The boss was Doris Duke, the deeply suspicious, desperately unhappy tobacco heiress who died last year. The public-relations executive, Lloyd Kaplan, said Mr. Lafferty was "indisputably" the most important person in her life. For that, Mr. Lafferty is now richer by at least $500,000 a year; she left him a lifetime annuity. She also put him in a position of considerable power, naming him an executor of her estate and placing him in charge of various nonprofit foundations she set up to channel her money to activities and causes she cared about. For that, he is to receive a separate lump-sum payment of $5 million.
An Unknown to the Family
But to her relatives and to many officials in the usually close-knit, gossipy world of nonprofit organizations -- who sooner or later may seek grants from the foundations he now controls -- the 48-year-old Mr. Lafferty remains largely a mystery.
"I never met him," said Newton Duke Angier, the president of the Duke family's foundation and a cousin of Miss Duke. "I don't know anybody in the family who has."
Another of Miss Duke's cousins, Angier Biddle Duke, the former Ambassador to Spain, Denmark and Morocco, said that he had never met Mr. Lafferty either. "But when Doris died, he called me and told me," Mr. Duke said, calling him "a very courteous Irish gentleman." Miss Duke left $10 million to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but Mr. Lafferty is not a familiar face there. "He was here but once, and briefly," said Harold Holzer, a spokesman for the museum. "You can add us to the list of people who don't know him."
Toughness Under the Gentility
But one who does says that Mr. Lafferty's mild manner masks a street-smart toughness.
"We've talked a lot about lawsuits" since Miss Duke's death, said Alexander F. Pacheco, the chairman of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. "We've both been in a bunch or are in them, and he's right on the ball. We joke about our crazy experiences with courts. That's where I got the inkling he wasn't having wool pulled over his eyes."
Mr. Lafferty's latest experience with courts will be played out in Manhattan, where Chandi Heffner, the 40-year-old woman Miss Duke adopted as a daughter in the 1980's, is trying to block approval of the will that divides up Miss Duke's $1.2 billion estate. That will leave Ms. Heffner nothing, which may be why, in papers filed in Surrogates' Court earlier this month, Ms. Heffner accused Mr. Lafferty of turning Miss Duke against her. Ms. Heffner alleged that Mr. Lafferty used "fraud, duress and undue influence" to persuade Miss Duke, who was 80 when she died Oct. 28, to disinherit her. Ms. Heffner also maintained that Miss Duke "was not of sound mind and memory" when she signed the will, dated April 5. Referring to Ms. Heffner, Miss Duke wrote on the next-to-last page of the will, "I do not wish her to benefit from the estate."
The Duke estate has denied Ms. Heffner's allegations. No date has been set for a hearing.
'He Couldn't Be Nicer'
Some of Miss Duke's longtime acquaintances knew she was close to Mr. Lafferty, but until the will was made public, they did not realize how close. Richard Banks, an artist who knew Miss Duke in Newport, R.I., remembers Mr. Lafferty as the man who gave her "a pretty page-boy hairdo" and supervised her daily exercise routine. "It was a big surprise when I read that he'd been left so much," Mr. Banks said. "He couldn't be nicer, but I don't think anybody realized he'd be the head of the shooting match. He came across as a reticent butler, and I don't mean that in a damning way."
Bob Magoon, a neighbor of Miss Duke's in Hawaii, said many of her friends looked on Mr. Lafferty as just a servant, and in fact he sometimes did serve meals. But Mr. Magoon said Mr. Lafferty functioned as a protector and guardian, and made things run smoothly in the far-flung Duke empire, which began with her father and his holdings in the American Tobacco Company.
'He's Built of Joy'
"Someone gave him a funny uniform once," Mr. Magoon said, "a crazy butler's uniform, with some medals. He'd put this on and come out and we'd laugh and laugh. He's built of joy."
Stephanie Mansfield, the author of "The Richest Girl in the World" (G.P. Putnam's Sons), a biography of Miss Duke, said his concern for his employer appeared genuine. "He was not in it for the money," Ms. Mansfield said. "He's not materialistic. Bernard didn't have a life beyond Doris, and she showed him a side of herself to him that she showed to few others, that was warm, funny and loving." She added, "I think he dealt with problems Doris didn't want to deal with."
Mr. Lafferty refused repeated requests for an interview. "My duty to Miss Duke is to maintain her privacy, even though she is gone," he said in a statement released by the Howard J. Rubenstein public-relations firm last month. This month, he hired a new public-relations firm, Chen Sam and Associates, which is headed by the Egyptian-born spokeswoman whose best known client has long been Elizabeth Taylor. Miss Sam also handled some of the logistics for Donald Trump's wedding to Marla Maples in December. Miss Sam's first order of business for Mr. Lafferty, after refusing another request for an interview, was to deny the details pertaining to Mr. Lafferty in a recent Vanity Fair magazine article about Miss Duke. A brief biography from the Rubenstein firm said Mr. Lafferty was born in County Donegal in Ireland in 1945, orphaned as a teen-ager, and immigrated to the United States "over 20 years ago."
"Initially," it said, "he worked in the hotel/restaurant industry. Later, he held various positions in the entertainment industry, including a stint as Peggy Lee's road manager." Mr. Kaplan said he worked for the singer in the "early to mid-80's." Miss Lee described him as a kind and caring employee.