After the Scandal (34 page)

“Papa, his actions to me were nothing but gentlemanly. I told you so. I have held nothing back.” Nothing but a number of incendiary kisses. Hot, uncomfortable awareness flashed under her skin.

Her father saw her discomfort and took it for distress. “What did he do to you? What did he say or do? What hold does he have over you now?”

“Papa!” Claire tried to explain. “He has no hold over me.”

But even as she said the words Claire knew they were a lie. Knew that he did have a hold over her. A hold of gratitude.

And of something entirely more. The Duke of Fenmore had not kissed her out of gratitude. Although certainly
she
had kissed
him
. But what might have begun as gratitude had rapidly become something else. Something much more persuasive than gratitude.

But she still owed him her loyalty. “Do you distrust him because of his background?”

Her father’s chin went up in a way that told her she had hit a nerve. “What has he told you of his background?”

“I know that he wasn’t always a duke. He told me himself.”

“Did he tell you he was a thief? He spent his youth as a criminal, Claire.”

“That was a long time ago. He was a child, Papa. And you cannot tell me that the Fenmore fortune was made and is maintained by stolen watches.”

“Do not attempt to take that tone with me, young lady.” Her father’s voice was as cutting as steel. “It’s more complicated than that.”

“Yes, it is. And if he is still a criminal—a thief—of a sorts, he now steals at the behest of the government, of which you are a part. Or is it his current involvement that you object to?”

“His current involvement? What lies has he fed you?”

“They are not lies.” But she had no real way of knowing that. “But you have influence, and know people. You know people in the Admiralty.” Indeed, ever since her brother Will had gone into the navy her father had taken a keen interest in the navy’s political fortunes. “You ask the Lords of the Admiralty for yourself.” Claire’s voice had risen precipitously, and her tone was bitterly defensive.

And so was her papa’s. “Indeed, I will do so.”

Their tone had grown so acrimonious, her mother felt it necessary to hold up a conciliatory, cautioning hand. “We do not find his background at fault, Claire.” Mama spoke in her calm, reassuring voice, speaking to her husband as much as to Claire. “Indeed the duke was raised by a very great degree by a man your father admires, Captain Sir Hugh McAlden, His Grace’s brother-in-law.”

“And a finer man I know not,” her father admitted. “I put your brother Will into his care as a midshipman on Captain McAlden’s ship, upon both my own assessment of his character and the recommendation of Sir Charles Middleton, as he was then, before he became Lord Barham. And I will say, Barham took a great interest in the young duke as well, however little good it did him.”

“No.” What her father said now made perfect sense—Claire recalled that Barham had been one of her father’s set and a Lord of the Admiralty. “And why do you think that was? Because Lord Barham could make good use of him. And the Admiralty does still. But you will only believe it if the confirmation comes from someone other than His Grace or me. So ask Lord Barham’s successor at the Admiralty. You must know whomever that is. Ask him”—she made a gesture, as if she were throwing the name at her father—“about Fenmore.”

“Claire.” Her mother’s voice called her back to civility. “Are you quite sure? You must understand— Someone in your position, someone who had gone through what you have gone through, would be … susceptible. Open to influence by an exciting, mysterious, older man.”

“Older man? He is but eight and twenty, Mama. And younger than that in many ways.”

Her mother would not be drawn. “And you, who are older, in many ways, than your nearly twenty years, are going to help or change him? Are going to save him?”

Heat burned up Claire’s throat and settled behind her eyes. “Mama, I am not going to save him. I could not. And the cold fact of the matter is that he already saved me.”

“For which we are grateful. As I know you are. And such feelings can be blown all out of proportion during a time of heightened emotion.”

“I do not have heightened emotions now,” Claire lied. “I am entirely rational. And frankly, what choice do I really have? I thought you would be glad that I am happy to accept him. Happy that the scandal can be averted.”

“Scandal be damned. Scandal can be managed.” Her father’s tone was as imperious and icy as winter. “I am Sanderson. You are the daughter of the Earl Sanderson. I will not allow my daughter to be scandalized into a marriage she does not want.”

