After the Scandal

by Elizabeth Essex

  He had to find his eyes, and look about, and realize that they had kissed their way down the river, drifting past the Custom House Quay.

  “Oh! I don’t know what I was thinking. The bridge is coming up.”

  Her voice was small, and quiet, and a little shy, but her eyes were smiling, and she tipped her head just to the side again. As if she might be considering kissing him again.

  But she did not. She sat still, and waited for him to take up the oars again, and steer them safely under London Bridge and onward.

  “Are you disappointed?”

  “No,” was his immediate answer. How could she think he was disappointed in—

  “In not finding the dies, in the lead yard?”

  Ah. The truth was, he was disappointed—he would have liked to have found the dies. He would have liked to take them back to Elias Solomon and let the old man’s knowledgeable eyes pore over them while he pondered who could have cut such dies.

  But evidence was complicated. “Even if we had found them, we don’t know who owned them—it was certainly not Walker, who is just a skilled pawn.”

  He paused for a moment, and let the thought spin out in his mind, looping out to its conclusion. “This is somehow about money. And that is a skill I don’t possess—I can’t follow the money. But I have men of business who can hunt down a sixpence as if it were as obvious as a Bengal tiger.”

  He shook his head, wanting to explain more fully, but knowing he couldn’t.

  Not while the Earl Sanderson’s name was still tied up in all this.

  “So I can’t follow the money. But I can feel it. And I can feel it flowing out of that decrepit yard, back down the length of the river, back to Mayfair.”

  “So Mayfair and the suspect Mr. Edward Laytham?” Claire couldn’t exactly follow Tanner’s rather labyrinthine thought process, but she understood the end goal.

  “If we can find him.”

  “Well, I should think the best way to get information about any man is to find his club.” She was trying to be matter of fact, clever and intriguing to cover her rushing pulse and heated skin in the wake of kissing him. “So St. James’s Street?”

  And it worked—he was intrigued.

  “Very good thought. Except that I already know that Mr. Layham is not a member of the only club to which I would be granted admittance. And to put another damper on the idea, I should have to go to such a place as the Duke of Fenmore. Which at the moment”—he held out his hands to indicate their current, raffish, muddy attire—“I am not.”

  To Claire’s way of thinking, he was the commanding, knowing Duke of Fenmore no matter what he was wearing.

  But he had a point. One that distracted them both from kissing.

  “To which club do you belong?”

  “Brooks.”

  Claire allowed herself the pleasure of a smile.

  “I should have known you would be a Whig.” She was teasing him, of course, but to make sure he knew it, she added, “What else could Your Grace of Tanner possibly be? So our Honorable Mr. Laytham is either a Tory, as might fit if he’s a country man—and I could ask my father since he’s a member of White’s—or perhaps Laytham fancies himself a sportsman, and will be found haunting the halls of Boodle’s.”

  “I thought we agreed to have no mention of fathers?”

  “Did we? I don’t recall such a promise—only a suggestion to leave your name out of my correspondence with my parent. Which I have not done—I am contrary in that fashion. And I stick by my decisions. And my friends.”

  She watched the very edges of his mouth turn down and then up with pleasure, but he said nothing in reply, so she gamboled on. “Well, now that I think of sportsmen, Your Grace of Tanner, then there’s only one thing for it.”

  She let him dangle off the end of her line for a long moment. Just to see what he would do.

  He turned, and looked at her with that blazingly sharp focus, as if she were a species of animal he could not quite categorize.

  She loved making him ask.

  “And that thing is?”

  “In advance of the Goodwood Race Meeting, and the general retreat to the country for the summer, any gentleman with pretensions to the ton will be at today’s yearling sales at Tattersall’s Repository. It is the only other place, besides a club, where London’s gentlemen can be reliably counted upon to gather in numbers in July. I know my older brother was making noises that he meant to come back to town to enjoy the afternoon there.”

  “Ah.” Tanner’s small smile broadened, razor sharp across his face. “Very good thinking. Actually, it’s perfect. I was invited to go there for the sales myself.”

