After the Scandal (29 page)

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 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.”

But as they made their way down the Whitehall Stairs 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 as they were seated in the stern sheets 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, cannot-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 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. 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 oilcloth 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, 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. I’ll make sure of that.”

“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. Nor did he want to. But the wherryman needed to be paid, and she and Tanner still had a long trip downriver, which needed to be undertaken immediately if they were to catch the last of the tide.

“Claire, do you have the money?”

She handed over the sueded 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 his intentions.

But he didn’t.

He wasn’t exactly sure why. And it was unlike him not to 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 transfered 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 combinations 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, no 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 both become 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 to the manor 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 a 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 bushes and overgrown vines.

He gave the latch on the gate an exploratory rattle. “Locked.”

“Why,” Claire asked from behind him, “if I may ask, all this secrecy? Why the hidden garden gate?”

He gave her his patent answer. “Always pays to know two ways in and three ways out of every place.”

“But this is your grandmother’s house.” Claire 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 work 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 than 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 in which 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 Magistrates’ 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? Are you ready to tell them all?”

His question was met with uncomfortable silence. But he wouldn’t press her. He had promised her that no one would question her. The time of reckoning would come fast enough, and she would have to make her decision then.

He 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.

“What do you plan to do?”

“Two choices—no, three—boost you over, stand back, and watch you give it a go just as you did in Chelsea, or”—he looked at her and gave her that smile she liked—“pick the lock.”

She did like. “What an astonishing assortment of skills you seem to have, Your Grace.” She said it with just the right amount of amusement and admiration, and smiled back. A watery little smile, but she was rallying. “Pick the lock, if you please?”

“Yes.” He did please. Anything to have her with him. Anything to keep her as his co-conspirator. “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. Or our day.”

That stopped him cold. He left off rummaging in his pocket for his picklocks and looked at her. “Claire. You’re going to have to give some explanation.”

“I meant about us, and— I’m sure there’s more than enough to tell with Maisy, without all the rest.”

“Ah.” That was instructive. She would share the awful details of her near rape sooner than she would tell them about him. Well.

“The rest is important, Claire. Rosing won’t be stopped—not even by a cracked head and a broken leg—until someone finally does say something. Someone who is beyond reproach. Something that will stop him.”

“But you already did. And if you’ve already killed him, I won’t have to say a word.”

Chapter Eighteen

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.

“Nothing to be sorry about.” But he didn’t try to snug up close to her as he had in the lead yard.

She had envisioned him working with her, close and intimate, but he had her stand on her own, working the tools herself. She 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.

He kept his own counsel, and handed her the two long, thin pieces of metal he had used in the lead yard. “It’s all right. Insert the pick, the pointed one, and feel for the tumbler, the piece of metal, like a tooth, inside.”

Claire 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.” She felt the tumbler, just as he said.

“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 weight 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.”

“That was brilliant.” She was numbly elated, standing there in the grass with her feet clammy and wet. She had impressed him, but more important, she had impressed herself.

“Yes. Very clever. You can give those back to me now.”

She didn’t feel clever with Tanner so patently unhappy with her, and she wanted to feel something better. “No. I meant you. You told me exactly what I needed to do. That’s the brilliant part.” But she was still buoyantly happy and pleased with herself. “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 Claire felt as if some of the pressing weight of unease had been lifted from her chest. “The minute you’re free,” he echoed. “You’re welcome.” But he still kept his distance.