After the Scandal

by Elizabeth Essex

  “Yes. I’m still here.” She heard the laughter in her voice, and felt the happiness bubbling up from within. From the well that finally felt full.

  “We should not have done that,” he said. But there was no heat, no purpose in his voice.

  “Really?” She was too happy to do anything but tease. He needed teasing, poor lamb. “Did we do it wrong? Ought we try again?”

  “Yes.” His gaze finally focused upon her. “We ought to do it again, and again, and again.”

  He brushed his hand through her hair, and pulled her closer to kiss her forehead. “But not now. You’ll be sore, and I’d be a brute. And we still have a murder to solve and a killer to catch.”

  “Now?” Claire was too comfortable, and too tired, to want to do anything but crawl under the covers of his bed, and sleep until next Thursday.

  “Yes, now. Because I want to marry you. And do that again and again and again. But I can’t marry you with a false charge laid against me. And Rosing must be stopped once and for all. It is—as you’ve continued to remind me—past bloody time.”

  “Oh. I wish you had killed him when you had the chance.”

  The moment she said it she was ashamed of herself. “No. Forgive me. I don’t really mean that. I’m just tired.”

  “I’ve wished I did, too. At least a dozen times since last night.”

  “Don’t. And don’t think I wish that on you. I don’t. You did the right thing. Because you’re not an animal, Tanner. You’re a gentleman, and you did the right thing.”

  “If I were a gentleman, you, my darling girl, would not be naked on my lap.”

  “I prefer to think of it as you, my dear duke, naked under my lap.”

  Claire felt his chuckle reverberate through her as he slowly disengaged their bodies, and set her gently off him.

  “Either way, we must wash and dress, and find Rosing while Hadleigh is astir. If he is not still downstairs ratting around to try and find me, he is no doubt trying to find a magistrate who will leave his dinner and bother himself enough to have me taken up on his charge. Or maybe he’ll be lucky, and find one who can simply be bought.”

  “Can he do that?” Despite all that had happened—all she had seen of the world in the past day—Claire was still shocked. “It doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Life is rarely fair, Claire. Not unless we trouble ourselves to make it so.” He hitched his breeches up, and disappeared into his dressing room, from which he returned with lamp, and a basin and ewer. “I’m sorry it’s not warm, but needs must.”

  He handed her a soft flannel, and then began rather unaffectedly to wash himself, dipping his cloth into the water, and running it over his lovely lean body, leaving droplets of water to sheen off his beautifully golden skin.

  “Stop ogling me, Claire, and get yourself washed and dressed, or you’ll find yourself flat on your back on that bed, and then your father will see me strung up regardless of any charges.”

  “I’m dressing,” she groused. “Even though I had rather ogle you.”

  She did as he asked, though she was more modest, and withdrew to the dark dressing room to wash and attire herself in her chemise and stays. But as to the lacing—

  “May I?”

  He was at the door, ogling her this time. He was dressed in his rough, dark rig again, and she imagined he’d have another disreputable old redingote in his wardrobe to replace the one he’d traded away to Tilly Wheeler, to turn him back into a highwayman.

  “Are you going to draw your pistols and have Rosing stand and deliver?”

  “Nothing so obvious. I prefer a less visible approach.”

  “What about me?” She asked as she gave him her back to tighten the laces. “I’m hardly invisible in that gown.”

  He turned to look at the muslin, draped over a chair like an inanimate ghost in the fitful moonlight. “I do wish you had something darker. But there isn’t— Ah.” His eyes narrowed, and then brightened, and his lips, those clever taunting lips, spread wider in that marvelously piratical smile. “Actually, the muslin is perfect.” He handed it to her.

  “Perfect for what?”

  “Looking innocent.” He had the back buttons done up in a flash, and was striding back to his chamber. “While I shall look quite the opposite.”

  He began to fill his pockets and belt with guns. “We’ll use the difference to our advantage.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to go visit your counterfeit betrothed.”

  It was a good night for some housebreaking.

  The moon danced in and out of the clouds, cloaking their approach to Lady Worthington’s villa standing bright and quiet in the night.

  Tanner had rowed them the three minutes upriver to the neighboring property in the silent little skiff.

  He tied the vessel off with a slipknot—two ways in, and three ways out of every hole—prepared for a hasty escape should they need it. But they shouldn’t need it.

  He had something else entirely in mind.

  But he did take the trouble to check the small stable, to assure himself that the Marquess of Hadleigh was still out, and would not be there to interfere and protect and cover up for his son. Not this time.

  Not ever again.

  Lady Worthington’s villa—so called as it was merely a small country house sent in small grounds with no extended farm or tenanted land attached—resembled a jewel box at night. Light spilled out of every window as if there were no concern for economy or the extravagance of keeping wax candles. A house for retreating from the worries and heat of town in the summer months.

  Rumor had always been that Hadleigh had bought the house for Lady Worthington, who had been made a widow at a young age and been left without a jointure or recourse to her deceased husband’s fortune by a strictly enforced entail.

  Hadleigh must be a generous benefactor—the entire house seemed to be illuminated, as if someone within were afraid of the dark. The light presented a problem, in that he would need to extinguish a great many candles in order to skulk about effectively, but it also provided him with a great deal of information.

