The Determined Lord Hadleigh

by Virginia Heath

  Logically, his legal brain also recognised it was no coincidence that the timing was significant, too. The Penhurst trial had taken place exactly one decade since his mother’s tragic death. Ten years was a significant anniversary and one which had lurked darkly for months long before the blasted Penhurst trial. It had been the first thing he had thought of when he had awoken on New Year’s Day and would doubtless lurk until the bells signalled the turning of another year in a few months’ time. Yet, exactly like that year, this one was a defining one in his life. This year, he would try the biggest case of his career. Back then, the year had culminated with his call to the bar.

  He should have deferred that year. As his health declined, so too had his father’s temper become more erratic and explosive than it had ever been before. Irrefutable evidence he had witnessed with his own eyes ten years ago, yet he had preferred to listen to the untruths his ears had heard come from his selfless mother’s lips.

  Everything was fine. She could cope.

  Good grief! All this pointless pondering on his own befuddled emotions created by the past twisting and tangling and confusing with the present was exhausting. No wonder he couldn’t sleep!

  ‘How is the case coming along?’ Lord Fennimore’s voice snapped him blessedly back to the present. ‘Is it as cut and dried as we’d hoped?’

  ‘Perhaps not cut and dried.’ Because in a British court of law anything could, and did, happen. ‘But certainly promising. Now that we have the ringleader, I’ve been able to dig up all manner of things.’ Lady Gislingham’s co-conspirators were beginning to panic. ‘Unsurprisingly, already two of her former associates have felt compelled to turn King’s evidence to save their own sorry skins and each day more damning evidence spews out of their mouths.’ The two had pleaded guilty and accepted a lesser sentence of life imprisonment in exchange for their testimony. ‘Although the circumstances by which it comes still galls me.’

  ‘Irritating—but we must sacrifice a few minnows for the shark. Though I dare say after a few years in that stinking gaol they’ll regret saving themselves. If they avoid the diseases for that long...’ Lord Fennimore cast a quick glance to his new wife who was holding court in the corner. Harriet was a vivacious and entertaining woman. An unlikely match for his serious and brusque superior. ‘I promised my wife I wouldn’t talk shop till tomorrow. Do you have a date yet?’

  The dedicated commander of the King’s Elite was postponing his own honeymoon until the case was over. ‘The Crown want it done and dusted quickly—however, to put forward a thorough and conclusive case I’m tabling the first week of January.’

  ‘Capital. Two months is a good buffer. I shall be sure to speak to the Attorney General and the King’s advisors, endorsing your suggestion. Like you, I want to be sure that woman and her minions get exactly what’s coming to them. As keen as the government are to get this over and done with, a hasty trial may well backfire. However, Flint won’t like the extra delay. He’s understandably reluctant to bring his wife to London after the circus of the Penhurst trial...and just in case there are a few wrong ’uns still at large who we’ve missed.’ The old man rolled his eyes.

  Flint’s new wife was Hadleigh’s key prosecution witness. Not only had she been forced to work with the Comte de Saint-Aubin-de-Scellon, the crazed leader of the French side of the smuggling ring, she had also written encoded messages to all the British traitors, which categorically implicated them in the treachery. She knew each one by name.

  ‘Do you think she is still in danger?’

  ‘I don’t—but then she’s not my wife. If it was Harriet, I’m not sure I’d want her in the capital either until absolutely necessary. Too much risk...what with the press and all.’ His eyes drifted to his new spouse again and his serious, professional expression curiously disappeared for a split second before he scowled again. ‘But I suppose you need her here for the good of the trial.’

  ‘I need to go through everything she knows again with a fine toothcomb. Every day turns up something new which will need corroborating. I want to leave no stone unturned and no loophole open.’

  ‘A fair point. I’ll strap on some armour and put it to Flint. Although I dare say he’ll insist on using all the resources of the King’s Elite and perhaps all the King’s cavalry regiments to guard her, too, if I demand she has to venture out of his castle. Have you seen how many people he has guarding this wedding? I had the devil of a job convincing him to leave Cornwall to come today—and I was his father’s oldest and dearest friend. But he is a man besotted and there is no reasoning with such a man.’