  His delight and satisfaction hit her like a physical thing—a blossoming pleasure that knocked the need for air right out of her chest.

  “But,” he warned. “Tattersall’s will require another slight of hand—a change of costume. Tattersall’s is not the Almonry. We cannot stroll into the hallowed oval while in our current state of sartorial dis-splendor—someone will be bound to call the constable if we do.”

  The mental image of anyone calling a constable on the Duke of Fenmore brought another smile.

  “So what’s to be done? Back to Chelsea?”

  “No. Too far afield.” The corners of his mouth curved deep into his cheeks. “Tell me Claire, have you ever been to a rag traders?”

  “No.” She knew what the rag traders were, of course. Her abigail, Silvers went off to a specialized shop to sell Claire’s cast-offs—anything she had worn out in public more than a few times, or had gone out of fashion—but there were other, less exclusive shops that dealt in second-hand clothing all over London.

  “It was a favorite ploy of my sister’s,” Tanner explained. “Nipping into a rag trader’s yard on the fly to change out her clothes in the constant running battle to stay at least one step ahead of both the constables and the kidmen. ‘Can’t find you if they don’t know who they’re looking for,’ she used to say to me.”

  She could hear his admiration and his love for his sister in his voice, in the warm way he spoke of her. And how often.

  “How ingenious.” Claire decided she liked his sister, if for no other reason than her fierce cleverness in providing for her younger brother.

  “Very,” Tanner acknowledged with that sly, private smile he wore when he spoke of his sister. As if what they had done, the way they had lived, had been a great joke, a marvelous adventure. “As a consequence, I know no fewer than six excellent rag traders who would be happy to kit us out for Tattersalls, and Tilly’s is up off the Strand at the Hungerford Stairs.”

  “Excellent.” She smiled at him. Never mind that both their homes stood between the Strand and Hyde Park Corner, where Tattersall’s was located. Never mind any of that. “I’ve never been.”

  Because the rag trader’s yards, as well as the horse sales, were another place that had been off limits to her.

  Not that a visit there had ever been expressly denied to her, but there was a sort of unspoken rule that a place such as Tattersall’s was the sole purvey of gentleman, not ladies—a rule she had never sought to challenge.

  Tanner rowed them easily on the in-flowing tide back the way they had come that morning, under Blackfriars Bridge, and on to the great bend in the river to Hungerford Stairs.

  The stairs marked the entrance to a great open air market where goods and produce from all over the city came to feed the households of the west end.

  It was busy and bustling, and no one paid them the least bit of mind as they left the stolen boat behind, and wove their way through the stalls.

  “Hungry?” Tanner asked, picking up an apple.

  “Famished.” It must be getting on for noon. “Lord, yes.”

  They bought food with money from the sueded pouch she returned to him upon request. Apples, and bread and cheese—simple foods for the simple people they were meant to be. But the apple was crisp and fresh, and the cheese sharp and tangy.

  Ambrosia.
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  Ambrosia because she was sharing it with Tanner.

  Who leaned against a wall and ate his bread and cheese as if he were the simplest, happiest, easiest man in the world, and not a duke masquerading as a ruffian in order to catch a murder.

  How strange and unpredictable and simple life had become.

  When they had eaten the bread and cheese and apple down to the last crumb—Tanner even ate the core—he led them onward, onto the Strand, and down a narrow street into the rag trader’s court.

  The yard looked idle in the midday sun, but Tanner knew the place well enough to lead her around to the back of the shambling wooden sheds, to where a thin line of mellow light shone under the door.

  He rapped the back of his knuckles against the door, and Claire drew up close behind him, listening with him as footsteps from inside the darkened hovel shambled closer.

  A solid shadow blocked the light from under the door, before the latch on a large peephole cut into the wooden portal was pulled back.

  “Oo’s there?” a querulous eye demanded.

  “The Tanner, Tilly,” he answered, and slid his gaze back to Claire, much as he had in Chelsea. “And a friend.”

