How to Master Your Marquis (10 page)

“Mrs. Harding and the dustman, really,” said Stefanie. “The husband seems to have played an ancillary role, at best.”

“Ah. Yes.” Sir John’s eyes dropped to the papers before him, ran over a line or two, and then lifted back up to meet Stefanie’s steady gaze. He stroked the tip of his beard. “I don’t know quite how to begin.”

“At the beginning, I should think.”

“Yes. Quite. In the first place, this summary is an absolute mess, Mr. Thomas. In all my years of judicial practice, I have never encountered a paper less organized, less sensible, less”—he lifted up one corner and eyed it with distaste—“less
legible
than the one before me now.”

“Handwriting was never my strong suit.”

“Evidently not.”

Stefanie rose to her feet. The chair legs scraped an excruciating track along the wooden floor. “Very good, then, sir. May I say that my time here in your chambers, while brief . . .”

“What the devil are you doing? Sit down.”

“I see no reason to prolong this interview, Sir John. As you yourself have observed, I’m not cut out for the practice of law, which is exactly what I told His Grace, and might have saved us all a great deal of trouble if he’d . . .”

“For God’s sake, Mr. Thomas. Sit. I wasn’t going to sack you.”

Stefanie halted her finger in mid-thrust. “No?”

“Sit down, please, and leave off this theatrical gesturing, for God’s sake. If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s a theatrical gesture.”

Stefanie flipped up the ends of her jacket and settled back in her chair. Her pulse was giving off odd nervous flecks in her throat, making her just a tiny bit light-headed.

Sir John steepled his fingers atop the illegible and poorly organized mess she had left on his desk last night. Stefanie fought the urge to rip it from beneath his hands, wad it into a ball, toss it into the wastebin, storm to the door, and say, fingers stabbing the air rudely:
How do you like this theatrical gesture, Sir John Worthington, Q.C.?

“Now,” said Sir John, in perfect composure, “aside from the obvious errors of composition, organization, presentation, orthography, and punctuation, this paper is a work of extraordinary legal genius.”

“Well, sir, if you hadn’t been such a dashed rigid-arsed martinet and had given me a sufficient time to prepare, instead of . . .” Stefanie blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

Sir John tapped his right forefinger against the paper. “Genius. Unschooled, obviously, and quite unaccustomed to the, er, to the rhetorical terms in which the law expresses itself . . .”

“Bloody boring, you mean.”

“Yes, Mr. Thomas. Bloody, bloody boring. Dry, passive, riddled with clause. You’ve expressed yourself here in entirely too straightforward and dramatic a fashion, but the content itself—your lines of argument, your grasp of the subtleties of the legal principles involved, your ethical insight—it’s all brilliant. It’s—how do I describe it? A sort of cognitive leap, extraordinary in one with no previous exposure to the law.”

Extraordinary
. The word rang against the sides of Stefanie’s skull.

Six months ago, Stefanie had been sitting in the Holstein Castle schoolroom, staring out the window as Miss Dingleby read over her latest composition. Stefanie couldn’t now remember the subject, but she did remember counting the gardeners outside in the clean summer air, an extraordinary number, all of them harvesting immense quantities of roses and lilies from the royal gardens in preparation for her sister Luisa’s nuptials the following Wednesday. She could hear their laughter as they worked, could smell the dense June-warm fragrance of the flowers drifting up from the soil below. Miss Dingleby’s voice, when it finally carried across the stone room, had sounded distant:
Really, Your Highness, you must endeavor to put a little more effort into these essays, the way your sisters do. You must concentrate a little. You haven’t the brains to keep up with Emilie; you have to focus your meager faculties, for God’s sake, or you’ll never be good for anything other than flirting with unsuitable men and getting yourself into scrapes.

Now, in this chilly box of a November room, not a flower in sight, Sir John’s voice sounded equally distant. Echoing.
Genius. Brilliant. A cognitive leap.

Extraordinary.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I don’t believe I quite understand you.”

“It’s masterful, Mr. Thomas. You’ve a talent, a natural talent for this kind of thing. The only thing wanting is a little discipline, of which any idiot is capable. Look at Mr. Turner, there.” Sir John waved his hand to the door. “Thick as a plank, poor chap, but he keeps everything in order and that’s what I need from him. You, on the other hand, Mr. Thomas, have a different sort of mind altogether, a very valuable mind, and with a certain amount of cultivation, I don’t doubt you might eventually prove one of the most eminent men called to the bar this decade.”

