“Sorry. She’s sorry.” He backhanded Pippa on the shoulder, who had been chuckling the whole time, and turned back to Gen. “We’re going to Harrods, all the way up to the top this time, Ms. Ward, up to where the rarified designers create bespoke fashions for the truly wealthy. I’ve called ahead. They’re expecting us.”
“Is this going to be worse than last time?” Gen asked him.
Graham snarled at her, “Brace yourself.”
Spencer House #2
WHEN Gen got home from the consultation with Graham that evening, Arthur met her at the elevator entrance to his penthouse.
He was right there, waiting for her. The doors slid open, and he was pacing on the thick oriental carpet.
With a glance, Gen appraised Arthur’s day.
He had attended business meetings today because he was wearing suit trousers. He’d taken the jacket off and rolled up his sleeves, so he had been home for a bit. If he had been working from home all day in his locked room where no one was allowed in, he would have been wearing a tee shirt and khakis or jeans. The extra, frenetic energy in his pacing meant that he probably hadn’t had time for his usual run and gym time that day, so he might try to get it in before they went to a charity event that night. He might be a few minutes late because of it, so he would probably chase her down because struggling with his cufflinks took too much time. His hair was mussed on top, parts of it falling over his forehead, so he had been running his hands through it, which he did when he was upset.
The apartment was the same as always. The small entry hall opened on one side to a coat room and half-bath and the living room on the other end. Out there, the glass wall overlooked nighttime London, the city sparkling in the darkness. Hyde Park was an expanse of empty space across the street, cutting a black swath out of the glitter. Winking lights darting amongst the stars were airplanes taking off from the several airports on the outskirts of the metropolis.
Arthur said, “We need to go to Spencer House. We leave at nine tomorrow morning.”
“What! Without clearing it with me?” Gen dropped her purse on the table in the entry way. Red roses rattled in their vase on the table. “I have three important meetings tomorrow. I have to be in court with Octavia at two o’clock.”
“I’ve already cleared it with Octavia. She said one of the other pupil barristers would be tasked to cover everything for you when I said that you were needed at Spencer House.”
“Great. So James fucking Knightly got my court date tomorrow.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem.”
“James is brilliant. He’s going to get the offer for tenancy. I know he is, and I won’t get the job offer, damn it. He gets all the good cases and closes them right out,” she fretted.
“And that matter about the ethics censure hasn’t hurt him?” Arthur asked.
“No, it hasn’t. Wait. What?” Gen grabbed Arthur’s arm. “What ethics censure?”
“The one at Oxford. You mean James Herbert Knightly, also of Trinity and your year, right?”
“Yeah.” Her voice quavered, shocked. Herbert was James’s actual middle name, even though everyone called him James fucking Knightly.
Arthur said, “He was caught stealing exams from a professor’s office for the answers. He avoided being sent down because he snitched on his friends. His mates were all expelled. He received an ethics censure.”
An ethics violation like that? “Is it on his record? Anywhere?”
“Couched in vague terms, I’m sure, but I’m surprised that you don’t know about it. It should have been your last year of university. There was quite a ruckus about it.”
As if he had heard his name, Ruckus bounded around the corner with his leash in his mouth. The Jack Russell Terrier was mostly white except for a brown mask over his eyes and ears, and he was in that overgrown-puppy stage of his young life.
Gen looked down at her feet. “I kind of kept my head down that year.”
She had survived by not feeling anything at all that year.
Ruckus crawled beside her and laid his heavy head on her shoe.
“Oh,” Arthur said. He stepped toward her, trailing his fingers down her arm. When he reached her hand, his fingers twined in hers. “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t look up. She couldn’t. Her face burned and was all screwed up. “Tell me about the ethics violation. Why wasn’t it caught when James applied for the pupillage? No chambers would have taken him on.”
“Like I said, he snitched, so it was probably only vaguely referred to in his record, but there was a piece in the Cherwell,” the independent student newspaper.
