Love and the Pursuit of Law

By C. K. Charlotte

Ivy Smythe is one of the first women admitted to practice law in England. Intelligent and independent, she hopes to work for women’s rights and defend those less fortunate. She is shocked when her law partner father insists she defend a young aristocrat accused of murdering a prostitute. The Honorable Bryan Henderson is the son of a baron and a member of the Society of Bright Young People. His privileged life of wild parties is threatened by the death of his older brother and the discovery of a corpse at his family’s estate. The last thing he needs is a lady barrister! While Bryan attempts to show Ivy who has the power in their relationship, Ivy struggles with her conflicting roles of barrister and attractive young woman. Together they experience the excitement of London’s Jazz Age and a growing attraction neither can deny.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
• Release date: May 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781509207626

Book preview

Inc.

As one of the first women called to the bar in England, she had not had time for frivolity. Actually, she had not even had time to think of it. Ivy sighed, then looked up as a quick knock preceded her father’s entry into the office. Behind him was the most beautiful human being Ivy had ever seen.

Ivy attempted to stand but knocked over her cup of tea, chipping a cup from the bone china set. Liquid spread over her copies of the Mirror. As she bent to blot it, the image of the young man before her stared up from the page.

May I be of some service, Father?

"Allow me to introduce myself, mademoiselle, the young man interrupted. The Honorable Bryan Henderson. He executed a court bow. At your service."

Please have a seat, she managed to offer, gesturing to one of the two leather club chairs facing her desk.

I prefer to stand. I cannot imagine that this will take any time at all. I have a number of matters to attend to, and I do not intend to discuss my legal concerns with a mere girl.

While Ivy fought to find civil words, he stood to his full height. Approaching her desk, he bowed, then forcefully grasped her hand and kissed it, brushing his lips against her skin.

Ivy gasped, as the kiss tingled up her arm, caressed her breasts, and wormed into the very interior of her being.

Love and the Pursuit of Law

by

C. K. Charlotte

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Love and the Pursuit of Law

COPYRIGHT © 2016 by C. K. Charlotte

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

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Cover Art by Diana Carlile

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Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

Publishing History

First Vintage Rose Edition, 2016

Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-0762-6

Published in the United States of America

Prologue

Summerbrooke, Oxfordshire, May 1925

Hurry, Tom! Robert Farmer, running through the sun dappled woods of Summerbrooke—the Oxfordshire estate of Baron Fitzgerald Henderson, yelled to his best friend Tom Payne. There’ll be hell to pay if his lordship’s gamekeeper catches us poaching.

Wait, Robert! Tom stopped before an ancient elm tree. Let’s search for birds’ nests.

Without pausing for a response, Tom clambered up into the hollow tree, then gasped out loud. Glancing down inside the elm, he had spied the empty eye sockets of a skull, staring up at him.

Whatever is it, Tom?

I—I—don’t rightly know, stammered Tom, a dead animal, maybe.

Bloody Christ, muttered Robert as he climbed up to Tom and pulled the skull from the gnarled branches. With a second curse he dropped it, for the human skull still held the remains of some hair and, just barely attached to the rotting flesh beneath the jaw, a sliver of lilac silk.

Chapter One

Smythe and Company, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London

September 1925

I will not, I simply will not, said Ivy Smythe, stomping her foot. I did not become one of the first women barristers in England to represent aristocratic scum such as Bryan Henderson.

The Honorable Bryan Henderson, my dear, her father and law partner, Edward Smythe, calmly responded. Educated at Oxford, second son and—since the untimely death of his older brother Frederick in the Great War—only heir to Baron Fitzgerald Henderson, landed gentry and member of the House of Lords. Hardly scum, as you so delicately put it.

Turning to face her father, Ivy caught sight of herself in a mirror above the mantel. She observed a petite frame drawn up to its full height, tendrils of chestnut hair escaping from a tight bun, and determined blue eyes. She crossed her arms and shook her head. No.

"Ei incumbit probation qui dicit, non qui negat, her father intoned. You cannot have forgotten the most important precept of English law, my dear."

The burden of proof is on he who declares, not on he who denies, recited Ivy. "Or, in plain English, innocent until proven guilty. But that does not mean I have to spend my time representing him. Have you forgotten the effort I expended to become a barrister? My application to become a student at Lincoln’s Inn originally refused and my ultimate acceptance coming only as a result of my petition to the House of Lords and the passing of the Sex Disqualification Removal Act of 1919? I want to campaign for women’s rights, defend the downtrodden, work for change, not represent what the newspapers incessantly refer to as one of the ‘Bright Young People.’ "

All well and good to have ideals, my dear, but campaigning for women’s rights and defending the poor will not necessarily pay for chambers, her father responded.

Ivy surveyed the legal chambers in which she stood. Her mother had died when she was very young, and she had basically grown up in these chambers beside her barrister father. Situated in Chancery Lane, Lincoln’s Inn was surrounded by a brick wall separating it from the street. As all four of London’s Inns of Court, it consisted of three squares. As Ivy and her father, many of the barristers trained at Lincoln’s Inn maintained chambers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The offices of Smythe and Company resided in the former Oldecastle House, originally constructed in 1641 as a private residence. Ivy loved the mahogany paneled walls, floor to ceiling bookshelves, brass sconces, marble fireplaces, and plush leather furniture.

She also loved her father, the challenge of learning and applying the law, and the thrill of being one of the first women in a prestigious profession. Britain and the world were changing since the Great War, and Ivy was proud to be a part of it. Large estates were breaking up, class distinctions were loosening, and women had more power and more choices. She did not want to waste her time on Bryan Henderson,