AllFreeNovel
Share Us
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.
