Dukes Prefer Blondes

by Loretta Chase

Two days later

  Clara 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

  Dead,” 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.”

  Radford’s own father had married for the first time at fifty because he couldn’t afford to marry earlier. This was why Radford and Bernard had been schoolmates.

  Westcott took up the letter and read it through again. “Something isn’t right,” he said. “I can’t put my finger on it, but I’m sure there’s a meaning here we’ve overlooked. I can’t seem to read between the lines, and you refuse to.”

  “I’ll tell you what isn’t right,” Radford said. “It only purports to be a legal document. Amid the lawyerly convolutions do you distinguish anything more pressing than a summons from Bernard? Can you ascertain anything to be gained by my heeding it?”

  “You might at least take the trouble to find out what he wants.”

  “Now? Have you forgotten the Grumley case?”

  “I could go in your place,” Westcott said. “As your solicitor.”

  “Neither you nor anybody else will represent me in this. You don’t
know Bernard.”

  Father could deal with the lack-­brained bully if he had to, but there was no reason he ought to. The last thing he needed now was strain and aggravation. Radford had better write to his mother straightaway, warning her.

  “He’ll only waste your time for the fun of it,” Radford said. “You and I have more useful things to do. For the present, I aim to send that villain Grumley to—­” He glared at the door. “Who’s there? Where the devil is Tilsley?”

  “If you refer to your clerk, he’s punching a boy in the churchyard.”

  The voice, though muffled by the closed door, was clearly feminine. And aristocratic.

  Westcott, while not as observant as his friend—­who was?—­had no trouble recognizing the diction of the upper reaches of the upper classes. Some of his clients lived in these exalted realms. He hurried to the door and opened it.

  The tall blonde walked in.

  Chapter Two

  Juvenile delinquents . . . are found in every part of the metropolis . . . Many of them . . . are in the regular employ and training of older thieves; others obtain a precarious subsistence by begging, running errands, selling play-­bills, picking pockets, and pilfering from shops and stalls.

  —­John Wade, A Treatise on the Police and Crimes of the Metropolis, 1829

  Following a long climb up dark, narrow stairs, Clara and Davis had found, along a passage lined with black doors, the one bearing the name they wanted.

  Davis had knocked thrice before the men inside took any notice. They seemed to be arguing, but Clara couldn’t be sure.

  One of the voices—­the deeper one—­sounded familiar.

  But Clara hadn’t placed it by the time she walked in. When the pale grey gaze fixed on her, she started in surprise. Heat sprang from several inner places at once and raced up to her neck and face as well as to areas ladies did not acknowledge to anybody, including themselves.

  This was a disturbing development, but a lady always appeared to be in control, even when she felt as though she’d walked into a lamppost.

  “Lady Clara,” he said. His keen grey gaze traveled over her, swiftly assessing. “Is that supposed to be a cunning disguise?”

  The other gentleman said, “Radford, what the—­”

  Clara held up her hand, silencing him. If she didn’t immediately seize control, they would. They’d treat her like a child, the way men usually treated women, especially young women. They’d murmur soothing things and send her on her way. They might even tattle to Papa’s solicitor. She doubted any lawyerly rules of confidentiality applied to women.

  Do not show uncertainty or anxiety, she commanded herself. For once in your life you can do something more productive than decline marriage offers.

  She adopted her paternal grandmother’s autocratic manner.

  “Thanks to you, I now know who he is,” she said to the other man, who was a degree shorter and fairer, and not dressed entirely in black. “It is immaterial to me how he knows who I am. You must be the eminent solicitor Mr. Thomas Westcott. I haven’t much time, and I should prefer not to waste it on formalities. As your colleague has so cleverly ascertained, I am Lady Clara Fairfax. This is my maid, Davis. The boy Fenwick, who is trying to kill your clerk, advised me to consult you.”

  As she let her glance rest briefly on the tall, dark man, the sense of familiarity she’d experienced at Charing Cross returned. “He seems to believe Mr. Radford is peculiarly equipped to assist us with a problem.”

  “He’s peculiar, I’ll give you that,” said Mr. Westcott.

  “This isn’t about the mangy dog, is it?” Mr. Radford said. “Because the police have more important matters—­”

  “It’s about a pauper boy,” Clara said.

  Mr. Radford stalked to the window and looked down. “And you wanted us? Can’t mean the fellow down there. He’s holding his own. No, wait. Better. He’s giving Tilsley a Chancery suit on the nob. That boy of yours looks familiar.”

  Having spent a part of her childhood with three older brothers, she knew what he was looking at. A Chancery suit on the nob involved getting one’s opponent’s head under one’s arm and punching said head with the free hand.

  “You’re familiar to him, which is why we’re here,” Clara said.

  “What’s the brat calling himself now?” Mr. Radford said.

  “He doesn’t call himself anything,” Clara said. “He could teach clams a thing or two. His employers call him Fenwick. And he seemed to think you could help us find a boy named Toby Coppy.”