  It was easy to see who was in a room. It was easy to ascertain that her ladyship had retired to her sitting room above, with the windows open to the front of the house so she could be apprised of Hadleigh’s return. It was easy to see that the servants were for the most part below stairs, congregating in the small servants hall with the shining basement windows.

  Outside, the wide lawn stretched uninterrupted from the house all the way to the river without out the relieving cover of any greenery save the grass.

  There was nowhere to hide.

  So he would not hide.

  Tanner checked his weapons again, running his fingers over the pistols, and touching the knife in his boot. And then he led Claire toward the torch-lit front door.

  “Do you mean we’re just going to knock, and ask if we can search the place?”

  “No. You’re going to knock, and ask to see your betrothed. I am going to go in through that library window we just passed.”

  “What am I supposed to say?”

  “Say you’re here to see Rosing. That you want to hear his proposal from his own lips. Use some of that marvelously forcible charm of yours.”

  “Forcible charm?”

  “Yes. Where you smile and people fall all over themselves to do your bidding.”

  “You’ve never fallen all over yourself to do my bidding.”

  He looked at her from under his brows. “Have I not?”

  “Well—” She fidgeted, and turned back the way they had come, and knotted her fingers into fists. “But I don’t particularly want to see Rosing. In fact, I hope never to see him again.”

  “Courage, Claire. You can do what needs doing, even if you’re afraid. I’ve seen you. And I won’t leave you alone. Just get inside the door, and I’ll help with the rest.”

  A deep, uneasy frown was scrubbed between her brows, but she nodded twice, a
s if she were still convincing herself.

  “Yes, all right. If you’re sure.” She took a deep breath. “I can do it.”

  “Good girl. Clever, good girl.” And he kissed her—a quick, heady stamp of his love and encouragement—and slipped away. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  Tanner took a moment to put himself back into housebreaking mode. He had to change his brain—twist it round a bit to see things with a different set of eyes.

  Still, the knowledge he had gained by being the Duke of Fenmore would also put him in very good stead—he knew the inner workings of a stately house, even a small one like Lady Worthington’s.

  Tanner crept low along the wall until he was directly beneath the library window, which had conveniently been cracked open to cool the south-facing room with the evening breeze.

  It was the work of eight heartbeats to slide the window open, and slither over the ledge. Another two heart beats, and the branch of candles was extinguished, the flames quickly and silently snuffed between his thumb and third finger.

  He left the window open behind him. Another way out, if need be, and the open windows would provide an easy excuse if someone noticed that the candles had been blown out by the breeze.

  Tanner took a moment to let his eyes adjust to the dark, and memorize the layout of the furniture, especially the placement of any chairs that could be moved easily.

  The floor plan of the interior was typically Palladian, balancing one side of the house against the other, which meant that the room configuration and stairways would be exactly the same on each side. Music room and drawing room on this side—dining room and library on the other.

  Lady Worthington was to be complimented on her housekeeping—every window and door was well oiled, and opened easily and soundlessly.

  A lovely house for the breaking.

  Tanner paused at the double doors to the hallway listening as someone—a male servant judging from the sound of the heavy footfalls—went to the door.

  “Good evening.” Claire’s voice was clear, but she sounded nervous, the edges of her intonation flicking sharply upward.

  But that should suit—if she were really a young lady who had come to see her betrothed at his father’s mistress’s house, in the middle of the evening, she ought to sound unsure.

  “I am Lady Claire Jellicoe. I’d like to see Lord Peter Rosing.”

  “His lordship is indisposed.”

  “He is ill, I know. That is why I’ve come. His father, the marquess, said I ought—”

  She broke off, either in a very well-played show of delicacy, or else because she had run out of lies.

  Either way, it worked.

  “If you’ll wait one moment, my lady, while I enquire?”

  “I know this is all untoward, coming here like this with Peter so ill. I’m sure you understand, but as we’re to be betrothed, Lord Peter and I, perhaps it were be best if my visit were kept—”

  “Lady Claire, isn’t it?” Lady Worthington’s amused purr pattered down from above. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve come to see Lord Peter.” Claire’s voice grew steadier. “His father, the marquess, came to speak to my father tonight, but I needed to see Peter myself, and speak to him, and— I’m sure you understand.”

  “Actually, I don’t.” Lady Worthington’s ennui was palpable even at his distance. “He’s not fit for any visitors, much less a young lady—he’s practically swathed from head to toe in bandages. And he woke up for the first time only this afternoon, and only for a short while. He’s too weak to speak, really, done in with pain—and of course the laudanum.”

  “Oh.” Claire’s distress sounded all too real. “Nevertheless, I feel I…ought. Just for a moment. It’s only right.”

  After an interval, Lady Worthington made up her mind. “Suit yourself.”

  The lady must have made some motion of acceptance, because two treads could now be heard on the stair.

  “From what I understand he’s lucid only for short intervals. But have your wish. For myself I can’t stand a sick room.”

  The voices trailed away, and the entryway was left in silence. And then Tanner was following after them, extinguishing wall sconces as he went, and opening windows where he could.

