Page 3 of Seduced by a Scoundrel (Tales from the Brotherhood #1)
Three
F or a few, terrifying moments, Jeremy could not draw air into his lungs. The sound of the carriage ripping past him and the scent of horse sweat lingered in his senses even after Talboys yanked him out of the way.
He had nearly died, nearly been run over by a speeding carriage, likely on purpose, and Det. Talboys had saved him.
Det. Derrek Talboys of the Metropolitan Police Department. Jeremy had been both surprised and relieved to find the man at The Chameleon Club when he’d sought refuge there. Instinct had told him that he would find help at the home of The Brotherhood, but he never could have imagined that the exact man he needed would be right there, or that he would be so eager to help.
Derrek Talboys. Jeremy breathed in the man’s scent, the spice of shaving soap nearly faded, the wool of the greatcoat he wore, and the alluring scent of skin under it all. He sagged as the moment of danger passed, leaving him wobbly and uncertain. But Talboys still had an arm around him, and instead of sinking to the street, he fell against the man’s broad chest, tempted to lay his head on Talboys’s shoulder.
“There, there,” Talboys said in a stiff attempt to comfort him. Stiff not out of any awkwardness or inability to care, but because they were on a busy, public street and the gesture was sure to draw attention. “Let’s get you inside. A cup of tea will set you to right.”
Jeremy sucked in a fortifying breath and forced himself to stand on his own power, though he would have rather remained in Talboys’s arms a little longer.
“I am terribly sorry,” he said tugging at his jacket and brushing off his arms, all while avoiding Talboys’s direct gaze. “I do not know what has come over me.”
Talboys huffed and adjusted Jeremy’s bag in his grip. “You were nearly run down by a carriage,” he said. “That is what has come over you.”
Jeremy’s knees went weak again at the thought. Someone was trying to kill him.
No, not someone. Sir John Conroy and his accomplice. They knew who he was and where he resided, so they’d sent a carriage right away to do the job. The carriage had failed, but they would inevitably try again.
“This is my shop,” Jeremy said, his voice weak and wavery as the two of them crossed the street and entered the shop.
Artie sat at the small table in the corner of the room, sewing the hem of a crisp, white shirt while watching the door. He sat up straight and greeted Jeremy’s return with a smile.
That smile dropped quickly.
“Has something happened, sir?” he asked, concern in his young face.
“No, no,” Jeremy lied. “Everything is quite well. No need to worry yourself.”
Artie glanced doubtfully past him to Talboys.
Jeremy cleared his throat and said, “This is Det. Talboys of the Metropolitan Police Department.”
Artie’s face filled with panic. “I…I didn’t do nothing. I don’t know anything.”
Talboys set Jeremy’s bag on a table and raised his hands. “Say no more, young man. I’m not here for you or anyone else, and I would hate to importune Mr. Wilkes by asking what you mean by that.”
Jeremy eyed Artie askance. The lad was good, but he had a few questionable family members that Jeremy was aware of. He’d hired the boy to help him get away from that life.
“There’s no need to worry,” he said, trying to smile as he stepped across the front room, heading for the curtain separating the two halves of the shop. “Det. Talboys is here for me.”
“Is he, sir?” Artie asked, his face going pink.
Jeremy nearly stumbled over his own feet. His staff all knew about his nature and were as discreet as the day was long, but having that sort of a suggestion made openly worried him.
“Mind your tongue, boy,” Talboys scolded him as he followed Jeremy to the back. “I’m here on official business.”
“Yes, sir,” Artie said, watching Talboys pass him, eyes wide with awe.
“He is a good lad,” Jeremy assured Talboys as they moved into the back, where Timothy was working. The shop’s other employee, a lad named Jonty who was responsible for most of the shop’s deliveries, had returned and was helping Timothy finish stitching the breeches for Mr. Naman’s order. “They all are. They show immense talent, and they are conscientious and diligent in their work.”
“I see,” Talboys said, nodding to the two boys at the work table. “You’ve quite a lot of orders, I see.”
