Dukes Prefer Blondes (11 page)

“That is precisely what I mean,” he said. “If you can't promise, on your sacred word of honor—­”

“Suppose somebody kills you,” she said. “Then how am I to do exactly what you say?”

“You'd better not try splitting hairs with me,” he said. “I do it for a living, and I've been doing it since before I earned a living. I'm requiring you to do what I require clients to do. If they will not be guided strictly by me, if they interfere or question or fail to cooperate, I can't answer for the consequences.”

“Very well, I promise,” she said. “But—­”

“No buts,” he said. “I can't believe I've offered to bring you along. I devoutly wish I hadn't. But it's too late. You murdered my brain, and I've said it, and if I go back on my word you'll cry, and I've had enough of that for the present.”

That wasn't altogether true.

He was used to women crying. Usually women needed him because they were in trouble. Women in trouble wept. Copiously.

What troubled him was far more upsetting than her tears.

What troubled him was her raging, despairing speech. He couldn't detach himself from it or push it to the back of his mind. It stuck in the front of his consciousness like the sharp instrument she no doubt wished to plunge into him.

He remembered the little girl, intelligent and brave and full of life. And now he saw how the life of a lady had closed about her like a cage. He understood, because he was too intelligent not to, that she was suffocating.

That was why, he realized. That was why he'd made Mistake Number Seven.

“Please,” she said. “I promise to do what you say.”

Please.
Oh, good. Stab to the heart follows stab to the head.

“Very well,” he said. “Firstly, you may not bring your maid. It'll be bad enough, my bringing a female into it. Two females is not to be contemplated.”

She opened her mouth, and he knew she was going to argue. Then she took a deep breath, folded her hands, and nodded.

“Secondly—­”

He broke off because he heard voices in the outer office.

“What the devil do you mean?” Westcott was saying. “It's
my
office.”

“Yes, sir, but—­”

“Get out of the way.”

Lady Clara kept her hands folded and merely looked toward the door, eyebrows very slightly upraised in the manner of one witnessing a gaffe.

The door opened and Westcott strode in, Davis close behind him. “I say, Radford, this is the outside of enough. The dratted boy stood in front of the door—­
my
door—­and said—­”

“Mrs. Faxon, you will remember Mr. Westcott, I believe,” Radford cut in.

Lady Clara gave a regal nod. Her hair was coming down and her dress was wrinkled but her damp clothing directed blame to the rainstorm rather than to Radford. Not by so much as a twitch or a blink did she betray the truth of what had happened recently, and not even Westcott would suspect that his friend and colleague had kissed her in a most ill-­considered manner, might easily have gone further than was remotely acceptable or safe, and had not yet recovered fully.

“I was beginning to grow alarmed, Davis,” Lady Clara said. “I expected to find you here waiting for me.”

Westcott did not give Davis a chance to respond. As though she were a client, he went into full attorney mode, and answered for her. “Miss Davis would have been here in a matter of minutes, but for the crowd in Old Bailey when the session ended,” he said. “As often happens, her hackney driver made a detour to avoid the crush. But there was an accident near the Fleet Prison. Somebody injured and a vehicle smashed.”

“I didn't see it,” Davis said. “I couldn't see anything, between the rain and the dirty window. My driver told me why he had to stop. A crowd had gathered. We were obliged to wait for some time.”

“Did you make the same detour?” Radford asked his friend. “I'd expected you long before now.”

“I decided to wait out the worst of the rain at the coffeehouse,” Westcott said. “When it had abated somewhat, I made use of the umbrella you so kindly sent to me, and walked. I met Miss Davis at the gate.”

“Then we're all accounted for,” Lady Clara said.

“Yes, my lady, and time to be returning,” Davis said “Lady Exton will be expecting your ladyship.”

“The lady—­that is to say,
Mrs. Faxon
—­will not be returning quite yet,” Radford said. “We have business to transact. We're going to retrieve Toby Coppy, and I require the lady's assistance.”

The maid's eyes widened and her mouth opened. Then it snapped shut and set in a tight line.

Westcott, not being a servant, didn't feel any need to subdue himself. “Are you quite mad?” he said. “You cannot take La—­”

“Mrs. Faxon is vital to the mission,” Radford said, with a glance toward the door. Tilsley, to his knowledge, wasn't a habitual eavesdropper. The door was thick, in any event. Yet he must have heard something, to make him decide to play sentry.

