Rose said, “As your friends, it was our duty to try to dissuade you.”
“Yeah,” Gen said, still angry at them.
Lee said, “We figured you’d be mad as a bag of ferrets, but we did our jobs as mates. Now get in there and argue until those Law Lords lie down in utter defeat.”
“Really?” Gen asked. “You’re not going to drag me out of here kicking and screaming?”
Lee leaned in. “Do you want us to?”
Gen nearly hopped back from them. “No!”
Lee shrugged at Rose. “Then I suppose we’ll sit beside you at the table and hand you exhibits and briefs if Octavia is going to be derelict in her duty. Come on, then. Let’s go.” She grabbed Gen’s left hand. “What’s this?”
“Nothing,” Gen said.
“Looks like jewelry.”
Gen turned her hand over, showing them the ruby and enamel ring.
Rose’s eyes widened, and she looked at Gen. “Is that—”
“It’s nothing,” Gen insisted, her chest crushing inward.
It was nothing. It meant nothing because she couldn’t marry Arthur because he was leaving.
And yet she curled her fist around it and held it to her chest as they walked toward the committee chamber.
The girls followed Gen, and she motioned to Arthur to go with them into the conference room.
Arthur let them lead the way and followed them in. Casimir, Maxence, and the security guys followed.
At the table, Gen unpacked the bag and showed Lee and Rose where all of the exhibits were and how they were sorted. The committee room was the same one as before.
Above her head, the ceiling drifted three stories high, and the walls were painted blue above the dark wood wainscoting that stretched fifteen feet into the air. The conference tables, more like connected desks, were built on raised daises. The tables where Gen, her team, and Christopher’s team would stand stood on the floor, diminishing them before the literally lofty lords and ladies.
In the tall room, Gen felt teeny-tiny, an unusual occurrence.
Chairs were set up on risers behind their tables in a gallery area, so Casimir, Maxence, and the security detail settled themselves back there.
Arthur sat at the table with Gen and her girls, adjusting his chair and watching the three women. He didn’t look angry, but one of his dark eyebrows was lowered in concern. “Gen, what are you—”
She shushed him. “Don’t talk unless I ask you something, and then only answer exactly what I ask you in the quickest, easiest way possible with as little extra information given as possible.”
They had scheduled witness preparation, including practice for Arthur, for the last month before the trial, so they hadn’t gotten to it because they had thought that the trial wouldn’t be until November.
Necessity dictated.
Arthur said, “But we aren’t—”
“Shhh, here they come, stand up.” Gen hopped up from her chair, and the other two girls and Arthur did likewise as the committee strolled in.
The members of the House of Lords Committee for Privileges and Conduct wore business suits in differing shades of somber black and brown. One lady wore a shocking shade of medium blue.
Gen was disappointed that the lords and ladies weren’t wearing their hideous ermine-trimmed scarlet court robes, although she wasn’t wearing her scratchy black court robe, either.
Lady Josceline Bazalgette, QC, and the Baroness Hazel Honeycutt, one of the twelve Law Lords of Britain, sat in the two center seats. The other fourteen members of the committee seated themselves around three sides of the raised tables arranged in a square.
Gen, Arthur, Christopher, and the lawyers were sitting at the low tables at the base of the square.
The barristers bowed as they always did at the start of a court hearing, not to the judge but to the Queen’s coat of arms on the wall behind the assembled lords and ladies to show their respect for the Queen’s justice.
Arthur bowed almost exactly with Gen and the girls.
Over at the other conference table, Christopher’s barrister, Orval Ainsley, bowed, but Christopher was looking around, confused.
They all sat, and Arthur crossed his legs under the table.
In the oddest of moments, Gen noticed that Arthur’s socks were black to match the nobleman’s mood.
He stared straight at the committee with the utmost seriousness, not a hint of irony in his demeanor.
Baroness Honeycutt, as the person who had the most experience in the law on the Committee, called the meeting to order and read the reason for the meeting and background into a microphone protruding from her desk. Her low voice was clipped, formal, and rapid. Finally, she said, “Would the barristers for the claimant care to make an opening argument?”
Gen and Arthur stared straight ahead while the lawyers at the other table, mostly the prat Orval Ainsley, laid out a sketchy history of noble titles being stripped due to bad behavior on the part of the holders.
The lords and ladies on the committee listened with stoic expressions and raised eyebrows.
Baroness Honeycutt interrupted Christopher’s lawyer, “And now that he who is without sin has cast the first stone, would the defendant’s barristers care to submit an argument?”
The other barrister called out, “Please, my Lady, there’s more.”
“More than that?” she asked, one eyebrow rising farther up her forehead.
“Has your Ladyship seen the newspapers the last few days?”
“Quite,” Baroness Honeycutt said. “Unsubstantiated, possibly manufactured photographs that were placed as advertisements, and then their existence was reported upon without additional documentation but with wild rumors. It was substandard reporting, even for the Daily Mirror.”
“And yet,” the other lawyer said, “we would like to submit the photographs as evidence and read a statement into the record.”
“Very well,” she sighed.