Jeremy glanced around his workshop. “Yes. One advantage of being well thought of by members of the ton , and now by members of The Brotherhood, is that I have more work than I could possibly handle on my own. The boys are a godsend, though I should like to employ another master tailor at some point.”
Talboys nodded again, then followed Jeremy to the narrow set of stairs at the back of the workshop that led up to his private apartments.
Jeremy’s upstairs rooms were tidy and tastefully decorated. Despite having earned quite a bit of money in the last few years, he did not own nor want to own anything ostentatious that would show off his wealth, other than the building that housed his shop and home. His apartment was made up of two, simple rooms. The front room contained a stove, a table with two chairs, and a small sofa that had once been downstairs until a client spilled coffee on it. He had reupholstered it to remove the stain but had decided to keep it for himself instead of returning it to the shop.
The second room was a simple bedroom with a bed, wardrobe, and washstand. He regretted that the door to that room was open and that Talboys walked straight toward it, as if he were interested in its contents.
“Would you like tea?” Jeremy asked nervously, wondering what Talboys must think of him for inviting him up to his private chambers so quickly. He was no prude, but bitter experience had taught him that just because he fancied a man or a man wanted him, it did not mean he could be trusted.
“Yes, please,” Talboys said, continuing on into the bedchamber.
Jeremy didn’t know whether to set the kettle and stoke the stove or to run after Talboys to stop him from discovering something untoward. Not that there was anything even remotely untoward in Jeremy’s life. With the sort of clientele he had, he could not afford to set one foot even a little bit out of line.
He shifted the kettle onto the warmest part of the stove then followed Talboys without putting more wood on the fire.
He wasn’t certain what he expected from Talboys, whether the man had carnal intentions or not. Clearly, he didn’t, as he went straight to the windows at the far side of the room that looked out over the alley and mews at the back of the building.
“Is it commonly known that you reside in this apartment above your shop?” Talboys asked as he looked this way and that out the window.
Jeremy swallowed hard. “Yes, I think.”
Talboys grunted, then leaned back from the window, closing the curtains. “Does Sir John Conroy know that you reside here?”
A shiver of dread passed through Jeremy. “I suppose he does,” he said in a thin voice. He blinked, then added, “You do not suppose he would try to come after me here, do you?”
Talboys stepped over to close the curtains over the room’s second window, thrusting the room into dim light. “I believe that any man who would be quick enough to send a carriage to trample someone who overheard something they should not have might try again to eliminate any threat to them.”
Jeremy reached out for the headboard of the bed, but refused to allow himself the luxury of sinking onto the counterpane and showing his weakness. “What should I do?” he asked instead.
Talboys frowned and pressed his lips together, glancing around the room. He rubbed his handsomely stubbly chin as he studied Jeremy’s most intimate space.
The mood shifted in an instant. Suddenly, instead of wearing the expression of a police officer investigating an attempted murder, Talboys was a curious man taking in the details of another man’s bedchamber. Jeremy felt utterly exposed as the man looked at the landscape painting on one wall, the washcloth that was draped over the edge of the wash bowl, and the smooth, clean counterpane that covered Jeremy’s bed.
“You’re very neat,” Talboys observed.
Jeremy tensed slightly. “Is that relevant?” he asked.
A slight flush painted Talboys’s face as his gaze stopped wandering and settled on Jeremy. “No,” he said. “Merely an observation.”
As if he needed to continue his observations, Talboys strode out of the bedroom and back into the main room.
Jeremy followed him, though he went to the stove to see about heating the water for tea faster. He kept one eye on Talboys as he pored over the rest of the apartment, looking at Jeremy’s collection of books, peering out the window that looked into a side alley, and perusing the contents of the shelf of tea, bread, and other various foodstuffs near the stove.
Jeremy felt as though the man were peeling off his clothes and caressing his body to learn every inch of him. The feeling created some rather unfortunate effects that necessitated him to keep his front turned away from Talboys until he could settle himself.
