Dukes Prefer Blondes (3 page)

“Firstly, nobody was injured but a dog it's obvious nobody cared about,” the gentleman said. “Otherwise the creature would have been a degree more alive to begin with. Secondly, one doesn't pester the police about the demise, violent or otherwise, of a mere canine unless its owner is an aristocrat. Thirdly, it's now clear the fellow was aiming for me when you stepped in the way. I couldn't see him clearly through the”—­he gestured at her hat, his mouth twitching again—­“the whatnot rising from your head. But Whippet Face . . .” Now he smiled. It wasn't much of a smile, being small and quick, but it changed his face, and her heart gave a short, surprised thump. “He's been trying to kill me this age. He's not the only one. Hardly worth troubling the constabulary.”

He gave her the briefest nod, then turned and strode away.

Clara stood staring after him.

Tall, lean, and self-­assured, he moved with swift purpose through the sea of ­people surging over the streets converging on Trafalgar Square. Even after he entered the Strand, he didn't disappear from sight for a while. His hat and broad shoulders remained visible above the mass of humanity until he reached Clevedon House, when a passing coach blocked her view.

He never looked back.

He never looked back.

Moments later, after she'd calmed both her maid and her tiger, Colson, and was giving her horse leave to start, the gentleman's face flashed into her mind, and his voice with its husky overtone seemed to sound again from somewhere above her head. Like a shadow cast by a guttering candle, an image flickered in her brain for a moment. But it was gone before she could make it out. She shrugged, trying to push the incident out of her thoughts, and went on her way, though now and again she did wonder how he'd known to address her as
my lady
. . . and why he hadn't looked back.

O
liver “Raven” Radford, Esquire, didn't need to look back. In the usual way of things, he would have sized up the tall, aristocratic blonde at the first glance. Fairfaxes being ubiquitous, their handsome features distinctive, even Society's outsiders recognized them, and he calculated excellent odds of her being one of the many dubbed Lady This or Lady That.

Yet he'd given her second and third looks, for three reasons.

Firstly, his mind had refused to fully accept the evidence of his eyes. He was observant to a degree not usually associated with human beings—­some said he wasn't, quite—­and his memory was equally inhuman. But yes, further examination proved milady's attire to be as complicated and demented as his eyes had ascertained.

Secondly, upon that further examination, he felt certain he'd met her before. But he couldn't dredge up from his prodigious memory the time and place.

Thirdly, he realized she'd surprised him.

He couldn't remember the last time anybody had surprised him.

“Face like a whippet,” he murmured, and laughed—­startling passersby as he strode along the Strand. “Wait until I tell him. He'll want to kill me
twice
, and by inches.”

D
on't look back, you halfwit,” said the driver of the Stanhope gig.

The boy, one Henry Brockstopp, better known as Chiver—­for his skill with a knife, or chive—­said, “That were her! The bleedin' great bitch what come after me with the horsewhip a week or more back. I wish you'd run her down.”

This, in any event, is the way his speech would translate into recognizable English.

“Moron.” The driver backhanded the boy. “And have every last blue bottle in London after me? And the army, too? How many times do I have to tell you? Don't touch a hair of a nob's head unless you fancy a slow choke on the end of a rope and a nice lie-­down later on a sawbones's dissecting table. With a lot of other 'prentice sawbones watching him pull out your liver and such, and all of them laughing at your tiny precious nuts.” He laughed. “Leave it to Raven to use the handiest female for a shield.”

Jacob Freame, as all London's underworld knew, had a fine sense of humor. He smiled when he squeezed shopkeepers for more protection money. He grinned when one of his bawds led a bumpkin into a brothel he wouldn't come out of alive. He chuckled when his boys kicked in an enemy's head. Always good for a laugh, our Jacob.

“She's big enough,” Chiver said sullenly, rubbing the side of his head.

