The Bride Hunt Read Free

replied.
    “You know more than I do.” Chastity took up her glass. “Father would know someone, of course. Could we sound him out, d’you think?”
    “You mean ask a couple of casual questions?” Prudence leaned forward, her light green eyes sharp.
    “He’s not going to put two and two together,” Chastity pointed out.
    “No.” Prudence pursed her lips. “I just wonder if he’ll know the kind of lawyer we’re looking for.”
    “Someone inexpensive,” Chastity stated the obvious.
    Prudence shook her head. “This kind of barrister comes expensive. However we can but try. There might be some way around it.”
    The sound of impatient footsteps in the corridor outside reached them just before the door was flung open after the most perfunctory knock. Lord Arthur Duncan stood on the threshold, his whiskers awry, his cheeks rather redder than usual, his bowler hat clutched to his striped waistcoat. “I have never heard the like,” he declared. “Bounders, absolute bounders. Should be hanged from the nearest lamppost. Oh, I see you’ve seen it.” He gestured to the
Pall Mall Gazette.
“Disgraceful, disgusting calumny. It was one thing for that effeminate gossip rag to point the finger . . . no self-respecting red-blooded man gives a tinker’s damn what a group of airheaded cowards have to say . . . but when that sanctimonious, tub-thumping twit in the
Gazette
starts pointing the finger, there’s no knowing where it will lead.”
    He sat down heavily in a wing chair beside the fire. “If that’s sherry, I’ll have a glass, Prudence.”
    “It is, and certainly, Father.” She poured and brought him the glass. “Is Lord Barclay very upset?”
    “Upset?”
his lordship boomed. “He’s beside himself.” He drained his small glass in one sip, and glared at it. “Not enough to slake the thirst of a butterfly.”
    “Would you like Jenkins to bring you whisky?” Chastity asked with customary solicitude.
    “No . . . no need to bother him.” He wiped his moustache with his handkerchief. “Just fill it again for me.” He gave her the glass.
    “What is Lord Barclay going to do about it?” inquired Prudence, leaning over to stir the coals with the poker. “He must have some redress, surely.”
    “Well, he’s suing that
Mayfair Lady
disgrace, for a start. That’ll fold once Barclay and his lawyers have finished with it. Won’t have a penny to its name and its editors will be lucky to escape gaol.”
    “I imagine he must be using the best lawyers in the business,” Chastity said, bringing a recharged glass over to the earl.
    “Oh, yes, you mark my words . . . best money can buy.”
    “Are there many good libel lawyers in London?” Prudence asked. “We never meet any.”
    “Hardly surprising, m’dear.” He regarded his middle daughter with a benign smile. “Not saying that you and your sisters couldn’t compete with the brightest brain, but these men don’t frequent the kind of circles you girls like. You’ll find ’em in clubs, not drawing rooms.”
    Prudence looked askance. “I wonder if that’s true. Give us some names of the really good barristers and Chas and I will see if they ring any kind of a bell.”
    “Party games,” he scoffed, but he seemed to have calmed down somewhat in the soothing companionship of his daughters and under the equally soothing influence of the sherry. His cheeks had taken on a less rubicund hue.
    “Well, now, let me see. Barclay’s solicitors, Falstaff, Harley, and Greenwold, have briefed Samuel Richardson, KC. Any name there ring a bell?” He gave his daughters a smug smile. “I’ll wager not.”
    “We don’t expect to know the solicitors,” Prudence told him. “But Samuel Richardson . . .” She shook her head. “No, you win that one. Give us another.”
    Lord Duncan frowned, thinking. “Malvern,” he said finally. “Sir Gideon Malvern, KC. Youngest KC in a decade, knighted for his services to the bar.” He chuckled suddenly. “I believe