After the Scandal (15 page)

“Lark?”

“Aye, Tanner.” A small shadow moved in the murk beneath the stair until a thin face became visible in the watery light. “Lukey come round, looking to make a quick snatch. But I gave him the caution, and said it were yourn.”

Tanner fished the promised pennies from his pockets, and tossed them to the urchin, who snatched them up from the air as quick and silent as death. He didn’t like the pinched hollowness in the urchin’s face—the stoic acceptance of a life so mean and tenuous a stiff gale might blow it all away.

“Come with us?” He oughtn’t let pity color his judgment. But then again, if he couldn’t put his judgment at the service of the pitiful he was less than half the man he thought himself. And far less of a man than he wanted Lady Claire Jellicoe to think him.

“Come with us,” he offered again. “We’re Westminster bound. There’s another bit of lour in it.”

“How much?”

Tanner named another paltry sum but added, “And more if you look sharp and mind the skiff all through the day.”

The offer was lure enough to the hungry. “Done” was the immediate reply.

“Whitehall steps, and then you return the skiff here when the tide turns.”

“Right.” The pile of rags resolved itself into the thin shape of a tall young girl—taller than he remembered.

Tanner did the maths in his brain. She must be nearing six- or seventeen—hard to tell without parents who remembered—though she looked both a hundred years older and a hundred years younger than Lady Claire. Hunger did that to a body.

But he’d been doing his best to keep her fed. “You’ve grown.”

“People do that, don’t they, when they’ve food.” Her answer was all scrappy sarcasm that he recognized all too well.

He kept his voice even. “And you’ve food enough from Jinks, now?”

“Don’t like charity.”

“Don’t like being hungry more.” Only sharp, insistent logic would convince her. “And it’s not charity when you’re working jobs like this one.”

“Huh.” A huff of breath was her only response, but she promptly began to make ready to shove the skiff away from the planks. She scampered over to untie the painter, and then seated herself nimbly and silently in the bow as Tanner swung the boat out into the stream of the river.

Lady Claire accepted the raggedy girl’s appearance just as silently. But he could see her trying to peer around him in the thin dawn light to try to make the girl out.

“This is the River Lark,” he said by way of introduction. “From time to time, she looks after boats and such for me. Lark, this is … a lady friend.”

The Lark proved just as curious about the lady. She flicked a cutty-eyed glance at the stern. “She
your
lady friend? Special-like?”

“Very special.” Tanner kept his eyes on Lady Claire to see what she made of this particular piece of flummery.

The lady just gave him a quick squeeze of a smile before she introduced herself, all exquisite manner and gentle politeness. “Yes, I’m Claire. Very nice to meet you, Lark.”

“Huh.”

The poor child had likely never been spoken to by a lady of Lady Claire’s rank. At least not kindly. Behind him, Tanner felt the girl’s disbelieving glare, but soon enough her swift attention turned back to the river.

“Barge coming out from Battersea, Tanner.”

“Ta.” Tanner steered them more toward the west bank, out of the main stream of the river, to avoid larger vessels as the traffic began to pick up.

“Tanner?” Lady Claire asked. “Is that your Christian name?”

He had been waiting for the soft question. “A childhood name.”

She smiled, a small show of some private delight. “I didn’t think men like you had nicknames. Unless they are terribly bad and rakish, and are called Beau or Hellfire Harry, or some such. Or are very good, and are called Parson. But I’ve never heard anyone call you anything but F—”

“No.” His injunction was swift and low. Although the Lark and other people like her on the damp, dark margins of London life probably knew more of him than he had ever let on, he tried to keep his identity as the Duke of Fenmore as separate as possible from his streetwise self. “‘Tanner’ will do. A tanner is a coin—a sixpence—which I used to steal quite a lot of. My sister was called Meggs, for the guineas she was so good at stealing.”

“Oh, I see. From your sad childhood.”

“It wasn’t sad.” He said it too quickly—she was looking at him with that terrible combination of concern and pity. “I had what I needed.” Provided for him by his sister. Unlike Lark, who had no one. But this wasn’t the time to expound upon his one-man crusade to help London’s abandoned children. So he changed the subject. “And if I may call you Claire? Or perhaps you’ve another, more familiar name you’d prefer to be called?”

