Oops.
Guess those pictures of Arthur with the three strippers weren’t as buried as Gen had thought. “I’m sorry,” she started.
“I only saw them this morning after his solicitors called. This is ridiculous,” Octavia said. “Lord Arthur Finch-Hatten, I am hereby withdrawing as your barrister, which means Gen is off your case, too. We don’t fight hopeless causes like Atticus fucking Finch. Call your solicitors to find someone else to argue your case.”
“No!” Gen stood up.
Octavia’s lips were pressed into a hard line, and they barely moved when she spoke to Gen. “You can’t keep him out of trouble. Every time he drops you off at your house, he runs off like a tomcat that scents a female in heat. Not one but two sets of scandalous photos and a car wreck with suggestions of reckless driving in a few weeks? Two incidents would have been enough, but three? Impossible. It is impossible for us to continue as his barristers if he insists on living his life in this irresponsible, indefensible manner.”
“I could move in with him.” Gen slapped her hand across her own mouth. What was she saying?
Arthur staggered to his feet. “I agree.”
Gen looked at him. My God, he was serious.
“What!” Octavia’s jaw dropped as far as the tucked skin on her face would allow.
Gen asked him, “Are you okay with this?”
“I am entirely in your hands,” he said, bending from his trim waist in what looked like a courtly bow, a sore and stiff courtly bow.
Octavia said, “This is an outlandish scheme, entirely ill-advised.”
Arthur said, “The problems are occurring when we return Genevieve to her house, so she can stay at my apartment or at Spencer House.”
Octavia spoke to Gen. “No matter what I asked you to wear for Judge Roberts, I will not act as your literal pimp. This is insane.”
Gen protested, “I’m not sleeping with him.”
“Yes, and if you keep saying it just like that, the other barristers might continue to believe you. If you shack up with him, they will not.”
“I’m not sleeping with him!”
Octavia eyed Arthur and asked Gen, “You’re truly not?”
“No! That’s not the point, anyway,” Gen said. “The point is to keep him out of trouble.”
Arthur said, “Even with the new locks that I have had installed at Gen’s apartment and in chambers, her security is inadequate. She needs better security measures. She might as well stay with me for a few days or so until we can update her system.”
Octavia rounded on Gen. “You can’t install non-standard locks on your office door.”
Gen said, “He was worried about his personal information being stolen.”
“What if we needed a brief from your office?”
“I’m always here.”
“What if you were sick? Injured and in hospital?”
Gen planted her fists on her hips. “I’d drag myself in, holding my intestines in my hands, and unlock the door.”
“What if we needed it immediately?”
“That’s enough,” Arthur said, holding his hands up. “I furnished the Head Clerk a copy of the key.”
Octavia frowned as best she could, but her lips couldn’t turn down very far and her forehead didn’t move at all. “I’ll check with Celestia. I suppose that’s sufficient.”
“About Gen moving in with me,” Arthur pressed.
Octavia stared up at him, her head tilted far back. “You could just behave like an adult without anyone babysitting you.”
“Evidently, that’s unlikely,” he said.
“Why?” Octavia asked, glaring at him.
Gen said, “His trial isn’t due to start for months, anyway. We keep postponing it.”
“Why are we postponing it? Every time we do, His Lordship—” Octavia could make her words pour sarcasm when she wanted to “—does something asinine and gives them more evidence.”
“It was Horace’s strategy,” Gen said. “His notes said that, because the losing outcome was so dire even if unlikely, forestalling the trial was preferable. Plus, we think that the claimant is paying his lawyer on a no-win, no-fee basis.”
“That’s odd,” Octavia said. “Orval usually doesn’t take cases on that basis.” The law is a small world.
“But delaying is certainly a viable tactic.”
Octavia frowned. “Indeed, but it runs up costs and delays the inevitable, tying up time and resources. Solicitors send over trial instructions for just this reason.”
Arthur said, “About Gen moving in with me.”
