He gave the latch a rattle. “Locked.” Just as it should be.
“Why,” Claire asked from behind him, “if I may ask—all this secrecy? Why the hidden garden gate?”
He gave her his patented answer. “Always pays to know two ways in, and three ways out of every place.”
“But this is your grandmother’s house.” She was wet, and baffled after being stopped so close to her destination. She sounded just a little bit put out.
But she was a clever girl, and took all of two seconds to suss it all out—her eyes widened and her brows rose, as her face cleared. “You expect trouble. There is more you aren’t telling me.”
He had thought to spare her the worst of it, for no other reason that some misguided, primeval instinct to protect her.
But being spared and protected from the world had been what had gotten her—gotten them both—into the position they now found themselves—crouching in the wet grass outside his own family’s home.
“Someone, and I have to assume it was Rosing or his father, has laid evidence against me with the magistrate’s court at Bow Street, that I assaulted, or killed Rosing—it’s not clear—and made off with you, and potentially Maisy.”
She laughed. A helpless spurt of disbelieving laughter that sounded overloud in the quiet hush of the rain drenched trees. “But that’s patently ridiculous. And untrue.”
“Yes. That is what we now have to prove. Along with finding out who killed Maisy. And why.”
“But I’ll just tell them what happened.”
“Will you?” He had promised her that no one would question her. But the time of reckoning was upon them—they would both have to make decisions about how much to reveal.
But before that could happen, they had to get through the wall.
Tanner stepped close to have a more professional gander at the lock. It was an uncomplicated ward lock opened with a simple skeleton key. He would almost pick it with his teeth.
“Will you let me have a try at this one?”
“Yes.” He would teach her anything she wanted if it kept her with him. Anything to keep her as his co-conspirator for even one moment longer. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” She breathed out another shaky little laugh. “I wouldn’t dream of telling anyone anything about our night.”
He left off rummaging in his pocket for his picklocks, and looked at her. “Claire, I’m afraid you’re going to have to give some explanation. You just said you’d tell them what happened.”
“I meant not saying a word about…us, and— I’m sure there’s more than enough to tell with finding Maisy, without including anything…personal.”
“The personal may prove important, Claire. Rosing won’t be stopped—not even by a cracked head and a broken leg—until someone finally does say something about what he did. Someone who is beyond reproach. Someone like you.”
She shook her head, not wanting to admit to his logic. “Come, Tanner. Surely you know better than most that in this word no woman’s word or actions are ever above reproach.”
She let out a sigh, as if she were trying to exhale the feeling of resignation.
“And if we’re lucky, and you’ve already killed him, I won’t have to say a word.”
Chapter 18
Tanner didn’t laugh. He didn’t say anything.
He was his terse, focused self as he instructed her on the finer points of picking a lock.
“It’s a ward lock with a simple, single bolt within.” His voice was clipped and instructional. More duke and far less Tanner.
She had said the wrong thing.
“I’m sorry,” she said instantly, because despite the lessons the night had brought, she was still a young woman who had been taught to apologize.
“It’s no matter.” He handed her the two long, thin pieces of metal he had used in the lead yard—all business. “Insert the pick—the pointed one—and feel for the tumbler—the piece of metal, like a tooth—inside.”
She had envisioned him working with her, close and intimate, snugged up as he had in the lead yard, but he had her stand on her own, working the tools herself.
Claire didn’t know whether to be thankful that he thought her independent and clever enough to accomplish the task, or be put out that he no longer seemed to want to be close to her.
She pushed aside her confused feelings, and concentrated on his instruction, inserting the pick into the keyhole. She fiddled around a good bit, feeling her way, probing, as he said, for a tooth. Wanting very badly to get it right. To impress him. “Oh, yes.”
“Good. Then just feel for which way it needs to fall—usually away from the side the door opens on—and pin it back the other way. It might take a fair bit of tension to—”
Claire leaned her strength into her hand, just as he instructed, and the bolt scraped into place with a rusty squall. “Is that it?”
He thumbed the latch, and pulled open the screeching gate just enough to show her she had in fact, done it. “Well done, you.”
“Oh. That was brilliant.” She was strangely elated, standing there in the grass with her feet clammy and wet. She had impressed him, but more importantly, she had impressed herself.
“Yes. Very clever. You can give those back to me now.”
She felt clever. But she wanted to feel something better than clever—she wanted to feel that ease, that sense of rightness between them.
“No. I meant you—you told me exactly what I needed to do, and now I want to do it again. I shall doubtless be at all the locks on your doors with a hairpin the minute I’m free.”
Finally he smiled, and for a moment, Claire felt as if a weight had been lifted from her chest.
“Ah. Indeed. The minute you’re free.”
That was the onus, wasn’t it—they had to get themselves free of whatever was waiting for them on the other side of the wall.
Tanner eased himself through the gate, checking in both directions, before he motioned her through and he propped the door almost-closed.
So he would have another way out of the place, she supposed. Just in case.
What a strange, clever duke he was.
