After the Scandal

by Elizabeth Essex

  But he needed more than protectiveness. More than her admiration and more than her esteem.

  He wanted her to marry him willingly. Immediately.

  It was the only thing that would save them both.

  And it was what he wanted—wanted more than anything else in this world.

  He wanted simply to be with her. He wanted to hold her hand, and walk along beside her. He wanted the comforting pressure of her body snugged up tight against his. He wanted her soft fine hair to brush against his neck, just so, when he slung his arm over her shoulder, and she leaned her head against his chest.

  He wanted her as his lass for however long it lasted. For however long he could make it last. For however long he could have the privilege of holding her hand.

  “Don’t worry about me. You saw, you heard—we are invisible.”

  “But for how much longer?”

  “Long enough to do what we came here to do,” he told her. “And then get the hell out. We have to find Laytham. If you stand here, behind me and the horse, you’ll be sheltered from view, but you’ll be able to see men as they come to view the ring.” He took up a position in front of her, standing like a sentry.

  A bell across the yard clanged out its warning that the first lot was to begin. The sea of faces turned almost as one.

  “God. He’s there. Right there.” She jumped down to the ground, and hid behind him as she pointed at a man not more than eight feet away. “The little man with the bushy eyebrows that make him look like a badger.” Her voice got smaller with every word. “The man standing in front of my brother.”

  God’s bloody balls.

  Tanner shifted the position of the horse so Claire was completely hidden. And so he could take a harder look at her brother, the Viscount Jeffrey and the heir of the Earl Sanderson, to see how well he knew the Honorable Mr. Edward Laytham.

  As for Laytham, he did indeed have very dark eyebrows that rose from his eyes at such a sharp angle that he looked very much like a badger—a well-dressed badger who was turning away, against the tide of men looking toward the ring.

  Viscount Jeffrey—who looked like hell, with dark circles under his eyes, and a grim line to his mouth, not at all himself—never looked at the badger, or noticed him leaving. The viscount’s eyes were looking elsewhere, off into the middle distance, as if he were looking but not seeing. As if he were there for form’s sake only.

  Damn all. Something had gone seriously wrong.

  And there was still Laytham to track. “Come,” was all he had time to say to Claire.

  She nodded sharply, and that was all the answer he waited for, before he slid through the crowd in Laytham’s wake.

  It wasn’t very hard. In fact, the man made it easy, because he clearly wasn’t interested in the horses or the sales—he was there to chat.

  All Tanner had to do was lead his horse nearby, as if he were showing the animal off for his master, and no one—not even the men who bandied his name about so carelessly—gave him so much as a second glance.

  But he gave them more than a glance. Especially the monied squire from Suffolk, from whose waistcoat a golden coin fob hung from a ribbon.

  Fuck. Fuck all his theories, which tangled into a knotted skein in his brain.

  Disappointment leeched through him like acid, corroding his confidence and control. If Laytham still had a fob, chances were he was not the murderer. Not unless he had a stash of the ornaments ready made.

  But someone presumably did have a stash of fake gold Roman coins ready made. But who?

  But then another man spoke to Laytham, and gestured to to fob. Laytham fondled the ornament on its ribbon, and then unhooked the fob, and held it out for a brief examination. But Tanner could only catch snatches of the conversation when he moved nearer.

  “Best advice,” Laytham was advising in a superior sort of tone. “Quite sound, gold. Best thing to do, I’m convinced, in advance of the recoinage. You do know about the recoinage, don’t you?”

  Tanner knew, even if the other man did not—in the wake of the peace at the end of the long wars with Napoleon, the government were planning to stabilize the weak economy by the passage of a Recoinage Act, which would oversee the re-introduction of new silver coinage, and a change in the gold coinage from the gold guinea, valued at twenty-one shillings, to the slightly lighter sovereign coin worth twenty shillings.

  The theory was that the use of silver coins, which were thought to become debased, would be limited to transactions under forty shillings. And matching the silver coins to a single gold standard for transactions of all sizes would provide stability.

  What rumors about the Recoinage Act also created, in advance of its passing, was a climate of fear and paranoia and profit-taking. Tanner didn’t follow ‘Change as closely as a city trader, but his clever, analytical mind took delight in complicated financial transactions and the making of money—hence the dukedom of Fenmore robust financial strength.

  But he had also taken note of the new breed of fear-mongers, who exploited investors’ uncertainties about the recoinage to advance their own political agendae, or reap massive profits in speculations on the price of gold. Men like Laytham, perhaps, who were advising, or had been advised to move their resources into gold.

  Claire tugged on his coat. “Tanner. Look. There.” She pointed to another middle aged lord, who approached Laytham’s group. “Lord Quincy Edwards is wearing the same gold aureus coin watch fob.”

  Fuck all.

  Disappointment and confusion tasted like ashes and dust in his mouth. He hated getting it wrong. Hated it.

  Tanner circled the horse, and tried to think. And keep a watch out for Claire’s brother—or God forbid her father. Though, if the rumors that were already in circulation were indeed what the Earl Sanderson believed, Tanner doubted that the earl would put in an appearance—more likely he was scouring the Great North Road with a troop of the King’s horse.

