Tanner had to smile at that. As one of only five people on earth, besides Jack, who had known him before he became a duke, Jinks felt it his particular position to treat Tanner as the hungry, thieving boy he once was. God knew the banty Irishman still kept the larder well-stocked just on the off-chance of feeding him.
“What were you doing up at the hospital instead of the college?”
Jack had done well for himself, albeit with a little help from the dukedom of Fenmore, in the years since Tanner had first met him—at the rail of a Royal Navy cutter when they were both infant midshipmen.
“I wasn’t up at the hospital, but in fact up the stairs. I gave a lecture at the hospital that went late yesterday evening”—he squinted at the clock on the wall to check the time—“And didn’t want to head back to town. And you and your man Jinks here keep such an excellent cellar.”
“And that’s why we keep it—to lure you home. It’s the least I can do to—”
“Much appreciated, Tanner. As are your rather staggering recent donations, to both the Royal College and the Hospital. I know”—Jack held up his hands to stop Tanner from speaking—“the donations are meant to be anonymous. While I did not give my opinion on the name of their generous anonymous benefactor to their lordships of the Board, or to the Fellows of the college, I reckon I have a pretty fair idea of who gave those funds. If only to ensure himself of my appearance to do his bidding in the wee small hours.”
There was the puckish, teasing smile. Tanner could feel his spirits ease and lift, as they always did when Jack was around.
“As well he should,” Jinks agreed stoutly. “And who else should benefit but the service that done everything for him, and made him a man.”
Other things besides the senior service had made Tanner—and Jack as well—a man. But it wouldn’t do so to argue with Jinks. Not when there was evil afoot and work to be done.
“Exactly, Jinks,” he agreed. “We’ll say no more of that, Jack. Except that if I’d known that a donation was all it would take to ensure your appearance, I’d have given years ago.”
“Never fear. You’ve done enough,” Jack chuckled. “But what have we here?” The anatomy professor and surgeon in his old friend made him step forward, and began a cursory check of the body laid out on the table.
Tanner filled in the required information without being asked. “Last seen alive at approximately eight o’clock last evening. Found the body in the river, a few miles east of Richmond, just past one this morning. Strangled, I think, before she was...put in the river. Also... assaulted, I suspect.”
Jack Denman’s gray eyes met his, and then slanted meaningfully toward Lady Claire’s.
“My apologies. Lady Claire Jellicoe, if I might have the honor of introducing Mr. Jackson Denman, learned Professor of Anatomy, and Surgeon, late of His Majesty’s Royal Navy, and current scholar and fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Lincoln’s Inn.”
Jack’s perceptive eyes flicked back to him. “Although I am no longer a surgeon of His Majesty’s Navy, I’ve a endeavor—a voyage of discovery—in the offing that I should like to propose to Your Grace. But today I am,”—he bowed very correctly—“your servant, my Lady Claire.”
Lady Claire did them both the honor of not shying from the introduction, even though surgeons were not considered gentlemen, and Denman was well below her socially.
And even though she was clearly in dread of what the good surgeon might do—her eye kept darting nervously to his brass-buckled, black leather bag.
“Mr. Denman.” She curtsied gracefully and extended her hand.
“My lady.” Jack bowed over her hand. “An honor.”
“Lady Claire was acquainted with the deceased. It was she who identified her as Miss Maisy Carter, a maid at Riverchon Park in Richmond.”
“Your grandmother’s home? I see,” Jack said, though the look he sent toward Tanner—all high arched brow—said that he did not see at all how a young lady of Lady Claire Jellicoe’s pedigree was so completely involved in the death of a servant. Or with him.
And without his own desire for her company to cloud his vision, Tanner began to see how odd—how strange and even wrong it was—that he had kept her by his side.
And how she could not possibly stay there as Jack took up his examination.
Jack clearly thought the same. “Perhaps the lady might like to...” He was gesturing in a gentlemanly way—far more gentlemanly than Tanner, who had not been thinking of her sensibilities at all after her consent to accompany him—toward the stairs.
