Heiress for Hire (Duke's Heiress #1) - Madeline Hunter Page 0,8

among the grooms. Learn what you can.”

“I’ll offer my services for spots of work if they have it. Most stables need extra at times, and the ones near here will give me references if I need them.”

And with that, Hepplewhite’s Office of Discreet Inquiries launched its first investigation.

* * *

Three days after meeting with Peel, Chase dismounted outside Whiteford House while a groom took the horse’s reins.

“You are new here,” he said, watching how the young man handled the animal.

“I started two days ago, sir.” Tall and blond, the fellow flushed from the attention. “I’ll brush him down if you like.”

“I won’t be here long enough.” It impressed him that the offer had been made. His cousin Nicholas had hired well, it seemed. There must be a host of new servants, now that the old retainers had taken their legacies as pensions.

Chase approached the door of Whiteford House. One of the oldest houses on Park Lane, it nestled amidst trees at the northern end of the street. Built as a country villa when this area was still mostly rural, and the nearby western section of Oxford Street was still called Tyburn, it sported extensive gardens. The last duke had bought the property on a whim, mostly to keep a rival from tearing it down and developing the land.

He looked up the old façade, said to have been designed by Inigo Jones. It bore the stamp of classicism that the architect had imported to England, and showed similarities to the Banqueting House in its exterior decoration. The interior had not fared as well. The last duke had a strong eccentric streak, and it manifested itself as soon as Chase walked in the reception hall.

No classical restraint here, at least not in the furnishings. The accumulation of a lifetime cluttered the walls and corners. Exotic skins and weapons mixed with gilded metal. Jewel-toned upholstery contrasted with pastel walls. He wondered what Nicholas planned to do with all of this now that he had inherited the property.

Since Nicholas was now a duke, Chase had to suffer the formalities of having his card taken away, then being escorted up to the duke’s apartment. A mere month ago, in Nicholas’s last home, there would have been no footman to do the duties, or even many chambers to traverse. The eldest son of the last duke’s eldest brother, Nicholas’s fortunes had existed only in expectations until recently. As it happened, those expectations had not been realized quite like Nicholas had anticipated.

Chase found his cousin in the dressing room, lounging on a fine chair set near a window that overlooked the park. A ledger laid open on his lap and he frowned down at the page he perused. Whatever he read occupied him enough that he did not hear Chase enter.

Sons ran in the Radnor family, in the last generation as well as this one. The result was the last duke had five brothers, and those brothers in turn had six sons. Of all the cousins, Chase and Nicholas had formed the strongest friendship, one devoid of the bickering and arguments that marked so many of the other relationships.

The only Radnor not to sire a son had been the last duke. Uncle Frederick had never been one to conform.

“Bad news?” Chase asked.

Nicholas’s dark eyes peered up. He smiled ruefully while he closed the ledger and set it on the floor. “Terrible news.” He looked around the expansive dressing room, with its mahogany wardrobes and raw silk drapes and Chinese carpet. “Hell of a thing. By year’s end, I’ll be selling furniture to pay the bills. The rents barely bring in enough to keep up the country houses.”

“Perhaps a good land steward can change that.”

“Not fast enough.” Nicholas gestured to the ledger. “He didn’t enclose, of course. Nor did his father. A good-hearted decision, but inefficient. Now I have to decide if I will do it, and the displacement of families—” He shrugged.

“His interests were not with the lands.” Chase spoke the obvious, but it was the root of the problem.

“The other investments are doing well. Fabulously. The money pours in. Of course, he did not bequeath any of that to me, did he?” He laughed. “Or you. Or any of us. He was always a little strange, but his will was his most eccentric act yet. What a joke on all of us.”

No one had laughed at the joke when the will was read. Rather the opposite. An explosion of emotions greeted the bulk of it. Nicholas