Dukes Prefer Blondes

by Loretta Chase

  “You went to all the trouble of summoning me here, in the most clandestine manner, only to satisfy your curiosity,” she said as calmly as she could.

  “Did I not say so? Did it not occur to you that your appearing in the Central Criminal Court was in any way strange?”

  “That’s why I was in disguise,” she said. “I never dreamed you’d notice.”

  “That was unintelligent of you.”

  “It was perfectly reasonable.” You great lout. “I assumed you’d be concentrating so intently upon your task, you’d never heed the crowd in the gallery except as a crowd. But you did glance up, I recollect, and must have recognized Davis.”

  “I recognized you,” he said. “Davis only confirmed the discovery.”

  She was aware of inner disturbances. She throttled them, wishing she could throttle him.

  She kept her temper as best she could and looked up at him, into those keen grey eyes. Such an unusually pale grey, like a winter sky. “You are a prodigy, aren’t you? I shouldn’t have believed it possible to let one’s attention stray for even a moment, yet you penetrated my disguise.”

  “Firstly, my attention did not stray,” he said. “It’s possible to glance in one direction and pay attention elsewhere at the same time. I took note of the proceedings, though I knew what would be said. Secondly, it wasn’t much of a disguise.”

  “Secondly,” she said, “it was a very good one. Mr. Bates passed me in Ludgate Street without a second look.”

  “Mr. Bates is unobservant,” he said. The penetrating grey gaze swept over her. “I should know you anywhere.”

  She went hot all over. She ignored it. “And firstly—­”

  “Firstly usually comes before secondly,” he said.

  “Yes, but the secondly was so provoking,” she said. “And so, firstly—­”

  “You’re mocking me.”

  “Why not? You mock me.”

  His mouth quirked, more discernibly this time.

  She went on, “Firstly, it was a challenging exercise for me. With my tiny brain, you know, it wanted supreme concentration to find chinks in the defense’s arguments. Some of the legal hairs were split so very fine, I could hardly make them out. But that was the point, wasn’t it? There was no way to prove beyond doubt that Grumley’s methods rather than the fever killed those children.”

  He folded his arms, and the grey gaze became almost painfully acute.

  This was a test, she thought. And if she failed, she would have to go back to listening to marriage proposals and fantasize about becoming an eccentric and running away to live in a tent in Arabia.

  She began to walk again, not because she needed to pace, but because she knew her clothes would distract him somewhat, and she would feel less like an insect under a magnifying glass. “Your witnesses made a poor show under the defense’s close questioning,” she said. “The judge’s badgering made them more uncertain and inarticulate. The jury had no choice. Naturally, my learned friend, you would have recognized this long before I did.”

  He stood back and rested one big, gloved hand on the back of the bench where Bridget had sat. He said nothing.

  Clara made herself look away from the gloved hand.

  “And so I came back the next day, to see if I could discover your strategy,” she said.

  He only watched her in a brooding sort of way. This was the tricky part, and he was not going to make it easy.

  She plunged on, “You gave a fine performance of bumbling and desperation, while at the same time calling attention to each of the defendant’s acts that, taken together, ought to have led to his conviction. Day after day, that was what the newspapers reported, because that part wasn’t legal hair-­splitting, but something all readers could understand, and judge for themselves.”

  Nearly all the newspapers had protested the verdict in the strongest terms. Grumley had gone free but he was an outcast, ruined.

  She understood now, in her heart as well as her brain, how Radford had earned his reputation.

  After a long moment, while she became aware of the dusty leaves’ rustling and the distant sounds of the London streets, he said, “You may come with me to the ragged school Toby Coppy attended.”

  She very nearly staggered.

  But ladies never staggered. They stood straight or swooned gracefully.

  “The day after tomorrow,” he said, “at ten o’clock in the morning, when the more undesirable elements will be asleep or only half awake and less likely to pay close attention to you. But you’re not to wear that.” He waved his hand at her dress. “Nor yet the thing you wore in court. Go in and tell Matron to have the girls run up something for you in her style of dress. Say it’s for amateur theatricals. Send me a message via Fenwick, telling me where to collect you.”

