month to ask if I have word. I do not have word.” Whitmore’s voice hardened. “I believe he discovered something he was not meant to find. I believe it is connected to the bonds your column recommended. And I believe the person who made Finch disappear is the same person who used your name to set the trap.”

Eleanor’s fingers tightened on the arms of the chair. “If I find him—if I uncover the fraud—you’ll help me restore Ellery’s name?”

“I will do more than that. I will give you the capital to make Ellery stronger than he ever was. But I want the truth first. I want to know what happened to a boy who used to deliver my newspapers and call me ‘sir’ with genuine respect.” Whitmore leaned forward. “You have a duke circling you and a moneylender threatening you and a reputation that is already three steps from ruin. You need a friend in the City, Miss Wentworth. I am offering to be that friend—for a price.”

Eleanor looked at the folder of columns, at her own words written back to her in this old man’s careful hand. She thought of Finch’s mother, waiting for news that would never come. She thought of Ashworth, who expected her to confess and surrender. She thought of her mother, humiliated in front of half of London.

“I’ll find him,” she said. “I’ll find Finch and I’ll find the fraud.”

“Good.” Whitmore rose, extended his hand. She shook it, and his grip was surprisingly firm. “Then we have a bargain. I shall send the funds to Wexham this afternoon with a note explaining that his correspondence with young ladies is no longer welcome. And you shall begin your investigation tonight. Tell me—do you have any idea where to start?”

Eleanor thought of the postmark on the threat. Of the moneylender’s district. Of the name she had overheard in that bankers’ knot on Bond Street. She thought of Jarvis, standing wet and loyal in her hallway, and of the half-brother who did not exist.

“I have a maid who is more loyal than she ought to be,” Eleanor said slowly. “And I have a lie that is about to become very inconvenient.”

Whitmore’s eyebrows lifted a fraction. “Oh?”

“I told the Duke of Ashworth that the real Mr. Ellery is my invalid half-brother,” she admitted. “If he investigates that claim—which he will, given that he is the most thorough man I have ever met—he will find no such person exists. I need Jarvis to become my brother, at least long enough to throw him off the scent.”

Whitmore studied her a long moment. Then his mouth curved into a smile that reminded her, suddenly, of her father.

“Miss Wentworth,” he said, “I think you and I are going to get along very well indeed.”