Radford moved to close the door. Then he said in a low voice, “Let's keep our clerk out of this for the moment. The fewer who know, the better.” He looked at Davis. “I give you my word no harm will come to your lady. Neither she nor I will participate directly. This is a police matter, and they don't want amateurs bollixing up their plans. But the enterprise will proceed more smoothly and rapidly if the lady is on hand to identify Toby. If he balks, she'll persuade him to cooperate.”

“It's all right, Davis,” Lady Clara said. “I'll be surrounded by police. Armed with batons.”

“Yes, my lady. If you say so.”

“If I may say so, I must strongly advise her la—­the lady—­against it,” Westcott said. “If anything goes wrong—­”

“I realize there's a possibility of unplanned-­for events,” she said. “Rest assured I'll bring a weapon. And if that isn't enough, Mr. Radford will be by to talk the villains to death.”

I
t was a good thing Radford had a dictatorial personality. A great deal of arguing ensued—­or tried to ensue—­before he quashed it.

The maid was furious about not being allowed to come, and he wasn't happy to exclude her, but the last thing they needed was another woman, especially one who might easily make misguided attempts to protect her charge. He'd already complicated matters more than sufficiently.

A dozen times in the next hour he told himself to go back on his word. What was the worst Lady Clara could do? Hate him? Strike him?

He was a rational man. He prized logic. He knew his promise was irrational and he needed to take it back. He tried to do so once, twice, thrice—­and each time, her taut speech about her life echoed in his head, and the words, the sensible words he ought to say, stuck in his throat.

Instead, he told Davis what her ladyship ought to wear and what time she needed to be ready. He made suggestions about ways to avoid neighbors' and other servants' notice. The lady was not to bring any sort of weapon with which she might hurt herself—­this won him a lethal look from her ladyship—­but a walking stick or umbrella, he said, was entirely reasonable in any of the less respectable neighborhoods, day or night. “And, as she pointed out, if worse comes to worse, I'll talk until they beg for mercy.”

He'd had all he could do not to laugh when Lady Clara said that.

Though he usually enjoyed jokes at Radford's expense, Westcott didn't laugh. He wasn't smiling when Lady Clara and her maid took their leave.

He followed Radford into their private quarters. “Are you quite mad?” Westcott said. “You can't take the Marquess of Warford's daughter on a
police raid
.”

“I said I would. I can't go back on my word.”

“You most certainly can! How did she get you to do it? Was there coercion? Because you know—­”

“Don't be absurd. What would she coerce me with? Her wet hat?”

Radford moved into his room and started taking off his damp clothes.

“I know you're willing to use whatever and whomever will serve your purpose,” Westcott said, “but this isn't your fight. It isn't your job to capture gang leaders and their minions. That's what we have a police force for. To prevent crime!”

“I'm only going to retrieve Bridget's stupid brother,” Radford said. “The rest is up to the police.”

A silence followed, while he swiftly dressed.

Then, “If anything happens to his daughter, Lord Warford will destroy you,” Westcott said.

“Only if his three sons leave anything of me for their father to destroy,” Radford said.

“I didn't mean he'd kill you,” Westcott said. “For you, there are far worse consequences. If anything goes wrong on this mad expedition—­for instance, if the newspapers get wind of it—­you're done for. You can bid farewell to your legal career. You may have to leave England altogether.”

Absolutely true. His other self was tearing his hair out.

“No harm will come to her,” Radford said. “No one will find out. If I thought so, I should have pleaded temporary insanity and told her to go home and stop bothering me.”

“I'm waiting to learn why you didn't.”

“Don't be an idiot, Westcott. Why do you think?”

“Why, curse you? Why?”

Radford shrugged into his coat. “Because she looked up at me with those big blue eyes and said ‘Please.' ”

“Radford.”

Radford found his hat and gloves.

“Where are you going?” Westcott demanded. “Haven't you done enough damage this day?”

Radford moved to the door. “I'm off to Richmond,” he said. “I should like to see my father one last time before anybody kills me.”

He went out.

Ithaca House, Richmond

Later that evening

R
adford told his father what Lady Clara had said, about talking villains to death. At the time, Radford had needed to keep matters under control, and throw his weight around if necessary. But he laughed with his father, who was delighted with the story.

George Radford was not well, and the drawn look of his face spoke clearly enough of his pain, though he didn't. He half reclined on one of the library's sofas, from which he could look out over the river.

But it was too dark now to see, and Radford knew his visits provided distraction from pain and its attendant low spirits. And so he talked, telling his father nearly everything, as always, and leaving out some details, as he often did. Kissing Lady Clara was one of the left-­out details. The way his father questioned him, though, told Radford the paternal brain still functioned at its customary high rate of efficiency.

“But of course you must let Lady Clara help,” Father said. “She went after Chiver with a horsewhip, you said.”

