David Wakefield

David Wakefield is a thief taker, though he prefers the term ‘enquiry agent.’

He is Haverford’s son by the daughter of a man who manages one of Haverford’s mines in Wales. Haverford amused himself with her while staying at his estate in Wales one summer, before his marriage to Eleanor. After the summer was over, he returned her to her father with a bag of money which, he said, was his sole and final payment for the child she was carrying.

The mine manager was too afraid of Haverford to get rid of his daughter and the son she gave birth to, but he resented them. He made his daughter’s life miserable, but she was able to largely protect her son by keeping him out of his grandfather’s way.

When she discovered that she was dying, she dared to approach the Duchess of Haverford, during one of her visits to the estate in Wales. Eleanor Haverford met David, and agreed to take care of him, but he refused to leave his mother. Eleanor left David with money to travel to London when the time came.

After his daughter’s death, the mine manager found and took the money. He wanted David to stay on and take his mother’s place as the mine manager’s skivvy and the butt of the man’s anger. David ran away and made his way to London, working at odd jobs to pay for keep and rides.

He lived with the duchess and her two sons for five years. The following quote is from Revealed in Mist.

He must have been seventeen or eighteen on the last occasion, staying at Haverford Castle in Kent between the end of the school term and his first term at university. The Duke of Haverford’s son and heir, the Marquis of Aldridge, would have been twelve. The day had begun happily enough with the boy tagging along while David went out after small game with a gun. It had ended with David beaten and driven from the property.

Aldridge had tripped and knocked himself out, and Haverford, finding David leaning over his unconscious heir, had not waited for explanations.