“She can be as big as she wants, because she's quality,” Jacob said. “And when you see quality, you take off your hat and you bow low and you say yes ma'am and no ma'am and yessir and nosir. You kiss their arses, you hear me? Nobody cares what we do among our own sort. But you annoy the fine ladies and gentlemen, and trouble comes down on you like a ton of bricks. Do you understand, or do I have to knock it into that thick head of yours?”

“I understand,” the boy said. But he'd teach that Bridget Coppy a lesson, wouldn't he? And the Long Meg wouldn't like it much, neither.

Jacob Freame glanced back though his prey was long out of sight. “Maybe another time, then, Raven, eh?” he said. And laughed.

Environs of Covent Garden

Not long thereafter

T
oday Bridget Coppy was in charge of the Milliners' Society shop. Here visitors could purchase articles the girls made, with profits going to the organization's upkeep. Made by girls of dissimilar talents and experience, the items on offer varied in quality.

“This must be yours,” Lady Clara said as she took up a splendidly adorned reticule from the case the girl had opened for her.

“Y-­yes, my lady. Only there's a mistake. That knot. It w-­wouldn't—­” Bridget burst into tears.

She turned away, her pretty face crimson, and hastily found her handkerchief. “Oh, I'm so sorry, my lady. So sorry.”

A lady was never at a loss in any situation. She took pity on the less fortunate, even when she'd chosen to visit the less fortunate as an antidote to her own vexations.

“My dear, I can't even see the offending knot,” Clara said. “Your eyes must be very sharp, indeed.”

“Yes, I've—­ No, I mean, it oughter be
perfect.
You can't—­ Why, what if your ladyship had a dinner dress embroidered with floor de leezes and your ladyship looked down and there was a thread hanging off of one of them? Or—­or the bud was crimson when it oughter be rose? Or—­” Tears leaked out of the girl's eyes, now as red as her face, and rolled down her nose. She turned away and sniffed, and vigorously wiped away the tears. “Please forgive me, your ladyship. Oh, if Matron sees me—­that'll do it, that will.”

“Matron's nowhere about,” Clara said. “But if you're so upset you can't contain your feelings, the trouble must be very bad. Why, you're one of the most even-­tempered and responsible girls here.”

“Responsible!” the girl wailed. “If I was, would I be in this fix?”

Two days later

C
lara had never before entered the lair of London's lawyers. When a lady needed legal assistance, her attorney went to her. But a lady must not find herself in any kind of situation involving lawyers. If she was so misguided as to need one, she must put the matter in the hands of her husband, father, guardian, brother, or son.

This was why today she wore one of Davis's dresses, hastily altered. This was why she, Davis, and the boy Fenwick traveled by anonymous—­and grimy—­hackney coach rather than her distinctive cabriolet. The hackney took them from Maison Noirot in St. James's Street, where Fenwick was employed, eastward into Fleet Street. At Inner Temple Gate they left the vehicle and proceeded into Inner Temple Lane.

Soot-­darkened buildings of disparate ages crammed together to loom over the Temple, like a very dirty Greek chorus overlooking a tragedy. Clara knew her object resided on the second floor of the Woodley Building. But which was that? Fenwick was trying to decide between two grim edifices brooding over the Temple churchyard when a boy strolled out from among the gravestones. Fenwick applied to him.

Yes, of course he knew where it was, the boy said. Wasn't he only just coming back from an errand of the gravest importance for those same exact gentlemen? And wasn't some ­people blind, the name being writ up there plain as plain? He pointed to a row of dirty bricks that
might
, under the coating of soot and bird droppings, have been inscribed with the building's name.

Fenwick took exception to the boy's tone and his remarks.

The boy made an impolite suggestion.

Fenwick hit him.

The boy hit back.

Meanwhile, on the second floor of the Woodley Building

D
ead,” Westcott said. “Dead, dead, dead.” He waved the letter in Radford's face. “There it is in plain English.”

A cold weight settled in Radford's chest. But by now it was instinct to remove himself from the part of him experiencing feelings—­i.e., irrationality. He'd taught himself to behave as though this emotional inner self were another being entirely, and view the matter at hand with detachment. And so, metaphorically speaking, he elbowed aside this emotional self and calmly took note of Westcott's tone, the letter's handwriting, and the type of writing paper.

