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One of the voices—the deeper one—sounded familiar.
But Clara hadn’t placed it by the time she walked in. When the pale grey gaze fixed on her, she started in surprise. Heat sprang from several inner places at once and raced up to her neck and face as well as to areas ladies did not acknowledge to anybody, including themselves.
This was a disturbing development, but a lady always appeared to be in control, even when she felt as though she’d walked into a lamppost.
“Lady Clara,” he said. His keen grey gaze traveled over her, swiftly assessing. “Is that supposed to be a cunning disguise?”
The other gentleman said, “Radford, what the—”
Clara held up her hand, silencing him. If she didn’t immediately seize control, they would. They’d treat her like a child, the way men usually treated women, especially young women. They’d murmur soothing things and send her on her way. They might even tattle to Papa’s solicitor. She doubted any lawyerly rules of confidentiality applied to women.
Do not show uncertainty or anxiety, she commanded herself. For once in your life you can do something more productive than decline marriage offers.
She adopted her paternal grandmother’s autocratic manner.
“Thanks to you, I now know who he is,” she said to the other man, who was a degree shorter and fairer, and not dressed entirely in black. “It is immaterial to me how he knows who I am. You must be the eminent solicitor Mr. Thomas Westcott. I haven’t much time, and I should prefer not to waste it on formalities. As your colleague has so cleverly ascertained, I am Lady Clara Fairfax. This is my maid, Davis. The boy Fenwick, who is trying to kill your clerk, advised me to consult you.”
As she let her glance rest briefly on the tall, dark man, the sense of familiarity she’d experienced at Charing Cross returned. “He seems to believe Mr. Radford is peculiarly equipped to assist us with a problem.”
“He’s peculiar, I’ll give you that,” said Mr. Westcott.
“This isn’t about the mangy dog, is it?” Mr. Radford said. “Because the police have more important matters—”
“It’s about a pauper boy,” Clara said.
Mr. Radford stalked to the window and looked down. “And you wanted us? Can’t mean the fellow down there. He’s holding his own. No, wait. Better. He’s giving Tilsley a Chancery suit on the nob. That boy of yours looks familiar.”
Having spent a part of her childhood with three older brothers, she knew what he was looking at. A Chancery suit on the nob involved getting one’s opponent’s head under one’s arm and punching said head with the free hand.
“You’re familiar to him, which is why we’re here,” Clara said.
“What’s the brat calling himself now?” Mr. Radford said.
“He doesn’t call himself anything,” Clara said. “He could teach clams a thing or two. His employers call him Fenwick. And he seemed to think you could help us find a boy named Toby Coppy.”
Mr. Radford turned away from the window. “Friend of—er—Fenwick?”
She’d spent the last two days studying the notorious Raven Radford, no easy task, even had she not had to keep her mission secret from her family.
His name didn’t feature in the usual accounts of parliamentary or social doings. Mainly his name appeared in reports of criminal proceedings, some dauntingly lengthy. From what she’d read, he seemed to be sharp-witted, learned, and tactless to a spectacular degree. Though she hadn’t had time to read everything, she’d thought it amazing he’d won so many cases, when judges, witnesses, juries, and even his own clients must have wanted to throttle him.
She, for instance, was already growing irritated.
“If I might begin at the beginning,” she said. “Rather than proceed along the haphazard route of your questions.”
One black eyebrow went up. “Haphazard,” he said.
“That was a setdown, in case you didn’t recognize it,” Mr. Westcott told him.
“I thought so,” Mr. Radford said.
“Not that snubs have the least effect on him, my lady,” Mr. Westcott said, “even when he recognizes them as such. Brilliant otherwise, of course.”
“So I’ve been informed,” Clara said, “else I wouldn’t be here.”
“Certainly, my lady,” Mr. Westcott said. “And since your ladyship has taken the trouble to be here, we ought to proceed in an orderly fashion. Frankly, I’m puzzled why a man renowned for his fanatical attachment to logic has been perambulating into detours in this strange manner. If your ladyship will be so good as to take a chair—here, by the fire—or what is, in colder weather, a fire. It’s cleaner—”
He broke off as Davis advanced and wiped the chair with a handkerchief and him with a censorious eye.
“Yes, quite so, thank you,” Mr. Westcott said. “And if her ladyship would make herself comfortable, I should be happy to take notes. Radford, we don’t need you at present.” He gave Clara an apologetic smile. “Only if it comes to trial, naturally, which—”
“It will save time if I listen,” Mr. Radford said.
“No, it won’t,” Mr. Westcott said. “Because you’ll interrupt.”
“I shall remain as silent as the churchyard denizens under our window,” Mr. Radford said. “The ones belowground, that is.”
He folded his arms and leaned back against the window frame.
“Kindly proceed, my lady. I’m all ears.”
It was the chipped tooth.
When she walked in and caught sight of him, her composure disintegrated, her mouth fell open, and for a moment she looked like an astonished little girl.
Radford knew that little girl.
She recovered with remarkable speed, but Radford had seen all he needed to.
The distinctive Fairfax features he’d identified the other day . . . assorted bits he’d read in newspapers and magazines . . . the nagging sense of familiarity.
With the chipped tooth, the last piece of the puzzle fell into place.
This wasn’t merely one of the numerous Fairfax family members he’d seen from time to time in his perambulations through London.
This was the little girl to whom he’d shown Vauxhall’s Heptaplasiesoptron. This was the little girl who’d tried to rescue him from Cousin Berna
rd.
She was all grown up and dressed in what she fondly imagined was a disguise.
Unlike the comical hat she’d worn in Charing Cross, her bonnet was dull and dark, boasting nothing in the way of adornment but a darker ribbon. Its large brim did not tilt up in the way the hat had done, to show her perfect face framed in lace and bows. It tilted downward, its shadow concealing her countenance. That was clever, actually. A veil—the usual ruse for ladies—would have called attention to her attempt to appear incognito.
All the same, he would have known her for the Charing Cross female anywhere, even had she been wearing a veil. The drab dress failed to disguise her posture and figure.
Remarkably fine figure, he was aware of his irrational self thinking. It proceeded to imagine said figure in its natural state. Such meditations were not conducive to clear thinking.
He wrestled the other self into a dark corner in the back of his mind and focused on watching the lady ignore the chair Westcott had offered and her maid had scoured.
Lady Clara remained where she was, posture upright—
Horizontal would be better, said the inner voice of unreason.
He ignored it and listened to a tale told with a conciseness he would have believed incompatible with the female brain, such as it was. In a shockingly few words, she contrived to explain what the Milliners’ Society was and who Bridget Coppy was.
“Her father is dead,” she said. “The mother is a hopeless drunkard who takes in mending on the rare occasions she’s sober. The Milliners’ Society has taught Bridget to read and write a little. She persuaded her brother to attend a ragged school. I know I needn’t explain to you what that is.”
Ragged schools were pitiful attempts to teach pauper children the basics they needed to improve their lot in life. The teachers were unpaid, many of them nearly as ignorant as the children. All the same, it was better than the nothing otherwise available to London’s impoverished masses.
Most members of the upper classes had never heard of ragged schools. Being a duke’s great-grandson, Radford was, technically, a member of the upper classes. His life had been different from most, though, and he knew all about these schools.