“Yes. Of course.” Tanner touched Lady Claire’s elbow to turn her away from the table, if only for the pleasure of feeling the soft slide of her skin beneath his fingers. “Let me show you above. I’m sure you’ll want to refresh yourself before we depart. Jinks, the coffee. And bread and cheese will do.”
It was going to be a very long night, and they had already missed the supper at Riverchon. She was going to need her strength. They were both going to need strength.
“And the body, Your Grace?” Jack asked quietly. “Have any arrangements been made for where ought it be taken for burial?”
“Jinks will help with the necessary details.”
But Lady Claire was not satisfied. “You’ll see to it yourself, surely? See that’s she’s taken to a reputable undertaker, and not someone who would be tempted to sell her off to a resurrectionist—”
Lady Claire stopped abruptly, clearly not wanting to insult Jack with any kind of accusation, but also clearly feeling she had to say something. The papers seemed to delight in relating ghoulish, although true-enough tales of the bartering and stealing of bodies.
“Yes, my lady. I will do.” Tanner shifted his gaze to Jinks. “Send round at a decent hour to Deed Brothers.”
But having attained her object did not seem to put Lady Claire at any ease. “Ought we not ask her family, when we go to them?”
In front of the other men, he made sure to keep his voice even and factual. “I doubt any family who resides in the Almonry has the money for a burial, Lady Claire. If we leave it to Miss Maisy Carter’s family, it is likely that her body will end in a pauper’s grave. I will see to the expense.”
“Oh. I did not realize.” She colored—a wave of pink washed across her pale cheeks. “Yes, of course. Thank you.”
“And we will certainly abide by her family’s wishes, if they have any.” Again, speaking of family— “And in the meantime, Jinks will deliver a note to your parents to Riverchon House, to let them know you are safe and sound.”
“It hardly seems to matter that I’m safe and sound when Maisy Carter is dead.”
“I imagine it matters a great deal to the Earl and Countess Sanderson.”
“Aww, now.” Jinks began his usual palaver. “That’s all the way down to Richmond. At this bloody time o’night, I—”
“Will either take the note yourself, or will arrange for an express rider. Which will no doubt take as much time and effort to arrange, as it would be to carry it yourself. But one way or another, the Earl and Countess will not be made anxious one minute longer than absolutely necessary.”
And then he saw it in her face—the doubt and embarrassment and fear that could not be hidden in the harsh light of the kitchen. Two spots of high color burned in Lady Claire’s pale cheeks, and her beautiful blue eyes were wide with anxiety.
It had already been too long night for Lady Claire. He could not be so selfish as to ignore her needs at the expense of his own. The time they had already spent away was more than sufficient to secure their betrothal.
“Or if you had rather simply go yourself, Lady Claire, I will completely understand. We’ll send for a carriage and suitable accompaniment from Fenmore House, and have you back to Riverchon within the hour.”
“No.” Lady Claire spoke in a rush, as if she wanted to get the words out before she could think better of the idea, and change her mind. “I want to go with you,” she said again, infusing her voice with det
ermination, as if she still needed to convince herself. “I owe it to her.”
“Lady Claire, I hardly think you—”
“Are capable?” She exhaled a little sigh of pent up frustration. “No. I know I’m not. But I want to be. And how shall I ever become capable if I do not try? If I do not attempt to do the things I ought? You said I was not ignorant, only unlearned, and I’m tired of being unlearned. Of being incapable. I want to learn. You said you would teach me. And a few hours more at this point will hardly matter.”
After such an extraordinary speech in front of all of them, there was little he could do, but acquiesce as a gentleman. But a gentleman wouldn’t be taking a girl into the Almonry.
“What of your parents?”
He doubted her parents would approve of any part of their night together, much less a final jaunt into the Almonry. He could picture Earl Sanderson’s normally impressively controlled expression now, his face slowly growing crimson with parental outrage.
