After the Scandal (12 page)

“You could stay here instead,” he hedged, “while I—”

“No.” She shook her head, growing more determined before his eyes—putting up her chin and drawing herself up to her full height, this tiny teacup of a young woman. “No. I don’t want to stay behind, safe and protected. You said you could show me. You said you would show me what life was like, so I wouldn’t be so willfully ignorant and susceptible to bounders like Rosing.”

“Lady Claire. You are not willfully ignorant, only unlearned.” His hand came up of its own volition to smooth a loose hair off her porcelain face. “And Lord Peter Rosing is more than a mere bounder. You know better than anyone what he is capable of. And it is far too much of a coincidence to think that the execrably flawed guest list for my grandmother’s ball would have included more than one rapist, although I can’t vouch for it.” He withdrew his hand before it touched Claire. He could hear the venom—the ferocious anger and self-loathing—in his tone and feel it roiling in his gut. Lady Claire and Maisy Carter were two more girls on his conscience. He did not know if he would be able to keep the violence locked deep within him from his touch.

“You can hardly hold yourself responsible—you said yourself Lord Rosing wasn’t invited.”

“No, but—” The rest of his apology was swallowed in the sound of Jinks clumping his way down the kitchen stairs carrying the surgeon’s black leather satchel.

Tanner stepped away from Lady Claire, so propriety still had a place between them. “Back so soon? I had expected it to take—”

“Got a bit of a surprise for you, Tanner. There’s yer one.” The Irishman gesticulated over his shoulder at the man entering the kitchen.

But it wasn’t the surgeon Pervis at all. It was Jack.

“Jack Denman, as I live and breathe.” Tanner held out his hand to his oldest friend. “My God, it’s been an age. Good of you to come, man. I had no idea you were in town.”

“Tanner.” The younger man shook his hand and greeted him easily—they had known each other far too long for the formalities of titles. “Good to see you as well.”

“Sorry to pull you out of your bed this time of night.”

“Anything for an old friend.” Despite the late hour, Jack’s eyes were bright with amusement. “Especially for one rich enough to endow chairs at the Royal College of Surgeons.” The surgeon’s handshake was as firm and steady as ever. “I know where my bread is buttered, Your Grace.”

“Aww now, don’t ye start ‘Yer Gracing’ ’im,” Jinks complained. “Don’t want anyone to be hearin’ that kind ’o talk from this ’ouse. Rot the Tanner’s brain, it will. And ruin me reputation as well, it would.”

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 Tanner up. “What were you doing up at the hospital?”

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 yesterday”—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. You know you are always welcome here. It’s the least I can—”

“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 before dawn.”

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 to argue with Jinks. Not when there was evil afoot and work to be done.

“Exactly, Jinks,” Tanner 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 Tanner’s old friend made him step forward, and begin 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 before 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 Tanner. “Not late of His Majesty’s Navy,
Your Grace.
I’ve a endeavor—a voyage of discovery in the offing. But all in all”—he bowed very correctly—“your servant, my lady.”

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 Tanner.

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 sharp intellect and insistence 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 Tanner and Claire 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?”

“I’ll see to it,” he responded. “Jinks will help with the necessary details.”

But Lady Claire was not yet 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, Tanner 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 at Riverchon House, to let them know you are safe and sound.”

“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 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 Tanner 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 a 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. “Perhaps 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,” she said again, infusing her voice with determination, as if she still needed to convince herself. “You should have someone who knew Maisy with you when you speak to her family.”

“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, it was everything he could do to keep himself from pulling her into his arms, and kissing her. She was so much more than he had ever thought her. She was worthy of so much more esteem than his mere infatuation would allow. “I honor you, Lady Claire. But I hardly think your parents would approve.”

He doubted her parents would approve of any part of his and Claire’s night together, much less a final jaunt into the Almonry at dawn. He could picture the Earl Sanderson’s normally impressively controlled expression now, his face slowly growing crimson with parental outrage.

But by now the 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 the young ladies’ lives so immaculate and beautiful.

The pigs on Claire’s 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.” Tanner’s voice instinctively lowered to a growl of warning.

But Jinks was as 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. “Never you fear, Jinks. I wasn’t born at the damp end of a pumpkin patch. 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 Jinks’s thick hide before he turned back to Lady Claire. “As I said, you’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.”

“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, 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.”