Gen looked up at him, watching the serious expression on his battered face and in his silvery eyes, or at least the eye that wasn’t swollen nearly shut.
Octavia said, “You’re rather intent on that, aren’t you?”
“My places have better locks and security systems,” Arthur assured her.
Places. Plural.
Disgustingly rich people were weird.
Octavia said, “But Gen isn’t the one who looks as if they’ve been through a meat grinder. It seems that your protection is not particularly effective.” She turned to Gen. “We should drop this case today.”
“No,” both Arthur and Gen said. They looked at each other.
Gen said, “I can keep Arthur out of trouble. I’ll move in with him to do it, and we’ll win this case. No more stalling on it, either. We’ll set a court date.”
Octavia glared at both of them. “You had better be correct about this, Genevieve. We’ll give it one more month, but I want to see a court date on the calendar or you could face other challenges. Sun Tzu said, ‘When your weapons are dulled, your ardor dampened, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity.’”
“We promise,” Gen said.
Octavia whipped around and glared straight at Arthur. “And no touching.”
THREATS
After Arthur arrived home from Gen’s law office, he collapsed into his bed.
Ruckus, his little dog, was sleeping on the other side of the bed, miracle of miracles. The beast had bounced beside his bed for twenty minutes, begging for a walk, when Arthur had crawled into the bed, sore and thoroughly exhausted.
The emergency room physicians at the hospital had assured him that his ribs were not broken, just bruised, but he was quite sure that at least one was cracked. He had had broken ribs before, more than once. He knew what it felt like. It felt like this sharp pain cutting through his side when he breathed. Each inhale and exhale moved the broken bone.
The pain pills should take effect soon, he hoped. A bit of sleep before that supper tonight would be welcome.
His face throbbed. More bruises, he was assured. That, he believed. His skin felt swollen and scraped, but the bones underneath felt whole.
His phone chirped the normal tone, and he picked it up.
The screen read Serle’s Court Barristers.
He swiped the dot, and the pain receded for a moment at the prospect of hearing Gen’s voice. “Yes?”
A woman who was definitely not Gen Ward said in a lower, angry voice, “What are you up to, Arthur?”
Ah. The call was from Octavia Hawkes, Gen’s pupil mistress, not Gen.
Disappointment rolled through him, flattening him to the bed.
Arthur almost dropped the phone.
He would have to think about that, but later. “Yes, Octavia?”
“Arthur, we need to discuss your idea about Genevieve Ward moving in with you.”
“It was actually her idea to move in.”
“This had better not be some scam to get that girl into bed with you.”
“It isn’t,” he protested. “I wouldn’t.”
“Oh, bullshit. Your usual modus operandi is to whisk a woman off to some overly warm locale, buy her a range of bikinis and lingerie, and throw money and alcohol around until she falls on her back.”
“I do not.” Arthur shouldn’t have
bothered wasting his breath with that denial. Those pain pills must be making his brain fuzzy.
“I swear to God, Arthur. To be frank, she’s a nice girl. She’s a hard worker and a sharp barrister, and I think she may be an excellent addition to Serle’s Court if you don’t fuck it up for her. If she’s caught fucking a client, the best I can do is to get her a third six in some other chambers, where she might have a shot at obtaining tenancy, but that’s if she isn’t hauled before the Ethics Board or the Bar Council for ethics violations.”
“Yes, Oct,” he said.
“If you ruin her chances, I will drop your case, and no one else from Serle’s Court will touch it. No one from any reputable barristers’ chambers will touch it. You’ll have some hack representing you, and you will lose your earldom, all the wealth associated with it, and your status. For all I know, you’ll have no means of support. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
“Yes, Oct.”
Her tone softened. “Don’t fuck her over. You’ve broken enough hearts in this office.”
“Surely you don’t mean yourself.”
“I knew what you were, Arthur. I meant Lily, Celestia, Evelynne—”
Arthur cringed with each name Octavia Hawkes listed.
