Chapter 1

“Y’know, Allen, I’ve been thinking—are you one of those people who goes out of their way to bring trouble on themselves? Do you go around asking, ‘How much for a whole heap?’”

I stopped leafing through papers to glare across the desk at the man who had once been my university underclassman. He cut a dashing figure sitting on the visitors’ couch, but the mocking look he was giving me spoiled the effect.

We haven’t seen each other in half a year, and this is how he acts?

“Tell me,” I said at length, “do I really look like the kind of person who would do that?”

“Totally!” my tall friend affirmed. “You wouldn’t be doing this otherwise, even though it’s not a long-term thing. I mean, tutoring the daughters of Duke Leinster and Duke Howard, plus the granddaughter of those northern big shots the Walkers,and screening business partners for both ducal houses’ experiment in selling produce, wine, and a bunch of other new goods to the capital? And I know you’ve gotta help out the boss—Lydia—on top of that. Speaking of which, I get the tutoring gig, but why areyou screening businesses?” He paused briefly and then exclaimed, “Oh! Have you finally decided to make it big?!” His eyes sparkled with excitement.

“I have not,” I corrected him, forcing a smile. “I’m told that both ducal houses have been planning to establish joint business contacts in the capital for some time, but they had called the plan off due to a lack of resources on the Howards’ part. Then, recently, the Howards succeeded in increasing their production of new crops. Both houses quickly agreed to an experimental enterprise, but now the issue is that neither can spare personnel to manage the operation in the capital. Their duchies are so large that they’re always shorthanded. Doesn’t that go for your own house too? But yes, the responsibility just ended up devolving to me. That said...” I paused for a moment. “The professor and the headmaster of th