  ‘Perhaps he’d find it more palatable if we hid Jessamine somewhere not too far from London?’ The idea was forming again. No doubt a foolhardy one, but his emotions had apparently taken hold of his reason and no matter how much he tried, he still couldn’t shift his misplaced guilt or his ridiculous need to rescue that woman who had been wronged so grievously on his watch. ‘Somewhere private enough to avoid any suspicion and easily secured. A place owned by an honorary member of the King’s Elite...’

  ‘I’m listening...’

  ‘Well, I have an estate in Essex which would work perfectly if the government would care to borrow it.’

  Don’t open Pandora’s box!

  ‘You do? You’ve never mentioned it.’

  That’s because he preferred not to remember it and all the bad memories within it. ‘My work here keeps me too busy. I rarely go there.’ Around nine years ago had been the last time—to put his father in the ground. He’d had it boarded up four years ago when the butler, the last-standing indoor retainer, had finally acknowledged Hadleigh was never coming home and had taken his pension and his wife to move closer to their son. ‘It’s spacious. Walled and sits on a hill in the centre of its five hundred acres. Flint, his wife and all the guards he can muster could live there until the trial. It wouldn’t take much to make it habitable.’ Aside from removing four years’ worth of dust and cobwebs, ripping off the dust sheets and hiring a whole host of new servants to bring it back to life. Nothing a small fortune and a good housekeeper who could start immediately couldn’t sort out—

  If he could find a way to convince her—because he had the small fortune a hundred times over. She did want to work for wages, after all.

  He could lie, he supposed. Pretend the house was Flint’s... As soon as that thought popped into his head, he sent it swiftly packing. No more well-meaning deceptions and schemes as far as Lady Penhurst was concerned. An offer of genuine employment wasn’t charity, so she could hardly refuse it on that score. She either took the job above board, knowing who the real owner was, or she didn’t. And perhaps this time he should allow her to meet the real Hadleigh, too. The charming one who had a way with people, not the self-righteous oaf who used a mallet to crack a nut and behaved like a cretin. Either way, at least he would have tried everything within his power to help her rise above the government’s unjust punishment and his prickled conscience would have to find a way to cope with that.

  There were other benefits to having her take charge of his unwanted house. Genuine benefits which had nothing to do with his own need to right a wrong. Firstly, as a good friend to Clarissa and by default Seb, she knew about the King’s Elite so they would not have to creep around covertly in case she overheard something. She was bound to have been kept abreast of developments, even if the Leathams had been sketchy on the details and so far nothing had leaked. Therefore, it stood to reason she was trustworthy. That was a practical consideration. As was the fact she knew what it was like to be a witness in a high-profile case. She could help better prepare Jessamine for the ordeal ahead. Most practical of all, was that it was far enough outside of London to allow Flint and his bride to hide from any perceived danger, but close enough that Hadleigh could travel back and forth in a day, therefore never having to sleep in the damned place.

  Two birds. One fat stone. And Pandora’s blaste
d box!

  ‘That might work, Hadleigh.’

  He could see that Lord Fennimore was already enthused by the prospect because he wasn’t scowling, yet instead of feeling the elation at having convinced him, dread settled like lead in the pit of his stomach. He would have to go home. Good grief! He would have to go home!

  ‘It would certainly keep the blasted press away.’

  ‘A blessing indeed, as they have already started to pester me.’ Bands of panic had already began to wrap themselves around Hadleigh’s neck. Squeezing. Why was he doing this? He knew the answer, but didn’t quite understand it. Her. And his ongoing and debilitating insomnia.

  ‘Then let’s make it so and I’ll give Flint no choice in the matter. He’s never been very good at disobeying direct orders. Besides, we want you to build a conclusive case, Hadleigh, and this timely solution allows us to do it. After all the effort and lives it took to stop The Boss, we cannot allow anything to get in the way of seeing proper justice served.’