Evidently unaware of the connection to Toby's disappearance, her ladyship had not mentioned the altercation when she first told the story, in Westcott's office. Not until Radford questioned Bridget had he learned of it, and realized how much it told one about Lady Clara. The incident had made Bridget idolize her, and this was why Bridget had confided in her. And set off this absurd manhunt. Boy hunt.

“She isn't timid,” Radford said.

“I've never believed in coddling women,” his father said. “As your mother has pointed out on more than one occasion, women are not children, unless they're made to believe they are.”

He had more to say about women, and Radford, who'd meant to stay for only an hour or two, stayed on, talking and listening, until his father fell asleep. Then he, too, fell asleep, in the chair by the sofa where the frail old man lay.

U
nhappily for his sire, though luckily for Radford, the older man was a restless sleeper. It was he who woke Radford—­with a sharp rap of cane against his son's shins. “Get up, get up! What's wrong with you? You'll miss your rendezvous!”

Minutes later, Radford was riding back to London. He arrived at the Woodley Building as the sky was beginning to show signs of lightening. Plenty of time, he told himself as he hurried up the stairs and into the private chambers.

He found Westcott dozing in an armchair.

The solicitor woke when Radford came in.

“Is your father all right?” Westcott said.

“As all right as he'll ever be,” Radford said. “Good spirits, at any rate. I fell asleep. I was more weary than I'd realized.”

“I'm afraid I have more wearisome news for you,” Westcott said. He moved to the fireplace, and retrieved a letter that had been propped between a pair of dueling ceramic toads on the mantelpiece.

He gave the letter to Radford, who quickly unfolded it and read.

Her Grace, the Duchess of Malvern, had died after miscarrying.

Radford was wanted at the duke's residence immediately.

 

Chapter Six

Why should hackney-­coaches be clean? Our ancestors found them dirty, and left them so. Why should we, with a feverish wish to “keep moving,” desire to roll along at the rate of six miles an hour, while they were content to rumble over the stones at four?

—­Charles Dickens, “Hackney-­Coach Stands,” January 1835

Kensington

Tuesday morning

C
lara paced her great-­aunt's sitting room. “I should have known,” she said. “It was all a hum. He said it only to pacify me. The wretched man's gone without me!”

She'd risen at a time most young ladies of her station would be arriving home from the night's entertainments. She'd gone to bed early, like a child, and dressed this day like a schoolteacher—­and all for nothing.

She looked again at the prim little watch pinned to her prim bodice. “I should have realized. He was much too cooperative—­that is to say, relatively speaking. Never mind. I know where we're to meet the police. I'll go on my own.”

Davis stood at the window, looking out. “I wonder if Mr. Radford gave you the correct information.”

Clara stopped pacing. “You think he lied, on top of everything else?”

“I cannot say, my lady,” Davis said. “I'm unfamiliar with the streets he referred to. Maybe he told the truth. Either way, you might wish to take a footman with you.”

“I can't take a footman!”

“If you mean to go without Mr. Radford, my lady, you'd do well to take somebody,” Davis said. “Only consider what might happen should your ladyship arrive when not expected or wanted. I should not put it past Mr. Radford to tell the police to arrest you. In that case, your ladyship would wish to have a servant at hand, to fetch a solicitor.”

“Arrest
me
?” Clara said. “They wouldn't arrest Lord Warford's daughter if I stood over Mr. Radford's corpse with a bloody knife in my hand. No one would dare to arrest me, no matter what Mr. Know-­Everything said. Why, Papa . . .” She trailed off as she realized what she was saying, what she was thinking. If Papa found out what she was up to—­ Oh, never mind what he'd do. It would be a happy party compared to what Mama would do. She'd give herself a heart seizure, and Clara would feel guilty for the rest of her life.

“Quite so, my lady,” Davis said, reading her face if not her thoughts. “At any rate, here he is.”

Clara hurried to the window. Like all hackney coaches, the one slowly trundling by the house was an ancient relic, once the pride of a great family.

Then—­in her great-­grandmother's time, perhaps—­it had been bright yellow. Now it was a mottled mustard. While its windows seemed newer and cleaner than most, they were small. The faded coat of arms seemed to comprise a half-­plucked goose impaled on a pitchfork in a field of rotten cabbages. The wheels were dingy green except for the one that was dingy red—­and the pile of rags on the box must be the coachman.

She couldn't see Radford, but he must be inside, since he'd said he'd be inside. He would not come out, though, or stop the vehicle or even wave. A hackney coach stopping in front of the house would give the neighbors' servants too much to talk about. The coach only slowed as it passed Great-­Aunt Dora's house—­that was the signal—­then continued down the street.