“I would have expected that a man with as vast and important a clientele as you are reputed to have would live in grander settings,” Talboys said.
“I have no need for material things,” Jeremy replied with a shrug as he fed a few bits of wood into the belly of his stove. “My work is my life and my employment. I only care that my shop is well-equipped and comfortable, both for myself and my staff and for the clients who come to visit me here.”
“No lovers?” Talboys asked, turning to Jeremy from the opposite side of the room just as Jeremy twisted to look at him.
The question sent a wave of self-consciousness through him that had his heart beating faster. “As you have said,” he began in a quiet voice, “I have quite a large clientele among the ton . If I wish to keep that business, I cannot set so much as a toe outside of the boundaries of respectability.”
“You could get away with it,” Talboys said with a rakish smirk. “Those sorts of rules of propriety only apply to those who have nothing to bargain against society with for their silence.”
“I beg your pardon?” Jeremy asked, wishing he had something to busy himself with while the water for tea heated so that he didn’t have to have that sort of conversation with Talboys so directly.
Talboys shrugged and sauntered across the room toward him slowly. “You are the darling of the ton ,” he said. “Everyone adores and talks endlessly about your creations. I am more than certain that they would gladly look the other way as long as it meant they could continue to strut through Hyde Park or attend the finest balls in London whilst bragging to their peers that they are wearing something fashioned by the inimitable Jeremy Wilkes.”
Jeremy’s heart pounded against his ribs. He hadn’t been aware that Talboys knew his Christian name.
A moment later, he shook his head. “You are wrong on that score. Society is fickle. Today everyone may find some sort of value in wearing my creations, but tomorrow it will be someone else’s turn. I will be nothing more than yesterday’s gossip.”
“Perhaps you underestimate the loyalty of your patrons,” Talboys said, lowering his voice to a seductive purr as he came so close to Jeremy that he could practically feel the heat radiating from him. “You are an extraordinary man, after all.”
Jeremy swallowed hard. Was Talboys flirting with him? If so, why? The two of them had nothing in common and did not run in the same circles. He had nothing to offer a man like Derrek Talboys. Well, nothing except that which he was too afraid to give.
“I never wanted to be an extraordinary man,” he said breathlessly, turning away from the larger, alluring man to see whether the water was hot enough for tea yet. He certainly felt hot enough to boil the kettle simply by touching it. “The only sort of man I am is one who has overheard something he should not and is now in a great amount of danger.”
That observation seemed to cool whatever ardor Talboys had been feeding. He took a step back and his expression steadied into thought. “Yes, that is a problem and a concern,” he said.
The water wasn’t really hot enough, but Jeremy needed to do something with his hands that would take his attention away from the unwanted feelings of lust he had for Talboys. “What should I do?” he asked as he set about preparing the tea with his back turned to Talboys.
“For one, you should be extraordinarily careful about where you go and who you see for the next few days,” Talboys said.
The hint of possessiveness in his voice sent a thrill through Jeremy that was so unexpected he nearly dropped the spoon he was using to put tea leaves into his teapot.
“I have appointments to keep, clients to see,” he said as he put the lid on the teapot and turned to take it to the table. “I cannot close my doors when so much work is left to be done.”
“You might not have to close anything,” Talboys said, helping himself to a seat at the table when Jeremy gestured to one of the empty chairs. “I need to investigate Conroy and discover anything I can about the driver of the carriage just now, though I suspect it will be impossible to learn anything about that.”
No sooner were those words out of Talboys’s mouth than steps were heard on the stairs leading up to Jeremy’s rooms. He hadn’t shut the door to the small hallway, so when Artie appeared in the doorway, timidly knocking on the doorframe to announce himself, he was seen immediately.
“Begging your pardon, sir,” he said, nodding almost reverently to Talboys.
“Yes, Artie?” Jeremy asked, uncertain whether he was relieved to have someone else in the room or irritated by it.
Artie dragged his eyes away from Talboys to say, “There was a gentleman here earlier asking about you.”