He did. Orval Ainsley’s argument was brutal and horrifying and filled with words like “enemy agent” and “contemptible” and “treason” and lamented that the British Empire no longer shot traitors.
Gen took few notes. There was little she could offer in the way of a defense unless Arthur admitted to working for MI6.
Arthur sat stiffly in his chair, unmoving, unflinching, not even blinking his striking silver eyes.
Christopher stood and was interviewed about how, when Arthur was away at that Swiss boarding school, Christopher didn’t see Arthur for years at a time, that he should be considered a citizen of the EU and not a British subject.
Gen wrote a note in her spiky handwriting to draw attention to Arthur’s passport, which had been submitted as evidence.
The barrister spoke most of the morning, and every time Gen glanced over at Lee and Rose, they were sweating more and preparing rebuttal notes.
The man finally sat down and patted Christopher’s hand, as if comforting the man who had suffered so long from being born to a wealthy, upper-class family in the wrong order.
Baroness Honeycutt raised an eyebrow at Gen. “And your opening statement, Ms. Ward, perhaps waiting on witness testimony until the proper time?”
“Yes, my Lady. Thank you for this opportunity to address this august and learned committee—”
Beside Gen, Rose cleared her throat and muttered, “Get on with it.”
“—and we are prepared to rebut all of m’learned friend’s baseless accusations. Because this is the simplest, we refute that m’learned friend’s accusation that Arthur Finch-Hatten did not return to British soil in a timely fashion by submitting copies of his passport, which show that he indeed returned every year for months at a time. Next—”
Beside her, Arthur stood, standing even taller than she did. “We are not defending the case. We withdraw our defense.”
Chairs scuffled behind them.
“What? Arthur!” To the Baroness, she said, “No, we don’t withdraw our defense. This is a baseless case
that contradicts the laws of our land and our tradition. It’s a clear case of primogeniture as specified in their parents’ legal will that was settled decades ago. There is no basis—”
“Gen, stop,” he said.
From behind them, Casimir and Maxence leaned in.
Casimir said, “Arthur, let the woman do her job.”
Gen whispered rapidly, “No, Arthur! You can’t give up that easily! You can’t give up Spencer House and England!”
“Gen, don’t. I told you not to argue the case.” Arthur turned to the committee. “We’re withdrawing our defense.”
Maxence grabbed his arm. “Have you lost your mind?”
Arthur shook him off.
Gen braced her hands on her hips. “Let me tell you about the British legal system, buddy. I’m a barrister. I take instructions from your solicitor, not you. Their instructions were crystal clear on fighting this case to the hilt. I can stand here and fight this case for you for the whole week.”
“I won’t be here after today,” he whispered.
She grabbed his hand, holding on. She didn’t care who saw it. “It doesn’t matter. You don’t need to be here. I can fight your case without you.”
Arthur didn’t answer, but his silvery eyes were despondent.
She said, “That’s why a lot of barristers don’t even meet their clients before cases. It keeps the law more pure.”
“Red,” he sighed.
Gen whispered, “What?”
“Red. The safe word. I am in your hands, here, so I have the ultimate power to stop. This must end. I can’t endure any more, and it doesn’t matter. I have to leave.”
“But you’re going to come back! It would all be waiting for you.” She would be waiting for him.
He whispered, “Gen, I won’t be coming back.”
She staggered backward and whispered, “But you said ten years.”
He lowered his voice. “We both know that I won’t be able to, and I pray that in ten years, you won’t want me to, either.”
Christopher’s lawyer stood up. “My lady, my learned friend has had months to confer with her client—”
Baroness Honeycutt snapped at him, “This is a committee, not a court, Mr. Ainsley. You will hold your tongue.”
Arthur’s silver eyes begged her. “Gen, it’s enough. End this.”
Gen stood straight and blinked to keep tears out of her eyes.
He wasn’t coming back.
Gen said, “My lady, the defendant withdraws his defense.” Gen’s knees folded, and she sat heavily in her chair.
Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see that Lee and Rose were staring at her, their eyes spread open in astonishment.
Arthur sat and returned to looking straight ahead, emotionless.
Casimir and Maxence stepped backward and returned to their chairs.
Baroness Honeycutt leaned forward in her chair. “We will deliberate and inform the barristers when we have reached a decision of which we will inform the sovereign.”
“But we withdrew our defense,” Arthur said, standing. “There’s nothing to deliberate.”
Orval Ainsley stood. “If they won’t defend against the complaint, then we win by default.”
The Baroness Honeycutt, a Law Lord and thus one of the ultimate legal authorities in the United Kingdom, looked down at all of them from her raised bench. “We will deliberate, and we may have more questions, which the claimant or the defendant will be required to answer. The Queen has referred this matter to this committee of the House of Lords. The Queen asked for our decision on this matter. This doesn’t concern you anymore. We answer only to the Queen.”
A White Van
ARTHUR exited the Palace of Westminster with Gen at his side and surrounded by his two closest friends.
A white van waited at the curb, idling. Tinting blacked out the windows.
He nearly stumbled as pain slammed through his soul.
As a child, while he had clung to his dying mother, he had grieved and suffered.
As an adult, one time in Turkey, he had been beaten with steel rods on broken bones until his skin had swelled with blood.