  Chapter Six

  She pulled open the door impatiently. ‘I didn’t expect to see you again.’ Although bizarrely Penny was not surprised to find him on the other side of it when all hell had just broken loose in her apartment. When she had heard the knock, she didn’t dither. Didn’t bother asking who it was, because she knew it was him. She could sense it.

  ‘Yes, I know. But I have a proposition.’ As she glared he raised both hands, palms up in surrender. ‘Not from me—I wouldn’t dare—but from the government.’

  ‘The government?’ She hadn’t expected him to say that and wasn’t entirely sure she believed him. ‘And pray what do the government want with me tonight?’

  ‘An important service which they will happily pay you handsomely for—if you can spare them a few months.’ His eyes wandered from her suspicious face to the utter carnage beyond. How typical he would turn up now when she was at a distinct disadvantage, looking exactly like a woman who couldn’t cope. She had turned her back for two minutes to make herself a well-earned cup of tea after a taxing day and her son had found the small sack of flour she had bought on the romantic and foolish whim of baking biscuits. All by herself. To cheer herself up after receiving yet another rejection letter. The third this week. Nobody wanted to employ a woman with a child in tow, so she would never be able to pay this man back.

  Now, all that flour which her son wasn’t currently wearing coated the entire floor. Instead of looking aristocratically appalled at the mess, he smiled sympathetically. ‘Although I see I have called at a bad time.’

  ‘A very bad time.’ But for some reason, she didn’t slam the door in his face as she should have. ‘Since Freddie started toddling, I apparently have to nail everything down. Even things locked away in a cupboard.’ She didn’t need to justify herself to him, except her nerves were frazzled and after a day spent trying to soothe an unreasonable baby who flatly refused to be soothed or give her any indication as to why he was so fractious, she was pathetically pleased to see someone. Even if that someone happened to be the sanctimonious, self-righteous lawyer. Parenting alone was hard work. Especially at the end of a long day when she hadn’t spoken to a single other human being over the age of one.

  ‘I looked away for a second...perhaps a whole minute...and he has wreaked complete destruction.’ Suddenly she wanted to cry. Crumple to a heap on the floor, roll herself up into a ball and wail in complete, impotent frustration. When the hideous trial or the imminent prospect of financial ruin hadn’t beaten her spirit, clearly another stupid rejection letter and a bag of spilled flour could. She must have looked as utterly miserable and fed up as she felt because he immediately stepped over the threshold and reassuringly squeezed her arm.

  ‘Then allow me to help before you dismiss me again.’ Once again, she found his warm touch strangely reassuring, except this time, although only the lightest and briefest of touches, she could still feel it after he took his hand away. ‘It is the least I can do after everything. Besides, I am exceedingly good in a crisis. It is one of my strengths.’

  ‘There is no need for you to help me. I can manage...’

  ‘Perfectly well on your own. Yes, I believe I have heard that speech.’ He was still smiling. It was a nice smile. An extremely human and genuine one. ‘And while I am prepared to concede that under perfectly normal circumstances you can—without my overbearing interference—this hardly constitutes a normal circumstance and helping you to clean up a bit of flour hardly leaves you for ever in my debt, now, does it? If it squares things up in that proud head of yours, I shall have flour strewn all over my office on the morrow and you can come and help clear it up to make us even.’

  Not waiting for her response, he headed straight to her tiny kitchen and began to look about. ‘Do you own a broom? A dust pan, perhaps?’ She hadn’t expected that and pointed ineffectually to where they were kept in the furthest corner as she closed the door. Before Freddie caused more chaos, she picked him up. Something which didn’t please him because he struggled and whined, smearing flour all over the front of her dullest, most shapeless house dress.

  Not that she should be ashamed of that, when she had not expected visitors and certainly never him again, but up against his fine clothing she did. His outfit today was more suited to a fancy dinner party than an official visit to Cheapside.

  ‘Have you ever had cause to use a broom?’

