Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
The law offices of Potridge, Chadwick, and Garrison on Gloucester Street in Pimlico were a touch finer than Audrey had anticipated.
As she showed herself through the front door of the limestone building and met with a clerk, she ascertained that Mr. Potridge and his associates, though tradesmen, had either been born into means or they made a fine business as solicitors to any number of men, titled or not.
It made sense that the upper classes would only entrust their business to those who nearly matched them in status.
As the clerk dipped his head in respect and then dashed off to inform Mr. Potridge of her presence, Audrey fought the urge to squirm and flee the premises.
She’d spent a sleepless night wading through any number of plausible pretexts to arrive here, unannounced, and unaccompanied.
The challenge of it illuminated the stark fact that there was no acceptable reason for a married woman to visit her husband’s solicitor without said husband.
Surely Mr. Potridge managed property deeds, wills, and contracts of all sorts, but finding a foothold into which she could insert herself was nigh impossible.
It had taken the whole of her sleepless night to come up with a credible, if feeble, story.
Hugh had only been a gentleman by leaving, but the rejection had still stung.
Yes, leaving was the right thing to do, and he’d already made it plain why he couldn’t be her lover.
But that had not stopped her from lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, and imagining what might have happened had he not been a gentleman.
As the night wore on and dawn crept in, her imagination blazed forward into the realms of impossibilities.
If she could divorce, if she could marry Hugh, if they could have a family…
And then, it struck her: A plausible excuse for a visit to her husband’s solicitor.
“This way, Your Grace,” the clerk intoned as he reappeared at the bottom of the stairwell.
The offices were upstairs, and Audrey, who had left Greer and Carrigan in the carriage on the curb, ascended after the man.
She only hoped Sir was already on Gloucester Street, ready to make some sort of distraction for her, as they’d planned that morning when Greer had whispered that the boy was in the kitchen, insisting on speaking to her.
Her housekeeper, Mrs. Trelew, did not approve of the boy, but Greer and Mrs. Comstock had softer hearts.
Audrey’s pulse increased the closer she became to enacting her plan.
Lying to Mr. Potridge didn’t appeal to her, and it was very likely that he would at some point let it be known to the duke that she had been to his offices.
Unless, of course, the topic of conversation was so baffling and improper that the poor man couldn’t bring himself to utter a mention of it.
The clerk showed her into the spacious office, which overlooked the street and had a plethora of shelving and books, and to Audrey’s dismay, several tall filing cases, rather than just a few. She only hoped they were well organized and in alphabetical order.
Mr. Potridge, a man of about sixty, with a head of uncommonly thick white hair and a pair of round spectacles that sat low on the bridge of his nose, was already standing and ready to greet her.
“Your Grace, welcome. I was not aware of your intention to call on our offices.” When the clerk shut the door after departing, Mr. Potridge added, “Is everything well with the duke?”
“Yes, he is well,” she said, but then wondered if he, for whatever reason, might be aware of Philip’s mercurial salivation treatments. There would be no reason for Mr. Potridge to know, would there? Or perhaps he had only noted the duke’s frequent poor spells.
Mr. Potridge showed her into a chair and then strode behind his desk. “I confess to be flummoxed by your appearance, Your Grace. It is not ordinary for ladies to come in place of their husbands, you see.”
Flummoxing him was exactly what Audrey wished to do, and it spurred her on to know that she’d already had some success.
“I understand, and I apologize for the unexpected visit.” Her attention drifted toward the burred walnut filing cases next to his desk.
Small labels were affixed underneath each drawer’s knob.
“However,” she went on, “I wasn’t at all certain I’d have the courage to go through with it, so to send advance notice would have been… premature.”
As she’d hoped, the prepared line snagged his curiosity. “The courage? Whatever do you mean, Your Grace?”
No turning back now. Audrey took a bracing breath and met his gaze.
“Mr. Potridge, I have come so you could advise me on the legal ramifications regarding the passing of the duke’s title to an adopted son.”
The request lingered in the suddenly silent air. The man blinked, raised the spectacles on his nose, and parted his lips in awe. “A-adoption?”
“I cannot have my own child, you see. It is a source of great shame that I cannot bear an heir naturally,” Audrey went on, the topic of which brought a bright splash of crimson to the man’s doughy cheeks.
“And if we were to take in a child, adopt him, well, I would like to be certain there is nothing barring him from taking on the title, when the time comes, of course.”
Mr. Potridge sat down, then stood up again, clearly agitated. He spluttered a few words before finally blurting a whole sentence. “Does His Grace not wish to be part of this discussion? I say, it would be far more appropriate for me to speak to the duke about this.”
Sensing the unfortunate man was close to fleeing the room, she whipped out the pièce de résistance—her lacy handkerchief—and pressed it to her nose. She shot to her feet and with more theatrical enthusiasm than she thought she possessed, affected tearful distress as she rushed toward the window.
“I can only imagine what you must think of me, Mr. Potridge,” she said, attempting to make her voice thick with emotion.
