Chapter Four

Lady Davina Hasket’s Guide to Whiskey and Fairy Cakes

Hart and Summers, Solicitors, London—October 28, 1815

Davina

Xander half shoved me through the door of Hart and Summers, Solicitors, nearly breaking the little bell above the door when it was slammed between the door and the frame. I shot him a glare for the manhandling.

Every single clerk lining both walls turned their gaze to us. Clearly there was a dearth of ladies visiting the offices. 

“Straight back,” Xander commanded, and I strolled there with as little haste as I could muster. 

The commotion drew Will from his office. It had been more than a decade since I set eyes on him, and his eyes were still distractingly pretty. Especially behind the spectacles. 

“Kit—Mr. Summers isn’t in today. You’re stuck with me, unfortunately,” he said, waving us into his office instead of the one Xander instructed. 

I slipped in before Xander and took a seat in the chair nearest the window.

“Do you want a pastry? They’re from Hudson’s,” Will offered. 

“The tarts or the fairy cakes?” I asked.

“The tarts.”

“What flavors?”

“No, Davina,” Xander interrupted, then slammed the door behind him. He turned to Will, feigning calm. “Is Mr. Summers due back tomorrow? While Davina’s latest… situation is pressing, it could wait a day or two.”

Will settled behind his desk across from us and slipped his glasses off his nose. He had matured and filled out a bit in the missing years. “I’m not certain when Mr. Summers will return. He is visiting family in Lincolnshire for the time being.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Davina!” Xander snapped. 

“There was a death in the family, and he’s gone to support his mother.”

“Who passed?”

“Davina!”

“Xander!” I bit back, full of mocking. 

“His father,” Will interrupted, trying to foster peace. “Given the uncertain duration of his stay, I think it best if I handle whatever brought you in.”

Xander sighed, head hinging back. “Davina somehow managed to invest in a distillery.”

“Oh… And you wish to get her out of the agreement? That should be—”

“No,” I insisted loudly over Xander’s “Yes.”

I forged ahead. “But I’ve made money!” 

“Out of curiosity, how much money?” Will asked. 

“Fifteen hundred pounds,” I replied proudly.

He blinked once, twice, then stood and slipped from the room. 

“Look what you did,” Xander sniped.

Not a second later, Will returned with a tart in hand and another few on a plate. “This conversation couldn’t be worsened by the addition of tarts.”

I plucked a red one from the plate. The sharp yet sweet bite of raspberry burst over my tongue. 

Xander huffed a moment longer before taking a massive bite out of a lemon one with an appreciative groan. 

“Are they refusing to pay?” Will asked between bites.

“Xander won’t even let me ask them to,” I said, picking off a bit of the crust and popping it in my mouth. 

“They are pirates!” Xander retorted. 

Will gasped and immediately descended into a coughing fit. 

“Lady pirates,” I added between Will’s coughs. 

“There’s no such thing as lady pirates,” Xander insisted. 

“Well,” cough, “actually,” cough, cough. 

“There are lady pirates?” Xander asked, surprise written in his overgrown brows. 

“I told you!”

“I learned of a few when we crossed the channel. Could have been restless soldiers, but I heard it from more than one,” Will croaked. 

“Anne and Grace wouldn’t lie to me!”

Just then, we were interrupted by a sad jangle above the door. Xander hadn’t completely destroyed the bell it seemed. 

“I beg your pardon,” Will said as he stood, “I just need to let them know to come back tomorrow. This is… I suspect I’ll need to devote my day to it.” 

He stepped into the main room but before he could call out, I heard a familiar soft baritone. “Will, why is the Rosehill carriage out front?”

I spun around in my chair, trying to catch a glimpse out of the door. “Kit—Lord Leighton, I mean. What are you doing back so soon?”

Lord Leighton? My head tripped on the address.

The conversation danced ahead before I could make sense of it.

“Not you too. It’s still Kit. And Mother all but tossed me out the door before the weather turns. Lizzie has her in hand. It seems the process is just to hand Mother a grandchild to cuddle and the lost look leaves her eyes. And I am, as Mother put it, tragically bereft of grandchildren. What is the carriage doing out front?”

“You smell like the road. Go home. I can manage this.”

“Is it Lady Davina?”

“Kit…”

“Lady Davina’s mischief is mine to sort. Has been from the first.”

“But, Kit, you’re a lo—”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence. I don’t want it.” I could actually hear the frown in his voice, but I couldn’t understand its meaning. 

“All right, we can discuss it later. I still think you should let me handle this.”

“Is Rosehill in your office?”

“Yes.”

“Fine, I’ll set my things in my office and meet you there.”

“Bring an extra chair.”

Mr. Summers merely grunted in response.

Will returned, followed shortly by Mr. Summers carrying a chair. He released a startled, “Oh,” at the sight of me before settling in against the wall. 