  ‘I’ve brushed down a horse and mucked out a few stables in my time.’ From the amusement radiating from his unusual eyes, he was plainly not insulted by her lack of faith in his domestic abilities. ‘I’m sure the principal is similar, but I’m happy for you to give me pointers.’

  He swiftly shrugged out of his greatcoat and tossed it over the sofa, then stalked back towards the kitchen to retrieve the tools. Then, in a surreal spectacle she had never dreamed of witnessing, she stood by stunned as he began to wield the broom with economic precision. The wretch had clearly used a broom before. Of course he had. ‘Really, I can manage well enough and you are hardly dressed for the occasion.’ Freddie chose that moment to begin to howl, push and twist his back over the cage of her arms. His small, angry handprints making a haphazard pattern across her bosom.

  ‘Why don’t you sit down and try to distract your son from his ill temper while I remove the worst of it?’ His amber eyes were kind for once and out of frazzled necessity she found herself complying, despite not wanting him to witness her continued current ineptitude. Doubtless he would enjoy seeing stark evidence of her inability to cope all on her own.

  He picked up her smothered embroidery hoop and frowned as he handed it to her. ‘I fear your sewing might be ruined.’

  ‘Believe me, it was ruined long before the flour got to it.’

  As Freddie’s fidgets became less enthusiastic, she could do little else but watch her rescuer. Lord Hadleigh didn’t look much like a lawyer now, nor did he seem half as intimidating. He did well to tame most of the flour into a tiny heap in the middle of the parlour, but puffs of it floated around regardless, clinging to his highly polished boots from heel to shin. Something he either didn’t appear to mind or even be aware of when they were clearly expensive boots. She had never seen him without a billowing greatcoat or barrister’s gown before, so the sight of him in boots and breeches was unexpected. Without those extra layers he was still a large specimen of the male species. Tall and surprisingly broad, he would have topped Penhurst by several inches in height and significantly more in width. There had to be at least two feet of man between his arm sockets, maybe more.

  As he knelt to sweep the pile of flour into a pan, she got to study the sight of those breeches in profile unwatched. He wore them well. Because of his height, she had assumed his legs would be thin and gangly. However, the thighs which perfectly filled out the buff kerseymere stretched taut around them had been honed on horseback rather than by sitting behind a desk. They had to be. A gentleman might pad his j
ackets as her husband always had, but never his breeches. That would only look silly... Why was she thinking about a man’s breeches? Not that she needed to feel guilty about contemplating an impressive pair of thighs now that she was a delightedly unmarried and independent woman. But his thighs! When she hadn’t shown a single jot of interest in any man’s anything in years! Clearly, she was overtired and overwrought this evening to be so befuddled. An unanticipated flour storm could do that. ‘Really, thank you... I can clean up the rest once I put Freddie to bed. It’s late and he is tired.’ Polite code for leave. Now.

  ‘I suspect your little man could do with a bath before bed. Why don’t you see to that while I finish up with the mess? Then we can talk business unhindered.’ Making it plain he had no intention of leaving any time soon, he went to the heavy kettle and grabbed a nearby rag to test its weight before topping it up from the jug as if he had spent his life in tiny kitchens. ‘Where do you keep the tub?’

  In her bedchamber. A place Lord Hadleigh was most definitely even less welcome in than her parlour. ‘I will fetch it.’ She bustled off with her grumpy son balanced on one hip and closed the door firmly behind her. No sooner has she deposited him on the rug, an unwelcome tap on the door made her realise the lawyer had no respect for boundaries.

  ‘What?’ She practically snarled the word at the wood and felt instantly guilty for her tone when he genuinely was only trying to help.

  ‘It seems silly dragging the bath out here when there is still flour everywhere and I can just as easily bring in all the water. Then I’ll have everything spick and span before you finish.’

  While his suggestion made sense, she still did not want him setting one foot into her most private of spaces, nor did she feel particularly gracious. ‘Kindly leave the water outside the door once it’s ready. I don’t want Freddie accidentally scalding himself.’