  The eye behind the door narrowed upon Claire’s borrowed ensemble. “That shawl cach-a-mere?”

  “You’re as sharp as ever, Tilly,” Tanner acknowledged with a polite tug at the wide brim of his hat. “We’re looking to trade for the cashmere shawl.”

  The calculating eye narrowed, then squinted shut. “Come you in then.”

  The door creaked open, and Tanner led the way into the dim interior, where the pungent, earthy funk of well-worn clothes permeated the air.

  Claire followed Tanner through the warren of narrow corridors piled high with heaps of clothing of one sort or another, and dense with the smells of wool and sweat and dirt and use—a towering, multi-colored maze of clothing.

  Claire could only hope that somewhere, further on perhaps, was a place where the clothing was all washed.

  “Tilly Wheeler, this is my friend, Claire.”

  No response followed, but in a few moments they came into a more cheerful, slightly less piled little room, lit and heated by the glowing light of the fire where the enormous woman finally heaved herself breathlessly down into a chair.

  “Let’s have a look at that shawl.”

  Tilly Wheeler appeared to be a heavy-set woman in her late middle years who rarely left the confines of her own yard—her face and skin were pale from lack of light, and she wore down-at-the-heel carpet slippers on her swollen feet.

  How she had made it through the narrow canyons between the precarious piled mountains of clothing with her girth, Claire had no idea.

  The moment she made the unconscious assessment, Claire wanted to share it with Tanner. To see if she were right in her judgement of the woman, to see if she could earn more of that heady, wonderful praise.

  But this was not the time—and this was certainly not the place—for a private conversation, especially when Tanner’s hand found the small of her back, and gently propelled her forward.

  She pulled the shawl from her shoulders to offer it up to the rag trader, but her mind, and the body housing it, were occupied elsewhere.

  Who knew such a wealth of feeling could be had by a back?—beneath the layers of homespun fabric her skin fairly clung to the lingering warmth of his hand.

  The rag trader drew the shawl her through her calculating fingers, before she held the material up to the light. “Good quality. No moth holes. I’ll go a few bob, you bein’ a regular an’ all.”

  Clearly the woman had a shrewd eye, and a strong nose for business, if not for the pungent odor of used clothing.

  But Claire was instantly outraged. “It cost five times that.”

  Not that she had bought it—it was Tanner’s much loved sister’s—but she knew the price and value of a well-made shawl as well as, or better than the next young woman. And they would never be able to purchase better clothing if they were not afforded a fair price.

  The woman gave her a shrewd, sour smile. “It’s five seasons out of date.”

  “Three,” Claire countered. “But yellow is all the rage this season, and will carry into fall. This shawl will pair beautifully with York Tan gloves in the autumn.” She pulled a twisted pair of the used, eponymous gloves out of a nearby basket, and smoothed them out before she laid them over the yellow fringe of the shawl. “You see?”

  The canny trader’s wiry gray and black eyebrows rose in consideration. “You lookin’ for a job.”

  Claire felt rather than heard Tanner’s wry chuckle from behind her.

  “No, ma’am. I already have one.” Helping His Grace of Tanner solve a murder. “I only want a fair price for the shawl.”

  Tanner added his support. “Need at least a bull for the cashmere, Tilly.”

  “Aww, now.” The big woman made a show of scoffing. “Do you think I’m made of money?”

  “Do you think I am?” Tanner countered, with that sly, clever hint of a smile lighting his eyes.

  The big woman let out a wheezy chuckle. “Oh, now Tanner, I do. You know I do.”

  “Put it from your head. I’ve no more to my name that what’s in my hand. And what’s on my back.” And right then and there, he began to unselfconsciously shuck his clothing. “Selling coat, linen, Belcher cravat—the lot. I’ll want a trade for a decent set of livery—the top-loftier the better—along with boots for an out-rider.”

  “Livery?” Claire could not imagine why he should ask for livery—the Duke of Fenmore could not appear at Tattersall’s in livery any more than he could dressed as a back alley tough.