Not Father.

Not dead.

Not yet.

All the same, it took more than his usual strength of will to say calmly, “Not precisely plain English. You've overlooked the fact that lawyers have written it.”

Thomas Westcott was a solicitor as well as Radford's friend. Possibly his only friend. The two men shared, along with chambers in the Woodley Building of Inner Temple, a young clerk named Tilsley, whose duties included collecting and sorting the post.

Radford did not accept the duty of reading it. Except for letters from his parents and stepsisters, he let Westcott, in standard solicitor mode, make what he would of the daily deluge of paper.

“You haven't read it,” Westcott said.

Radford didn't need to read it. The legal hand, the seal, and
dead
sufficed as clues. It came from the Duke of Malvern's solicitor, and reported the death of a family member, most probably the duke himself, given the paper's weight, the message's verbosity, and His Grace's advanced age.

“I'm a barrister,” he said. “I can recognize legal gobbledygook at twenty paces. Dueling distance. A pity one can't shoot it, in the way gentlemen resolve so many differences. But then, barristers who thrive on sordid criminal cases aren't quite gentlemen, are we?”

He'd happily followed in his father's footsteps. Since Radford was very good at what he did, he'd never doubted he'd rise steadily in his profession, righting what wrongs and stupidities he could on the way.

What he couldn't right or repair were the other Radfords.

Bernard's grandfather had set his sons and their sons' wives and children against one another. He was a selfish, vindictive, manipulative man, and his offspring carried on in the same style. Radford's grandfather, being intelligent and observant, had observed this destructive family behavior and intelligently decided to have no part of it.

Father felt the same way. Ages ago he'd said, “The only way to keep your mind from being poisoned is to stay far away from them. Live another life, son. Live your own life.”

This was exactly what Raven Radford had done. He wanted no part of the ducal vipers' nest, and especially not now.

Three months ago, at Grumley's pauper farm, a place where the poorhouses sent their excess children, five little ones had died. Fever was the ostensible cause. In fact, Grumley's system of neglect, starvation, and filth had killed them. An inquest had found him guilty of manslaughter. This verdict had led to the criminal trial Radford was prosecuting at present, the most challenging of his career to date.

He took the document from his friend and scanned it for loopholes. He was distantly aware of the inner weight's return. His face wore a bored expression.

“Only Bernard left,” he said. “How the devil do they do it?”

The previous Duke of Malvern, Bernard's father, had possessed, in the way of near relatives, three brothers as well as, by his second marriage, three sons. Over the years, nearly all the males, young and old, had contrived to die, some of illness, some in accidents.

“One would think they were at least capable of breeding,” he said. “Blind sheep can do it.”

“The royal family has a similar problem,” Westcott said. “King George III sired nine sons. And our present heir presumptive? An adolescent girl.”

“A pity the dukedom can't go to a girl,” Radford said. “Those they've got a surfeit of. But the girls can't inherit, and it isn't my problem.” He tossed the letter onto Westcott's desk.

“Radford, if the present duke dies—­”

“Bernard is not thirty years old. His wife is five and twenty. He'll keep trying for sons.”

Bernard had better not die for at least fifty years. Radford didn't need the letter to remind him his father had become next in line to inherit. George Radford was eighty years old, and in poor health.

A fever last winter had permanently undermined his health. His chances of surviving the coming winter were not good. He was going to die, sooner rather than later. He ought to be allowed to die in peace, with his wife at his side, at Ithaca House, the peaceful villa in Richmond he'd named after the mythical Ulysses's longed-­for home. The last thing Father needed was the annoyance of taking over vast estates whose affairs had been mismanaged for years.

“Her Grace's health, according to the letter, is precarious,” Westcott said.

“I'm not surprised,” Radford said. “The odds of her dying in childbed are very high, as are those of any woman who endures numerous pregnancies. You may be sure that, as soon as she's dead, he'll wed again, no matter how old he is. His father started a second family in his fifties.”