The shop was frequented by gentlemen asking about Jeremy in some way, shape, or form, so the statement struck Jeremy as unworthy of expression. “And?” he asked.
Artie frowned. “And it were odd, sir,” he said. “I asked if he was here to pick up an order, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t interested in coming for measurements or a consultation either.”
“Why was he here?” Talboys asked, suddenly on the alert.
“He wouldn’t say, sir,” Artie said, glancing between the two men. “He was an odd one, that gent. Fidgety and cross.”
“What did he look like?” Talboys stood.
Both Jeremy and Artie took a step back at his imposing presence and suddenly sharp mien.
“He…he was of medium height, sir, with dark hair. His clothes were fine, but disheveled.” Artie glanced at Jeremy as if a disheveled appearance was something Jeremy would note as suspicious. “He might have been young, but he’d sort of gone to seed, like,” Artie finished. “I didn’t like him, sir.”
Jeremy’s heart began to thump again. “That sounds like Conroy’s accomplice,” he said, sitting down heavily in one of the chairs. “That sounds precisely like the man who said he’d obtained poison for—” He stopped speaking before he revealed too much to Artie.
“Thank you, Artie, is it?” Talboys said with a surprisingly kind smile for the lad.
“Yes, sir,” Artie said with a bright smile.
“You may go now,” Talboys said, managing to sound as if he was giving Artie a boon while telling him to go away.
“If you need anything, I’ll be downstairs with the others,” Artie said, looking first to Jeremy, then to Talboys. “Anything at all.” His smile grew.
“Cheeky,” Talboys said, sending Artie off with a jerk of his head.
Jeremy didn’t know whether to laugh or scold Talboys for flirting with one of his staff. He didn’t know if he should be jealous.
Talboys walked over to shut the door, then turned back to Jeremy.
“I do not like any of this,” he said, back to being serious. “Something about that description of Conroy’s accomplice seems a bit too familiar.”
“Do you know the man?” Jeremy asked, sitting straighter.
Talboys sauntered back to the table. “I know a great many people in this city, but unless I see the man myself, I wouldn’t be able to say I knew that man in particular.”
“I’ll tell you whatever I can about him,” Jeremy said in a rush. “Artie was right in that he appears to be a young, debauched nobleman. I did not recognize him myself, which felt odd, as I know most of the ton on sight.”
Talboys grunted, then sat and reached for the teapot to pour. “So we’re likely dealing with a desperate nobleman who has not been to London for quite some time and who has a vested interest in assisting Conroy in precipitating the king’s death before the crown princess comes of age.”
“And, it appears, who would stoop to murdering the man who overheard those plans,” Jeremy said, sinking back into his chair. He was too overwhelmed by the possibility that someone wished to do him harm to dwell on the sweetness of Talboys preparing his tea for him when he should have been the one playing host. “I still have no idea what to do,” he added.
“Do as little as possible,” Talboys advised him. “There is no doubt that you are in grave danger. I would advise against letting your staff know it, however.”
“No, no, I would never trouble the boys with something this dire,” Jeremy said. He picked up his teacup and stared at the weak tea it contained. The water definitely hadn’t been hot enough.
“I will do a bit of investigating,” Talboys said after a short pause. “I need to discover how credible the threat against the king is and how far Conroy has gone with his plot. I shall attempt to discover the identity of his accomplice as well.”
“Can I help in any way?” Jeremy asked.
Talboys smiled at him as he took a sip of the terrible tea. “You can keep your lovely self away from harm,” he said. “Stay close to this shop. I’ll find a few trusted men to guard it for you.”
“Thank you,” Jeremy said, letting out a breath. “I shall be forever in your debt.”
“Oh, I’ll find a way for you to repay me,” Talboys said, winking at him before he took another sip of tea.
The comment was wicked, but Jeremy found that he didn’t mind. Talboys was showing himself to be something of a rake and a scoundrel, despite being a police officer, but Jeremy had never felt safer.