  He touched his hat brim and walked away through the courtyard. She watched him go. She kept on watching long after he’d moved out of view and his long strides would have taken him to the next street.

  “I passed,” she murmured. “I passed the examination.”

  Saffron Hill

  Two days later

  The house looked about to collapse on itself. The buildings in the Temple grounds had been modern, airy, pristine purity by comparison.

  Inside was only marginally better, hinting of attempts, against great odds, to clean. To Clara the odds seemed insurmountable. Scores of very dirty, very ragged girls crammed the first room they entered. Some of the older ones loitered in corners much as they must have done on the streets, their garish finery proclaiming their trade. Others, of varying ages, sat bent over scraps of paper or asleep, their heads on their arms. Still others lay curled up asleep on the floor. Very possibly, this was the cleanest and safest place to sleep these girls knew.

  Two teachers, one man and one woman, calmly—­and stoically, in Clara’s opinion—­tried to impart some rudimentary form of learning to this mélange. The woman was in charge of reading, and the man patiently led his charges through the simplest arithmetic.

  “You’d better get used to this before we go on to the boys,” Radford said.

  “Get used to it!” she repeated softly. “How is that done, I wonder?”

  “You wanted to help,” he said.

  “I think I can get used to the smell,” she said. She didn’t think a lifetime would be long enough to get used to the sight.

  These girls, crammed into the low-­ceilinged room, made up only the smallest drop in London’s ocean of impoverished humanity.

  “Try not to touch anybody or breathe too deeply,” he said. “If you catch a fatal fever, your brothers will take me apart limb from limb—­and that will be the most enjoyable part of my untimely demise.”

  “My brothers will have to stand in line behind Davis,” she said.

  The maid was muttering to herself, yet when Clara glanced at her, she thought she saw sorrow as well as disgust in the faithful bulldog countenance.

  Davis had certainly taken every precaution, dousing Clara’s handkerchiefs with vinegar and making sure every inch of her was covered, except for her face. She’d tried to make Clara wear a vinegar-­soaked handkerchief over her nose and mouth, but Clara won that battle.

  Two of the prostitute-­looking girls smiled at Mr. Radford. One started to sashay toward him but he gave a brisk wave, and she retreated with a smirk and whispered something to the other girl.

  The male teacher approached them. Mr. Radford led him aside, and they muttered together for a moment. Then the teacher summoned one of the young prostitutes. Mr. Radford jerked his head toward a corner of the room where nobody was lounging at the moment, and the girl went with him. He hadn’t invited Clara, but after a moment’s hesitation, she went, too, and Davis trailed after her.

  He didn’t scowl at Clara, as she expected. Instead he gave her the What a Good Puppy You Are look and said to h
er, “Ah, Mrs. Faxon. Here is Jane, who is acquainted with Toby Coppy.”

  Jane eyed her suspiciously, top to bottom, then in reverse.

  “Jane, Mrs. Faxon teaches at Bridget Coppy’s school. They’re looking for Toby.”

  “What’s he done, then?” the girl said.

  At least, that was what Clara guessed she said. Her Cockney speech was several degrees more impenetrable than Fenwick’s.

  “You know perfectly well what he’s done,” Mr. Radford said. “He’s left school.”

  The girl shrugged. “Who wouldn’t?”

  “You don’t.”

  “Well, no one tole me—­” She stopped abruptly, and looked hostile. “Here now, I know your tricks, Raven, like everybody does,” she said loudly. “Don’t be thinkin’ I’ll squeak on Toby or nobody else. I don’t nose on my friends.” Then more softly but with the same truculence she muttered, “Not and ask for a slicing, would I? And you tell Bridget she can thank herself for it.” She flounced away.