“It does seem a little strange at this point to hold to the proprieties. Of course you may call me Claire.”

Another spate of pleasure warmed his chest. “Thank you, Claire. The next lesson in protecting yourself will be acting like you’ve already got all the protection you need. Like you belong. Swagger.” He let his voice go rough-and-tumble. “Piss and vinegar. Do you see?”

She pleated that line between her perfect golden brows and shook her head. “No.”

“When we get to Westminster, you’ll need to act like you’re my lass, and I, your man. For protection, if nothing else. The world is not, as you so roughly learned from Rosing, a kind place. And this city—and the part of the city where we’re going—is unkinder still than even Rosing.”

“Oh. Yes. I see.” She nodded and sat up a little straighter. “I understand. You mean to pretend, for show. Like that extraordinary show in the alley when you put off those two footpads.”

“Ah. Mick and Duffer Robertson.”

“You know their names? Oh.” Those lovely golden brows shot up. “From your childhood?”

Tanner almost gave her the truth. He almost said, no, it was not for show—it was very much for real. He almost said he did not know those men from his criminal childhood. But guile—he was full to his back teeth of guile, and he meant to take advantage of each and every inch of ground he could cover with her, even if it meant taking advantage of her pity—told him not to. So he asked, “Will it be such a burden to pretend to like me?”

“No.” She said the word carefully, as if she were still mulling it over and wanted to draw the denial out long enough to make up her mind. “I don’t think it would be a burden, Your Grace—”

“Tanner.”

“I don’t think it would be a burden to act as if I like you, Tanner.” She tried the name out, like a new taste in her mouth. “Because I do like you. I trust you, even though we’ve known each other only a few hours.”

And he’d known her—or thought he’d known her—forever. And yet, as he looked at her steady, uncompromising gaze, he realized that didn’t know the true Claire Jellicoe—the girl behind the elaborate facade of “Lady Claire” that he had constructed for her—at all.

She was infinitely more than her aura of glistening, golden perfection. She was capable of using her mind. She thought. She understood. And she seemed to understand and accept him. A little, at least. Enough to be going on with.

And God knew not even his own flesh and blood had ever completely understood the clockwork tickings of his mind.

“Will it be—” She straightened her chin and began again. “Will it be a burden for you to pretend to like me?”

This he understood a little better, this small sign of vanity. It was kin to his own savage pride. He would reassure her. “It’s no imposition to smile at a lovely lass, Claire. No imposition at all.”

He watched her smile and look away and then color, her pale cheeks turned rosy in the inky purple light of the dawn. But the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. He couldn’t quite read her. And for the first time in his life, he actually wanted someone to tell him what they were thinking. “Claire?”

And he liked saying her name, if for nothing beyond the calming pleasure of it.

“I just realized that you must do this all the time. With these clothes at the ready, and how you were with the men in the alley. You weren’t surprised. You must do this all the time, with other people. Other girls?”

This was more than vanity or pride surely? This was … personal. Tanner lowered his voice and leaned toward her. “No. Not all the time. I’ve never acted like I was anyone’s man before, Claire. Nor like anyone but you was my girl. This day is special in that way.”

The smile that grew up from her lips was small and trying not to be pleased, but quite pleased nonetheless. “Now you will make me feel vain. But I suppose any lass likes to think she’s special.”

“Ain’t that the truth, missus,” Lark added in a rueful aside from the bow. “Ain’t that the bleeding truth.”

Tanner made no other answer. But all he could think, as he rocked back and forth with the rhythm of the oars, was that he would make Claire feel more special yet.

Chapter Nine

Dawn spilled slowly over the purple rim of the horizon to the east. Other colors seeped into the morning sky—deep orange-soaked pink rising to push back the purple. The mirror of the river spread the colors over the surface of the smooth water. Only around the banks was the land separated from the sky by a swath of moving mist, swirling around the humps of buildings and wharves along the banks. The morning was breathtaking and stunning in its vibrancy.

And His Grace’s face, silhouetted against it all, still in gray shadow, looking cool and collected against the riot of warm color.

