Dukes Prefer Blondes (The Dressmakers 4)

“That isn’t wise,” he said. “The more privacy we have, the more likely I am to take advantage in lewd and unseemly ways.”

They’d both forgotten to worry about irritations, and the debaucheries had continued into the early morning hours.

“If that happens, we won’t have time for me to dress to go out again and help you lead our follower on a merry chase,” she said. “Well, not so merry for him, I suppose.”

He must have looked as torn as he felt, because she laughed and said, “My dear, we have all the time in the world for lovemaking. But we don’t want our follower to give up in despair, before we can get to the bottom of the mystery, do we?”

And so they had their private breakfast, after which she went away for the lengthy process of donning a carriage dress. Able to dress in a quarter of the time, though unaided by a valet—­a domestic addition he supposed he ought to arrange for soon—­he whiled away the time thinking about possibilities for their future residence. And calculating the cost of furnishing a house suitably. And children. Since it was only logical to expect them, one must include them in the calculations.

Life was growing a great deal more complicated.

It was early afternoon before they went downstairs.

The butler met them at the bottom of the stairs and told them they were wanted in the library. Mr. Westcott had come, he said.

“Who the devil invited him?” Radford said, his heart sinking. Westcott would not have returned to Richmond so soon unless he had urgent business, curse him. Radford wasn’t ready for business. But he had to be, he reminded himself. He had a wife he needed to support in a manner somewhat resembling what she was accustomed to.

“Drat the fellow,” he said as they walked to the drawing room. “Did I not tell you he’d be endlessly popping in, on this whim or that, with one curst document or another or a client in dire need of me at the most inconvenient times?”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t be here if it weren’t important,” she said.

“That’s the trouble,” he said. “It’s going to be important, and I’ll have to attend to it, whatever it is. Ah, well, you were the one who wanted to marry a barrister. It seems we’ll have to put our mystery aside, after all.”

Minutes later

Father half-­reclined on his sofa as usual, near the fire. Mother sat beside him in her usual place. Westcott, who’d occupied a chair on the other side of the fireplace, rose when Clara entered.

Everybody looked angry.

This was odd, an oddness that didn’t bode well.

Father took up from the table in front of him a heavy document bearing a familiar seal. “Westcott brought this,” he said. “Express from Glynnor Castle.”

Bernard, drat him. What now?

“I told Bernard’s man of business as well as his secretary to address all correspondence to me, as you and I agreed was wisest,” Radford said. It was absurd to disturb George Radford’s retirement with business matters Radford and Westcott could easily handle. Only Bernard wrote directly to Father these days, but not often. He reserved his long, tedious, boastful letters for his dear little Raven.

“It went to Westcott, but it was addressed to me, as it was required to be,” Father said. “Your cousin—­blast him—­” He broke off, glaring at the letter.

“What’s he done now?” Radford said.

“That’s what he’s done.” His father threw the letter down on the table in front of him.

Radford looked down. A weight settled in his chest.

The legal hand, the verbosity, the seal . . .

“Dead,” said his father. “Dead, dead, dead.”

Chapter Seventeen

DUKE, in Latin Dux, à ducendo, signifying the leader of an army, noblemen being anciently either generals and commanders of armies in time of war, or wardens of marches, and governors of provinces in peace. This is now the first rank of the nobility.

—­Debrett’s Peerage, 1831

Through the noise in his head, Radford was aware of Westcott speaking . . . apologizing . . . to Clara.

“I’m so sorry to be the bearer of this shocking news,” he was saying. “I must beg your ladyship to be seated.”

“Do sit down, child,” said Mother. “You’re white.”

Radford looked away from the ghastly document to his wife. Though she had her screen in place, the color had drained from her face. He discerned other small signs of distress: the slight tremble of her lips and hands.

“Very . . . surprised, that’s all,” she said. “But I promise you I won’t faint.”

“I might,” he said. “Do sit, Clara. Westcott has left his comfortable seat by the fire for you. And he’ll feel better about ruining your honeymoon if you’d at least deprive him of the chair.”

She gave Radford one quick, anguished look, then sat. She composed herself. “I beg your pardon. I can’t quite take it in. Does the letter say how it happened?”

He couldn’t quite take it in, either. He could scarcely think, his brain clamored so. He made himself stare at the paper in his hand until the blur of ink resolved into words. He scanned the pages.

“The news runs rather longer than my father’s announcement,” he said.

“A lawyer wrote it, that’s why,” Father said. “You’d better translate for your lady, son. I can’t bring myself to repeat the story. Too infuriating.”

“Better you don’t, my dear,” Mother said.

Better Father didn’t, indeed. He was badly shaken, though anger seemed to be displacing shock. All the same, any strong emotion debilitated him.

Even Radford felt as though somebody had struck him with a club.

Naturally, logic had allowed for the possibility of Bernard’s dying young. This awareness had always hung in the back of Radford’s mind, especially lately, since the other Radford men had become deceased so unexpectedly. But the idea had hung very far in the back of his mind.

Beyond question Bernard was obese and a drunkard. Radford had warned him about damage to his liver, among other health concerns. But overindulgence rarely caught up with a man so early in life. England abounded in men like Bernard, and they lived into old age. The previous King, a glutton who swilled drink and laudanum by the gallon, lived into his sixties.

Thirty years old.

It made no sense. Yet it had to make sense because here it was, written in a legal hand on costly paper, page after page of it.

Radford read it through once, picking out the essentials, then once more, translating and condensing the lawyerly convolutions for his wife.

“He’d been hunting,” he said. “A large party, including his chosen lady. It seems he’d come out of a wood and to the edge of a steep bank. It had rained hard the day before and the stream below was swollen. Oh, and better and better: He was riding a hunter he’d bought very recently—­to impress the lady, I don’t doubt. A new horse, slick ground—­and of course he was near blind drunk, though one obtains only a glimpse of the fact through all the careful verbiage dancing about it.”

He turned a page and frowned. “Since he got separated from the others, we have no eyewitnesses. No way to be sure whether he tried to leap the stream and his mount balked, or the animal was game but Bernard’s weight and the wet conditions undermined the jump. In any event, given the horse’s superficial scratches and coating of mud, it’s clear the creature slipped and went over the edge. The hunt party found Bernard in the water, with a gash in his head. Either he’d hit his head, and the blow killed him, or he’d hit his head, lost consciousness, and drowned before he could be rescued. The doctor who examined him afterward said the blow killed him.”

“He would,” Father said. “The victim was a duke. Most physicians would choose the explanation most liable to absolve others in the party of fault or guilt. No one could have saved him, in other words, even had they rea

ched him sooner or heaved him out of the water more quickly.”

“I’d better examine the body myself,” Radford said. “And question the doctor.”

“You’d better,” his father said. “And without loss of time.”