It came down to that. Managing expectations. Her father managing those expectations. Her father managing her life.

She had thought that by going in a boat with the Duke of Fenmore she could escape from her circumstances for a little while. But the truth was that she could not escape. Not even for a little while. She could never escape who she was. And what was expected of her.

But she would not be a passenger in the journey of her life. She would not let life pass by her carriage window and never voice a change of direction.

Claire damned the tight fist of doubt squeezing her chest and rode the tide of her rising breath. “But what if I do want it?”

Her question was met with an utter cacophony of silence. Her father turned his face up to the ceiling, as he if could not even look at her.

“Papa?” Did he still think her at fault? Did he truly think that she had been stupid and so shameful in her conduct as to create the entire circumstance that she found herself in? The fist of doubt and self-loathing punched itself up into her tight throat. “Papa, please.”

Her father shook his head and looked at her mother and shook his head again. “It is that you are my daughter. And you are everything good and right and beautiful. And he is…” Her papa took a deep breath and tried in vain to collect himself. But his voice was thin with repressed emotion. “He is sharp and clever and rich and terrifyingly resourceful. But for all of that, he is simply not worthy of you.”

*   *   *

She had to find Fenmore. She had to find her Tanner. Claire squared her shoulders in her very fetching gown—a beautiful soft embroidered white muslin, put on especially to look lovely for His Grace. Because she loved him.

And she was most emphatically
not
going to cool her heels waiting for His Grace of Tanner, the Duke of Fenmore to come to his senses and discover he loved her. If he didn’t know it yet, he should. Stupid, lovely, clever man.

But if he did not come to her, she would go to him. He was in the house somewhere. All she had to do was think and keep her eyes open.

She found him just as the darkness pushed the late-summer twilight over the horizon. She traced him to the floor above by stalking quietly up and down the dark, silent corridors until she found a room with a light under the door in a place there oughtn’t be any light—in the elegant chamber overlooking the lawns and the river, in which she had first been housed when she came to Riverchon.

She found him on one knee in the middle of the room, examining the rug. And though he was dressed in the Duke of Fenmore’s finer tailored clothes, she could still detect the influence of the Tanner in the dark colors and practical boots he wore. Clothes for passing unseen.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, even as his hand reached out toward her. Such a strange, lovely amalgamation of bristling hostility and unconscious invitation.

Claire avoided his hand—for the moment—and leaned her back into the door to shut it. “What are you doing?” She looked around, half-remembering herself here before. Before her life had changed irrevocably.

“You’ve changed your perfume.”

The nonsensical observation brought her gaze back to her Tanner. “I did.” And it was gratifying that he had noticed.

“I liked the other. Orange blossom.”

“I threw it out. It reminded me of before. It reminded me of Rosing.”

Tanner’s brows rose fractionally, as if he had not thought of such a possibility—of either her reaction or her subsequent action. As if he had only considered it from his own point of view.

Which was why she was still aggravated with him. She had an entirely different point of view, which he needed to take into account. “Where have you been?”

“Here.”

“Why did you abandon me, just when I needed you most?”

“I didn’t abandon you.” He looked surprised at the suggestion. “You needed private time with your parents. And I knew you could handle the reunion far better without me there to arse it all up.”

Claire crossed her arms over her chest. “I am still put out with you. Especially for being so rational. This is the moment when I wish I could make a witty, cutting remark to tell you what I think of your rationality.”

And His Grace was looking at her with fresh eyes now. “I’ll consider myself cut then, shall I?”

She tried hard to be arch. “Yes, do.”

But neither of them could contain their smiles. Claire tried pursing her lips and then biting them, but she gave up the moment the corner of his mouth twitched upward. And then they were both grinning at each other for no other reason than it felt good to be together and sparring.

Lord, she had missed him. And it had only been an hour.

But she had questions that needed answering and news of her own to report. “My dear Grace of Tanner,” she began.

His low rumble of a laugh faded, but his smile did not. It broadened. “Dear?”

