In the Barrister's Chambers (16 page)

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Authors: Tina Gabrielle

BOOK: In the Barrister's Chambers
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Chapter 25
Jack's hand slid onto Evelyn's nape and held her close. Her bonnet, which had loosened during her mad flight down the stairs, fluttered to the floor. He entwined his fingers in the silken mass of hair, and his thumb found the rapid beat of her pulse.
Her body was soft and warm pressed against his. For a moment, he could easily forget the imminent danger—then the sound of Hamilton's heels thudding on the wooden steps pierced his consciousness.
Evelyn made a small incoherent sound.
Jack used his weight to pin her in the corner, and shielded her body with his. Increasing the pressure of his lips, he smothered her protests.
From the corner of his eye, Jack saw Hamilton step into the vestibule.
Hamilton glanced in their direction, then his attention snapped to the open front door. He bolted out the door, his footfalls echoing down the street.
Jack raised his head, but his body stayed pressed to Evelyn's.
“He's gone, Evie.”
Evelyn's full lower lip trembled, her azure eyes wide with fright. “What happened?”
“We fooled him into thinking us lovers in the midst of a passionate embrace. Obviously, he has no idea the third and fourth floors are uninhabited. When he spotted the front door wide open, he must have assumed we fled, and he followed in pursuit.”
“That was so close. If he is the murderer, we could have been his next victims,” she said in a small frightened voice.
A wave of protectiveness hit Jack in his chest. The thought of Hamilton—or anyone—hurting Evelyn made his blood boil. There was no doubt in his mind that he would have killed to protect her.
“Don't even consider it, Evie. I wouldn't have let him touch you,” he said in a harsh, raw voice.
He was aware now of her soft, full breasts pressed against his chest.
“Jack, I—”
His eyes lowered to her mouth. With Hamilton gone, he wanted to kiss her for real, to trace the soft fullness of her lips with his tongue. To unbutton the bodice of her gown and trace her breasts, to hear her moan for him . . .
She rested her hand against his chest where his heart pounded. He waited for her to push him away, but her resistance never followed.
“Jack,”
she breathed.
She tilted her head to the side, exposing the slender column of her throat. He couldn't help himself. He kissed her neck, the wildly beating pulse that matched his own.
She was pliant against him, pliant and receptive.
But he was aware of their surroundings. Aware that they had illegally entered a private dwelling and were completely exposed with the front door wide open. His overheated and aroused body raged against logic and caution.
He took a step back, away from Evelyn and temptation.
“We should get you in the hackney.”
Her eyes were glazed. She blinked, and he saw the moment her thoughts cleared. “Do you think Hamilton will return?”
“He wasn't carrying anything, and I don't think he found the diary. I want you safe and away from here.”
She nodded woodenly, and followed behind him. Jack left the house first, looking about from left to right until he was certain Hamilton was gone for good. Only then did he motion for Evelyn to follow, guiding her across the street and into the waiting hackney.
Her skirts brushed his trousers as she settled on the bench across from his. Her blue eyes were wide, her disheveled hair loose around her shoulders. His fingers itched to touch the golden mass. She licked her lips, and despite the threat from Hamilton, and their near escape, his arousal throbbed in his trousers.
Jack gave the driver instructions to Evelyn's home, and then made to step out of the cab.
“You're not coming with me?”
“I have to go back.”
“Back? Why on earth? You said Hamilton didn't find the diary.”
“Yes, but we interrupted his search, remember? I want to take another look around. See if I can pick up where he left off.”
She grasped his sleeve, her eyes imploring. “What if he returns? There's a good chance he is Bess Whitfield's killer, Jack.”
He touched her face, his fingers lingering on her cheek. “It's unlikely he'd risk returning here today. And if he does, I can take care of myself, Evie.” He gave her a sly wink. “Don't worry. You can't get rid of me that easily.”
 
 
As soon as the hackney drove out of sight with Evelyn safely ensconced within, Jack slipped back into Bess's home. He studied every creaky floorboard, every seam of plaster with a keen eye, but detected no other hidden compartments.
Dropping to his knees, Jack examined the board Hamilton had been in the process of prying up when he had stopped to pursue them. Hamilton hadn't finished with the board. Jack pried it off and reached within.
Nothing.
So Jack's assumption had been correct. Hamilton hadn't found the diary.
But the man clearly desired to find it, and badly.