Stefanie’s head felt as if it were floating. “Sir?”

Sir John rose to his feet. “I intend to take a close and personal role in your development, Thomas. I want you to brief yourself on all my current cases and accompany me to court. I shall be asking you to dine with me, inviting other members of the bar, because that is the proper way to learn, Thomas. Discourse.”

Stefanie lurched upward. “Discourse. Yes, sir.”

“For now, you will return to your desk and begin educating yourself. I shall want summaries of all my active cases, just like this one”—he held it up for a demonstrative jiggle—“except with perhaps a little more attention to organization and clarity, Thomas. Clarity.”

“Clarity, sir. Of course. Organization and clarity. There is one difficulty, however, sir,” Stefanie said, a little numbly, for she felt rather as if she were dreaming this episode instead of actively participating in it.

“Difficulty, Mr. Thomas?” Sir John’s thicket of eyebrows hefted upward. “What possible difficulty could there be?”

“I have a few letters to copy, sir. On my desk this minute.”

“Letters? Letters, you say?”

“Yes, sir. A dozen or so.”

Sir John waved his hand and sat down. “Never mind the damned letters, Thomas. Do your duty, that’s all. Now off you go.”

Stefanie turned her body and walked slowly to the four-inch portal through which she’d passed a few minutes ago, in another lifetime, as another Stefanie. At the very last step, she turned.

“Sir.”

He looked up, a little crossly. “What is it, Thomas?”

“Are you . . . are you quite sure, sir? One of the most eminent this
decade
, sir? That’s . . . that’s quite an assessment, based on a single poorly organized paper.”

“Damn it all, Mr. Thomas. Are you suggesting I’m wrong? I am never wrong. Now off you go, and close the door behind you. I’ve the devil of an amount of work to get through before I attend sessions.”

Stefanie floated through the door and shut it firmly behind her. She made her way back to the desk and sat down, staring blankly at the half-finished letter before her. She knew, somewhere at the back of her mind—her
valuable
mind, had he really said that?—that the other clerks were staring at her, that the incessant scratching of pens had unaccountably ceased, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

“Psst! Thomas!”

She turned her head to the side. Her neighbor clerk leaned toward her, shifting his eyes watchfully back and forth to Sir John’s door, his brown whiskers bristling with mutton-chop curiosity on his jaw.

“Thomas!” he hissed again.

“Yes?” she heard herself whisper.

“The lads are I are headed to the pub this evening, after old Turner makes his disappearance. Care to join us in a bit of shenanigans?” His eyebrows gave off a waggle. He tapped his fountain pen against the side of his jaw.

And all at once, Stefanie was as light as air, as free and wind-drunk as a bird on the wing. She wanted to laugh out loud with the joy of it.

Instead, she smiled at the clerk in his identical black suit.

“No, thank you,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ve a great deal of work to do.”

B
y the time the Marquess of Hatherfield reached the offices of Wright Holdings, Ltd., on London Wall, it was nearly ten o’clock in the morning, the result of an overturned delivery wagon in Cheapside that had brought all wheel-bound traffic to an immediate and fatal halt. After ten minutes of fruitless waiting, he’d gotten out and walked, despite the clogging yellow fog and the stagnant water collected in the rutted pavement.

“Mr. Wright is attending a meeting at the moment, your lordship,” said the secretary, concealing his surprise with impressive self-control at the sight of the plain ecru card Hatherfield had handed him. “Do you have an appointment?”

“I do not, as I’m sure you’re well aware,” said Hatherfield. “A certain matter has come up, an urgent matter. I should appreciate the opportunity to speak to Mr. Wright at the earliest possible instant.”

“I see, sir.” The secretary glanced at the clock. “If you’ll do us the honor of taking a seat, Lord Hatherfield.”

Hatherfield settled himself in a chair. The minutes ticked away in the silent interior of the reception room, an elegant space, furnished in serene colors with simple richness. Hatherfield had the impression of an immense amount of activity taking place behind the quiet door at the other side of the room, a beehive made of ticker tape with accountants buzzing about in green eyeshades. The door opened, and a man popped out, looking flustered, and strode without pause to the hat stand. The secretary jumped to his feet.

