After the Scandal

by Elizabeth Essex

  “Ah, yer a right lovely bastard to think of that, so.”

  Tanner retrieved his livery coat. “And I’ll wager his worship the beak is bound to be needing a strong drop or two of sherry after waiting all that time.”

  “Aye, he might,” Bemish mused. “They do say hanging is thirsty work.”

  Chapter 17

  After such an extraordinary speech, and after such extraordinary kisses, Claire felt depleted—so physically and emotionally wrung out that she was brittle with exhaustion. She felt numb with weariness, and when she looked at her hands they were shaking from fatigue.

  At least that is what she told herself—that it was the effect of being up all night and all day that made her legs weak, and her breath ratchet unevenly in her chest.

  It had nothing to go with the ring that she gripped so tightly it began to dig into her palm.

  She opened her hand to stare at it again. To marvel at its delicate loveliness, and its old fashioned charm—a poesy ring inscribed No other but you.

  It was the most beautiful, most heartwarming ring she had ever seen, and she wanted nothing more than to put in on.

  But only if he did not come out, he had said. Only for her protection.

  He had said nothing of his own feelings—only that he wanted to protect her.

  Granted, he was probably the only man in England who was strong enough to marry her, and protect her from the inevitable scandal—the scandal that was clearly playing out across the Market at Fenmore House. Even she knew that the shifty-eyed fellows in the scarlet waistcoats watching the Duke’s carriage were Bow Street Runners, and that their presence could bode no good.

  Claire returned the ring to the pouch, took out the few pence needed for a meat pie, and made her stiff legs carry her to a pie sellers stall, and then sat herself down to wait.

  Be ready, he had said. Ready for anything.

  Anything turned out to be nothing much at all. The elegant town carriage rolled out of the mews, but did not come for her where she sat like the veriest urchin on a stack of discarded crates, as she had somehow imagined and hoped it might.

  Instead, the coach took a sharp right, and exited the market via Sun Court with the scarlet Runners red-faced in pursuit.

  And then her Tanner simply walked out the gate of the stable yard, and made his slow, meandering way toward her across the market square.

  Her heart was so full, her head was empty. “I bought you a meat pie.”

  His smile was full of slow delight. “You remembered.”

  “Hmm. I’m clever that way.” She handed it to him as he hitched his hip onto the edge of the crate, right next to her. “And I’m also clever enough to see that something was going on over there. What’s all the trouble?”

  He took his time answering around bites of pie. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

  There was not another duke in the world who would eat a pie from a stall with so much gusto while sitting on a crate in the street, wearing his own livery. It was entirely boyish, and inordinately charming.

  So charming it nearly put her off her point. Nearly.

  “Which means you’re not going to tell me. Which is annoying.” She looked back the way the coach had gone. “Nearly as annoying as not getting a ride. I will admit to being done for—if I sit too much longer out here in the sun, I’m going melt into a puddle of Claire.”

  “Then we won’t sit here any longer.” He brushed his hands together to rid them of crumbs, and then offered to pull her to her feet. “And anyway, it’s coming on to rain.”

  “How can you say that?” she laughed. “There are only a few clouds.”

  “Because we live in England. Come on. Let us away to the river.”

  She let him haul her to her feet, and took the opportunity to keep possession of his hand as they started down one of the many small side streets that branched off the market.

  “Tired?” he asked, and then answered his own question. “Of course you are. I am. We’ve been on our feet for nearly twenty-four hours. Come.”

  As soon as they came out onto Piccadilly, Tanner put his hands to his lips, and let out a piercing whistle, which immediately summoned a hackney carriage.

  An antiquated carriage with two indifferent horses pulled up to the pavement, but she supposed it was the best they could hope for, dressed as they were.

  Tanner must have seen her looking askance at the carriage, because he laughed as he handed her in. “I assure you it’s a fine example of the species. One of the finest.”

  It was still stale and musty, and not at all like the private carriages in which she had always ridden.

  “Do you take hackney carriages often enough to know? But you’re a duke—you have a stable full of every sort of carriage known to mankind, and horseflesh fine enough to make half of Newmarket weep with envy.”

  He tipped his head sideways in a little tic of acknowledgment. “It’s as I told you—I’m not always a duke. Even now.”

  “But you are. Even now. Even as we drive by your house—your house.” She pointed out the open window at the gated facade of Fenmore House as the carriage took them up Piccadilly. “Even now, dressed in cast-offs from your own servants, you are the duke.”

  It was inescapable—a simple, inescapable fact of his life.

  He said nothing to that particular piece of insight, but watched the house roll by, before he looked away, out the opposite window. “I know.”

  The realization hit her—much more softly than a shovel to the back of the head, thank goodness—but forceful nonetheless for all its quiet truth. He wanted escape.

  As he would say, Ah.

  But as she had no further insight into how she might fit into this particular version of escape, she had nothing, not even small talk, to add.

  As she had already noted, “It’s quite a day for firsts.”

  He gaze flicked back to her. “Your first hackney carriage?”

