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They made their way inside, and the duke maneuvered them to the table with Hexley, who had previously boasted about Everly owing him money.

Hexley sat at his usual table, a glass of claret at his elbow and a hand of cards he was losing with great cheerfulness.

"Sutton! Hardwicke!" He lifted his glass. "Come to rob me together?"

"Not today," the duke said as he settled next to him.

"Have you seen my cousin?" Sutton asked.

"Everly?" Hexley frowned into his cards. "Last I saw him was at your evening yesterday. What a lovely townhouse you have, by the way. My wife⁠—"

"And today?" Sutton interrupted.

Hexley shrugged. "Haven't seen him at the tables today. Not for a while, actually." He considered. "If I were a wagering man⁠—"

"You are a wagering man," the duke said.

"—I should wager he is in that house off Covent Garden. The one with the red door and the dove where the knocker ought to be. Flat on his back and out of his head on laudanum, poor fool." He laid down a card. "I had thought you smarter than to pay for his proclivities, Sutton."

Sutton frowned. "I do not."

"Ah." Hexley glanced up. Something shifted in his easy face. "Yes, you do. I am being paid every quarter day, in full, whatever he owes me. Drawn on your account."

"My account." Sutton and Hardwicke exchanged a glance.

"Banker's draft. Your name at the foot." He shrugged. "I never asked. A debt paid is a debt paid."

Sutton remembered the sum that did not tally in his books. He had hunted it for weeks but couldn't pin it down.

He had seen it, that was the humiliating part. He had seen the inconsistencies and had told himself they were errors. He had trusted too readily to wonder whether someone was deliberately keeping them wrong.

He jumped to his feet. "I think I should check my books then for any other inconsistencies. And perhaps I shall find more places he frequents, something else I am sponsoring on his behalf."

The duke nodded. "Go. And I shall go and look into that dove place. Perhaps I shall find him there."

"He will be in no state to think properly," Hexley warned.

"Good." The duke gave one sharp nod. "A man in no state to think does not lie."

Sutton reached his townhouse deep in thought.

Everly did not have the intelligence, nor would he have the opportunity, to tally his books in such a way that his spending seemed like small errors.

Someone was doing it for him.

And the only person capable of that was his trusted man of business.

Whitlow.

Sutton did not want to think about it.

He had trusted the man fully.

Hell, he had sent him off with his wife! As her knight, protecting her.

The more he thought about it, the more the pit in his stomach deepened.

The disappeared letters that he'd sent to Norway.