Hawkes frowned harder. “Why didn’t you rein him in while you were about it?”
“The damage had already been done. The photo was already on the gossip sites. I found it last night while I was still here.”
Hawkes’s tone was acidic. “Maybe you can prevent the problem next time instead of going drinking with him afterward to celebrate.”
“I didn’t go drinking with Lord Severn!” Gen protested.
“Arthur!”
“Irrelevant,” Octavia said. “How are you going to prevent this kind of thing from happening again? How are you going to prevent it tonight?”
Gen quailed. “I—I guess I could follow him around and keep an eye on him instead of working here. That’s better than hitting refresh on the computer all night to see whether a photographer has already snapped an incriminating picture of him. You said yourself that he needs adult supervision. I’m an adult.”
That last part might have been a little more bitter than Gen had intended, but dang it, that whole night had been one anxiety-fueled refresh after another.
Octavia Hawkes leaned toward Gen. “And how do you plan to do that?”
Think-think-think-think-think.
Gen looked over Hawkes’s shoulder at Arthur Finch-Hatten, the Earl of Severn, the glorious scion of the British Empire—glamorous and gorgeous and strong and tall—who was silently laughing at her inability to keep him from destroying his life and her career.
Her hands clenched into fists. Gen said, “I just won’t let him put himself in undesirable positions.”
Lord Severn, Arthur, chuckled. “Good luck with that.”
Time to rope that steer and hogtie at least three of his legs.
Gen lifted her chin. “We’ll put it out there that I’m his new girlfriend. I’ll stay with him every waking hour, and he’ll stay with me. He’s been caught by a woman, and so it’s perfectly logical if he isn’t drinking and whoring his way across London anymore. I will be his supervising adult.”
Lord Severn stood and towered over both of them, panic widening his silvery eyes. “Wait a minute—”
“And if you don’t behave—” Gen stood up, braced her hands on her hips, and stared nearly straight into his gorgeous, shimmering eyes. She almost melted but she sure as Hell didn’t let herself get all gooey, “—then you can find yourself some new barristers, new ones who aren’t tenants in these chambers. You can start all the Hell over with someone else.”
Octavia Hawkes’s head snapped up, and her overly plush lips stretched into a grin. “I think that’s an exceptional idea, Gen.”
Lord Severn straightened and smiled, smoothing his tie into his suit jacket. “It’s unethical for a barrister to date a client. You would surely never be offered tenancy and probably would be dismissed from chambers.”
Octavia chuckled and dismissed the problem with a wave of her hand. “I’ll take care of that. Don’t you worry about it all,” she told Gen. “Just a few, well-placed whispers in the right ears will ensure that it’s seen that you’re taking one for the proverbial team. Indeed, it will increase your chances to receive a tenancy offer.”
Gen turned back to Lord Severn, Arthur, and sucked in a fortifying breath. “So, what do you say? Am I your girlfriend, whom you’re going to pretend to be head-over-heels for and spend every waking minute with, or are you going to call your solicitors and tell them to find someone else to fight your case? Someone whom Horace didn’t recommend?”
Lord Severn didn’t seem distressed by this development at all. Indeed, his face was utterly emotionless, and his silvery eyes turned icy. “So you’re to be my girlfriend in all ways?”
That asshole was trying to run her off.
“Hell, no,” Gen said, her Texas accent turning harsher than usual in her mouth. “You’ll give me no lip and keep your hands to yourself.”
“Or you’ll punch me, I imagine.” One side of his mouth curved up a little, but his eyes were still cold, even snakelike. He said, “If I indulge in a sham relationship, perhaps it will last longer than a month. And when is this charade to begin?”
Octavia butted in, “Immediately. You’ll pick Gen up from work, and you’ll see to it that she’s safely home when you’re ready to retire for the evening.” She grabbed Lord Severn’s elbow and pulled, turning him to look at her. “Gen is doing a pupillage, here. She gained a first-class degree at Oxford in law, and she did the European law track. She survived a grueling bar course and exam. She beat out four thousand applicants for one of three hundred pupillage spots and only one of six in these chambers. She needs to be on time for work, and she needs to be able to concentrate. Try to put your selfish appetites aside for once, and don’t scuttle her chances.”