  “Indeed.” She decided to be charming—he liked it when she was charming. “I am totting up quite a list today—skiff, wherry, goldsmith’s, lead yard, stolen vessel, rag traders, Tattersall’s Repository, and now a hackney carriage. But I shall not account the day a triumph until I have learned how to whistle.”

  He rose to her bait faultlessly. “I could teach you if you like.”

  She rewarded him with a genuine smile. “Yes, please.”

  “Easiest thing in the world,” he said. And with all his usual focused intensity, he began to do just that.

  “You put your tongue out like this”—here he demonstrated the proper sticking-out of the tongue— “and curl the end of it up with your fingers. And your fingers have to be just so.” Again he demonstrated proper position. “And the force and flow of the air through the vortex created by your fingers, and across the surface of your lips should sound like—”

  He let out a little toot.

  Claire copied all his movements and positions, and attempted to follow his directions on airflow, but by the time they reached the Haymarket, she had she had produced only a slight wheezy sound, and had gotten herself out of breath and rather dizzy.

  And Tanner was staring at her, with his mouth every so slightly open, as if she baffled him.

  “Am I doing it wrong?”

  “No.” His brows arced with denial over his blank surprise. “You’ve very clever—you’re doing it right.”

  “Then why are you looking at me like that?”

  He did not say, “like what?” He did not pretend to misunderstand.

  He said, “Because now I want to teach you to do other things with your clever mouth.”

  In that moment, Claire began to have an inkling as to what it was to feel powerful.

  But she was equal to his honesty. “Things like kissing?”

  This time he did not immediately take her bait. And he was not entirely honest. “Perhaps.”

  He turned again to check out the open window as the hackney moved onto Cockspur Street, and then he was kis
sing her, and nothing else mattered.

  Nothing but warmth, and texture and scent. The warmth of his body, as he pulled her closer to him. The texture of his smooth lips, and rasp of his cheek against her. The male scent of his body, of cedar spice and horse and saddle soap.

  She leaned in to him, and he pulled her flush against the long strength of his body. His hand spanned the small of her back, fitting her to him until there was no breath of space between them.

  Nothing but pleasure and comfort and glorious need.

  His hand rose to her nape, cradling her skull, angling her head to his liking, bringing them close and closer still.

  She had thought she was melting in the sun, but it was nothing to what she was feeling now—pressing heat and pulsating need turned her liquid and pliant, flowing into him with every kiss, every breath, every touch.

  “Claire.” His voice sounded foggy, as if it came from far away, and he had to clear his throat to speak again. “Claire, the carriage has stopped. We’re at the Whitehall Stairs.”

  “Whitehall?”

  Parliament, where her father spent so much of his time, was in Whitehall. Though she and her mother had been set to return home to Downpark directly from Riverchon, her papa was bound to stay in London until Parliament adjourned in August, another few weeks away. All of which meant that her father might very well be about. “What if my father is here?”

  Tanner looked, if not startled, then somehow conscious. “He won’t be here, Claire. If what we heard at Tattersall’s, and what I learned at Fenmore House, is true, your father may think I’ve eloped with you. I rather think he’s searching the Great North Road.”

  “But I sent him the note. I explained everything.”

  “I know.” He shrugged, and held out his hand to help her exit the carriage. “We won’t know for sure, until we return to Riverchon.”

  Tanner paid for the hackney from some money stashed in his shoe, and let her toward the water.

  But as they made their way down Whitehall Steps to the flotilla of waiting wherries, the sky did what it was nearly always threatening to do in England, and what Tanner had so sagely predicted, and began to rain—a hard soaking rain that instantly pattered on the surface of the water, and washed away all other sound.

  Tanner engaged a wherry to take them as far as the Chelsea Embankment, and as soon they were seated in the sternsheets, he stripped off his livery coat and held it over their heads.

  For herself, she was enough of a country girl not to particularly mind the rain, but it was entirely lovely to have an excuse to snug up close to Tanner. He was lovely, and solid, and warm.

  And then she yawned again—a big, indecorous, can-not-be-hidden yawn.

  She was truly exhausted. And it felt good to lean against him, and pretend that he wasn’t a duke, and she wasn’t an earl’s daughter, and that they hadn’t been missing from the world to which they belonged for nearly an entire night and day.

  She closed her eyes and let herself pretend.

  In the stark gray afternoon light, her face looked more than tired—her eyes were red-rimmed, and there were purple smudges beneath them, as well as across her cheekbones.

  In truth, she looked entirely unequal to the task that awaited them in Richmond.

  “You’re exhausted.”

  She gave him one of her quick smiles, without even opening her eyes. “There you go again, with your penchant for the obvious. But it’s of no matter. I’ll get my second wind yet.”

  She was teasing him. He could tell because those lovely china blue eyes that fluttered from behind her lashes were soft, and warmed by her smile.

  And he wanted to stay right there, basking in the warmth and easy camaraderie of that smile for hours and hours on end.

  Perhaps the thought of the coming reckoning made her quiet, or perhaps she really was exhausted past all conversation. Because by the time they had passed Lambeth, her breathing had evened out into the short, relaxed rhythm of sleep.

  She was asleep. On him.