“I am so sorry for your loss, Mr. Summers,” Xander said. “Are you sure that you—”

“Want to be working? Yes. Now what has Lady Davina done today?”

“I haven’t done a—” 

“Invested in a distillery run by pirates,” Xander said overtop me.

Mr. Summers blinked slowly, shaking his head before dragging a hand across his face. “Well, I cannot say I would have guessed that. You do like to make things interesting, don’t you?” he asked me. 

“They are very nice pirates,” I explained.

“I need a tart,” he replied, then stood to select one. “No chocolate?” 

“You know those are the first to disappear. If I’d known you were returning, I would have saved one.”

“It’s fine, you can get me two in the morning. And one of those little cake things,” Mr. Summers said and grabbed an apple tart instead. 

“If you’re back, it’s your turn to get them. Get as many as you wish, but we’re not paying for the little cake things,” Will said.

“But I’m grieving.”

Will sighed and finished his own tart. “If you sort out the pirate investment mess, I’ll pick you up two of the little cake things tomorrow.”

“Chocolate?”

“Fine.”

“Done. From the beginning, what happened?” Mr. Summers asked. 

“Cee invited me to Lady Russell’s salon with her. Mary and Grace were there—”

“Celine took you to a salon?” Xander demanded. 

“Do you want the story or do you not?” My brother made an irritated continue-on gesture. “Anne and Grace were there and they were showing us some of the art they… found. And then they got to talking about how they have their own ships, and the men work for them. They were trying to be seen as legitimate so they were opening a distillery, but it would be like the ship where the men worked for them. And so I gave them some of my pin money to help them out.”

“And they are now refusing to pay?” Mr. Summers asked.

“Not at all! They sent a note letting me know what they owe. I can stop by at any time to collect it.”

“Then what, precisely, is the problem?” 

“Xander won’t let me go.”

“You gave them your real name! If word got out that you were associating with pirates… Davina, you could be hanged!” Xander insisted, again.

“I’m not going to—” 

“The solution is simple,” Mr. Summers interrupted. “This Anne and Grace want to be seen as legitimate. We simply request your payout and ask that your name be changed in their records. We let them know that if they leave your identity unchanged then we’ll be forced to report such a forgery to the authorities. They’ve almost certainly funded this venture with ill-gotten gains that the crown would love to recover. And whoever is acting as their solicitor is likely crooked as well. We’re the only legitimate office in town that will work with women. Something is undoubtedly wrong with their books that could get the entire venture shut down.”

“Kit—” Will started.

“What? Did I miss something obvious?”

“No, it’s certainly a better plan than I would have managed,” Will said.

“I’ve found the threat of reciprocal havoc”—he shot a brief look at me—“to be an excellent motivator for anyone with sense. If there are no objections, I can visit the distillery first thing in the morning.”

Xander stared at Mr. Summers, mouth hinged open before he shook himself back into his body. 

“What time?” I asked.

“I’m not certain. But it’s no concern to you because you will not be coming with me.”

I raised a brow. “Do you suppose they’ll hand the money over to you with nothing but your word?”

He glanced to Xander.

“You don’t need his permission. You need mine,” I insisted. 

“Sort it out, I’m too tired to worry about it. Just try to leave her reputation as close to the soiled-and-tattered-but-intact state that it is at present,” Xander said. 

Mr. Summers sighed. “Fine. Wear your plainest dress and bonnet. Borrow one if you have to. None of this shiny blue fabric and expensive lace.” He waved vaguely over the entirety of my person. “And simple hair—no fancy knots and curls. We’ll leave when you arrive. By foot.”

Though I was vaguely insulted by his clear distaste for one of my favorite walking dresses, I nodded. 

“Good. Do you like those little cake things from Hudson’s?”

“The lavender ones.”

He turned to Will. “You heard the lady. A chocolate one and a lavender one tomorrow.”

“You can go back to Lincolnshire now,” Will replied with a grin as he grabbed a scrap of parchment to write down the request.

“Well, gentlemen, we will be going,” Xander said, tone clipped. “I find myself with a sudden desire to visit Celine this afternoon.” He gripped my elbow a little tighter than was proper and rushed me out of the offices, grinding his teeth the entire way.

* * *

Kit

The next morning found me interrogating Will. “What about the Gregerson dispute?”

“Finished that one as well,” Will relayed, seemingly unaware of my desperate search for an occupation other than ruminating on my father’s death. “They settled.”

“The Smythes?”

“Finished.”

“Masons?”

He grinned up at me from his perch against the edge of the desk and I wanted to throttle him. 

Dimly, I heard the chime of the bell. Bates, most likely. 

“Have you left me anything, anything at all to do?”

“Lady Davina is all yours.”