  Over the top of the filly’s head, he saw a familiar face bear down on Laytham’s group, and the pieces of the puzzle began to sort themselves out into a more recognizable shape—Sir James Kersey, an elderly baronet and slight acquaintance of Fenmore’s strolled up, also wearing the same gold aureus fob.

  Perhaps the fob was likely a token of an investor’s club, or some sort of financial syndicate. But did the men wearing them know they were fakes? Or was the fob meant to be just a token, a symbol of their financial acumen?

  The possibilities had narrowed and expanded all at the same time.

  One thing was certain, the fob in Maisy Carter’s possession was not a singular piece. Despite his dislike of the fact, Tanner’s list of possible murderers had increased at least three-fold.

  But the three men in his sights were likely not part of the murder, as they all still had their fobs. Which might, or might not be fakes.

  There was only one sure way to find out.

  He hadn’t cut a purse in months, but the situation could not have been more perfect—Tattersall’s was packed and jovial, with people and animals all going in a hundred different directions across the crowded space outside the oval.

  He could take one fob easily. Even two.

  Oh, hell. He could hear his sister’s voice in his head—while you’re about it, best to do the job proper-like, and take them all.

  Tanner felt his face curving. The slippery burst of itchy excitement was back. His fingers danced at the end of his hand.

  But Claire was still with him, and as tempted as he was by his savage pride to show her his larcenous skill, he knew deep down that it would be wrong. And dangerous—he hadn’t bunged a job since he was twelve years old, but there was always the chance.

  She couldn’t be involved.

  “Start for the gate. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Claire needed no further instruction, but put her head down, and hurried toward Grosvenor Place while keeping anxious watch on her oldest brother’s back.

  And there was nothing left for Tanner bu
t the job.

  It would be easy, he assured himself.

  Confidence. Patience. Subtlety. Timely application of force. Natural reaction.

  Easy as taking tea in the afternoon.

  And it was easy—all he had to do was wait patiently for another few moments for the small group to disburse. Then Tanner walked forward with the horse on his right side, his left hand on the rein, and his right higher, on the bit of the bridle. Then a touch of elbow into Laytham’s paunch, and the restive movement of the horse interposing itself between them, while his left effortlessly plucked the bauble off its loop.

  Then a few smooth strides onward to Edwards just as someone called his name, and he turned, oblivious in the crowd. A twist of the wrist, and done.

  Kersey was the hardest. He was older, and more cautious in the crowd. He was nervously patting his coat, as if he had more money than he ought to spend in his pockets.

  Tanner resisted the temptation to relieve him of the lot of it.

  And there it was—a fully formed image in his brain. A map of England. London, and then northeast, across Essex to the border of Suffolk, where the villages of Laytham, Edwardstone and Kersey lay in a ring around the larger market town of Hadleigh.

  The marquessate of Hadleigh.

  Of course.

  Rosing’s father.

  Tanner felt a calm, certain reassurance, the way he did when the tumbler of a recalcitrant lock clicked into place.

  There were no coincidences—Rosing was in up to his neck.

  And Tanner was full of that aggressive certainty now, and used the horse to better effect with Kersey, swinging the poor obedient beast into the man and knocking him down, just so Tanner could help him to his feet. And let his clever fingers relieve the man of his gold fob.

  And the wad of banknotes in the man’s pocket, while he was at it.

  Done and away.

  Chapter 16

  Claire wanted to run—she wanted to run like a child, and hide herself away. Away from prying eyes, and careless mouths, and sly, bruising innuendo—she was bruised enough already.

  But she didn’t run. She walked.

  She walked down the lane because she had come too far, and done too much, to give in to the desperate, infantile wish to be cosseted, and have someone else take care of all the truly ugly problems she didn’t care to.

  But if the unpleasantness—the horrible events, and the ugly rumors, and the mortified feelings—were to be overcome, she would have to vanquish them herself.

  She allowed herself the respite of breathing easier when she reached the open street. She crossed over Grosvenor Place, and turned toward Piccadilly without thinking, only wanting to put the safety of distance between her and her bother.

  Which made no sense—her brother was not the enemy. Until last night, she had never thought she had an enemy in her life.

  But her life had changed.

  She had changed.

  She was glad she had seen her brother. Glad. Because it reminded her of who she was, and who she had been until last night, and who she wanted to become.

  She was Lady Claire Jellicoe finder of murderers now, not just the pretty, obedient daughter of the Earl Sanderson. Not just a marker for her father, or her family’s influence and power.

  Yet she had unthinkingly headed across the corner of Green Park toward home. But perhaps it was time. She couldn’t traipse about London with the Duke of Fenmore indefinitely. And perhaps he felt the same way.

  Tanner was no more than twenty yards behind her, walking the yearling filly purposefully along the edge of the street, striding up Piccadilly toward Fenmore House just as if he really were a servant out on an important errand for his master. Just as if he weren’t Fenmore himself.

  It was all mad. She was mad.

  He was madder.

  She fell in with him along the pavement, all prickling curiosity to understand why he had looked so grim and elated all at the same time, back there, in Tattersall’s. “Well? What did you do?”