  Tanner wrapped his arm about her shoulder carefully, so as not to wake her, and eased her into his arms, cradled safely against his chest, so he might keep looking at her face, inches away, illuminated by the dappled light glancing off the rain-darkened water.

  And then he did what he never did—he relaxed.

  At least for a few moments.

  It was bliss to let go of whether he was the Tanner or the Duke of Fenmore, and simply enjoy watching her through half-closed eyes.

  Dreaming of what it might be like to do this every day. To have the right to hold this woman in his arms, stroking her face, running the backs of his fingers gently down the line of her chin. Letting the pad of his thumb just barely graze the sublimely soft edge of her bottom lip.

  It was a quiet half an hour before they arrived at Chelsea, where the wherry brought them to the rickety stairs at Cheyne Walk. The skiff was there, just as it ought to be, covered with an oil cloth to keep the worst of the rain out, but of the Lark there was no sign. He could only hope she had taken refuge at the house a few blocks away, and that even now, Jinks was feeding the poor girl up.

  But the Lark wasn’t his responsibility—the girl in his arms was.

  “Claire.” He felt her breathing shift cadence, and he spoke to her again, “It’s time.”

  Claire came slowly awake, floating her warm way out of sleep. She blinked up at him, her blue eyes slow and trusting, and accepting that she was in his arms.

  He stilled, as if he were still the boy he had once been, caught with his hand in someone’s pocket. “You’re awake,” he said unnecessarily.

  “Where are we?”

  “Chelsea.” He heard the words came out of his mouth off-kilter, and slightly off key. He cleared his throat. “You fell asleep.”

  “Oh, Lord.” Heat rose across her face as if she were embarrassed. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Not at all. You were exhausted.”

  “What time is it?” Claire began to straighten up, and he let her go reluctantly. His arms felt empty the moment she regained her seat.

  “After two.”

  “Oh.” She sat up straighter. “Oh, goodness.” She put a hand to her bruised cheek. “At least it’s not Riverchon yet.”

  That was anxiety about the reckoning that was coming. “I promised you no one would question you.” He had promised to keep quiet.

  But he wasn’t sure he could, anymore.

  “Thank you.” She pushed her hair back from her face, and gave him one of her sweet, small smiles. “But not even you can hope to stop my mother.”

  No, he couldn’t. And he was no longer sure he ought to.

  But the wherryman needed to be paid, and they still had a long trip downriver, which needed to be undertaken immediately if they were to catch the last of the tide.

  He fetched his last few bob out of his shoes, but had to ask, “Claire, do you have the money?”

  She handed over the suede pouch without a word. Without any comment on its contents, or clarification about his intent.

  He was about to make just such a clarification, to remind her of what he had said, and leave her with no doubt as to her intentions.

  But he didn’t.

  He wasn’t exactly sure why. And it was unlike him not so say exactly what he thought. It was unlike him to be unsure. But he was. A little dousing of doubt had chilled him more effectively than the rain.

  They transferred themselves to the skiff without any further conversation, and in no time they were headed upstream, gliding into the soft summer air.

  The rain that had lulled her into slumber had slacked to one of London’s well worn combination of warm fog and falling mist. While not ideal for a long row down the river, it was at least tolerable.

  Claire was just as quiet in the skiff as she had been in the wherry, and as for him, he let the hard, regular rhythm of the oars and the strain of physical exertion free his mind to turn over each and every piece of information in his brain,
to prepare himself for what he was likely to find at Riverchon. And what he was likely to have to seek.

  “What are you thinking?”

  In front of him, Claire shifted back into focus. “That we will need to find my grandmother’s guest list to see if any of the men from Tattersall’s—the men with the fobs—were present. We will need to find what has happened to Lord Peter Rosing—where they have taken him, and if he still lives. We’ll need to see if we can speak to the servants to see what they saw, and what they heard the night of the murder, because as we know they are invisible and will have heard or seen something that will be of use.”

  “Maisy wasn’t invisible. If she were, she wouldn’t be dead.”

  He had no argument, so soft words to counter that. “No. She wasn’t.”

  But what then had made her visible? What made someone notice her? How, in the middle of a busy evening’s entertainment, had she become both become visible, and gone unnoticed?

  There were facts and details and questions enough to ponder the whole of the journey, and it was late afternoon by the time they came abreast of the Riverchon boathouse. Which he approached with caution—who knew if there were runners or thief takers stalking the perimeter of Riverchon, as well as Fenmore House.

  As it turned out, there were no obvious Runners skulking about the shrubberies, but the wrought iron gate had been lowered across the entrance to the boathouse, barring access from the river.

  That made the choice easy enough. And after his earlier experience at Fenmore House, Tanner was in no mood to take chances—he did not want to add the scandal of public apprehension to his list of sins.

  He rowed them past Riverchon, to the adjacent property, where he hid the shallow boat in the long grass along the riverbank.

  The property was out of both use and repair, and was helpfully overgrown—they could traverse the length of the long brick wall separating the properties without fear of being seen.

  Tanner’s boots were wet from the long grass, and Claire’s skirts were soaked by the time he found what he had been looking for—an old gate set into the side wall of his grandmother’s property, nearly hidden by plants and overgrown vines.