James turned his attention to the twelve members of the jury. A mostly rough lot, he had initially thought. One of the jurors had a battlefield of wrinkles, none of which were laugh lines. Another juror had hands dyed the color of dark coffee and an unkempt beard. A tanner, no doubt. And yet another was barely twenty, with golden curls and the face of a cherub.
A trill of feminine laughter and a shout turned his head. Pumpkin’s stepmother, a heavyset woman with dyed red hair and painted lips like a thread of scarlet, sneered at Pumpkin O’Dool from the front row. A balding man with a drinker’s veined face sat beside her, his thigh brushing her skirts.
Hardly the grieving widow. She wasted no time in finding a lover, James thought.
The stepmother’s features twisted into a maddening leer. Raising a finger, she pointed at Pumpkin and shouted out, “Thief! Cur!” She then turned to stare at James and eyed his black barrister’s gown and wig with disdain.
James cocked an eyebrow, and his lips twitched in amusement.
The remainder of the trial consisted of Prosecutor Abrams arguing the deficiency of a will and James emphasizing the stepmother’s motive for the will not to be found followed by three witnesses who testified as to Pumpkin’s “upstanding” character.
In the middle of Prosecutor Abrams’s closing, a shadow of annoyance crossed the judge’s face. “That will be enough from both barristers. As it is time for luncheon and all relevant evidence presented, I ask for the gentlemen of the jury to consider their verdict.”
It was the jury’s fifth verdict of the morning with a half a dozen more trials to conclude before the end of the day. They gathered in the corner, their faces animated as they gestured wildly at one another. They whispered, yet every few words could be heard across the courtroom from “guilty” to “bastard” to “harsh sentence.”
Three minutes later, the foreman, a middle-aged alchemist with eager brown eyes behind thick spectacles and a stained shirtfront, stood. “We the jury find Pumpkin O’Dool not guilty of housebreaking and theft.”
Pumpkin O’Dool cried out with joy; his grin reached from ear to ear as he shook James’s hand. Spectators shouted encouragement at the verdict and jeered at Pumpkin’s stepmother.
The woman rose and departed the courtroom in a huff, her lover rushing to keep up with her.
A court clerk passed the pocket watch to James, who in turn handed it to his client. “The jury believed your story that your father wanted you to have this,” James said. “Now stay out of trouble, Pumpkin. And don’t get caught selling that watch or ‘walking’ into any other dwellings.”
Pumpkin winked. “The watch is the least my old man could do fer me. Ye understand, don’t ye?”
Yes, I do. Only I won’t even get a bloody watch from my father, James mused.
Judge Bathwell’s gavel rapped as a prisoner in shackles was led forward by two guards. James nodded at Abrams, whose vexation at losing was quite evident by the prosecutor’s unfriendly, thin-lipped stare. Abrams turned away, pressed to prepare for the next case. Not a second was wasted at the Old Bailey.
James gathered his papers and made to leave the courtroom, aware of every eye in the spectators’ gallery following him. It was rare for a criminal defendant to be represented by a barrister, let alone to win against the Crown’s prosecution.
James reached the double doors when a voice stopped him.
“A word, Mr. Devlin.”
He turned and looked down into the eyes of an old woman who sat in the last row. Dressed in a gray gown with a large onyx brooch that resembled an enormous spider pinned to her shoulder, she sat stiffly on the wooden bench, her hands folded in her lap.
It can’t be, he thought.
Yet the unmistakable scent of her perfume—a cloying floral fragrance—wafted to him.
The Dowager Duchess of Blackwood.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Is that any way to greet your grandmother?”
He chuckled a dry and cynical sound. “It’s been years since I’ve seen you, so yes.”
Her expression was one of pained tolerance. “You always were rudely straightforward.”
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“I’ve come with grave news. Your father is dead.”
James stiffened. He shouldn’t care, and yet he felt a sharp jab in his gut as the knowledge twisted inside him.
Bitterness spilled over into his voice. “You needn’t have delivered the news personally, Your Grace. A note would have sufficed.”
She glanced around the courtroom, her lips tight and grim, before returning to look at him. “We need to speak privately. Is there a quiet place in this circus?”
James regarded her with a speculative gaze. There was a client consultation room, but damned if he would cloister himself in the small room with her until he knew what she was after.
“Is that necessary?” he asked.
“My carriage then?”
The consultation room suddenly held more appeal. He could walk away when he chose. “Follow me.” He inclined his head, and she stood to her full height of five feet.
She was a formidable woman, with noble bloodlines and the bearing of a queen. With her shrewd eyes, her steel-gray hair pulled back in a tight bun, and the ramrod posture of a British brigadier, James had witnessed both debutantes and titled lords cowering at her aura of respectability and propriety.
They walked side by side out of the courtroom, James’s tall frame towering beside hers. The hallway of the Old Bailey was bustling with activity, barristers dressed in black gowns ushering witnesses to and from courtrooms. Clerks carrying stacks of briefs and litigation documents scurried to their assigned judge’s chambers.
Halfway down the hall James stopped before a door with a brass nameplate labeled CLIENT CONSULTATION. He opened the door and held it as the dowager duchess marched inside.
The room was lined with bookshelves containing well-used law books. A battered desk sat in a corner and wooden chairs occupied the rest of the space. Unlike the crowded, overheated courtroom ripe with the odor of unwashed bodies, the air in the small consultation room was stale and dusty. She glanced at her surroundings with haughty distaste before choosing a chair. James seated himself opposite her.
“Is there not a cushioned chair in this place?” she asked.
He ignored her and took off his barrister’s wig. He ran his fingers through his dark hair and exhaled before looking in her indigo-blue eyes, the exact shade of his own. “What is so imperative that you visit me in person and request to speak privately?”
“I told you, your father is dead.”
“And I’m sorry for that, Your Grace. I assume my half brother, Gregory, is busy dealing with the responsibilities of inheriting the dukedom.”
“Gregory is not the new duke.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“You are the new Duke of Blackwood.”
For a heart-stopping moment he stared and wondered if he had heard her correctly. Then the truth dawned, and he laughed bitterly. “What joke do you play?”
“This is no joke.”
“May I remind you, Your Grace, that I am a bastard by birth.”
Her aristocratic nose rose an inch higher—a feat he would have previously believed impossible—at his choice of words. “So we had all believed. But circumstances have come to