But Claire knew now that there was nothing cold about him. Nothing placid or unfeeling. The facade he showed the world was just a high wall, designed to keep all the vehemence within from spilling out into the streets. His aloofness was a bastion of gentlemanly reserve designed to hold the world at bay, and keep his feelings private.

But he looked nothing like a reserved gentleman now, in a loose old redingote that had seen far better days, over plain spun-linen shirtsleeves, a dark suede jerkin, and rough-looking breeches. He had traded his smart Hessians for heavier, treaded boots and leather gaiters. He completed his ensemble by covering his too-well-groomed hair with a slouchy hat and shrugging himself into that loose old redingote the color of spring mud.

He looked like one of the rough-and-tumble fellows her mother would have termed a swell—tough and disreputable, and altogether far more male and potent than he had ever looked looming around the edges of ballrooms. And he had looked potent enough then.

But now he was rather thrilling, actually.

Back in the house at Chelsea there had been a moment when he had looked up at her from under his brows when he had heard her tread upon the kitchen stair. He had done as neat a double take—looking away absently and then cutting sharply back—as she could ever hope to see. And a thrill had clattered its silly way down the length of her spine, leaving her flushed and nearly giddy. His regard thrilled her.

He
thrilled her.

Until she reminded herself it was not a time for foolish thrills or giddiness. The night had already seen enough naive foolishness—that her face was so scratched and bruised was evidence enough of that. And they were on a solemn mission, bringing the woeful news to Maisy Carter’s poor family.

They alighted from the skiff at a place called Deval’s Wharf—a faded sign was painted on the side of a building, spilling out on to the narrow south yard of the old Palace of Westminster. As soon as they stepped off onto the embankment the Lark took the oars, and pulled silently away southward.

“Won’t we need the boat to get back to Richmond?”

“No.” His Grace was already moving purposefully forward, making a silent come-along-and-follow-me gesture with his hand. “By the time we’re done here, the tide will have turned.”

Claire moved as close as possible to him. The neighborhood looked ominously gray and dreary. Full of moldy menace. “Where do we go next?”

His Grace—Tanner, she reminded herself—stopped and turned back to her, toe to toe. He looked her in the eye, his deep blue-green gaze intent and penetrating. “Are you still determined? You do understand it won’t be pretty? It will be close and damp and reeking and very, very shabby. As shabby as you’ve ever imagined.” He paused as if he were waiting for her imagination to catch up with his description. “Shabbier. Dirtier. Poorer. Much, much poorer.”

“Yes, all right. I understand.” Claire also imagined his words would prove to be an understatement. “But I
am
determined.” She said it as much to convince herself as him. “We can do no less for Maisy Carter, don’t you agree?”

“I do.” But he didn’t look glad of it. He looked unhappy, and burdened and dangerous, with his eyes shifting right and left, scanning the way ahead. “Right then,” he said. “Follow my lead. Let me do the talkin’ as needs to be done. You’re my lass, then. Special-like, as the Lark said. My mort.”

“Mort?” It was not a word she knew.

“My woman.” He took her elbow, and guided her backward until she came up against the wall at the corner of the street.

The moment her backside hit the brick, the cage of her chest tightened, and her hands came up, her cold-slick palms open wide, ready to push him off. Ready to stop him.

But he did not come any nearer. Still, she felt the loom of him, the physical dominance of his position, the imminent threat of his mere presence. Her heart thundered in her ears, filling her up until she started to feel as if she could drown in it. Her chest began to rise and fall in great gulping gasps.

But he came no nearer. He stood his ground and looked at her from under the dark brim of his hat. “We’ll need to be close, Claire. To be safe.” His voice was a low rumble. “But you’ll tell me if I get too close. You’ll tell me if this distresses you.”

And because he said it, because he seemed to know what she was feeling, some of the tight, strangled feeling eased. Her heart was still pumping too fast, but she was no longer breathing like a leaky bellows.

She nodded her understanding, and he stepped nearer and reached out to touch her, as if he had a right to touch her freely, sliding his hand along the line of her jaw and fanning around her nape. As if he were about to kiss her.