Viscount Hamilton had been deeply involved with Bess Whitfield. The actress's dresser, Mary Morris, had told them as much. The letters Jack had found hidden in Hamilton's library attested to their tumultuous relationship, and Hamilton's presence here today confirmed he was desperate enough to burglarize a private residence to get his hands on that diary. Hamilton also had motive and opportunity for the murder.
He was, without a doubt, their most likely suspect.
It would be extremely convenient for Viscount Hamilton should Randolph Sheldon be tried and hanged for the crime. Hamilton could continue to search for the diary without the watchful investigative eyes of the Bow Street constables.
Jack frowned as an image of Earl Newland circling Bess Whitfield's grave, madly muttering, came to mind. Viscount Hamilton may be the most likely suspect, but Newland could not be entirely ruled out.
Jack recalled James Devlin's comment. Newland's motive in finding the diary wasn't as strong as Hamilton's, but insanity went a long way in justifying murder.
Jack finished his search of Bess's home and hailed a hackney cab. He gave the driver directions to his chambers at Lincoln's Inn and sat back in his seat. Thinking back, Jack recalled the number of times both aristocrats—Viscount Hamilton and Earl Newland—had come close to identifying Evelyn. Newland easily could have seen her face at the cemetery, and Hamilton had almost caught her here today. The threat of near discovery made Jack's temper flare.
Holding Evelyn in his arms, kissing her, had heightened his attraction for her. He wanted more, needed more. He wanted to watch her disrobe for him, to savor the feel of her naked flesh against his, wanted to be inside her so badly he could taste it.
He didn't know how much more he could stand. Working close by her side, yet refraining from touching her. Worse still, knowing she meant to give herself to Randolph Sheldon.
Again James Devlin's words came back to him. It
had
been too long since Jack had been with a woman. That was his problem, and it could easily be rectified. This fierce response for Evelyn must be due to a combination of the excitement of danger comingled with an overly long dry spell without a willing woman in his bed.
His last mistress, Molly Adler, was outrageously curved, hedonistic, and beyond eager to do anything in bed to please. Focusing on Molly's image, lying in bed with her legs splayed wide open, he couldn't remember why he had ever grown bored. He shook his head at his foolishness.
Why was he torturing himself when sexual release could be easily bought?
It was time to pay Molly a visit.
 
 
Jack had sent a note in advance. After all, he wasn't a fool, and he had no desire to knock on his former mistress's door only to find her entertaining another man. It had been a little over four months since he had last seen Molly Adler, and he hadn't a doubt that she had found her next lover and benefactor.
Jack stood on a porch of an elegant town house—a residence he had helped purchase for her—and raised the brass knocker.
The door opened and Molly stood on the threshold, her servant nowhere to be seen.
“Jack,” she sighed in a husky voice that oozed sensuality and promised all sorts of bedroom sport. Dressed in a sheer concoction of scarlet that outlined every womanly curve, she leaned to the side, and her rich curtain of mahogany hair draped over a bare shoulder. It was a well-practiced stance, calculated to enhance her physical assets and simultaneously tease and arouse.
“It's been a long time, Molly,” Jack simply said.
She pouted, her painted, red lips portraying disappointment while her shrewd, black eyes raked over his body. “I was quite upset with how you ended things.”
Despite her words, she stepped back and opened the door wide. “But I've decided to forgive you, darling.” She smiled slyly and raised her hand to show the emerald bracelet he had sent along with his note.
Ah,
Jack thought,
predictable as always.
Jack strode inside, and she closed the door behind him and leaned against it. “I've missed you, Jack,” she drawled. “I haven't met a man that can compare to you.”
His gaze lowered to her large breasts. She had rouged her nipples and they stood out like drops of dark chocolate through her sheer gown.
“I regret staying away,” he said gruffly.
She sashayed forward and rested her arms on his shoulders. “We have much time to make up for, don't we, darling?”
He followed her up the stairs, discarding articles of clothing as he went. His cravat, his jacket, his waistcoat.
Her rounded hips swayed before him, and he could make out the full globes of her buttocks and the crevice between them.
They reached her bedchamber. Dozens of candles had been lit. It was clear she had been waiting for him, waiting and ready. She let the gown slip off her shoulders, and it swished down her abundant curves to fall to her feet. She had shaved herself, and the V between her legs was shockingly bare. She sat on the edge of the bed, and provocatively raised her legs to give him a full view of her glistening mons.
She was a skillful courtesan, a sexual creature. Everything a man could want to slake his lust.
But she wasn't Evie.
Could never be Evie.
The truth was Molly Adler was the antithesis of the blond innocence and intelligence that had tied his guts in knots.