“I have been far too brash. If Philip were to hear of this, he would be so cross with me.” On the sidewalk across the street, a gangly boy wearing a white apron over his clothes peered up at the window where she stood.
Sir tipped the brim of his cap to her, and then dodged a horse and carriage as he crossed the street.
Audrey turned back to the solicitor, who had edged around the desk, toward the door. Victory in sight, she sniffled. “It is just that I know how desperately the duke wishes to be a father. Are you a father, Mr. Potridge?”
The man adjusted his glasses again. “Yes, yes, I am. I have four children, Your Grace.”
“So then you must understand!”
Her unmerited exuberance was well rewarded. He all but leaped for the door knob. “Please, Your Grace, don’t distress yourself any further. Let me call for some tea—”
Before he could complete his excuse for leaving the room, a building commotion sounded from outside his office. A banging about, distant shouts. Then, a great crash.
“What in the world?” Mr. Potridge opened the door and stuck his head out. With the door open, the ruckus became more audible. Defiant squawks from a pre-pubescent boy were unmistakable. Sir’s distraction had commenced.
“Wait here, Your Grace, I will see what this nonsense is about.” The solicitor stepped out and shut the door behind him.
Not wasting another moment, she rushed to the door and engaged the lock.
Being caught rifling through his filing cases wouldn’t do.
As the hullabaloo continued on the ground level of the law offices, Audrey went to the cases and scanned the drawers.
They were indeed organized alphabetically.
She pulled open the drawer for L through N and leafed through the folios in the racking system.
She tried to keep her hands steady, her attention on the files and not the chances of Mr. Potridge returning before she was through.
Blessing the clerk who kept these files tidy, she saw it: Neatham.
Holding her breath, she whisked out the thick folio—and found a second behind it.
Both were full to bursting with papers. Blast!
She couldn’t take the contents of both. There was only room enough in her reticule for a few folded sheets.
She wished she’d thought to bring a larger bag but just taking the reticule had caused no end to Greer’s suspicious glances; her maid knew she vastly preferred to employ her skirt pockets rather than wear a reticule’s strings around her wrist. She’d kept on her gloves to prevent any errant visions, even though paper was usually quite difficult to read.
That only made thumbing through the sheets of paper, parchment, and vellum, all of which were scrawled with all manner of legal jargon in the most confounding of penmanship, that much more difficult.
Sweat erupted on the back of her neck and her vision was beginning to blur with panic when her fingers landed on a thin, bound folio of papers, the green cover tied with string. Scrawled in the top right-hand corner of the folio cover was a name: A. Barlow.
Heart thudding to a stop, Audrey itched to tear it open. But voices in the corridor alerted her. One of the men approaching sounded like the solicitor. She folded the stiff folio without care, knowing it would be irreparably creased and crumpled, and shoved it into her reticule.
The knob on the office door jiggled once. Twice. “Your Grace?” Mr. Potridge’s muffled voice called. “Your Grace, are you in there?”
Audrey carefully shut the cabinet drawer and hustled to the door, attempting to hide her overstuffed reticule under her cloak.
She didn’t need to affect breathlessness when she unlocked the door and opened it, finding her solicitor starting at her, confounded.
“Is it safe?” she inquired, peering into the corridor. “I didn’t want that madman barging in.”
Mr. Potridge reentered the office, pulling on the hem of his waistcoat, the restrained motion revealing his exasperation. Audrey began to feel sorry for the poor man; he’d certainly not expected so much pandemonium when he left his home this morning.
“Not a madman,” he replied. “Just a rapscallion street urchin insisting that we stole his cart, which he’d parked out front!”
Ah. That explained the apron Sir had been wearing. Audrey schooled her expression to match her solicitor’s annoyance.
“How absurd,” she said.
“Indeed! Harmless in the end, I suppose. Though with all that rumpus, I half wondered if our office was being turned over as Tipper and Sons was the other day.”
Audrey frowned. “How do you mean?”
Mr. Potridge returned to his desk, and though she’d closed the cabinet drawer, a niggling fear remained that he’d still notice something amiss. But he paid no attention to his filing system.
“The whole place was ransacked. Files and books scattered everywhere. Happened sometime during the night, so no one was injured, thank the good Lord.”
“And Tipper and Sons is…?”
“Another solicitor’s office. On Fleet Street,” he explained, then waved a hand. “But that is neither here nor there. I’ve instructed Beckett to bring tea. And then, I think perhaps we should arrange for a time to discuss these matters you’ve spoken of with the duke?”
For a few minutes, she’d forgotten all about her fabricated reason for arriving at the offices. After peering at the solicitor for a few seconds too long, she grasped his words and straightened her back.
“No! No, no, that is quite all right, Mr. Potridge. I can see that I’ve been much too hasty. Please, do forget I was ever here,” she said, clutching the reticule closer under her cloak and practically running toward the door.
“But Your Grace—”
“I’m sorry that I’ve wasted your time,” she said, again pressing the handkerchief to her nose. “Say nothing to the duke, I implore you.” And then, before he could call her back, Audrey fled.