  Mr. Radford turned away from the window. “Friend of—­er—­Fenwick?”

  She’d spent the last two days studying the notorious Raven Radford, no easy task, even had she not had to keep her mission secret from her family.

  His name didn’t feature in the usual accounts of parliamentary or social doings. Mainly his name appeared in reports of criminal proceedings, some dauntingly lengthy. From what she’d read, he seemed to be sharp-­witted, learned, and tactless to a spectacular degree. Though she hadn’t had time to read everything, she’d thought it amazing he’d won so many cases, when judges, witnesses, juries, and even his own clients must have wanted to throttle him.

  She, for instance, was already growing irritated.

  “If I might begin at the beginning,” she said. “Rather than proceed along the haphazard route of your questions.”

  One black eyebrow went up. “Haphazard,” he said.

  “That was a setdown, in case you didn’t recognize it,” Mr. Westcott told him.

  “I thought so,” Mr. Radford said.

  “Not that snubs have the least effect on him, my lady,” Mr. Westcott said, “even when he recognizes them as such. Brilliant otherwise, of course.”

  “So I’ve been informed,” Clara said, “else I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Certainly, my lady,” Mr. Westcott said. “And since your ladyship has taken the trouble to be here, we ought to proceed in an orderly fashion. Frankly, I’m puzzled why a man renowned for his fanatical attachment to logic has been perambulating into detours in this strange manner. If your ladyship will be so good as to take a chair—­here, by the fire—­or what is, in colder weather, a fire. It’s cleaner—­”

  He broke off as Davis advanced and wiped the chair with a handkerchief and him with a censorious eye.

  “Yes, quite so, thank you,” Mr. Westcott said. “And if her ladyship would make herself comfortable, I should be happy to take notes. Radford, we don’t need you at present.” He gave Clara an apologetic smile. “Only if it comes to trial, naturally, which—­”

  “It will save time if I listen,” Mr. Radford said.

  “No, it won’t,” Mr. Westcott said. “Because you’ll interrupt.”

  “I shall remain as silent as the churchyard denizens under our window,” Mr. Radford said. “The ones belowground, that is.”

  He folded his arms and leaned back against the window frame.

  “Kindly proceed, my lady. I’m all ears.”

  It was the chipped tooth.

  When she walked in and caught sight of him, her composure disintegrated, her mouth fell open, and for a moment she looked like an astonished little girl.

  Radford knew that little girl.

  She recovered with remarkable speed, but Radford had seen all he needed to.

  The distinctive Fairfax features he’d identified the other day . . . assorted bits he’d read in newspapers and magazines . . . the nagging sense of familiarity.

  With the chipped tooth, the last piece of the puzzle fell into place.

  This wasn’t merely one of the numerous Fairfax family members he’d seen from time to time in his perambulations through London.

  This was the little girl to whom he’d shown Vauxhall’s Heptaplasiesoptron. This was the little girl who’d tried to rescue him from Cousin Berna
rd.

  She was all grown up and dressed in what she fondly imagined was a disguise.

  Unlike the comical hat she’d worn in Charing Cross, her bonnet was dull and dark, boasting nothing in the way of adornment but a darker ribbon. Its large brim did not tilt up in the way the hat had done, to show her perfect face framed in lace and bows. It tilted downward, its shadow concealing her countenance. That was clever, actually. A veil—­the usual ruse for ladies—­would have called attention to her attempt to appear incognito.

  All the same, he would have known her for the Charing Cross female anywhere, even had she been wearing a veil. The drab dress failed to disguise her posture and figure.

  Remarkably fine figure, he was aware of his irrational self thinking. It proceeded to imagine said figure in its natural state. Such meditations were not conducive to clear thinking.

  He wrestled the other self into a dark corner in the back of his mind and focused on watching the lady ignore the chair Westcott had offered and her maid had scoured.

  Lady Clara remained where she was, posture upright—­

  Horizontal would be better, said the inner voice of unreason.

  He ignored it and listened to a tale told with a conciseness he would have believed incompatible with the female brain, such as it was. In a shockingly few words, she contrived to explain what the Milliners’ Society was and who Bridget Coppy was.

  “Her father is dead,” she said. “The mother is a hopeless drunkard who takes in mending on the rare occasions she’s sober. The Milliners’ Society has taught Bridget to read and write a little. She persuaded her brother to attend a ragged school. I know I needn’t explain to you what that is.”

  Ragged schools were pitiful attempts to teach pauper children the basics they needed to improve their lot in life. The teachers were unpaid, many of them nearly as ignorant as the children. All the same, it was better than the nothing otherwise available to London’s impoverished masses.

  Most members of the upper classes had never heard of ragged schools. Being a duke’s great-­grandson, Radford was, technically, a member of the upper classes. His life had been different from most, though, and he knew all about these schools.