  He was still grimly elated, in his understated way—his jaw looked as if it were carved from stone. “Took them all.”

  “All?” Claire didn’t know whether to be astonished, or outraged, or terrified. She couldn’t help but look back across the street, just to check to make sure there wasn’t a constable trailing after them, truncheon raised. “What happened?”

  He cut a shard of a glance at her, and then strode on, looking straight ahead. “I stole the fobs.”

  He said it as if it were a simple statement of fact. As if stealing one fob, let alone all the fobs, weren’t a crime that could see him hung.

  “And? What did they do?”

  His mouth twisted ever so slightly into that secret, piratical smile. “Nothing.”

  She was astonished, she decided—her breath had gone hot and still in her throat. “Didn’t they realize they were gone?”

  “No.” He turned down the corner of his smile, and shook his head. “They never do. Not if I’ve done my job right.”

  Now she was astonished and impressed. “Good God. You must have done it very right. No one’s coming, anyway.”

  She chanced another glance behind. Nothing.

  She couldn’t contain the spurt of irrational giddiness at the thought of what he’d done, and gotten away with.

  She had to make herself take a deep breath. And made herself not think about the slippery morality of being happy a thief had just stolen from honest men.

  Because they had no idea if they were honest men, did they? Indeed, all the available evidence indicated otherwise.

  “Can you tell if they are fakes?”

  “No,” he said. “Not yet. It’s bad form to look at your lour after you’ve just stolen it.”

  She tried to match his grim humor with her own. “Good to know. I’ll remember that, shall I, when I pinch Mrs. Laytham’s reticule.”

  But that was the absolute wrong thing to say. “Don’t try it, Claire.” His tone was sharp and testy. “You’re not meant for that sort of life.”

  She could not gauge his mercurial shift. “I was only making a joke.” She tried smiling at him, so he could see and understand.

  He was having none of it. “It’s not a joke, Claire. It’s serious. Deadly serious. One girl is already dead.”

  His voice was as low and lethal as the long knife he had stashed in his boot—sharp, inflexible steel. But then the blade of his criticism turned inward. “I can’t believe I exposed you to that. I’m taking you home.”

  “No.” She tried to sound firm, but she couldn’t breathe—it felt as if someone was piling rocks on top her chest, pressing her down. “Because I got scared?”

  “Because I never should have taken you there. God’s balls, Claire.” He pulled the mare to a halt on the corner of Park Lane, and turned to her. His voice was low, and oh, so vehement.

  “You heard what they said. It’s wrong of me to have brought you anywhere. It was wrong. You need to be home. Your parents need to know where you are. You can’t be a part of this.”

  Despite her own distress, she heard the wretched fear and frustration darkening his voice, and she tried to understood all the urgent, unspent, frustrated energy pouring off him. She could only imagine what a toll—the training and skill and sheer, bloody nerve—it took to steal something well enough so that no one even noticed. He must be coming out of his own skin.

  But he couldn’t exorcise his demons on her.

  She had to make him understand her nerve, and her resolve too.

  Claire scrubbed the hot itchy feeling out of her eyes, and swallowed hard over the tight heat in her throat.

  “But I am a part of this, Tanner. I was a part of being raped, wasn’t I? I was a part of finding poor Maisy Carter’s dead body, wasn’t I? It’s too late for me not to be involved. It’s too late for you not to be involved.”

  “I’m different.”

  She hated the self-loathing she heard in his voice. “Maybe,” she admitted. “But
do you regret it? Are you sorry you helped me, and stopped Rosing?”

  “No.”

  His answer was unequivocal, solid and sure. Something she could lean on.

  “Are you sorry that you hurt him so badly, you may have killed him?”

  “No.”

  Another immediate answer. But he threw his head back, and looked up at the blazing summer sky, as if he were seeking divine guidance. Or retribution.

  And his voice was laced with something stronger than regret—shame.

  “I do know that I should regret it, Claire. I do know that if I were good—if I were a true gentleman—I should regret it. I know that. I’ve been taught better. But I don’t regret it. At all.”

  She had been taught, too. She had been taught to smile, and say yes.

  No more.

  “Are you sorry that we found Maisy’s body?”

  “No.”

  “Then there you are.” She took another deep breath, and forged on. “I don’t regret any of those things either. But I will regret it, if we stop now—if we let that man, whoever he his, get away with murdering Maisy, and go free so he can rape and murder another girl. That is not something I care to have on my conscience.”

  She had to make this right—for herself, as well as for Maisy Carter.

  Because if they didn’t find out what had gone so very wrong at the ball, if they couldn’t know that Lord Peter Rosing was never going to be able to rape another girl again, she could never hold her head up in public, or trust another person.

  If she went home now, she might never have the courage to leave her father’s house again.

  “I have to find out who did this, Tanner. Please understand, I have to.”

  He was silent for a long moment, thinking with that clever, clever, encyclopedic, labyrinthine brain of his—weighing each and every one of her words, to see if they could tip his scales.

  “Almost,” he said at last. “You were almost raped.”

  So correct. Insisting on being both protective, and right. She’d give him that.