“Ah,” Lord Severn said. “Well played, both of you.
“What?” Gen looked between the two of them.
His face was rigid like a Greek statue, like the marble almost ready to soften into flesh, but not quite.
Octavia was smiling. Her Botoxed forehead was still as smooth as a snake. She said, “I rather think so. Gen will be finished with work around five. I trust you can keep yourself out of trouble until then?”
Lord Severn looked down at Gen. “There is a private social engagement that I’m to attend tonight. If you are to pose as my girlfriend—” His voice was flat, unfeeling, but at least he hadn’t sneered that last word “—you’ll need appropriate clothes. I’ll have someone here at five for you.”
“I’ve got clothes, Lord Severn,” Gen protested.
Octavia’s eyes widened like she would have raised her eyebrows if she could have.
He didn’t look Gen up and down. If anything, his voice was gentler. “You’ll need different clothes. Someone will arrive for you at five. And if we are to indulge in such a charade, you must start calling me Arthur.”
He strode out of the room, not looking back. The office door smacked shut.
Gen sank into her chair. “I shouldn’t have suggested that. He’s going to ditch me or make me look like an idiot at this party. This was a terrible idea.”
Octavia shrugged and walked back around her desk. “It doesn’t much matter either way. If he does anything wrong, we will remove ourselves as his barristers, and little will have changed. If he doesn’t, you have a shot to win his case. It’s quite a win-win situation for you.”
“Do you think so?” Gen asked.
Octavia looked up, seriousness flickering in her brown eyes. “Chances are, we’re going to lose Lord Severn’s case. I don’t believe that he will be able to refrain from his debauchery for any length of time. This last effort will emphasize that we went to extraordinary measures to continue with his case. It’s just for show.”
“Oh.” Gen leaned back in her seat. “I’ll do my best, then, at this party-thing.”
Octavia pressed her lips together before she spoke, and her voice was lower when she said, “Use caution tonight. Sun Tzu said, ‘He who wishes to fight must first count the cost.’ Considering the clientele of this law firm and the circles that Lord Severn moves in, at least a few of our other clients and perhaps some of the solicitors who send business to us may also attend. To be frank, if you make a fool of yourself at that party and drive off clients from other barristers in chambers, you won’t get a tenancy offer.”
USB
In a small bedroom within his apartment, Arthur jiggled a minuscule USB drive as he inserted it into a slot of a desktop computer. It was a tight fit, but he manipulated it in.
Afternoon sunlight shone into Arthur’s computer room through gauzy curtains hanging over the windows and French doors that led out to the rear balcony. Six floors below the terrace, London flowed over rolling hills down to the shining Thames River in the distance, a cubic carpeting of buildings and winter-dormant lawns.
A small, mostly white dog slept near Arthur’s feet, still rolled over on his back in case Arthur wanted to resume rubbing his belly.
Empty coffee cups littered the desk. He would take the cups bac
k to the kitchen when he had a chance. The smoky scent of good coffee hung in the dark air. Even inhaling in that room could give someone a caffeine buzz.
Six computer screens were staggered over the desk and a shelf above it. On one, a new window popped open from the USB drive, listing files.
Thin curtains cut the sunlight’s glare, which Arthur preferred. Staring at the screens for hours sometimes gave him headaches. The monitors had been positioned so that the screens weren’t visible from the windows, even though the windows were thoroughly silvered to make them opaque to even the most sophisticated surveillance equipment.
He had only a few hours to work before he was to meet Gen for the evening’s charity soiree.
The two of them had cornered him. The barristers at Serle’s Court had been trying to curtail his lifestyle ever since the firm had taken his case. He’d gone through three different barristers, including poor Horace Lindsey, all of them haranguing him at every opportunity.
