Dukes Prefer Blondes (The Dressmakers 4)

The note of distress in her voice told him the schools were a very recent and disturbing discovery for her.

She had no idea how some ­people lived in London, practically under her nose.

But why should she? And how odd it was, her having discovered even so much.

She was saying, “With Bridget’s help, Toby was learning to read and write and do sums. But as you know, less reputable types hang about the ragged schools. Bridget says a gang of thieves has lured him out of school, and she hasn’t seen him for more than a week.”

The day, which had brightened remarkably when Her Majesty sailed into his chambers, reverted to its customary grey.

A missing child of the lower orders. Radford knew where this story led. Not to a happy ending.

First the accursed ducal letter.

Now another boy lost among London’s teeming thousands of unwanted children.

Why couldn’t she have come to him because she’d murdered somebody?

That would have been so much more promising, not to mention stimulating.

“Bridget wishes to remove him from the gang before they get him hanged,” she went on. “She’s sure the police will take him up in short order. She does not believe her brother has the intelligence or dexterity to be a successful thief—­not for long, at any rate.”

Oh, better and better.

Very likely there was more to this than met the eye. It didn’t matter. The boy was doomed.

She was wasting her time as well as Radford’s. She was completely deluded if she thought the brat could or ought to be rescued. But of course she wouldn’t believe him. She hadn’t the least idea what she was about.

He said, “Do you know which gang, precisely?”

“Fenwick has been unable to find out,” she said.

“Does that tell you anything?”

“That London holds a great many gangs.”

“And therefore . . . ?” he led the witness.

She regarded him with a polite expression, her gracefully arched eyebrows slightly raised.

By now Westcott ought to have leapt in to state the obvious or at least give the don’t signal, warning Radford he went too far. He glanced at his friend.

Westcott was gaping at her as though he’d never seen a girl before.

No, in point of fact, he was doing the opposite: what men always did when they looked at women. He was admiring her breasts in what he must suppose was a surreptitious manner, and had become fully absorbed in that endeavor.

Hers, Radford would readily admit, were uncommonly good. Either that or her undergarments were constructed to make them look good. He’d debated this point with himself when he met her the other day. Whatever the truth of the matter, Westcott had no business drooling over them.

The part of him Radford kept tightly confined was developing a fantasy of pitching his friend and colleague out of the window.

Thrusting the mental image aside, he said, “Does the phrase ‘needle in a haystack’ signify anything to your ladyship?”

“Let me think,” she said. She screwed up her mouth and eyes in an exaggerated effort of thinking. He remembered the little girl learning to say Heptaplasiesoptron.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, it does, shockingly enough.”

“Good,” he said. “Because—­”

“Fenwick assured me you’d know how to find Toby if anybody would. And you’ve made a name for yourself as an advocate for pauper children.”

“I suspect that’s because advocating for paupers, being unusual to the point of bizarre, makes sensational headlines,” he said. “In fact, mainly I appear in court for very boring cases: poisonings and burglaries and assault and libel and such.” Few of these cases attracted the more respectable newspapers’ attention. The rare cases that did tended to focus on plaintiff, accused, and lurid witness statements, not boring lawyers. Until recently.

“But the Grumley case—­”

“Ah, yes, the sensational one,” he said. “Which demands my full attention at present. I promise you, the judge will not give me a leave of absence to hunt down this boy, even had I any hope of finding him, with a year to do it in.”

An emotion flickered in her eyes, but even he, usually so perceptive of the subtlest facial cues, couldn’t decide whether she was disappointed or . . . relieved?

Not that it mattered in the least.

“Yes, of course,” she said. “I’ve read about the Grumley horror. I should have realized . . . How silly of me. You have your work cut out for you there. In that case, perhaps you can advise me how to proceed.”

“I strongly recommend you leave it alone,” he said. “These sorts of things never turn out—­” He broke off because her chin went up another notch and her posture stiffened, and he was forcibly reminded of the girl who’d kicked her brother in the ankle.

“But how silly of me,” he said. “You’re not going to leave it alone.”

“No.”

He looked to Westcott. No help at all. Had the dome of St. Paul’s slid off and onto his head, he could not have looked more stupidly oblivious. You’d think he’d never seen an attractive woman before.

Admittedly she was more than usually attractive. But still.

His other self had something to say on this point. Radford stifled him.

“In that case,” he said, “I should recommend, firstly, that you read Sir John Wade’s Treatise on the Police and Crimes of the Metropolis.”

“Mr. Radford,” she said.

“You needn’t read the whole thing, but you might wish to skim at least the chapter dealing with juvenile delinquents,” he said. “Secondly, in the event Wade leaves you undaunted, I recommend you hire a member of the Metropolitan Police as a detective. I highly recommend Inspector Keeler.” A former Bow Street Runner, Keeler was, in Radford’s opinion, the best of the best: quiet, persistent, and a genius at blending into his surroundings, no matter what disguise he donned.

Her head tipped slightly to one side, and she studied him with an expression that seemed to hover between patience and exasperation. He wasn’t quite sure. Along with maturity, her countenance seemed to have acquired a sort of screen or veil.

“It seems I was misinformed,” she said. “I was told you were the cleverest man in London.”

Westcott made a choked sound.

“To my knowledge, you were not misinformed,” Radford said.

She bit her lower lip, bringing the chipped tooth into sight for a tantalizing instant. “How odd,” she said. “Because I should have supposed that even a man with a very small brain and only the dimmest awareness of Society’s million unwritten rules would realize that I’m not in a position to engage detectives. Ladies, you see, Mr. Radford, are not permitted to hire professionals, except in a domestic capacity.”

“Right,” he said. “I wonder how that slipped my mind. Perhaps it was your appearing here in cunning disguise. Most intrepid of you.”

“I’m in disguise because ladies are not allowed to haunt the Temple in search of lawyers.”

“But you do see how I might have thought otherwise,” he said. “Looking at you, I might suppose an upheaval in social mores had occurred while I was busy elsewhere, getting criminals hanged—­or not, as the case may be.”

“Mores have not changed an iota from what they were in my mother’s time,” she said. “If anything, they’ve grown stricter. My grandmother—­but I digress, and I know your time is precious. You seek justice for five innocent children, a Herculean task. I apologize for taking you away from that worthy challenge for even a moment. If you have no useful advice for me, I’ll leave you to it.”

“Might you offer a reward?” he said. “Or is that not allowed, either?”

She gazed searchingly at him this time. She must be trying to read him. That would take some doing, since he wa

sn’t fully present, in a manner of speaking. He stood apart from himself as he always did—­or tried to do. Today he was having to work harder than usual at merely observing the proceedings.

“Do you know nothing whatsoever about ladies and the rules they must live by?” she said.

“Your ladyship would be amazed at how little he knows in that regard,” Westcott said. “Haven’t seen him much at Almack’s, have you? Never marked his presence at Court? A person would never guess his father was the Duke of Malvern’s heir presumptive—­”

“As though that signified in the least,” Radford said sharply. “The beau monde and I are not well acquainted, for obvious reasons, I should think, they spending little time in criminal courts, and I being gainfully employed therein.”

“Then I had better explain, lest the next lady you encounter decide you are deranged or brainless,” she said.

“Do you suppose that’s of any consequence to me?” he said.

“I should think a lady’s opinion of you would carry some weight were she considering your ser­vices to prosecute a villain,” she said. “Or, say, in a case of homicide, if she hoped to avoid the gallows.”