  But the rag trader didn’t bat an eye at the sight of His Grace stripping down like one of the prizefighting fancy. “All of it—redingote, jerkin, hobnails and gaiters?”

  “All in the best repair,” he assured the woman as his redingote fell to a pile at her feet. “And you know if you set them aside, I’ll buy the lot back within the week.”

  “And her’s as well?” Tilly Wheeler asked, shifting her calculating gaze to Claire.

  “All,” Tanner answered in his blunt, straightforward way, though he was smiling that wry, private little smile. “Although my friend will want to keep her own small clothes, I should think.”

  The rumpled linen shirt swept over his head, and was tossed toward the rag woman.

  Claire felt heat sweep across her skin with all the finesse of a runaway grassfire at the sight of his long, tall torso as bare as the day he had been made.

  Thank heavens an intervening pile of clothing obstructed the rest of her view.

  Claire whipped herself around. But she had seen, and the image of his pale, sleek, animalistic body was burned into her brain. She felt warm all over still, just at the mere thought of his unclothed body.

  And she could still see the growing pile of clothing out of the corner of her eye.

  “We’ll want something dark, and well-made, and inconspicuous for her.” Behind her, he continued to talk. “Something in the respectable ladies’ maid variety, I should think. Exercising her prerogative of her mistresses’ cast offs, but as fade-away as a maiden aunt.”

  Claire’s last hopes of a more appealing set of clothing fell by the wayside as abruptly as Tanner’s clothes seemed to be falling off of him. For some reason that she could not fathom, he wanted them to dress as servants.

  “Now that I think on it… Got a lovely set o’ livery here, just as you like.” Old Tilly heaved her bulk out of her chair, and picked her way across a small hillside of clothing. “Set them aside a while ago. Had to fend off some trades to keep ‘em clear for you.”

  “Good of you, Tilly,” he offered as his leather jerkin and gaiters landed atop the pile Claire watched out of the corner of her eye.

  The moment his small clothes were added she was going to.... She was going to go....

  Claire didn’t know what she was going to do.

  But she knew she had to do someth
ing.

  “It’s a good thing yer a tall lad,” the rag trader added, as she puffed and shuffled her way across the room, “or you’d never pass for a footman.”

  “Do you really intend for us to pass as servants?” Claire asked over her shoulder. The very idea was ridiculously amusing. Yet here he was, contemplating such a masquerade as if he did it all the time. Perhaps he did.

  His answer was as sure as it was terse. “I do.”

  “See how you like these.” The rag trader was back with some clothing she must have presented to him, for the next thing Claire heard was a booming laugh filling up the tiny crowded space.

  Tanner—the man whom, until last evening, she had known only as the cool detached Duke of Fenmore—was laughing like a school boy.

  “God’s balls, Tilly. You’ve outdone yourself.”

  The rag woman was chuckling along with him. “Though you’d like that.”

  Claire peeked over her shoulder at the woman, who smiled and tipped her head in Tanner’s direction, as if she were telling Claire she really ought to have a look.

  So she did.

  He was not naked, thank the Lord—he was holding a bottle green coat with elaborate, multi-colored ribbon facings and scarlet lining in front of him so that he was entirely covered by the garment.

  And Claire was too pre-occupied with making sure she saw no more of the man’s sinewy torso, to understand the great point of the joke.

  Until then she realized it was a coat she had seen many times through the years.

  It was the livery of himself, the Duke of Fenmore.

  Chapter 15

  “The surest way to pass unseen,” he assured her, “is to look obvious, like a part of the furniture. Especially a loudly dressed piece of furniture. People will see this livery, and never bother to look really look at me, or see my face. The safest place to hide is in plain sight.”

  “But why must we hide?” Claire had never felt so conspicuously inconspicuous before in her life. The frock Tilly the rag trader had thrust upon her was even plainer than the last—a respectable steel gray brushed cotton, covered by a plain white muslin apron and cap.