“—Lacey-Jade, Darcey, Zarah, Summer—”
“You forgot Maddison,” he said.
Octavia’s dry tone chastised him. “I was going to ask you whether I should go on because I was tiring of listing names.”
“Oh. Please don’t.” He stretched. His bruised and battered muscles groaned inside him.
“They were all admins, clerks, or weren’t associated with your case. Gen is different. I hate to use the term in this day and age, but you could ruin her.”
“I’m aware of that, and I—” Dare he say it? “—I like her, Oct. She seems kind.”
“You have no idea, Arth.”
He laid his head down on the pillow, resting. The linen cooled his cheek. “Don’t I?”
“Probably not, and it’s not my place to discuss it with you. Now, don’t fuck her and ruin her chances with us and with the Ethics Board, all right?”
“I won’t, Oct.”
“Good. You looked like crap this morning.”
“You didn’t. You looked sharp as always. You’re formidable in court.”
Her softer voice sounded pleased when she said, “Get some sleep, Arth.”
After Octavia had hung up the phone, instead of getting some sleep, Arthur dialed a different number.
“Yes,” a woman’s voice said.
Arthur said, “I’ve had a problem, and I’m going to need some help.”
SHACKING UP
That evening after work, Gen was driven back to her place by Pippa to pack up a few things. The driver’s shining gray hair was neatly combed in place, and her skin was smooth, unscratched, and unbruised. She hopped when she bustled out of the car to open Gen’s door.
Dusk was settling over the narrow streets of London as the car, a shiny, black Rolls Royce Phantom, growled in the cooling air. Minuscule twinkling lights salted the car’s ceiling like stars.
Jeez, who had a Rolls as their back-up car?
“Are you all right, after the accident?” Gen asked Pippa.
“Perfectly fine, but I was wearing my seatbelt,” she said. “One bruised shoulder from the belt, and the airbag skinned my nose a bit.”
Gen couldn’t see the abrasion on Pippa’s nose. “I’m glad to hear it. Where’s Arthur?”
“Resting before supper tonight. There’s another charity event to attend, I’m afraid.”
“I can’t believe he’s taking me to all these things.”
“I can’t believe you’re going with him. My God, they must be boring. I’d rather wait in the car with a book.”
“You wait in the car? Oh, we can get a taxi.”
“First of all, it’s my job. I’m being paid quite well to read a book in a very comfortable car. Second, there are usually rooms where the other chauffeurs wait, but then I would have to talk to the other humans and pretend that I liked them.”
Gen laughed. “All right, then.”
“And Lord Severn has had a few dresses sent around for you. He says that if you would like to go shopping, you’re to take his card and I’m to drive you. However, in the interest of time, dresses are already at his apartment. Graham picked them out.”
“I’m sure they’re lovely. Can you tell him thank you?”
“You’ll see him in an hour or so, and I believe that he is sleeping now. The emergency room and X-rays took a while last night, and then he had some early business meetings.” Pippa stopped the car in front of Gen’s mother’s house. “I’ll be waiting right here when you come back with your things, reading my book. Don’t rush.”
Gen rushed.
She dashed around her bedroom on the third floor of the cozy house, a converted attic space that was still smaller than she imagined any of Arthur’s closets to be. She tossed her several business suits into a garment bag and jammed handfuls of pantyhose, underwear, and bras in the bottom. Down the stairs to the second floor where her mother’s bedroom and the full bathroom were, and she used her arm to scoop all the makeup on the counter into a shopping bag.
Done.
She raced out of the house and cranked the key in the three shiny new locks.
Pippa had reclined her seat and was reading a thick paperback. A sword and a crown were painted on the cover. “Back so soon? No one even died yet.”
“No problem. I just needed a few things.” She wrestled the overstuffed garment bag into the back seat ahead of herself as if it were a six-foot-tall drunk slug. “I’m sorry it took so long.”
“Not too long at all,” sighed Pippa, closing her book. “Off to Lord Severn’s.”