The pain of leaving them, especially Gen, was excruciating.
Arthur walked, putting one foot in front of the other.
Still, his heart throbbed in his chest, each writhe feeling like it was tearing itself apart from the inside.
As he crossed the sidewalk, he reached out, touched Gen’s back at her waist, and felt her warmth and softness through her suit for the last time.
He almost closed his eyes to feel her warmth better, but it was time.
Arthur stepped aside, turning and walking toward the van.
The side door slid open, a grind of metal-on-metal in the morning sunlight.
An older man was inside, Bentley, and he stepped out to stand on the sidewalk beside the gaping maw of the door. The cloud-shrouded sun shone on the white van and Bentley’s white hair.
In a normal extraction and resettlement, Elizabeth would have sent anonymous muscle men to retrieve Arthur.
Sending Bentley meant that she wanted to reassure him that everything would be all right.
Such reassurances would be necessary only if they had made different decisions about his fate.
For one step, Arthur hesitated.
During Arthur’s charmed life, he had been fantastically wealthy, had been given a world-class education, had been employed in a manner that made the world a better place, and had found love.
He should not quibble that it was all over too soon.
At least it would be over, and he would not grieve, broken-hearted, in a solitary flat in Leeds or Swansea.
Arthur continued to walk toward Bentley.
The older man smiled kindly at him, another dead giveaway.
He lifted his chin and strode toward the van.
Arthur had resolved not to look back. Climbing into the white van was his only priority. It would ensure Gen’s safety and, possibly, his brother’s and his family’s safety.
Behind him, he heard Gen call his name, once in a question, then with more concern.
Then she screamed for him.
Maxence and Casimir would keep her from following him. He had already briefed them when he’d said goodbye that morning over breakfast, before he’d shaken the hands of each member of his London staff and wished them farewell.
Ruckus had been taken to Gen’s house and set loose in her garden.
At the van, Bentley held out his hand for Arthur to shake, and he did so.
Behind him, Gen called his name again, pleading with him.
As his hand met Bentley’s, Arthur glanced back.
Gen was standing in the center of a crowd. Casimir and Maxence had her by her arms and were frantically whispering to her. Tears streamed down her anguished face. He couldn’t hear her over the roar of the van’s engine and the blood rushing in his ears.
The black-suited men—Maxence’s security detail—were facing inward and watching the spectacle that Gen was making.
No one saw the larger man approach them, reaching inside his cheap suit at the waist.
His hand raised, pointing a gun at Gen.
Arthur yanked his hand back from Bentley and sprinted, digging with his feet at the pavement, and he leapt for the man.
The air slammed around him as the gun blew, a bullet drilling through the air.
The Grimaldi security men recoiled, reaching for their weapons and moving toward Maxence, leaving Gen and Casimir undefended.
Arthur barreled into the would-be assassin shoulder-first, slamming into the man’s stomach and knocking him flat.
The black handgun sailed through the air, a crow flapping in the sunlight.
Frustration and rage blasted through Arthur.
He punched the guy in the face before the gun landed on the sidewalk.
He hit the guy again before it stopped skittering over the cement, driving his fist into the guy’s eye with his weigh
t behind it.
The skin over his knuckles burst.
Pain spun fire through his brain, and Arthur punched him again, smearing blood on the guy’s swelling face.
Arthur’s arms were grabbed, and people hauled him off the guy. More black-suited men fell on the guy, scrambling for his arms and legs on the pavement.
In Arthur’s ear, a man said, “It’s all right. We’ve got him. Let him go.”
When Arthur looked, Casimir was whispering in his ear, and Maxence was holding his arms.
A slam, and Gen was wrapped around his body. “Oh, God. Arthur!”
He grabbed her, feeling her body for the horrible warmth of blood while he scanned for other attackers.
Over by the white van, Bentley was watching him. Two other men wearing dark suits had joined him.
“Casimir,” Arthur said. “Get us out of here.”
Casimir started shoving through the crowd that was thickening by the second at the disturbance, dragging them toward the street but away from the white van.
Maxence called out, “Allons-y! Maintenant!”
Black suits swarmed around them, spearheading a push toward the black SUVs waiting on the street.
More Threats
ARTHUR sat in the second seat of the SUV next to the window with his arms wrapped tightly around Gen. The vehicle rocked as it sped through the city streets, winding between cars and careening down small, cobbled side streets that rumbled under the tires.
No blood was pouring out of her. She hadn’t been shot. She was all right.
He kept telling himself that, but he couldn’t make his arms loosen.
The SUV took another quick corner, nudging them to the side.
Arthur held her, and Gen’s arms squeezed his waist, too.
A few streets later, Arthur’s phone vibrated in his pocket.
When he fished it out, the screen was blank, no caller identification. He answered, “Yes.”
Gen looked up at him from where she was lying on his shoulder, her arm across his chest.
Over the phone, Elizabeth said, “You didn’t get in the van for relocation.”
The SUV whipped sideways, taking an entrance ramp onto the M1 expressway.
Hard Liquor: Runaway Billionaires: Arthur Duet #2 Page 22
