After the Scandal (24 page)

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 backs of his knuckles against the door. 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 querelous 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, multicolored maze of clothing.

Claire could only hope that somewhere, farther 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 heavyset 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 judgment 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 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 Claire knew the price and value of a well-made shawl as well as or better than the next young woman. And she and Tanner 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 than 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—and boots. The toploftier the better.”

“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.

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 hers 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 smallclothes, 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 grass fire 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 lady’s 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.

“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 smallclothes were added she was going to … She was going to go … She didn’t know what she was going to do.

But she knew she had to do something.

“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.”

Claire could only marvel at the thought of a duke dressed as a footman. 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. “Do you really intend for us to pass as servants?” she asked over her shoulder.

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

The rag woman was chuckling along with him. “Thought 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. He was holding up 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 preoccupied with making sure she saw no more of the man’s naked torso to understand the great point of the joke.

And 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 Fifteen

“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 Claire was even plainer than the last—a respectable steel gray brushed cotton, covered by a plain white muslin apron and cap.

She had never felt less herself.

In contrast, Tanner looked more himself than ever, even dressed as his own servant. There was a strange grace to him—an unaffected frankness to him—that was more than appealing than even the rough-and-tumble rogue of the redingote and jerkin. Appealing in an entirely different way.

For the first time in their acquaintance—although
acquaintance
was a pale word for their rather interesting and very unusual association—the Duke of Fenmore looked entirely at ease. He looked satisfied even—laughing at himself as if dressing as his own servant were the greatest joke in the world. He looked like the naughtiest of schoolboys, having a marvelous time at his own expense—young and happy and amused in an entirely unaffected way. As if he simply couldn’t help himself. As if for this one small moment he had stopped
thinking
and simply let himself be content.

Claire wanted to be content—to be happy—as well, but she could not entirely silence her qualms about their present masquerade.

“We hide so we can find the Honorable Mr. Edward Layham and learn his secrets. Dressed like this, people will treat us as if we were invisible. They will see only station, and think us too unimportant to bother looking at our faces. And when people don’t see us, they will
say
things. Revealing and important things.”

It was hard to resist his obvious enthusiasm. She followed him out of the rag trader’s yard, and, after a few blocks along the Strand, around Charing Cross and down Spring Gardens behind the Admiralty. He was easy but aware in an alert sort of way—watchful, even as he ambled along the pavement. After a few minutes they came out of the streets and headed down the long, shaded expanse of the Mall between Charlton House and St. James’s Park.

At this time of the morning there was only a smattering of nannies and their young charges strolling about the lawns and pathways of the park, and despite Claire’s feeling as if she looked entirely out of place, no one paid her and Tanner the least mind. For all the world, they looked like a footman and his lass walking out in the park.

But she had never walked out with a footman before. Or a duke.

They carried on in silence for a few long minutes, walking slightly apart along the line of trees. He did nothing to resume their previous intimacy, and she took it as a lesson to herself—his regard was a product of the role he played and nothing more. A role he must have played fairly often.

“Does Tilly Wheeler know that you are Fenmore? Does Mr. Solomon? Does everyone?”

“Not everyone. I’ve endeavored to be circumspect about it. But Tilly must know. She’s known me for years—since long before I had to become Fenmore.”

His words caught Claire’s ear. “Had to become?”

“Ah.” He tipped his head to the side again in his considering way, but he did not look at her. He looked away, out over the open field of the park. Some of his ease evaporated. “I suppose it must seem very strange to you, but I was not at all a willing recipient of my grandmother’s benefice. Not that I minded the food, or the soft bed, but I minded the rest of it. The relentless schooling, the endless lists of dos and don’ts. The obligations and expectations. The bathing. Good God, you can’t imagine how I hated the bathing. It all seems quite silly now, but I was vehement enough about it then.”

It was not hard to imagine him as such a boy—he was still vehement enough now, only about other things. “It must have been very hard.” It was hard enough for her to live up to her Jellicoe family expectations and obligations, and she had had her whole life to become accustomed. And she did not have to become a duke. “What of your sister?”

“She managed more gracefully. But she also married and moved away with her husband to start a new life, entirely out of society.”

“Ah, yes. The West Indies.”

“Yes. Rather too faraway to help ease my way with her practical, rather forceful logic. I had to manage the change on my own.”

She heard what he had not said just as clearly as if he had been able to articulate his particular experience of loneliness. “Well, you’ve done a rather magnificent job of it, if you ask me. I never knew you were anything but Fenmore.”

“No one is meant to know. At least not in society. And they are not meant to know that I am still rather more than just Fenmore.”

He stopped and looked at her then. That piercing, straightforward, intelligent gaze that made her feel as if she were the only person he could see in the entire world when she knew it wasn’t true—he saw
everything
. Every tiny, telling detail. Every bruise and cut. Every blush and stammer.

It was just part of his particular genius to make her feel as if he were looking only at her.

He broke his gaze and quickly looked around, and then lowered his voice, even though they were entirely alone. “You ought to know this, Claire. That I do this—go off, on my own, not as Fenmore. For a reason. It’s not just a lark.”