He didn’t mean it that way. Will would never disrespect a client, even one so difficult as Lady Davina Hasket. But my instinctive snap of denial never came. 

“Anything else?”

Will apparently placed little value on his life. He hesitated before forging ahead anyway. Soldiers had no sense of self preservation. “Kit… It doesn’t need to be now. But we need to have a conversation about this. Your circumstances have changed.”

“Christ, Will. There is nothing to discuss.”

“You’re a lord now, there is everything to discuss. Your responsibilities have changed.”

“Don’t— ‘m not anymore of a lord today than I was before he died. I’m a solicitor!”

“I beg your pardon,” a delicate, feminine lilt interrupted. 

I knew her instinctively. There was no moment where I was unsure of her identity. But somehow, when I turned to look at her, she was entirely different. Lady Davina was a beautiful woman. That had never been in doubt. It was a fact: I was short, Will needed spectacles, Lady Davina was exquisite. It was an untouchable loveliness. Like belladonna, she existed to be seen, admired, never touched. 

But today, bathed in the morning sun, wrapped in a simple peach frock, she was the very picture of loveliness. Per my instructions, she had forgone the face-framing ringlets and elaborate twists in favor of tying her hair in a simple knot. With her curls pulled back, her eyes were impossible to ignore. They seemed wider, bigger, brighter. Her lips seemed softer and fuller than I’d ever noticed, and heart-shaped, like her face. Free from the tangles of ribbon and lace, her graceful curves were all the more apparent. 

“Have you finished your blaspheming? We have reciprocal havoc to threaten.” 

Will broke in, covering for my astonished gaping. “I apologize, Lady Davina, please forgive our crass language.”

Eyes that seemed more hazel than the brown I’d thought they were flicked to Will dismissively, then back to me.

“I grew up with Gabriel just like you, Will. I’ve heard worse.”

“I… sorry,” I mumbled. After clearing my throat, I tried again, more successfully.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“I—yes. Do you want your cake thing?”

“I didn’t see it over there,” she replied.

“I hid it from the others. It’s in my office.”

“After is fine. A celebratory ‘little cake thing,’” she said with a pleased sort of grin. 

For the first time since Will told me of Father’s death, the corner of my lip twitched in the familiar sensation of something that could have become a smile. “All right, you can mock my vocabulary on the way.”

She snatched a plain straw bonnet off one of the clerks’ desks and we set off, passing a pacing Rosehill with a wave. The walk was just over a mile but the day was fine. 

We strolled in silence for a few moments before I broke. “Go on then, I can feel your thoughts from here.”

“Fairy cakes,” she said, with a prim expression.

“How is ‘fairy cake’ any less absurd than ‘little cake thing’?”

“Fair point.”

“It’s not what you wanted to ask about though,” I said, bracing myself for the question. 

“I’m all yours?” she asked, shocking me still. That shouldn’t have sounded as nice as it did. 

It was the dress—the dress and the hair and the eyes. The lips, too, that did it. She was too approachable, too real. Once she was back in her feathers and jewels, she would be as untouchable as ever. 

“He just meant that I assist when your adventures cause havoc.”

“My adventures never cause havoc,” she insisted, failing to keep the smile from her eyes. 

“You’re absolutely correct. You are the havoc.”

She made a humph sound but didn’t protest. 

“Will you promise me to cause as little chaos as you are capable of?”

Her head tipped back beneath her bonnet as she scrutinized me. She pressed her lips together before replying, “I suppose. But only for today.”

“I appreciate that.”

We approached the unadorned distillery, smoke billowing from the stacks that towered over stone walls. Without warning, and before I could stop her, she yanked the heavy door open and slipped inside as if she owned it. Which, upon further consideration, I realized she did. 

* * *

Davina

Twenty minutes later and two thousand pounds richer due to Mr. Summer’s negotiation skills, I caught him biting his lower lip in an effort to suppress the self-satisfied curl to his mouth as he guided me from the room. 

He made to pull me out of the distillery, but I tugged on his elbow instead and dragged him toward the attached tavern. 

“Lady Davina…” he whispered plaintively. 

“There was no chaos to be had. I cannot, in good conscience, allow you to return to the offices so unrumpled after a morning with me. It would ruin my reputation.”

He allowed me to tug him, straightening his leg every few steps in token protest so I knew he wasn’t going along too willingly. 

“Two whiskeys,” I asked the barmaid, then dropped a new shilling on the counter overtop Mr. Summers’ protests. 

Mr. Summers clambered onto the stool beside me, muttering, “Your brother will actually see me hanged for this, you know.”

I slipped my bonnet off and set it on the bar. Then I leaned toward him and whispered, “We’ll tell him the pirates made us.”

The barmaid settled two glasses in front of us, the contents the color of worn hickory. 

I turned to face him, watching as he examined the drink contemplatively. He held it up to the light before taking a tentative sniff. 