  Mr. Radford shook his head. “Come along then, Mrs. Faxon. I knew we wasted our time with this lot. They stick together. This is what they call honor among thieves, in case you were wondering.”

  Radford had to give her credit. Lady Clara passed through the first trial without being sick or even showing signs of swooning.

  But then, she was Longmore’s sister, for all she looked so little like him.

  They went on to the boys’ classroom, where anarchy seemed to prevail, although the teachers bravely did their business and a few brave boys worked at learning.

  There he picked the likeliest lad in the bunch and took him aside in the same way they’d drawn Jane away from the others. Not outside the room, though. That would be the perfect way to learn absolutely nothing.

  The boy Jos displayed even more hostility than Jane had treated them to, and in the same vein.

  Having left the boys’ area with the same kinds of dismissive comments he’d used in the girls’ schoolroom, Radford led Clara and her maid outside. He said nothing. They said nothing—­shocked speechless, no doubt—­but hurried along with him to the hackney stand in Hatton Garden, where they climbed into an ancient coach.

  “That’s all?” Lady Clara said once the vehicle was moving. “How many more ragged schools must we visit before we learn anything?”

  “Were you not paying attention?” he said. “They told us everything.”

  “They all seemed to know you,” she said. “Those girls . . . Jane . . .” She trailed off and looked out of the window, though he’d defy her to see anything through the scratched, dirt-­encrusted glass.

  “They know I don’t need every syllable spelled out for me,” he said.

  “Speaking of syllables, I could barely understand Jane,” she said. “The boy—­Jo, was it?—­might as well have been speaking Mesopotamian.”

  “Nor why your ladyship ought to understand, I can’t guess,” Davis said. “And to think I should see my lady in a place alongside the likes of those creatures, and that insolent girl’s rags touching your skirts.” She glared at Radford.

  He shrugged. “You can burn milady’s attire later. In the dead of night, if you like.”

  “And how should we do that without attracting attention, sir?” the maid said, making the sir sound like you fiend from hell. “Do you suppose I spend any time in the kitchen, that they wouldn’t wonder at it? Do you imagine a dress burned in my lady’s bedroom fireplace wouldn’t set the whole house talking, and her ladyship’s mother hear of it?”

  “Send the dress to me, or leave it for me somewhere,” he said in a bored voice. “I’ll burn it.”

  “Never mind the dress,” Lady Clara said. “What did you learn?”

  “That Jane referred to a party who liked cutting ­people.”

  The maid looked at her mistress. “Why will you not let me kill him?” she said. “This is a horrid man. Your ladyship has got mixed up with some horrid men, ever since—­”

  “Do be still, Davis,” Lady Clara said. “I’ll thank you for not airing my dirty linen in Mr. Radford’s hearing.”

  His unwanted self, meanwhile, who’d been meditating upon her virginal bedroom, promptly set about imagining her linen, every layer of it, starting with the uppermost—­corset and petticoat—­and working his way down to chemise and skin.

  “Curdle my blood all you like, Mr. Radford, since it amuses you so much,” Lady Clara said. “But eventually I should like to know what you discovered.”

  “Firstly, it was clever of me to bring you along,” he said.

  “Clever!” she said. “Of you! I was the one who had to pass the examination.”

  “If you hadn’t passed, it wouldn’t have been clever of me but unintelligent and counterproductive,” he said. “But Jane was jealous of you—­”

  “Jealous?”

  “Streetwalkers are competitive about men and undiscriminating,” he said. “She wanted to show me she knew what you didn’t. The boy Jos showed off because he’s a boy and you’re an attractive female, even with whatever that muck is on your face.”

  The composition dulled her complexion and made it seem rough. It couldn’t conceal her beauty, though, even from the most unobservant and dull-­witted boy, which Jos was not.

  “A blend Davis made for me,” she said. “Jos was—­what? Nine years old?”

  “Fourteen,” Radford said. “Their bodies might be stunted, but they age more quickly in the rookeries than in Mayfair. He wanted a closer look at you. And maybe he was curious what clean smelled like. He knew he had to pay for the privilege, and so he gave me what he had. In short, your ladyship was wonderfully useful in untying tongues. At last we know who has Toby.”