“If you’ll excuse me, your lordship. I’ll see if Mr. Wright is available.”

A moment later, the secretary returned.

“Mr. Wright has ten minutes, your lordship.”

If Hatherfield was expecting the notorious financier to own a grand office, stuffed with important furniture and lined with priceless Old Master paintings in gilt frames a yard thick, he was disappointed. The room was neat and small and businesslike, anchored by a quite ordinary desk, a few maps decorating the walls. Mr. Wright stood at Hatherfield’s entrance.

“Your lordship,” he said, in a voice no less powerful for its quiet volume.

Hatherfield shook his outstretched hand. “Mr. Wright.”

“Please sit down. May I offer you refreshment?”

“No, thank you. I’ll be brief. I understand you’re a busy man.”

Wright smiled and made a deprecating motion with his hand. Hatherfield had met him once or twice, at this or that party. A tall man, robust, blunt boned, and not unhandsome. His dark hair was brushed back from his forehead with a touch of pomade, and his mustache was clipped and modest. His eyes shone dark and keen from beneath his straight eyebrows. What had Hatherfield heard? That he was the bastard son of one aristocrat or another, brought up in genteel obscurity in some unfashionable quarter of London. He had that look, watchful and predatory and a little hungry. A touch ruthless, when he had to be. Or perhaps that was only his reputation. Reputations could be so often mistaken.

Hatherfield sat down. “I understand from my father, the Duke of Southam . . .”

“I know who your father is, Lord Hatherfield.”

“Very good. Then perhaps you know why I’ve come. You hold my stepmother’s marker for forty-three thousand pounds.”

“Forty-two, I believe.”

“I presume you know that my family has no possible means of paying it.”

“There are always means, Hatherfield, if one’s willing to find them.”

Hatherfield leaned back and studied the man before him. “I suppose a man in your position knows everything that goes on in this little world of ours, don’t you?”

A shrug. “I hear many things, of course.”

“May I be so bold as to inquire why you drew a woman, a lady, deep into play, when you knew she had nothing at all to back up her markers?”

“On the contrary. Her Grace assured me that the family would soon be in possession of a handsome fortune, as a result of an advantageous alliance on the point of being announced.”

“Her Grace was mistaken, as I’m sure you well knew.”

Mr. Wright settled himself more deeply into his chair and rested his chin in one hand.
Tap tap tap
went his finger against the corner of his full mouth. His dark eyes studied Hatherfield, the brows above them slanted in thought.

A sensation passed through Hatherfield, a vague and fleeting sense of familiarity.

“I do have an investment of my own,” said Hatherfield.

“Ah yes. Your houses in Hammersmith. Quality homes for the middle classes, instead of the usual job-work rubbish being raised all over the suburbs. A clever idea, and serves the purpose of keeping your own capital away from your father’s grasping paws. I admire your thinking, your lordship.” Mr. Wright smiled, not a particularly pleasant smile.

“If you can hold my stepmother’s marker until summer, when the houses are finished and sold, I’ll pay you myself.”

Mr. Wright shook his head. “Too late, I’m afraid.”

“Then I’ll grant you a quarter-interest in the project now. This very instant.”

Another shake. “Too risky. Estate prices are so variable.”

“A half-interest. You might have twice your forty-two thousand quid by September.”

“I have no need for another investment, Lord Hatherfield. With respect.”

Hatherfield spread his hands. “I have nothing for you, then.”

“What an unfortunate predicament for the duke and duchess,” said Mr. Wright. “A knotty sort of conundrum.”

“You could solve it in an instant, Mr. Wright.”

“What, tear up the marker? A debt of honor? Come, Lord Hatherfield.” Mr. Wright shook his head in sorrow. “We both know that’s impossible. Perhaps a small matter, a trifling amount, between friends. But forty-two thousand pounds? A man’s word is his word. It is the bedrock on which all else stands.”

“The duchess is not a man.”

“The principle remains.”

What an implacable face the man had. Hatherfield, who had learned to detect every minute clue of expression, who could tell if a man was lying by the flicker of his eyelids and the movement of his pulse in his neck, found himself frustrated. Nathaniel Wright was as smooth as a mask.