Clara slipped out of the house and walked on calmly until she was out of sight of neighboring houses. Then she picked up her skirts and ran to the meeting place.

Y
ou didn't need to run,” Mr. Radford said. “We've plenty of time.”

Clara, in the seat opposite, was still trying to catch her breath. It took her a moment to answer. “I thought you'd decided to leave me behind. Half-­past five you'd drive by, you said. It was well past six.”

“In my experience, women are always late, even for court,” he said. “Consequently, I've learned to set an earlier time. You ought to take it as a compliment, my allowing you only an extra half hour for tardiness.”

For a moment she could only stare at him while she seesawed between incredulity and rage. “A
compliment
?” she said. “Have you any idea how condescendingly obnoxious you are?”

“A precise idea, thanks to ­people endlessly telling me.”

“I might have slept for another half hour,” she said.

“Does this mean you're going to be tetchy and cross?”

“Only to you,” she said.

A lady was always courteous. Even if she had to administer a setdown, she did so in the politest possible manner. Clara had learned tricks for concealing irritation or impatience or any of a hundred unmannerly reactions. She'd learned to present a smooth façade, no matter what happened. She reminded herself she wasn't a child, to throw a fit over every little thing. She was a lady of high station who did not allow a mere male, no matter how annoying, to set off her temper. She folded her hands in her lap and calmly regarded him. And that was when, finally, she noticed something was wrong.

“Is that a disguise or did you sleep in your clothes?” she said.

He looked down at himself. He was dressed in the usual black but was unusually rumpled.

“I slept in my clothes,” he said. “I was in Richmond. I rode out from there in time enough, but I was delayed at my chambers. I calculated there wasn't enough time to change, then travel westward again to collect you.”

“Rode?” she said. “You
rode
? From Richmond?”

“Yes, I'm capable of handling a horse, my lady.”

“I always picture you traveling in a hackney or walking,” she said. “You're so . . . citified. London citified. I can't even picture you in the country. Richmond is very . . . green.”

“It's green and beautiful, and my parents enjoy one of the finest of many fine views,” he said. “I went to see them in case you or somebody else killed me today.”

“Your parents,” she said.

“I do own a pair of them,” he said. “Doubtless you imagined I'd sprung full-­grown from Zeus's forehead, like Athena. But no, I'm a mere mortal, sprung from the usual place. I have the customary allotment of progenitors, one of each gender, alive and well—­relatively ­­speaking—­in bucolic Richmond.”

“Yes, of course. Great-­Aunt Dora told me your father had retired.” She paused. “You said they were well, relatively speaking. I hope they're not ailing.”

“My father married late in life,” he said. “He's eighty and . . . frail.”

It was faint, so very faint. Maybe it was her imagination, but she thought she heard a note of pain in his voice. Her heart squeezed, and she wanted to reach across and take his hand. She didn't. Whatever else she knew and didn't know about him, she was sure he wouldn't welcome gestures he'd interpret as pity or even compassion.

“And you thought it would improve his health to know you were about to risk your life?” she said as lightly as she could.

He gave a short laugh. “I knew it would lift his spirits. He can't do this sort of thing anymore. In his day, the Bow Street Runners and watchmen were charged with keeping order and catching villains. London, he says, was a smaller yet not so tame place in those days. I know he went into law because it tested his intellect in ways he didn't believe a military or church career could do. That wasn't the only reason. Since, being a gentleman, he couldn't be a Runner or watchman, he decided that acting for or against them was the next best thing.”

He told her more about the way the practice of law had changed since the start of his father's career, with barristers more and more representing either the accuser or the accused in court, instead of these persons acting for themselves.

In the middle of a sentence illuminating the politics behind the 1829 law creating a Metropolitan Police Force, he said, “Why are you not dozing? I'm at my pedantically boring best, and you're not even yawning, in spite of the thirty minutes' sleep I deprived you of.”

“Were you trying to put me to sleep?” she said. “In hopes I'd doze through whatever is to come? It won't work. I can't remember when last I looked forward to anything so much.”

“I refuse to believe your life is so dull,” he said.

Dullness wasn't the problem. Suffocation was the problem. And despair.

She looked out of the window. “It's not the sort of thing one realizes until one catches a glimpse of something else. I thought I was more or less content, until the day I saw that nasty boy try to make Bridget go away with him.”

It had happened on the day after her birthday.

It was as though she'd passed a milestone and come unexpectedly upon a sign at a crossroads. She'd been traveling unthinkingly in one direction, along the main road—­the king's highway, in a manner of speaking. But the incident had made her pause, and look down an alternate route.