  Freame, as he’d suspected. Of all the gangs in London, the boy had to get himself led into that one. Thanks to Chiver, which made the motive plain.

  “I don’t,” she said.

  “Maybe you’ll solve the puzzle on your own, if you care to waste valuable mental energy upon that rather than escaping matrimony,” he said. “But I’m not in a humor to indulge your idle curiosity further.”

  Lady Clara had taken a great risk going with him this day. He should never have let it happen. He could have learned what he needed without her, though it wouldn’t have been nearly so easy.

  Very well. He’d made a mistake. He’d correct it.

  “Idle! You said a moment ago—­”

  “Your maid doesn’t approve, and all the evidence supports her,” he said.

  “Davis isn’t my mother,” she said.

  “Don’t make me tell your mother,” he said. “I don’t like nosing on my friends any more than Jane does, but like her, I’ll do it if provoked sufficiently. You’ll soon reach Oxford Street. I’d better disembark here. I need to talk to some fellows at the Bow Street Police Office.” He signaled the coach to stop.

  “Mr. Radford, you are the rudest man—­”

  “So I’m told,” he said. “Obnoxious, too.” The coachman was taking his time about climbing down to open the door. Radford wrestled with the window, muscled it down, and turned the handle.

  He had the door open when Lady Clara grabbed his arm.

  “Mr. Radford—­”

  “My lady!” the shocked maid cried.

  He was shocked, too, at the intimacy, and that wasn’t all.

  Lady Clara did not take her hand away.

  A small, slender, lady’s hand, gloved and weighing next to nothing. He should have scarcely felt her touch, but it shot through him as sharply as a dagger thrust, and his blood seemed to rush to meet it.

  “You may not dismiss me so easily,” Lady Clara said.

  “May I not?” He covered her hand with his, and he felt her tense. Davis turned bright red and grabbed her umbrella, meaning to brain him, no doubt. He didn’t care. Indignant women had hit him before, fo
r much smaller cause.

  He lifted her ladyship’s unresisting hand. She was too shocked to resist, no doubt. He brought it not an inch below his lips, as was proper, but to his mouth. And he kissed—­not the air, as politeness required, but the unresisting hand. Lingeringly. And drank in the tantalizing trace of scent that was her and nobody and nothing else.

  “Farewell, dear, dear lady,” he said. “Thank you for a most entertaining morning. With any luck, we’ll never meet again.”

  He released her hand and stepped calmly out of the carriage, still smiling.

  He closed the door and his smile faded. He thrust a coin at the dilatory coachman, warned him not to charge the ladies, shooed him back to his box, and stepped back onto the pavement.

  Radford watched the coach trundle along Broad Street, and cursed himself.

  Clara stared at the hand he’d kissed.

  When she’d touched him, the whirl of feelings startled her so, she’d almost pulled away. She didn’t know what to call them. All she knew was that it felt as though she’d come in from the cold and reached out to warm her hands at a fire.

  And then. And then . . .

  She was not a child, and she wasn’t as innocent as she ought to be, but when his hand closed over hers . . .

  Longing and longing and longing.

  She’d longed for things before—­freedom, adventure, forbidden books and places—­but never for a man’s company. And this wasn’t like the other kind of wanting. Those were perhaps no more than wishing. This was deep and aching and bewildering.

  Stay, she’d almost said.

  He’d stayed only another moment, only time enough to kiss her gloved hand and shatter her world.

  It was the warmth of his mouth through the thin leather. That was all it took. She’d felt it race to her heart and make it beat faster, and she didn’t know how he could do that and she couldn’t ask him because he’d gone.

  She remembered the boy, so long ago, who’d said, “Stay.”

  “It seems as though I did,” she murmured.

  “My lady?”

  Clara looked up to find Davis watching her. “Nothing.”