her youngest offspring as he sauntered down Lombard Street. Born and bred a gentleman, Julian, the handsomest of her three children, was dressed like a common clerk, in black trousers, black coat, and a truly unforgivable hat. Naturally, he wore no gloves. As he sauntered, he alternately ate of the hot cross bun he held in one hand and drank from the small amber-colored bottle he held with the other.
Unaware that his primitive habits were being remarked, Julian ran briskly up the steps of No. 32, a ramshackle, semidetached house immediately next to a storefront window emblazoned with the pawnbroker’s device of three golden balls. The young man licked his fingers, knocked on the door, and was admitted, bottle in hand.
Paralyzed by strong disgust, his mother could only stare.
“Hurry, Mama!” said the other lady seated in the closed carriage. “He’s getting away!”
“Really, Perdita,” Lady Devize murmured repressively, removing her index finger from the divide in the curtains. “Was that remark intended to be humorous?”
She spoke to her only daughter as if the latter were still a girl of sixteen fresh from the schoolroom. In fact, Perdita, Lady Cheviot, was thirty-six years of age, married, with seven children. Unlike her mother, Perdita had allowed herself to grow a trifle plump over the years, but she was still a handsome woman, with the rich, chestnut hair and brilliant blue eyes she had inherited from her rail-thin mother. “What if he won’t come out, Mama?” she suggested mischievously. “Will you go in and get him, or shall I?”
Life had dealt Lady Devize too many cruel blows for her to see anything humorous in life, her youngest son being the cruelest blow of all. With his good looks and razor-sharp intellect (both inherited from the baroness, of course), Julian might have made a brilliant marriage, but, instead, at twenty-five, he was content to turn his back on Society and eke out an existence among the middle classes. The baroness rounded on her daughter with a vengeance.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Perdita,” she snapped. “His man will give him my note, and your brother will join us presently.”
The baroness proved correct. In just a few moments, the young man who had gone into No. 32 came out again. He had lost his amber bottle, but he was still wearing the unforgivable hat. Perdita recklessly threw open the window. “Julian! Over here!”
“For heaven’s sake, Perdita!” the baroness hissed. “Someone might see you!”
“No one knows us in this part of London, Mama,” Perdita answered. “No one we know would be caught dead in the City. Apart from Julian, of course.”
“Quite,” said the baroness coldly as a knock sounded on the door. “Enter!”
Julian opened the door, climbed inside the carriage, and sat next to Perdita. His hat—and Lady Devize had an excellent view of it as he leaned forward to close the door—was even worse than she had thought. In fact, it was execrable.
“Where on earth did you get that hat?” Perdita exclaimed.
“I bought it,” Julian replied. His brilliant blue eyes, rendered breathtaking by the sunlight, were fixed on his mother, and her brilliant blue eyes were fixed on him. Although there was no love lost between them, the family resemblance could not be denied. “If it offends you, I will remove it.” So saying, he took off his hat and balanced it on his knee.
The baroness closed her eyes in shame. Her son had one of those horrible close-cropped haircuts that men who do not keep creditable valets are forced to get from barbers.
“It doesn’t look like you bought it,” Perdita said frankly. “It rather looks like you stole it from the family of mice that were nesting in it. What did you do with the poor mice?”
“It’s not as bad as that,” said Julian, smiling faintly.
“I was trying to be kind,” said Perdita.
“Aren’t you going to greet your mother?” Lady Devize demanded, exasperated.
“My lady,” he said politely. “What brings you to the City?”
The baroness did not reply. “Portland Place,” she called sharply to the driver, and the closed carriage began to move, traveling northwest along Lombard Street.
Julian frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t have time to go for a drive with you just now, madam. I work for a living, as you know.”
“My son, the stockjobber,” said the baroness, drenching those four simple words in oceans of icy contempt.
“At your ladyship’s service,” Julian replied. “Are you buying or selling?”
As the baroness choked on her own fury, Perdita caught Julian’s arm. “It’s Papa,” she said quietly. “He’s very ill, Julian. They don’t seem to expect him to live much longer.”
All traces of mockery disappeared from the young man’s face.
“I see,” he said quietly. “Of course I’ll come.”
His mother sniffed. “By all means! Visit your father on his deathbed—if you wish to hasten his demise, that is. The sight of you would surely kill him on the spot.”
“Mama! No!” Perdita cried, horrified.
“Naturally, I have no wish to commit patricide,” Julian said stiffly. “I will, of course, absent myself from the touching family scene. But why take me to Portland Place?”
“Your father wants to see your brother, his heir, before he dies,” Lady Devize explained.
Perdita said quickly, “Alex is in a—a house, Julian, and we need you to get him out.”
“Have you tried knocking on the door?” Julian inquired politely.
“Your brother is in a bawdyhouse,” said the baroness impatiently. “We couldn’t possibly knock on that door.”
“And we can’t send a servant, either,” said Perdita, anticipating Julian’s next suggestion. “What if he’s drunk? What if he won’t come out? What if he creates a disturbance? There would be a dreadful scandal! And how would it look if Papa actually died while his heir was creating a disturbance in a brothel?”
Julian sighed. “Where is the house?”
“Portland Place!” the baroness said indignantly.
“Portland Place?” Julian repeated, chuckling. “Isn’t that where you live, madam?”
Lady Devize drew herself up. “I am at the top of Portland Place,” she informed him icily. “Mrs Dean’s…establishment…is at the bottom of Portland Place. Thus far, she has managed to elude detection. To coin a phrase: The law is an ass.”
“So you left your house at the top of Portland Place. You drove all the way out to Lombard Street to fetch me. And now we are on our way to the bottom of Portland Place?”
Julian was almost smiling; it was so ridiculous.
“I’m sorry to have taken you away from your labors on the Exchange,” Lady Devize said nastily, “but the matter could not be delayed if we are to