She hadn't realized until she said it, and even now she wasn't sure she fully understood. All she knew was that her view of the world had changed.

“Let's hope we catch the nasty boy today,” he said. “He isn't one you want running about on the loose, carrying a grudge. And as to that, I have a few points to cover, points I had to leave out of yesterday's discussion because of the other parties present.”

“I don't recall any discussion,” she said. “I recall your telling me what I was to do, and my being obliged to hold my tongue. I recall Mr. Westcott raising objections, which you overruled.”

“Do you mean to lecture me on my personality flaws all the way to the rendezvous?” he said. “Because if you're not interested in the details of what's to come, I should like to prepare myself for death, disgrace, or—­worst of all by far—­the end of what was to have been a brilliant legal career.”

She turned away from the window, sat back, folded her arms, and met his gaze. “Oh, good,” she said. “Drama.”

T
he house stood in a crooked alley off Drury Lane, squeezed in with others of a similar ilk. Some were more and some less decrepit but all were uninviting. Its ground floor held a dismal shop bearing no identifying features. The morning light had hard going, trying to illuminate the alley at all. At these shop windows it gave up trying. The objects lurking behind the murky glass might have been furniture or crockery or old clothes or coffins, for all one could tell. A china dealer's shop stood next door, boasting windows marginally cleaner and a legible sign. Apart from a pawnbroker near the alley's western end, the other businesses seemed to carry on anonymously. Presumably the area's residents knew what they were, in the same way they knew what went on in the rooms above the shop with the impenetrable windows.

Radford saw Lady Clara examine the watch pinned to her bodice.

“The police will be here soon,” he said.

The alley was narrow. Taking extreme care, a hackney coachman could make it through. But the driver—­a police sergeant—­had pretended to be stuck. Meanwhile a large wagon blocked the other end.

Stokes and his team had better arrive soon, before somebody noticed the two vehicles blocking the alley's exits, and raised the alarm.

Radford became aware of movement. Peering through the small window, he saw the first of the policemen slip into the alley. Others would be moving to block escape routes—­at the back of the house and at the places of egress in the court it overlooked. In any event, he hoped that was what they were doing.

It wasn't easy to sit in the coach and look on. He wanted to be with them. He wanted to lead the charge.

But that would be improper. His place was in the courtroom.

And Lady Clara's was in the ballroom or drawing room, where of course she'd shine as brilliantly as any barrister would wish to shine in court. He understood her feeling . . . constrained. All the same, he knew she was never meant for this world, his world. Even at its best, it wasn't pretty.

“They're here,” he said. “Now let's hope nobody bungles.”

She leaned forward to look out of the small window. As he'd suggested, she wore a schoolteacher's style of garb: a severe bonnet and more severe dress of dull, dark blue with a starched collar, narrow sleeves, a prim line of buttons, and not one bow or ruffle or bit of lace to soften its austerity. Even the watch was plain and practical.

She'd dressed as he'd advised, and he could blame nobody but himself. It was his fault there was nothing to distract the eye from her figure, nothing to camouflage its splendid curves.

She smelled like fresh greenery, and this made pictures in his mind of the soul-­soothing view from his father's house. She smelled like herself, too, and picturesque views of Richmond battled more carnal thoughts.

Her face was inches from his. He could almost taste her mouth. His other self was growing thickheaded. He pushed that unhelpful being to the farthest corner of his mind, and drew back a fraction from her, from her scent and silken skin and soft mouth.

“Let's hope we can get Toby out in one piece,” she said. “Oh, no. What's happening?”

Nimble as a monkey, a boy scrambled out of a window and quickly down the front of the house.

“Damn,” Radford said. “They heard our men coming.”

Another boy followed. A moment later, two more boys burst out of the building next door.

“They're getting away!” she cried. “Can't we stop them?”

“Patience,” he said, though he suspected something had gone awry with the plan. “The boys were bound to run, and the first thing they learn is to run very fast. That's why we've blocked the ways out, and why we've so many men on the outside. One or two of the quicker and more agile boys might wriggle away, but not all.”

More boys streamed noisily out of the house. There must have been scores of them, climbing down the front of the building or bursting through the door, like rats fleeing a burning warehouse. But with constables in the way, they couldn't squeeze past the hackney coach or climb over it. They turned and ran back to try the other way. Some beat on neighboring doors to be let in. Others tried to fight their way past the police waiting for them. Then a shout rose above the scuffling and cursing and threatening, and another. A chorus of young, excited voices echoed through the alley.