  And at the top of the stair he moved to the open door of the corner bedchamber, where Claire stood alone, staring at the bed in the low light of a single candlewick.

  Tanner closed the silent door behind him, and moved to stand next to Claire, and offer what little comfort he could.

  And there he was, Lord Peter Rosing, stretched out in the bed like the veriest invalid, his body encased in a linen nightshirt. He was motionless, his head upon the thin pillow swathed in bandages, as were his arms—evidence of what must be repeated bleedings to try and relieve the ill humors trapped in his concussed brain.

  Well they could try, but his shallow breathing and deep sunken cheeks meant that his lordship did not appear to be recovering.

  And the fact that they had left him—the seat of the chair by the bed side was cold to the touch—meant that they did not fear his waking.

  Tanner had well and truly cracked the bastard’s skull.

  He tried for a moment to feel some sort of remorse or pity, but nothing came. No finer feeling stirred in his breast. Nothing but the need to prove that this man lying in such a pitiful state was the lying, rapine, murdering bastard Tanner, and half the serving girls in London knew he was.

  “He doesn’t look so very dangerous now, does he?”

  “Snakes look all innocent coiled up in the sun, too,” she said.

  “Good. He doesn’t deserve your pity.” He looked round the room. “I’ll check the wardrobe. See if you can rouse him.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  But Tanner had already begun his search. The wardrobe between the curtained windows held a well-tended valise, and folded and laundered clothes neatly stacked, as well as a pair of well-polished boots, and a pair of evening slippers—the evening slippers Rosing had been wearing when he stepped on the back of Lady Claire Jellicoe’s train and shoved her face against the wall.

  Tanner’s vision went blank and black and red.

  Funny how the simplest things could trigger such unmitigated rage. But the shoes didn’t matter, the waistcoat did.

  Tanner flipped through the careful stacks. Only a few shirts, four cravats, and two pairs of breeches—Rosing had not intended to stay in Richmond long. And there were only two waistcoats.

  The first was the sort of crisp, warm lemon colored linen that would look good at a garden party, or a drawing room. But the second—the second was evening wear. A starkly white silk designed to be worn with a dark coat, like the superfine from Schweitzer and Davidson, and white satin evening breeches.

  Plain white silk. No gold threads. No twilled weave. No rip, or sign of repair on the slit pockets.

  Not the man Maisy Carter had scratched at in her desperation. And not a married man, with a ring upon his finger.

  Two pieces of evidence that said Rosing was not a murderer.

  But there was something else—there was a small round leather box. The sort of small box in which a man might keep his ornaments, like a cravat pin. Or a watch fob.

  And there is was—nested at the bottom of the box—a gold aureus fob.

  It was not Rosing, then, the man Maisy Carter had fought.

  At least, not the only man.

  For a long moment Tanner stared down into the box, too intent upon his thoughts to take note of what else lay coiled in the bottom—hanks of blonde hair.

  Tokens of Rosing’s conquests.

  And amid them was a simple gold cross, studded with garnets. Just the sort of humble piece of jewelry a girl like Maisy Carter would have been given by a former mistress as a parting gift. It was worn, and well-used, dirty even, as if she touched it often and never took it off.

  Rosing might not be the murderer, but he was certainly a vicious rapist, and he was part of the e
vil that had been done at Riverchon.

  He had likely strangled Maisy with her cross when he raped her. And he had taken it, and had this cross on him, in his pocket when he went back downstairs to find Lady Claire Jellicoe, and put his filthy hands upon her, and drag her down the garden, and try once more to satisfy himself with violence.

  Tanner turned his hatred back to the bed where Claire was waving a vial of strong smelling salts close under Rosing’s nose.

  “Wake up, Rosing,” he growled close to the bastard’s ear. “I’ve come to finish what I started.”

  It would be an easy thing to kill the wretch there and now. Tanner had told himself that if given another chance he would kill him. He had come here with just that intention riding like a whip at the back of his mind.

  It would be all too easy. And no one would ever know.

  “Tanner.”

  Claire would know.

  But killing Rosing now would be a mercy, and save the man the ironic horror of recovering just so he could be hanged. And it would certainly satisfy the savage bloodlust coursing through Tanner’s veins.

  But choking the life out of Rosing just the way he had nearly choked the life out of Maisy Carter would only serve to push Tanner closer to the noose.

  “Tanner,” she said again, stronger this time. “Look at me.”

  It was enough. Enough to remind himself that he was not an animal—a ravening beast with no brain to guide his heart.

  No matter his savage lust for revenge, he could choose.

  He could choose, he had told Claire. And so he would. “Yes. I won’t be a savage, Claire.”

  He would choose the right course.

  Tanner shifted his focus to Rosing, staring up at them with a muzzy combination of fear and disassociation that must come from the laudanum. “Tell us what you did.”

  Rosing transferred his wide, startled gaze to Claire. In the dim light from the single candle, her white muslin dress was illuminated, making her look like an avenging angel come down to take God’s vengeance.

  She said, “Tell us what you did to Maisy Carter—I already know what you did to me. But now I want to hear you admit what you did to Maisy.”