AT six o’clock in the dim morning, a wan, mid-March sunrise crawled over the crowded buildings of London outside Genevieve Ward’s office window. Her laptop hung off one side of her tiny desk, about the size of a TV tray, and one desk leg wobbled when she typed. Her coffee cup perched on a stack of law books beside her.
Bins of paperwork crowded the walls of the office because some solicitors insisted on sending over paper copies of documents even though Serle’s Court Barristers’ electronic document system was top-notch.
She was studying the court documents and other briefs that formed the convoluted case for her client, Arthur Finch-Hatten.
Ah, Arthur.
The sultry-hot, eye-poppingly ripped, outlandishly wealthy, very British nobleman, Arthur Finch-Hatten, the Earl of Severn.
The one who, when he took off his tailored suit, was inked with red and blue watercolor tattoos all over his strong, muscular back and shoulders.
The one who had a fetish for a woman sitting naked at his feet while he fed her sugared strawberries and champagne.
The one who had bought what must be thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of dresses for Gen so she could attend charity events with him.
The one who was Gen’s client.
The one whom she was definitely involved with, despite the fact that she was his lawyer and would get hauled before the Bar Council for an ethics violation if anyone found out about them.
And the one who would lose everything, absolutely everything, if she lost his case.
His money.
His private airplane.
His London penthouse apartment.
His ancestral home, Spencer House, the five-centuries-old Tudor manor house that was stuffed with an incredible art collection.
Arthur might even lose his Jack Russell Terrier, Ruckus.
Gen reached down and scratched the dog, who was lying on her feet under her desk. He rolled over on his back. His white tail wagged limply, and his dark eyes closed.
Surely Arthur would be allowed to keep the dog. Ruckus had been a gift from a friend of Arthur’s, not purchased with the estate’s money. Gen had filed a notice to that effect.
The case wasn’t even going to be tried in a proper British court. Arthur had called up a friend of his—a friend with a single-digit succession number for the throne of Great Britain—and due to an obscure law, gotten the case assigned to a committee in the House of Lords.
So absolutely anything could happen at the hearing. It wouldn’t be an orderly trial with a judge and jury, but a committee hearing where anyone could ask questions, even committee members with absolutely no law education.
Gen got busy making sure every single, solitary word in the Finch-Hatten brief was perfect.
Because she had to save Arthur.
Throwing It to the House of Lords
A few hours later, both Gen and Arthur were, predictably, seated in hard-back chairs in front of Octavia Hawkes’s desk. Octavia was Gen’s boss during her year-long pupillage, or internship, and Octavia’s imposing altar of a desk was commensurate with her status as a senior barrister in a prestigious London law firm. Morning sunlight streamed through the wide, clean windows across one wall.
Octavia was glowering at them, her red lips condensed down to a red dot of anger. Her forehead and eyes didn’t move, of course. Botox, fillers, and the occasional use of a scalpel on her face prevented that. She might have been anywhere from thirty-five to sixty years old, and she would never tell which.
She did demand, “Have you two lost the plot?”
Gen paused, trying to remember whether any of her cases had been about land purchases.
Arthur leaned toward her. “She’s asking if we’ve lost our minds.”
“Oh.” Gen was prepared for that question. “A jury is just as unpredictable as any committee in the House of Lords,” Gen started.
“We must resolve this case sooner than November,” Arthur added, “much sooner. The Committee for Privileges and Conduct can hear this case quickly, perhaps within the month, certainly by the end of spring.”
“And we’re all ready to go, case-wise. Everything has been written for months, if not years, and is ready for submission,” Gen said.
He said, “We need the element of surprise.”
“Surprises are never good news in legal cases,” Octavia said. “I’m not Atticus fucking Finch, and neither are you, Genevieve. We want a nice, orderly trial. Arthur would do best with standard procedure. I don’t know how Buckingham Palace even discovered your case, let alone took it upon themselves to intervene.”
“I can’t imagine,” Arthur said.
Gen looked over at him, but he was calmly regarding Octavia as if he had