But Earl Sanderson’s outrage could not be avoided—it could only be put off for a short while. And perhaps Lady Claire was right.
Perhaps it would be good for Lady Claire Jellicoe—for all the young ladies like Claire Jellicoe, too-ignorant and too-sheltered for their own good—to see how the greater portion of London’s population lived. To see the real, all too miserable lives of the people like Maisy Carter, who made their lives so immaculate and beautiful.
The pigs on her father’s tenant farms likely had a cleaner, less distressing existence.
Jinks couldn’t resist throwing his tuppence worth of opinion into the pot. “You’re never going Almonry way in them flash togs, are you, Tanner? You’d be a mark and pillock in no time, traipsing across London in ball clothing. They’ll never know you was the Tanner. You’ll be tipped, stripped and left for the rats before Lady Bountiful there can cry beef. And ‘er—they’ll do more than strip and pip ‘er. Why—”
“Mind your alehouse jaw, Jinks.” His voice instinctively lowered to a growl of warning.
But Jinks was a tone-deaf as he was stubborn. “Well, you’ll look like a cull, you will.”
Tanner didn’t even bother to hide the annoyance in his voice. “I wasn’t born at the damp end of a pumpkin patch, Jinks. I know what’s what.”
Jinks was still his too-opinionated, grumpy self. “Don’t know if you do anymore,” he muttered, “Bringing ladies ‘ere, when there are others more deserving, as could use your attention.”
“Jinks.” This time Tanner spoke with the silent strength of a lash. “That will bloody well do. Shut your gob and mind the bleeding coffee.”
Tanner let his stare bore down through Jink’s thick hide before he turned back to Lady Claire.
“As I said, we’ll need different clothes. You’ll not want to dirty your skirts in the Almonry’s filth.”
Indeed she had been hampered considerably by the lacy layers of her exquisite, white-on-white embroidered ball gown when they had traversed the alley behind the houses.
“You think me vain and shallow.”
Ah. He recognized that tone of self-loathing.
“No. I told you before, I don’t think you’re particularly vain. At least not for holding your skirts out of the muck. I thought you were practical to do so. And being practical will also involve taking a rest and some food before we venture out into the Almonry.”
“All right. All right, I will.” She gave him a smile so relieved and grateful and luminous, it made the promise of the coming dawn seem pale and wan in comparison.
A dawn that would illuminate such misery as she had never conceived. He looked her in the eye. “Don’t thank me yet.”
After that rather extraordinary conversation between the duke and his servant—of which she thought she understood only two words out of ten—His Grace returned to his cool, urbane, self-contained former self.
“Lady Claire.” His manners were all polished Duke of Fenmore as he gestured politely toward the stair. “Please allow me.”
He led her up the kitchen stairs, and into the quiet, but comfortable house. Above stairs she could hear the patter of the light rain that had evolved from the heavy damp of the night.
“It will be light in about an hour.” His voice had lost that rolling, rough cadence of only a moment ago, and returned to the blunt formality of the Duke of Fenmore. “We’ll wait only until then. Miss Carter won’t be any more dead for the delay until daylight. Why don’t you see if you can get some rest?”
Claire was quite determined not to be put off. She felt herself on the verge of something new, and if not exciting, then perhaps better. More adult. More self-determined. But she needed his help to become so.
“I don’t need to rest. I’m quite used to town hours.” For once Claire was thankful that her mama had insisted, as she always did, on Claire taking a nap in the late afternoon, before evening’s festivities. “In this, at least, I can take care of myself.”
“Right then,” he confirmed in his brusque, factual way, before he led her up the main corridor to the elegant stairwell where he lit a branch of candles for light. “My sister still keeps some things here. Although this is my house now—I keep the lease—it was her home first,” he explained. “Her clothes may seem worn, but they are all quite clean. You look to be of a size—you look like you’d make spare change from a hundredweight.”