The pincer movement that morning had been technically beautiful, he had to admit. Arthur was quite the student of warfare tactics, though traditional military tactics were beyond what he usually studied.
Now, he had to spend hours every day with Gen Ward.
While most men would have been thrilled to spend hours of the day with the luscious Genevieve Ward, doing so without the prospect of seducing her would be torture.
Her body was all curves and softness, from her soft lips to her spectacular tits to the curving, lush globes of her ass. His hands felt empty even sitting there at his computer desk. He wanted to press her softness against himself and fill his hands and fingers with the flesh of her ass and long, curvy legs.
Arthur liked a nice ass on a woman.
A lot.
And tonight, he would stand beside Gen Ward for the evening, after she and Octavia Hawkes had outmaneuvered him, and try to do his damn job while Gen made every effort to ensure that he didn’t.
Once again, the first layer of his job would be to convince everyone that he was a drunken degenerate who was trying to convince them that he wasn’t one.
The deeper layers of his job were such that he couldn’t discuss them with anyone except through the reams of paperwork he produced each week.
Paperwork filled his days and his nights, shoving aside his actual work.
Every evening’s schedule was more tedious than the last. He would rather be at home with his dog, perhaps with his computer on his lap, taking down a government or two while he watched a movie.
Even that seemed hollow, sometimes.
Arthur refused to pity himself. He was a fantastically wealthy nobleman with a consuming life’s work, plus he had a dog. It was enough. It was far better than most people’s lot in life.
He bent and scratched the dog’s hairy tummy. The dog’s white tail thumped the ground, but he didn’t wake up.
Arthur leaned in to read the list of files on the tiny USB that had been glued to the thigh of one of the women on the previous night. Her body had been drop dead gorgeous, but the woman herself was a dead drop.
The list read like alphabet soup.
STUXNET MOD 17ar9b
GAUSS Build 68en093
FLAME ver y73mel1007
DuQu Mod wbpp638a
Just random letters, odd file names, and some version numbers. To the vast majority of people, the file names were meaningless drivel.
To Arthur, they meant chaos. They meant cities burning and protestors rioting.
He reached for his keyboard.
TEA AND MARRIAGE THERAPY
Gen poured tea in a china cup and added sugar for Linnaeus Grover, a member of chambers who had recently taken silk, which meant that he had applied for and been accepted as Queen’s Counsel. It also meant that he was distinguished in his profession, could accept or refuse cases with impunity, and could charge truly exorbitant fees.
Grover’s clerk had been ecstatic when his boss had taken silk. He had sharpened all his pencils and called all the man’s solicitors, informing them of Grover’s happy announcement and his new fee structure.
Linnaeus accepted the tea from Gen and smiled at her, craning his neck upward. “And how are you this afternoon?”
“Very well, thank you.” No other comment was needed, Gen knew. “And yourself?”
“Quite well, quite well,” Linnaeus said, holding onto his suit coat’s lapel as if it were his new silk court robes.
Beside her, James Knightly asked Grover, “Biscuit, sir?”
Linnaeus patted his stomach as if he were about to refuse but then reached for the offered cookie and ate it anyway.
James Knightly said to Grover, “Such a shame about Fred Norquist’s marriage being on the rocks.” Fred was another of the pupil barristers competing with Gen and James to get the tenancy. “I heard that Fred and his wife are in couples counseling three evenings a week.”
Gen wanted to roll her eyes. Everything that James said reeked of ulterior motives.
“Good that he’s making a go at it,” Linnaeus replied.
“Yes, but such a shame,” James said. “Three evenings a week.”
“Quite a bit of time to put in when you’re a pupil barrister,” Linnaeus said.
Gen almost sighed with how easily James had gotten Linnaeus to agree with him that Fred was taking too much time off, but she knew better than to be so dang obvious.
Linnaeus Grover said, “Some people just can’t handle the demands of a career in the law.”
