Read Online Dukes Prefer Blondes by Loretta Chase - Free Book Online Page A

,” he said. “Davis only confirmed the discovery.”
    She was aware of inner disturbances. She throttled them, wishing she could throttle him.
    She kept her temper as best she could and looked up at him, into those keen grey eyes. Such an unusually pale grey, like a winter sky. “You are a prodigy, aren’t you? I shouldn’t have believed it possible to let one’s attention stray for even a moment, yet you penetrated my disguise.”
    â€œFirstly, my attention did not stray,” he said. “It’s possible to glance in one direction and pay attention elsewhere at the same time. I took note of the proceedings, though I knew what would be said. Secondly, it wasn’t much of a disguise.”
    â€œSecondly,” she said, “it was a very good one. Mr. Bates passed me in Ludgate Street without a second look.”
    â€œMr. Bates is unobservant,” he said. The penetrating grey gaze swept over her. “I should know you anywhere.”
    She went hot all over. She ignored it. “And firstly—­”
    â€œFirstly usually comes before secondly,” he said.
    â€œYes, but the secondly was so provoking,” she said. “And so, firstly—­”
    â€œYou’re mocking me.”
    â€œWhy not? You mock me.”
    His mouth quirked, more discernibly this time.
    She went on, “Firstly, it was a challenging exercise for me. With my tiny brain, you know, it wanted supreme concentration to find chinks in the defense’s arguments. Some of the legal hairs were split so very fine, I could hardly make them out. But that was the point, wasn’t it? There was no way to prove beyond doubt that Grumley’s methods rather than the fever killed those children.”
    He folded his arms, and the grey gaze became almost painfully acute.
    This was a test, she thought. And if she failed, she would have to go back to listening to marriage proposals and fantasize about becoming an eccentric and running away to live in a tent in Arabia.
    She began to walk again, not because she needed to pace, but because she knew her clothes would distract him somewhat, and she would feel less like an insect under a magnifying glass. “Your witnesses made a poor show under the defense’s close questioning,” she said. “The judge’s badgering made them more uncertain and inarticulate. The jury had no choice. Naturally, my learned friend, you would have recognized this long before I did.”
    He stood back and rested one big, gloved hand on the back of the bench where Bridget had sat. He said nothing.
    Clara made herself look away from the gloved hand.
    â€œAnd so I came back the next day, to see if I could discover your strategy,” she said.
    He only watched her in a brooding sort of way. This was the tricky part, and he was not going to make it easy.
    She plunged on, “You gave a fine performance of bumbling and desperation, while at the same time calling attention to each of the defendant’s acts that, taken together, ought to have led to his conviction. Day after day, that was what the newspapers reported, because that part wasn’t legal hair-­splitting, but something all readers could understand, and judge for themselves.”
    Nearly all the newspapers had protested the verdict in the strongest terms. Grumley had gone free but he was an outcast, ruined.
    She understood now, in her heart as well as her brain, how Radford had earned his reputation.
    After a long moment, while she became aware of the dusty leaves’ rustling and the distant sounds of the London streets, he said, “You may come with me to the ragged school Toby Coppy attended.”
    She very nearly staggered.
    But ladies never staggered. They stood straight or swooned gracefully.
    â€œThe day after tomorrow,” he said, “at ten o’clock in the morning, when the more undesirable elements will be asleep or only half awake and less likely to pay