“So she is not a working-class female.”

“No. On the contrary. She exudes an air of hauteur.”

Groveland’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You don’t say.” He lifted the glass to his mouth and drank down the whiskey as if it might better clarify his thoughts.

“Indeed, I do,” Hutchinson retorted with a decided sniff. “I was sent on my way with the most high-handed arrogance.”

“Hmm. Audacious and difficult.”

Hutchinson grunted. “A vast understatement, Your Grace.”

The duke held out his empty glass. “One more of your fine whiskeys and then I will take myself off to reconnoiter the formidable opposition.”

But as it turned out, when the duke exited Hutchinson’s faux-Renaissance office block, he ran into Viscount Islay.

“Hi-ho, Fitz!” the viscount cried. “I hear you’re rid of Clarissa. What say you to a game at Brooks’s? ”

“Christ, gossip travels fast.” He’d just left Clarissa three hours ago.

“Margot Beaton stopped by to see my sister as I was leaving home. She was just down from Knolly’s country house party. She despises Clarissa by the way.”

“Most women do,” the duke replied drily.

“And most men don’t.”

Groveland raised his dark brows in sportive rejoinder. “But then Clarissa exerts herself to please men.”

“How much did she exert herself for you?” the viscount quipped.

“She wore me out, hence my rustication in the city. And I’d be more than happy to take some of your money at Brooks’s,” the duke said with a smile, uninterested in discussing Clarissa after a fortnight in her company.

Freddie Mackenzie grinned. “You can try, you mean.”

“But not very hard as I recall?”