“Because of course there was,” Gen said.
“I could check the archives for you, if you wanted. I know you’re terribly busy defending my case.”
“Oh, I couldn’t. That wouldn’t be fair, to bring it up after a couple of years have elapsed. It wouldn’t be sporting. Besides, I’m sure the senior partners know about it. All noteworthy gossip is widely known and endlessly discussed.”
“I’m sure they already know, then. Just thought I’d mention it.”
Gen sniffed and sucked it all up. The other thing was a long time ago, and she should act like it, not get all rattled at every tangential reference to the night she got too drunk and caught the attention of the wrong guy. She asked, “So why do we have to go to Spencer House?”
“We’re hosting a dinner party for several members of the House of Lords who are on the committee in question.”
“Dude, the only person hosting a party like that with you should be a wife. I’m nobody.”
Arthur took one step back and blinked several times, skittish as a colt. His dark eyelashes swept over his eyes. “No matter. I don’t have a countess, and you’re my barrister. My barrister would have more intimate knowledge than any wife. You should be there.”
“Countess? Is that what an earlette is called?” She didn’t know and had no reason to care.
“Yes, my wife will be the Countess of Severn.”
“Assuming you win your case.”
“Everything is predicated on whether I win my case.”
“Okay, true.” She should read over all those briefs again, just in case. “But we could leave tomorrow afternoon to get there in time for dinner, right?”
“We’ll need to go there tomorrow morning to select jewellry for the wedding.”
“I cannot skive off work to pick out jewelry. Besides, I can figure out what earrings I want to wear in five minutes.”
“Oh, Gen,” Arthur said, smiling. “The earldom holds an extensive jewelry collection. It might take hours to view even the most appropriate ones.”
She was still traumatized from shopping with Graham. “Can’t I just throw a dart into the vault or something?”
He laughed. “We’ll leave at nine.”
The Finch-Hatten Jewelry Collection
PICKING out jewelry at Spencer House took three long hours.
Gen wasn’t sure why it was taking so damn long.
Hundreds of velvet cases were stacked on a long dining room table, one of the smaller dining rooms in the centuries-old Tudor mansion on the outskirts of London. Elaborate white wainscoting ringed the lower half of the room, while antique paintings were hung on the upper half of the silk-covered walls. The silver candelabra had been shoved down to the other end of the table, gleaming in the sun from the tall, thin windows, to make room for the jewelry boxes.
Lots of boxes.
So many boxes that it looked like Christmas morning at a shopaholic’s house.
Arthur sat in a dining table chair, fiddling with his phone and sneaking peeks.
They had a swatch of the deep blue silk that her dress was being made out of. Graham laid it over her shoulder like a scarf. Graham fussed around Gen, trying set after set after set of jewelry on her.
Set after set after set.
After set.
Sparkly things for her neck, for her ears, for her wrists and her bosom and her
hair.
For her waist and her shoes.
So many diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, opals, garnets, and pearls.
And all of those in gold or platinum settings.
Some of the sets, he slapped on her and whipped them off just as fast. No reason to linger over those.
Others, Graham wrapped around her, clasped, and studied the effect of the gems against the deep blue silk and her skin.
From the fortress of boxes, Graham winnowed it down to ten sets.
Then the real agonizing began.
While Graham wailed and bemoaned the jewelry selection, Arthur made one phone call to Ifan, the groundskeeper who was, as Gen had discovered over the months, the guy who oversaw all the maintenance at Spencer House. Arthur said, “The light switch to the rear of my bedroom isn’t working. We’ll have to have the historian and the curator come out along with the electrician, and then have them all stay for the master carpenter if there’s any damage. Yes, but we accept National Trust funds, so it all has to be spot on. Also, one of the cushions in the library has a seam coming loose. We’ll have to send that out for restoration. Thank you, Ifan.”
Twenty more minutes passed with Graham fussing and muttering over Gen.