“It’s not poisoned.”

His eyes met mine over the glass as he took his first sip. They were the same shade as the whiskey. The lashes were long and just a touch darker.

He swallowed, throat bobbing just beneath his cravat with the effort. 

“It’s good,” he rumbled. “Very good, in fact.”

“I’m glad you like it,” I said, then took a sip of my own. Usually, the first sip warmed me all the way down to my stomach, where it settled like the last dying embers of a fire. But today my belly was already warm like that. Probably the fumes. 

“Is whiskey your preferred drink?” I asked.

“My father drank whiskey. I’ve been drinking scotch or port for years. Whatever made me seem more impressive.”

I hesitated for only a moment before following my usual instinct to do exactly as I pleased the second it pleased me. “Will mentioned… I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” he said between sips. “Do you know the worst part?”

I was tempted to mention that I hadn’t had that sort of relationship with my own father—his death impacted me very little. But by some good sense I wasn’t aware I possessed, I refrained. 

“I cannot even be sad about it. I’m too busy trying not to think about the rest of it.”

“Rest of what?” I asked, suspicion tight in my chest.

“You know. You heard Will this morning.”

“You inherited a title,” I finished. 

“Right in one. One morning I woke a solicitor. Everyone in the entire world would have agreed. I’ve worked my entire adult life to be a solicitor. But then a fortnight ago… suddenly people keep trying to tell me I’m a lord.” 

“How—”

“Phaeton accident. My uncle, cousin, and father were gone in one instant.” He took a heavy sip, finished the glass, and raised an index finger to the barmaid for another. I kindly let him pay for that one.

“Now Will thinks I should quit and run off to be a lord. Katie too. Don’t know the first thing about being a lord. I’ve only ever learned the law.”

“Well, from what I’ve seen, lording isn’t particularly difficult. It’s mostly wagers and gaming, with the occasional drunken row,” I supplied. 

“I know some people dream of precisely this. Of waking up one morning and discovering they’re wealthy and titled. But I dreamed smaller—a good profession, loving wife, a couple of little ones.”

“And now, every door that anyone could possibly desire is open to you... Except the one you want.”

“Precisely,” he said. 

“Have you considered what you’re going to do?”

“I’ve done nothing but consider it. Can’t sleep for thinking on it. I was desperate for anything else to think about. I suppose I should thank you for the distraction.”

“Any time,” I teased, nudging his shoulder with my own. The whiskey had finally settled in my core, burning hotter than it usually did. 

“Why do you do it?”

“Cause mischief?”

He nodded. “Your reputation—”

“Means nothing to me. It doesn’t buy friends. My mother’s reputation is spotless. But still they whisper cruel things behind their hands about her eccentricities.”

“But surely you want to find a good husband.”

For the first time in my life, I wanted to confess, to explain it all. Perhaps it was Mr. Summers’ own honesty, or maybe the whiskey was responsible. Instead, I replied with a grin, “Not at all.”

His frown etched a bit deeper before he finished his drink and set the empty glass on the bar with a thunk. 

“Finish your drink. Before your brother comes after me, dueling pistol in hand.”

“Xander doesn’t know how to shoot,” I said, tipping the last of it back. 

“If you think he wouldn’t learn for you, then you’re dimmer than I credited you for,” he said, then grabbed my hand in his and pulled me along through the distillery and back onto the London streets.

On the pavement, he handed me into a more proper strolling position, tucked a respectful distance away from his side. The minutes ticked by until the law offices were in sight. 

“Mr. Summers?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Helping me receive my investment funds. For not making me give it up.” 

He glanced down at me, a question on his brow. “You’re my client,” he said simply. As if that explained it all. And perhaps it did.

Xander was still pacing outside the offices, but now he had a pastry. His steps slowed when he saw us entirely unharmed. 

“That better not be my little cake thing,” I called to him.

“It’s not. Will said Mr. Summers used very creative threats should your little cake thing be stolen.”

“You did?” I asked, turning toward him.

“It’s yours.”

“Where’s your bonnet?” Xander asked when we reached him. 

Mr. Summers’ eyes widened, and I realized precisely where the bonnet was. 

“The pirates liked it,” I said after a beat, loud enough to make Xander squeak and glance around for familiar faces. 

I heard a chuckle beside me and Mr. Summers handed me to Xander. “Wait a minute. I’ll fetch your little fairy cake thing.”

“Good lord, you smell like a distillery,” Xander hissed over the jangle of the bell as Mr. Summers stepped inside.

“I wonder why?”

One of the clerks scurried out a moment later, a box with the little fairy cake thing inside. He handed it off without a word while Xander bundled me into the carriage. 

I tucked in as we set off, the delicate lavender flavor settling in my stomach just as warm as the whiskey.