Pippa rode the elevator up with her, showed her how to use the security card, told her the code, and handed the card over to her.
Gen said, “Oh, I couldn’t.”
Pippa shook the card at her. “Of course, you must.”
It was logical that she should have a key to the apartment if she were living there. Gen tucked the card in her wallet.
Pippa said, “And Lord Severn would like you to utilize one of his cars while you’re here. You’ll meet his other driver tonight.”
“I wondered if you ever got a day off.”
Pippa smiled at her. “Lord Severn treats us very well, as well he should. I could tell you such stories.”
“Oh, please do,” Gen said.
Pippa winked at her. “But he pays us too well.” She ushered Gen from the entryway into the apartment. “The staff will bring up your things from the car.”
Pippa went back into the elevator and was gone.
Gen was alone in the sprawling living room, and the emptiness went all the way to the unoccupied creamy sectional couch and the vacant veranda and out into the empty air and the green swells of the treetops of Hyde Park across the street.
Wow, this place was big. Even if you broke up that couch into all its pieces and fit them together like a Tetris puzzle, it still wouldn’t have fit in the reception room at Gen’s little house.
Frantic scratching skittered, and Gen turned in time to see Ruckus barreling into the room at her. “Oh, no! Down boy!”
Ruckus launched himself through the air and bounced off her boobs. He landed on his back on the couch.
Undeterred, he leapt right back at her and sprinted around her legs in circles, his wagging tail whipping the backs of her calves.
“Ruckus, honey. Sit! Sit!”
Behind her, a man said, “Ms. Ward, I presume?”
She stood up from trying to grab Ruckus’s collar. “Yes, sir?”
Behind the living room, a half-staircase led down into a long dining room. A man stood there, his jet black hair slicked back against his head from his sharp widow’s peak. His suit was as tailored and shiny as his hair, and his eyes glittered like obsidian. “I’m Royston Fothergill, the head of staff for Lord
Severn. Mr. Hollands, if you would?”
Another man in a black suit rushed in and dragged Ruckus away by his collar, muttering, “Bad dog. Bad dog. Down. Ouch. Bad dog. You need your claws trimmed.”
Royston Fothergill said, “Madam.”
“How do you do,” Gen said. Hey, she remembered.
“How do you do,” Royston Fothergill said. His voice was pitched low, an octave below where his voice might naturally be, and quiet but firm. She couldn’t decide if he sounded more like an old-timey butler or a vampire. “Lord Severn is still resting. I am to show you to your room and help you settle in. This way, if you please.”
Mr. Fothergill led her across the wide room and into a long hallway that meandered farther into the high-rise building. The kitchen was predictably enormous, probably because it was meant for catering parties. The black stone counters gleamed, reflecting the silver appliances that Gen supposed were stainless steel but might have been actual silver. The breakfast bar across the center island seated six.
The hallway ran back into the house, and Mr. Fothergill motioned down the corridor. “You may go anywhere in the house except the third bedroom, the door on the right. That is Lord Severn’s private study.”
Oh, yeah. Private study. The room must be either a Red Room of Kinky Stuff or a home theater dedicated to porn. Yeah, Arthur probably had a couple of kinks that probably needed a whole room to deal with. Or maybe it was worse. What could be worse? Maybe he had something in there that needed to be hosed down afterward.
Ew.
The butler showed Gen to the first bedroom, where two women wearing black dresses were hanging up her business suits from her garment bag.
“I can do that,” Gen said.
Mr. Fothergill ignored her outburst. “Your bathroom is in here,” he said, opening a door in the side wall. Behind him, an alabaster white bathroom sparkled, and again, this little guest bath was far larger than the only full bathroom that Gen and her mother had at home. There were two sinks in this one, plus a soaking tub that Gen might have drowned in, had she not learned to swim at the local YMCA and the shallow, warm Gulf of Mexico off the Texas coast.
Stiff Drink: Runaway Billionaires: Arthur Duet #1 Page 18