She managed to catch Arthur’s eye when Graham had his back turned. She drew her finger across her throat and grimaced.
Arthur laughed and stood. “Graham! You’ve done such a splendid job. Let’s just pick one and be done with it, shall we?”
Gen nodded.
Graham glared at Arthur. “This is an impossible task. These sets are all at least twenty years old. Some, older. They’re all terribly unfashionable and out of style. You should have told me six months ago about this wedding and that you were going to need to dress a lady.”
“The diamond and sapphire set goes the best, don’t you think? It was my mother’s and is somewhat modern-looking.”
They stood on either side of Gen’s chair and argued over her head.
Graham said, “If you’re going to keep doing this, you need to have all of these sets redone.”
“But they’re traditional!” Arthur said. “These pieces have historical significance. Some are centuries old and belonged to important figures. They’re antiques.”
“They’re old-fashioned,” Graham fretted. “The sapphire piece is the best of them. I’ll give you that. You really should retain a jeweler and just remake the whole lot.”
Gen couldn’t believe that two guys were arguing about jewelry.
And so vehemently.
She tried, “Um, guys?”
Arthur snarled, “We will not destroy historically important pieces of jewelry. These are art. They are the history of England.”
“Fine,” Graham said. “So we’ve settled on the sapphire set. Fine.”
“Thank you for your services, Graham,” Arthur growled.
Day-umn.
Dinner at Spencer House
GEN sucked in a deep breath as she settled herself at the foot of the long dining room table in yet another dining room at Spencer House.
Arthur sat at the head of the table, opposite her and far away.
Twenty noblemen and ladies lined the two long sides of the table in the smallest of Spencer House’s three formal dining rooms. The walls above the white wainscoting were painted mint green to set off the large portraits of Arthur’s ancestors: dukes, earls, lords, duchesses, countesses, and ladies. Some of the paintings were centuries old, a history of Britain in family pictures. The oversized portraits reached nearly to the ceiling two stories above them.
Silver candelabra stood high above the table, lit with small flames. The slender center stalks had been carefully placed not to obstruct conversation, and the branches were well above the guests’ line of sight. Melting beeswax scent floated in the air, stronger even than the floral perfumes, the woodsy colognes, and the steaming food.
Gen looked at the jewelry that the ladies in the paintings were wearing, and yep, she recognized some of the pieces from the marathon with Graham that afternoon.
Four of the dinner guests that evening were members of the House of Lords Committee for Privileges and Conduct, which meant that any one of them could be the deciding vote that would determine Arthur’s fate.
Lady Josceline Bazalgette, sitting on Gen’s right hand, was the most important of their guests. The svelte blonde was influential on the House of Lords committee, Arthur had told Gen. She was also a judge and had taken silk as a Queen’s Counsel barrister over a decade ago. Basically, Lady Josceline Bazalgette was a super-lawyer.
So Arthur had seated this paragon of the law and English society next to the American, poopy-butt pupil barrister.
What could go wrong?
Gen smiled at Lady Bazalgette. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Arthur has told me so much about you.”
“Has he?” Lady Bazalgette’s dry tone suggested that Arthur hadn’t told Gen everything, or perhaps the lady knew too much about him. “Word has it that you’re a pupil barrister.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m doing my pupillage at Serle’s Court Barristers.”
“Good chambers,” Lady Bazalgette commented.
“Thank you, ma’am. Everyone around there thinks so.”
Lady Bazalgette’s lips tightened in a smile. “Who’s your pupil master?”
“Horace Lindsey was for part of my first six.”
“A tragic loss.”
“Yes, ma’am. He was always very kind to me. I miss him a lot. For the rest of my first six, my pupil mistress is Octavia Hawkes.”
“And what do you think of her?” Lady Bazalgette purred.
“Ms. Hawkes is an excellent barrister. She wins more than her share of cases, far more, and she’s been generous with her time and explained a lot to me.”