And he was cleverer still, standing still and listening. “Claire. There look to be a fair number of guests still here.” He pointed his chin toward the side of the house facing the garden and the river.
The hidden gate gave onto the narrow side lawn toward on the side of the house. But when she stopped to listen with him, she could hear snatches of conversation over the thick hush of the summer mist.
“Pray God they aren’t talking about us.”
“No bet. Chances are they are.” And with that cynical—he would undoubtedly say realistic—remark, he led the way toward the front of the house, where a small stair beneath the grand entrance above led to a servants or tradesman’s entrance set low, half a story below ground.
“This should be quiet enough.” He led the way, checking through the door for other people, making sure than they were alone as he led her in, and then down an empty corridor. “ I thought we’d head for my grandmother’s private sitting room. It’s the most likely place...”
She thought he might have said more, but instead he shucked off his livery coat and left it on a peg along the hallway, and then showed her up one of the smaller, side stairways to the baize green door that separated the servants world—the one to which she had belonged for most of the past twelve hours—from the family’s.
“Are you ready?”
It was the same question he had asked last night, as they were about to set off from Chelsea, and the same question he had repeated at the lead works.
“Yes,” she answered, putting all her determination and resolve into her voice. “I’m ready for anything.”
“Excellent. And remember Claire,” he murmured low. “The problem is not in the remembering, but in the forgetting.”
He had said that before as well, when they were first out on the water last night
. It seemed a very, very long time ago.
“I’ll remember.”
And then the lovely, magical time was over, and they were no longer alone—no longer alone in the world with each other.
“Your Grace.” Doggett, the Riverchon butler, with whom she had been on warm terms—she had always made it a point to learn servants names, even when visiting other houses—emerged from somewhere down a corridor, and stood uncharacteristically flat-footed, gaping at them. “My lady, we’ve all been so concerned.”
Gratitude, mixed with the hot sting of guilt, filled her—she had thought only of herself, and then her parents when she sent her note. She had not thought of how her disappearance might have effected all the other people who lived at the periphery of her life.
“Thank you, Doggett. You are very kind to worry after me. I apologize for your fears. But as you can see, I am back now.” She was careful not to say we, careful of the proprieties which she had so enthusiastically brushed aside for the past twelve hours.
Tanner—His Grace—led the way past Doggett. “My guest would like some refreshment. Coffee, and a good deal of tea. And I should also like you to notify the Earl and Countess that Lady Claire awaits them in Her Grace’s parlor.”
His voice was all chilly, formal Duke of Fenmore, as if he had just chanced to find her wandering the halls, lost and wearing her absurd maid’s costume.
Indeed, if she had not experienced the past hours with him, she never would have believed him capable of being anything other than the chilly, aloof Duke of Fenmore.
But Doggett looked relieved to have his master back. “Yes, Your Grace. But the Earl Sanderson has left, Your Grace—he has journeyed to London.”
“Oh.” Claire brightened.
It would much easier than she thought. Lord only knew what her father would do if he saw her in her present state—and Fenmore as well, looking like his disreputable Tanner self.
Not that she was going to have an easy time with her mother.
“I believe he went to Fenmore House on the advice of Her Grace,” Doggett was clarifying, “to see if Lady Claire might be recovered from there.”
“Recovered from Fenmore House?” she parroted. “There is no need for ‘recovery.’”
Beside her, His Grace of Tanner made a soothing, but somehow impatient sound—a subtle warning not to give away too much. “Where is Her Grace, my grandmother?”
“In the drawing room, Your Grace, with her other guests.”
“Would you be so kind as to request her to attend me in her parlor at her earliest convenience.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
The man bowed, and headed back down the corridor the way he had come, until Tanner—His Grace—said, “Ah. The Countess Sanderson first, if you please, Doggett.”
“Very good, Your Grace.” Doggett bowed again, and headed in the opposite direction, toward the main staircase.
As her mother was presumably above stairs, Claire said, “Actually, I think I had rather just go up to my mother, now. I think that would help, if indeed, as you suspect, she did not get my note. I don’t want to make her wait any longer.”
“Yes,” was all he said.
This was the moment then, when they had to part—had to go their separate ways to make their explanations. And Claire already felt bereft. “Please come with me.”
“No,” was his instant answer. “Best not. But—”
Before Tanner could finish, a door banged open at the far end of the entry hall, startling the footman who had been reaching for the handle.
Claire turned to see her father burst into the house, stop in his tracks, and then stride directly toward her.
“Claire. My God.” Her father enveloped her in a crushing, but brief embrace. “My God. Are you hurt?”
He pushed her back at her elbows to take a look at her. “Are you unharmed?”
“As you see. I’m quite—”
He did not let her finish, but pulled her back against his chest, and Claire was once again enveloped in the comfort of her father’s love.
“Where in hell and gone have you been, young lady?” The words rumbled through his chest. “And why in hell did you not send word for me to come get you?”