He tried, damn it. But the mahogany hair was all wrong, and the round dark eyes were far from the slanted Persian blue that were imprinted on his brain.
He closed his eyes and tried again, tried to focus on his body's needs, but instead a vivid picture of Evelyn grew ever clearer in his mind. Her flawless skin, her long golden hair like strands of lustrous glass, her eager response to his kiss. She was refreshingly honest and innocent, without contrivance, and the complete opposite of the woman before him.
He opened his eyes and looked at Molly, her legs splayed open on the edge of the bed. She licked a finger and rubbed the swollen flesh between her legs.
His lips twisted in distaste, and his arousal deflated like a punctured balloon.
Christ!
What had he ever seen in her practiced sexuality?
His friends would never let him live this down. Devlin and Anthony would laugh. Brent would shake his head and tell him he told him so.
But the truth was far worse than his friends' anticipated ridicule.
If he couldn't exorcise his lust for Evie with another woman—an eager and experienced whore at that—then what was he to do?
Chapter 26
Two days after their encounter with Viscount Hamilton, Hodges delivered a letter to Evelyn. She reached eagerly for the envelope on the silver salver, thinking it was from Jack.
Letting the cream vellum stationery flutter to her desk, she read the letter, her distress mounting with each word.
Dearest Evelyn,
It was wonderful seeing you again both at my home and at my mother's costume ball. I cherish our renewed friendship and do not want to wait as long as in the past to spend time together. I am having friends at my home Thursday afternoon for tea and some insightful feminine conversation. I would be thrilled if you would attend. My mother will be away attending Lady Borrington's soirée.
Your friend,
Georgina
Evelyn knew how she was going to respond, but she wasn't comfortable with her decision, having never acted the coward in the past.
Evelyn closed her eyes as a sickening sense of despair knotted in the center of her chest. She liked Georgina. She admired her kindness, her sense of humor, and most of all her insistence on being her own person and not succumbing to her mother's marriage demands. Georgina's invitation—although vaguely worded—was clear to Evelyn. While Viscountess Hamilton would be away Thursday afternoon, Georgina would have her feminist friends over for some rollicking conversation.
Under different circumstances, Evelyn would have loved to attend. She was sympathetic to their cause and agreed with many of Mary Wollstonecraft's opinions.
God only knew how many times she envied the male pupils that had passed through her father's Lincoln's Inn chambers. They had the opportunity to study and become barristers when she could do no more than sit by and voraciously read her father's books. They had thought her a funny little girl whose nose was always buried in a book. They were completely oblivious to the notion that a female should crave more education than how to play a few chosen tunes on the pianoforte, properly pour tea, and thread a needle.
Despite her fondness for Georgina and her desire to attend her Thursday gathering, Evelyn would be forced to decline. She felt like a traitor, for never could she forget the sight of a fervid Maxwell Stanford, Viscount Hamilton, on his hands and knees as he pried up a floorboard in Bess Whitfield's bedroom.
Georgina's father was most likely a killer.
How could she ever face her friend again?
She couldn't tell Georgina what she knew. It would devastate her friend to learn that not only had her father had an affair with an actress who went through lovers the way a dandy tossed aside used cravats, but that Hamilton may have murdered Bess Whitfield.
Evelyn knew enough of the law to understand that the evidence against Hamilton was circumstantial at best. Jack himself had said all they had discovered was that Hamilton and Bess were lovers. It seemed as if half of London had been in Hamilton's position.
But now, combined with Hamilton's presence in Bess's home, it was even more unnerving for Evelyn. They couldn't very well go to Bow Street with what they had witnessed since they had illegally broached Bess's home themselves. Even if a constable did believe their story, it still did not prove Hamilton was the killer, only that he wanted to unearth the diary before it was found by another and released to the newspapers.
Her thoughts, as always of late, turned to Jack. It had been two days since she had strained to watch him from the window of a hackney cab as he had returned to Bess's home to search for the blasted diary.
Had he found it? Or heaven forbid, had Hamilton returned when Jack was inside?
Her face burned as the memory of Jack's kiss came back to her, of his chest pressed so firmly against hers. Even though they both had been fully clothed, she had felt the heat of his body as though nothing had separated them. She had been acutely aware of more than the pleasure of his kiss, but of his familiar, alluring fragrance, his tall, muscular frame so different from Randolph's.
Despite the imminent danger—of both Viscount Hamilton and public discovery—she had been fascinated. It had been Jack who had withdrawn, reminding her of their surroundings. She dared not think of how far she would have allowed him to go if not for his restraint. It dawned on her that the more time she spent with Jack, the more perilous to her heart he was becoming.
