Dukes Prefer Blondes (The Dressmakers 4)

“Try thinking with your head. Minus a leg, you’ll win a bit of jury sympathy. Your favorite accomplice got off with transportation. You must know we haven’t as much solid evidence against you as we’d like. What we have, a good lawyer will raise doubts about. The odds of your going to the gallows are small.”

Miniscule was more accurate.

Freame could claim Husher had tried to assault him, and he’d run into the road for help. He could claim the Bredons tried to run him down. It would not be terribly difficult to raise doubt in the jury’s mind. He knew how to look and sound more or less respectable. Even if they found him guilty, the penalty was unlikely to be harsh, since he had no criminal record.

If Freame knew this, he didn’t let on. “Oh, smooth words,” he said. “You think I was born yesterday? You think I don’t know what it’s like for nobs? You whisper a word, drop some coins where the right ­people find them, and they’ll make sure I dangle.”

“If it worked that way, my lady would have made sure Husher’s neck had a snug relationship with a rope.”

“Your lady,” Freame snarled. “I wish I’d run down the pair of you when I had the chance.”

“You didn’t, and it was a mistake,” his lordship said. “Try not to make another. The leg badly needs to come off. Judging by what the doctors tell me and what I see for myself, you might have left it too late already.”

As Lord Bredon later told his wife, he might as well have talked to the chamber pot.

He had the case put off again.

More weeks passed, and the pain grew to beyond what Freame could endure in spite of large doses of laudanum. At last he consented to the amputation, but by then it was too late. The gangrene had spread, up his leg and into his pelvis.

It took him agonizing weeks more to die, on the fourth of April.

Westcott brought the news to the Marquess and Marchioness of Bredon, now residing at Malvern House.

Though still undergoing refurbishment, the house was livable, and they’d recently moved in with a modest retinue of servants.

Most of the main floor was completed by this time. Clara and Bredon met with Westcott in the library.

Though the news wasn’t unexpected, it took Clara a moment to digest it. She hadn’t realized how much the villains had troubled her until now, when she wanted to weep with relief. Then came her husband’s sharp, logical voice, like a brisk breeze breaking through a sultry fog.

“What an idiot,” he said. “If only he’d consented to the amputation at the start, he might have got off with a few months in prison. Still, it does save the police the trouble of building additional cases against him.”

“He’s gone,” Clara said, her voice perfectly steady now. “That’s what matters. He can’t harm you or anybody else again. And it seems a satisfactory justice, his having brought it on himself.”

“That’s one more would-­be assassin out of the way,” Westcott said. “Only a few score more to go.”

“You underestimate his lordship,” said Clara. “In the years to come, I confidently expect great numbers of highly placed persons to nourish murderous fantasies.”

“I’m not worried,” said his lordship. “I have Clara to protect me.”

“And as her ladyship pointed out some time ago,” said his friend, “if worse comes to worse, you can always talk them to death.”

“You might as well know I was thinking of doing that, regardless,” said Lord Bredon. “Clara has dropped unsubtle hints about my standing for Parliament. I think it’ll be fun.”

“All you have to do is win over the constituency,” Westcott said.

“All I have to do is have my wife stand beside me on the hustings and bat her blue eyes,” said his lordship. “The voters are men, after all.”

“That’s your election strategy?” Westcott said.

“It’s probably better if he doesn’t speak,” Clara said.

“You have a point,” Westcott said.

“In any event, I’ll have plenty of time to speak once I’m in the House of Commons. You may be sure I’ll make use of the time.”

“In that case, I should move assassination from the ‘possible’ to the ‘probable’ column,” said Westcott.

“By no means,” Clara said. “There’s a small difference between Society and the London underworld. Gentlemen may cultivate elaborate fantasies or even challenge my husband outright. They may wish to kill him, but they won’t be sneaking and plotting about it. Too, if all goes as I intend, their ladies won’t let them kill him.”

Westcott smiled. “Lady Bredon, I admire and appreciate your affection for your husband. However, speaking from experience, I ought to point out that he can stir the gentler sex to violence without even trying.”

She smiled back. “Not when I’m done with them.”

“You’re in over your head, Westcott,” said her husband. “Clara has a plan. A mad, beautiful plan. She’s going to bring me into fashion.”

“You’re roasting me,” Westcott said.

“Not at all,” said Bredon, his face sober but for the infinitesimal twitch at the corner of this mouth. “She’s throwing a ball for me. I’m to be a debutante, you see.”

“I certainly shall have to see it, with my own eyes,” said Westcott.

“Of course,” said Clara. “You’re at the top of the invitation list.”

“Just before the King,” said her husband. And laughed.

Chapter Twenty-one

At length, with conjugal endearment both

Satiate, Ulysses tasted and his spouse

The sweets of mutual converse.

—­The Odyssey of Homer, translated by William Cowper, 1791

The King’s levee commenced promptly at two o’clock on Wednesday the fifth of May. Fairly early in the proceedings the Duke of Clevedon presented the Marquess of Bredon to His Majesty.

“About time,” the King said. “You must stop loitering about the Old Bailey, you know. Make yourself useful elsewhere.”

“Indeed, sir,” said Lord Bredon. “My wife has some ideas about that.”

His monarch smiled. “I look forward to seeing Lady Bredon tomorrow.”

Their Majesties were coming to look at Malvern House, which they, like nearly everybody else, had never entered.

The King went on to ask after the Duke of Malvern’s health, and promised to visit him as well, before next he returned to Windsor.

Then it was on to the next presentation.

Those near enough to hear the conversation repeated it, and word soon traveled through the vast company of men, who went on to repeat it later to their wives, mistresses, mothers, and sisters. The gentlemen offered as well detailed reports on what Lord Bredon wore to the levee: as much black as Court rules could accommodate, naturally.

At Almack’s that night, as a result, heads turned to the entrance time and again, only to be disappointed.

As Lady Warford explained to her friends, “Oh, no, it was out of the question. Clara gives her supper ball tomorrow night, you know, and she must try to get as much rest as possible beforehand. The King and Queen visit Malvern House in the afternoon, to view the improvements. They’ve always been fond of Clara, and His Majesty has a regard for the Duke of Malvern.” Though the King and Queen would not attend the supper ball, she explained, other royals would.

If Lady Bartham was gnashing her teeth, she did this invisibly, in the most ladylike way, and even she couldn’t invent a suitably poisonous retort—­not that she could have got a word in edgeways, with the other ladies so busy currying favor with Lady Warford.

Not everybody had received an invitation to the ball, but those who hadn’t could hope to be invited to another event before long. The Marchioness of Bredon was expected to carry on in her mother’s style of superior entertainment.