Claire nearly missed the next step on the stair, and her cheeks had grown hot and uncomfortable at the rather startling idea that His Grace had surreptitiously sized up her body like a tailor. “Yes. Quite. Does your sister live with you at Fenmore House now?”
“No. Sadly—for me, not her—she lives on New Providence Island in the Bahamas, where she is closer to her husband, who is an Admiral of the West Indies Station.”
“Oh, I see.” She had never heard anything about any of His Grace’s relations besides his grandmother, the dowager duchess, who was still a fixture in society. She had never heard anything about either a sister, or an Admiral. But she had not heard of an old scandal either.
It had to have been years ago, when he was a young boy, for despite his mention of age, he was clearly a man in the prime of his life, in full command of a rather amazing set of faculties. He looked to be of an age with her oldest brother, who was not yet thirty.
But thirty was still young in a man, whereas she would be ancient at his age.
There it was again—the ashy taste of failure and shame and doubt in her mouth, burning up her throat and heating her eyes, telling her it was her own fault.
Planning to let a man like Rosing steal kisses. She could hear the duke’s scathing set down as if he had just said it. And he was right. She had been stupid and accommodating and desperate.
But she would be no more.
She was determined.
She put up her chin and swept past the Duke of Fenmore when he showed her to a lovely, if somewhat spare room done up in warm cream-colored walls and furnishings.
“My sister’s.” He lit the candle set ready on the table nearest the door, and pointed his chin at the large wardrobe. “Her old things will be folded at the bottom, I should think. And there should be writing paper in the little lap desk, there.”
“Thank you. Your coat—” She divested herself of his evening coat, and folded the elegant garment to hold it out to him.
He looked at it for a long, silent moment, and then finally took the coat from her hands. Without saying another word, he bowed and disappeared through an adjoining door, presumably into his own room to change clothes.
And Claire was alone again.
But this time it felt…good. She took in a long, deep breath, and let it out. “Bloody, bloody hell.”
It felt good to swear—it felt good to say what she oughtn’t. It felt good to be alone with her thoughts, which she seemed to have conveniently suspended while in the presence of His Grace—who did enough thinking for twenty people.
But that was how she had got herself into this awful me
ss in the first place—not thinking. Not thinking about what she wanted, instead of what people asked of her. Not thinking that the worst could happen to her.
But the worst had not happened to her—it had happened to Maisy Carter.
His Grace thought that Lord Peter Rosing—Lord bloody, bastard Peter Rosing—was somehow responsible for what had happened to Maisy Carter, as well as to her.
And she wanted him to be right—she wanted Lord Peter to be responsible. And she wanted to help His Grace prove it.
She wanted Lord Peter bloody Rosing to be brought to account, and shamed and punished and excoriated in public so no one else ever smiled and said yes, and walked out into the dark with him ever again.
Propriety be damned—she wanted revenge.
She wanted it so badly she could almost taste it—and it tasted a good great deal more palatable than the chalky, bitter bile of fear and humiliation.
Let Lord Peter taste that.
Let him choke on it.
She would help His Grace, and help herself and Maisy, even if she had to force herself past her own faltering limitations.
So Claire followed His Grace’s instructions, and found a set of clothing—a simple round gown of some faded dark greenish color, plain practical, clean chemise and stockings, and a soft wool shawl—on the shelves of the lavender-scented wardrobe.
And again, she was reminded of how privileged, how spoiled, she had been—because she had never been dressed in anything that hadn’t been made, expressly for her. She had never worn a stitch of clothing that wasn’t in the absolute first stare of fashion. She had never worn such a shapeless, rough garment in all her life.
But it seemed to be a night of firsts.
And the moment she decided to take action and put them on, she did falter—she had no means of putting the clothing on, because she had no method for getting herself out of her current dress. Indeed, she had never, not once in the entire course of her life, gotten herself in or out of a gown on her own.
She had always had some assistance, some nursemaid, or ladies maid, or borrowed attendant like Maisy Carter to lace and unlace her as the need should arise.
After the Scandal Page 10