Evelyn laid her head in her hands, feeling a wretchedness of mind she'd never known before. She bit her lip until it throbbed like her pulse. She needed to prove Randolph Sheldon's innocence, but at what cost?
 
 
Three days later, Evelyn refused to wait any longer for Jack to contact her. She had never been a patient person and the waiting had her stomach churning with anxiety and frustration. She had to know the outcome of Jack's search of Bess's home. Perhaps he had found the mysterious diary. Her mind whirled with images of Jack squirreled away in his chambers, avidly reading its illicit content at his leisure.
It was late afternoon by the time she arrived at Lincoln's Inn.
Stepping through the oak doors, she walked through the Tudor-style Gatehouse Court, only this time she did not spare a glance for the impressive architecture of the tall turrets or fragrant flowerpots. She headed for the Old Buildings, which housed the professional accommodations of the barristers. She strode down the halls, scanning the brass nameplates on the doors until she came to the one she sought.
Reaching for the handle, she swept inside and ran straight into a solid body.
“Oh!” she cried out.
A firm hand steadied her. “My apologies, miss. Are you all right?”
Evelyn looked up into the sinfully dark face of a tall man. Carrying a hat in one hand and a litigation bag in another, he was clearly on his way out when she had rushed inside.
She cleared her throat. “I'm fine. Just a little stunned.”
He smiled, and she couldn't help but notice he was quite attractive with blue eyes, dark, curling hair and lean, strong features. “I apologize again. I was in a hurry and had no idea such a beautiful lady was on her way inside. May I help you?”
“I'm here to see a barrister.”
“Then it is your lucky day since I am quite a competent barrister.” He bowed low and said, “James Devlin at your service. Your wish is my command.”
She smiled at his charming demeanor. “You misunderstand, Mr. Devlin. I'm here to see a certain barrister.”
“Who is the lucky one, may I ask?”
“Mr. Harding.”
Amusement flickered in his cobalt eyes. “You must be Lady Evelyn Darlington.”
“Yes, how did you know?” Her voice rose in surprise.
His grin turned to a chuckle. “Jack and I share chambers.”
“I've met your other two colleagues, Mr. Anthony Stevens and Mr. Brent Stone,” Evelyn said.
James Devlin leaned close and whispered in her ear, “Let me tell you a secret, Lady Evelyn. I'm better than all of them.”
She pulled back and met his sharp gaze. Despite his outrageously inappropriate and flirtatious behavior, she couldn't help but find him amusing. “No doubt the ladies find you hard to resist, Mr. Devlin, but I require Mr. Harding's services.”
James shrugged matter-of-factly. “Should you tire of Jack, I'm always available. My docket's not as full as his, you see.” He winked, put on his hat, and walked out the door.
Evelyn shook her head. Were all of Jack's fellow barristers such characters?
Putting James Devlin out of her mind, she turned the corner and came to the common room of the chambers. Just like her last visit, the clerk, McHugh, was bent over his desk, writing on a lengthy legal document. Stacks of paper were piled on all four corners of his desk, and Evelyn surmised one of his tasks was to file legal correspondence in the dozens of file cabinets that lined the walls.
McHugh glanced up as she came close. His bushy brows knit, and with ink-stained fingers he pushed his spectacles farther up the bridge of his pinched nose.
“Lady Evelyn,” he said. “I assume you are here to see Mr. Harding?” He made to reach for the appointment register.
“I'm afraid I do not have an appointment.” Evelyn held her breath, expecting him to protest, but unlike the last time she had shown up unexpectedly, McHugh rose and motioned for her to follow.
“Right this way, my lady.”
They passed three closed doors, and Evelyn read the brass nameplates that identified Brent Stone's, Anthony Stevens's, and James Devlin's offices.
McHugh noticed her interest. “The other barristers are at the Old Bailey. You are fortunate that Mr. Harding did not have any courtroom appearances this afternoon and is in chambers,” he said, a note of censure in his voice.
Evelyn bit her cheek to keep from smiling. Despite his seemingly polite behavior, the clerk made no effort to hide his disdain for unannounced client visits.
They reached Jack's door, and McHugh knocked.
“Enter.”
The clerk cracked open the door. “Lady Evelyn is here, Mr. Harding. If you do not need anything else from me, sir, the chambers are empty, and I'd like to leave for the day.”
“Of course, McHugh.” She heard Jack's voice from behind the door.
Seconds later the door opened, and she stepped inside Jack's office.

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