Her poor father. He would not be swearing at her unless he had been well and truly frightened. “I did send word, but—” She had been too busy finding Maisy Carter, and doing what needed to be done.
She had been too busy staying with her Tanner. But she was quite sure her father did not want to hear that.
“And what in the name of God are you wearing? Your mother will have another apoplexy if she sees you in this. Has she seen you?”
“I am sorry, Papa, but—”
“Why have you not gone to her?” Her father released her, and immediately started toward the stairs.
“Because you were holding me back!” she laughed. “His Grace and I were just—” Claire turned to indicate her companion and savior.
But His Grace, her Tanner, was gone.
Claire looked about, rotating a full circle, with her father staring at her as if she had lost her mind. But she had not. He had been right there.
He could not have left her. Not now when she needed him most.
“Where did he go?” She looked at her father.
“Who?” her father demanded.
“His Grace of Fenmore. He was here a moment ago.” She needed Tanner’s calm logic, his factual way of saying things.
“Fenmore is here?” Her father closed his eyes as if his sight gave him pain. “Almighty God.”
Claire couldn’t tell if he uttered an epithet or a prayer. “What is the matter?”
“We must search the grounds,” her father commanded whoever might be listening. “Now!”
“No. Papa! You don’t understand— You can’t—”
“What in God’s name were you doing with Fenmore?” Now it was her father’s uncompromising gaze that centered on her, narrow and intent.
“Conversing.” The lie slipped out before she thought of anything better to say. And it wasn’t a lie, strictly speaking. They had conversed.
And for some reason she could not explain—especially in light of her father’s belligerence—she felt protective of His Grace. She might want to curse Tanner for leaving so abruptly, but she could not bear to hear others do so.
“Conversing? For seventeen hours, while we turn the world upside down looking for you? Have you no idea what has happened here? A maid has gone missing—we could only assume that she had gone with you—and Lord Peter Rosing is all but fatally assaulted, and left for dead, presumably at the hands of Fenmore, and you tell me you have been conversing with him?”
He cut himself off, and passed his hand over his eyes. “My God, Claire. You can have no idea what I’ve been made to do.”
“No idea of what?”
Her father shook his head while he answered. “His Grace stands accused— No. I won’t discuss this now. Not here. Not when your mother has been beside herself with worry. And that distressing bruise across your face is only going to make matters worse.” His voice rose as he vented what could only be a monstrous amount of worry.
Claire had to tell herself it was a mark of love that her papa was still so worried for her that the unruffled calm that had been always been the hallmark of his character—and had stood him in good stead through the raising of her three rambunctious brothers—had so deserted him as to make him raise his voice at her.
“Any other woman would have take to her bed with the hysterics, but your mother has stayed up all night waiting for some word of you. Quietly pacing back and forth. Convincing me to travel the length of the Richmond Road in the dead of night in the hopes that you had somehow made it back to our home in London. And then you just simply appear with the bloody Duke of Fenmore, who then promptly disappears? What in hell am I supposed to think?”
Guilt made her defensive. “I sent a note with His Grace’s servant.”
“It di
d not arrive.”
“I am sorry, but I did try.”
Her father said nothing more, but propelled her by the elbow into the lovely rose pink sitting room Doggett made available, and deposited her near a chair, but she couldn’t sit. She couldn’t.
Guilt, shame, and the unexpected desolation of being abandoned by His Grace of Tanner began to burn a raw hole in her chest.
But she made herself speak. She had come too far to go back to being pampered and cosseted and obedient now. And she had known what she was doing. “I am sorry I have distressed you, but what I did was...necessary.” She chose the word carefully.
“Necessary?”
“Yes. Absolutely necessary. To do the right thing.” Yes. She said it again, to firm the idea in her mind. “The absolute right thing.”
“Necessary.” Her father took a too-sharp breath. “Did he force you to marry him?”
“Fenmore? Good God, no.”
“Did the Duke of Fenmore hurt you?”
“No. Not at all.” She said it more forcefully, resentful on His Grace’s behalf, willing her father to hear her, and understand. “His Grace was a perfect gentleman.” He was only hurting her now with his absence.
Her father closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. “Claire.”
She was astonished, and brought entirely out of her own selfish pain, to see the almost haggard expression on her father’s face—the lines around his mouth looked deeper than they ever had before, graven into his cheeks, aging him by years instead of hours.
She gentled her voice. “Papa, please listen to me.”
“Just tell me.” He took her hands between his own. “Just tell me what happened, and I will make it all go away. I will fix whatever it is that has gone wrong.”
Before last night, she would never have heard a thing wrong with his words. Before last night, she would have gratefully let him fix whatever it was that needed fixing.
She would have smiled, and said yes.
But no more. And it was already fixed—fixed before Lord Peter Rosing had had a chance to hurt her beyond all repair.
And she had fixed the rest, herself. Almost. But with the help of His Grace of Tanner, she had at least learned to stand on her own two feet. “Papa, I am well. I am not hurt.”
After the Scandal Page 24