And there it was: the death knell of Fred Norquist’s career as a barrister.
Fred wouldn’t be getting a tenancy, not with one of the senior barristers holding the opinion that he couldn’t handle the demands of a law career. If Fred were lucky, he would get a third starvation-wage pupillage for six more months in another set of chambers where he might obtain tenancy.
If he didn’t get a third six, well, then he had very few options.
All it had taken to sabotage Fred’s chances was the wrong person finding out that he and his wife were in marriage counseling and using that against him.
Law chambers are snake pits, but they are full of lawyers. It was hardly surprising.
PRACTICING
Gen’s black court robes hung in the corner of her tiny office. The hanger was hooked over a nail driven into the wall. Gen reached for them. The polyester fabric was smooth under her fingers as she took the flowing material off the hanger.
The robes were usually called a bar gown. If she were going to court, she would flip it around her shoulders so that the fabric draped around her like a loose jacket or a graduation gown, open in the front, and it hung precisely to her knees.
It had cost Gen over four thousand pounds for the set: the robes, a white powdered wig like she was living during the Revolutionary War, three shirts and collars, and six sets of the long, white tabs that hung down like a bow. Everything was second-hand. New robes and stuff would have cost half again as much, maybe twice.
But now, Gen twisted the robes into a thick bundle like a heavy arm, and she laid it over her shoulders.
It was just weight, not too heavy. It didn’t mean anything.
She looped the fabric behind her from her shoulder to her waist and pulled it against her back.
It still meant nothing. It was just weight.
She held it there until she started breathing normally, and finally, she did.
She kept doing that, wrapping it around her, pulling it snug against her and letting it brush her clothes and her skin, until her smile didn’t waver anymore, even if her hands still shook a little.
PICK ME UP
At five o’clock, sharp, Gen was powering down her computer on her tiny pupil desk when Miriam, her clerk, called her on the office phone.
“Ms. Ward, you have a visitor.” Miriam’s voice was even and decorous, just like usual. Obviously, His Lordship Arthur Finch-Hatten, the Earl of Severn, hadn’t come in person to collect Gen.
Gen told her, “I’ll be right t
here.”
She tossed her necessities in her bag, grabbed her coat, and locked her office, twisting her new key in the shiny new set of locks that a man had come to install just that afternoon.
Octavia Hawkes called through her open office door, “Good luck tonight!”
Gen quailed and considered taking the back staircase so she could escape from the building, but she waved to Octavia as she left and walked through the corridors to the office waiting room.
There, Miriam stood, waiting with another woman.
The other woman’s dark pantsuit contrasted her short, gray hair. She smiled and extended her hand. Delicate veins ran along the back. “Good evening, Ms. Ward. I’m Pippa Coke, Lord Severn’s driver.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Gen shook her hand. The woman had a gentle handshake. “I remember you from last night.”
“Thank you, ma’am, and you needn’t call me ‘ma’am.’ Please call me Pippa.”
She smiled. “Thank you. Call me Gen?”
Pippa smiled and walked with her through the building and down the stairs to where the car was waiting.
And what a car it was.
Okay, so last night, Gen had been too wasted to notice that Lord Severn, Arthur, had poured her into a Bentley, and a midnight-blue, four-door Bentley at that. The back just had the discreet trunk ornament—a capital B with wings—and didn’t say the model, but Gen had been hanging around very rich barristers for almost a year. She knew a Continental Flying Spur when she saw it because it was one of very few models of Bentley she had not seen up close.
None of the very wealthy senior barristers in her tony, highly successful law office could afford a Continental Flying Spur.
Bentleys are very British cars, refined, seeming to shout I’ve made it! to the world in the politest way possible.
When the driver opened the rear-seat door, Gen glanced at her, unsure if the woman was holding the door for her. Pippa’s slight nod gave her permission.
All right, then.
Stiff Drink: Runaway Billionaires: Arthur Duet #1 Page 8