Lady Bazalgette nodded. “She’s applied for silk.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Only people who had read her application should know that, which meant that Lady Bazalgette might very well be on the committee to decide who would be offered the Queen’s Counsel distinction, too. One wrong word from Gen would screw up Octavia’s chances of taking silk.
Oh, sweet baby Jesus. Gen considered bolting out of the room, lest she say one stupid syllable and fuck up Octavia’s chances.
Lady Bazalgette asked, “Can you tell me what the word is around chambers?”
Gen tore a roll apart, stalling. “Octavia is well-respected.”
“Well-liked?”
Gen’s inner Texan popped up. “Better than most people in that pit of rattlers.”
Lady Bazalgette smirked. “Chambers can be contentious.”
“Octavia is a good person and an excellent barrister,” Gen told Lady Bazalgette, her voice pitched low. “She’s taught me a great deal, and she’s worked hard to excel. She’s sharp. She’s earned it. I think she’d make an excellent QC.”
Lady Bazalgette nodded. “Thank you. That helps a great deal.”
“Glad I could be of service.” Gen leaned toward her. “While I have you here, I was wondering if you had any advice for a pupil barrister just starting out? What do you wish you had known?”
Lady Bazalgette sat back, a dreamy expression coming over her face. She adjusted her reading glasses on her nose. “That it’s a long game. Each case is short, but being a barrister is a long game. Let me tell you—”
Gen leaned in as Lady Bazalgette briefed her on her long, fruitful career in the law.
Down at the other end of the table, however, Arthur was rattling the ice in his vodka tonic. Even though he was smiling and stating his comments with calm, flowing hand gestures, Gen could see that he was breathing deeply through his nose before each comment and continually jiggling his drink.
Uh-oh.
Dinner at Spencer House #2
ARTHUR leaned back in his chair at the head of the table. The roasted meat and vegetables on his plate steamed, soaking in the herb gravy his chef knew that he liked.
The dishes that set the table—refi
ned snow-white porcelain with platinum bands—were new because the historical pieces were all sequestered in the long, glass cases of the China Museum in the eastern wing of Spencer House. He could probably still recite the paragraph from his docent days leading tours, but even then he had been more interested in the portrait collection than the porcelain. The silver services also failed to hold his interest except for the ornate tea set originally crafted for Marie Antoinette upon the occasion of the birth of her son, the Dauphin.
He had eaten part of the meat for formality’s sake. No use offending the several members of the House of Lord’s committee clustered around him with his environmental politics, not if he wanted to keep the means to continue his work at those charities.
He had to admit, the seared, tender beef melted on his tongue and tasted fantastic.
The food was a pleasant distraction from the irritating company.
Lord Derek Humphreys, Earl of Coatham in the County of Cleveland, was being an ass.
Lord Coatham sat at Arthur’s left hand, drinking heavily and expounding upon his softly racist theories of social class.
His blond head bobbed with each new, offensive revelation. His curls bounced with each bob, shining in the candlelight and the dimmed LEDs embedded in the ceiling. At twenty-eight, Coatham was too mature for such a precious hairstyle.
Lord Coatham spat another bit of thinly veiled bigotry.
All the insulting terms that Arthur should definitely not call him started running through his head.
Shitpouch.
Wazzock.
Cuntybollocks.
Arthur said to Lord Coatham, “All of your opinions are certainly at the forefront.”
The only thing restraining Arthur from putting the jerk in his place was the man on Arthur’s right hand, Lord Andrew Butterfield, the Earl of Newcastle-under-Lyme in the County of Staffordshire. The older man was subtly rolling his eyes every time Arthur turned to him. Lord Butterfield’s dark eyes flicked up toward his eyelids, wrinkled with age and nearly devoid of eyelashes, at each new, offensive promulgation by the asshole Lord Coatham.
Hard Liquor: Runaway Billionaires: Arthur Duet #2 Page 2