“You heard me, Your Grace.” She tried to disarm him with a smile of her own, the one she had often heard described as winsome. She didn’t think he would be able to resist winsome.

He couldn’t. He rose to his feet and captured her hand. “My dear Lady Claire. Don’t you think we’ve come too far for the formality of ‘Your Grace’?”

“My dear duke, haven’t we come too far for the formality of ‘Lady Claire’?”

“Yes. Far too far. But I have to admit, I rather like ‘my dear duke.’”

“I’d rather call you Your Grace. But for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with formality or title.”

“Are—” He frowned over the top of his smile, as if he were suddenly not quite sure of himself. “Are you flirting with me?”

She looked at him from under her lashes. “Is it working?”

“God, yes.” His voice was nothing but an urgent, elegant growl as he pulled her toward him.

She went willingly, moving close and then closer. His lips parted, ever so slightly, as if he could think of nothing but her kiss. She made him think a little while longer.

She leaned against the lean comfort of his chest and put her lips along the taut cord at the side of his neck to whisper into his ear, “We’re a terrible scandal, you know.”

“Yes.” His agreement was tempered by the unevenness of his breathing. “But it’s what you do after the scandal that counts.”

“Does this count?” She wrapped her arms about his waist and turned her face up to his.

“God, yes.”

Oh, excellent. His admission brought a sigh of pure relief to her lips. He was so ready, so poised on the very edge, all he needed really was a proper push in the right direction to fall rather hopelessly in love. Poor lamb, with all his cleverness. He had no idea that he was done for. But she could read the signs just as clearly as if he had written them out on a piece of parchment and handed it to her. “This is the part where it would be nice if you said you loved me.”

“Why would I say that?”

“Because that’s how you feel.”

“Do I? How do you know?”

“Ah. I’m so glad you asked—I’ve been dying to take a crack at it.” She rested her chin on his chest, right in the snowy folds of his cravat. “Because I owe my powers of observation all to you. I’ve learned my lessons, Your Grace, and I’ve learned them very well. And so.” She stroked the back of her finger along the line of his jaw. “Your skin, Your Grace, is flushed. Just a tiny bit, here along the sides of your neck. And you breathed out when I came in, a lovely little silent gasp of greeting. And then, there were your eyes. They went obsidian dark. And then they narrowed, and then opened. Interest, I should think, that showed. Passion maybe even, in those dark, shuttered depths. And you went absolutely still. You don’t do still, normally. Unless you’re very, very interested. You try to be still, and invisible, standing along ballroom walls, being seen, but not
seen.
But you’re always moving even then. Drumming your fingers against your sleeve, or tapping your foot, or moving your head ever so slightly to the beat of the music, as if you really, really want to dance. But you never do. But you are not still. So all those physical manifestations, as you called them, point me in the direction of a man who doesn’t know how to properly express the pleasure that he feels in his gut because his head, that lovely, magnificent, terrifyingly brilliant head of yours, tells him—”

“Do shut up, Claire.” He lowered his head to whisper against her lips. “When you talk like that, it makes it extraordinarily difficult to kiss you.”

“But you like it when things are extraordinarily difficult, don’t you? You—”

And then his lips—his lovely seraphic lips, with their perfect vee and the full pouty bottom lip—covered hers. And he was magnificent. He tasted like surprise and every taste and smell and feeling that she had missed in the past hour.

His hands came up to clasp her upper arms and pull her tight against him. One lovely burst of possessiveness, before his fingers spread wide and he released her. But he did not, she noted, stop touching her. Or stop kissing her. He ran his open palms down the length of her bare arms to enmesh his fingers with hers as he kissed her. As she kissed him.

On and on it went, giving and taking, tasting and nipping and wanting. Wanting more. What started as a little game, a punishment and exercise in her own powers, was so suddenly beyond her control. Heat, real, blistering heat, raced under her skin, and a hunger she did not know either of them had began to assert its insistent self, until she could hear their kisses, hear the slide of tongue and smack of lips and breathy gasping for air. “Tanner.”