Page 23 of To Sketch a Scandal (Lucky Lovers of London #4)

Matty leaned in too. It was conspiratorial.

Warren felt the way he had during his first weeks leaning over the Fox’s bar, like he and every person who met his eye were in on something together.

That feeling had long since fled, replaced by ease and even rote habit.

He made others feel this way, but rarely got to experience it himself anymore.

He’d forgotten how much he liked being in on something.

How much it thrilled him to reexamine a rule he’d once held dear.

“It’s like I said before,” said Matty quietly.

“I need help with my drawing. The only way I can learn whether or not they did it is to get more information about their private instruction. The next step of their operation. From there, I should be able to determine if they’re innocent artists, standard-issue scammers, or serious fraudsters. ”

Warren thought about that. “Can you tell me more specifically what they’re meant to have done?”

“We’re trying to locate the source of a slew of forged art pieces.”

“Matty, dear, I’d hate to tell you how to do your job, but have you considered looking at the skill level of your suspects before jumping to conclusions?”

That won him a flash of dimples. “If they did it, then the dreadful art is a cover. A pretty good cover, because as you say, it does seem a bit of a stretch. I’ve seen stranger covers, though.

Public opinion is shaky after the Fenian bombings and that last corruption scandal.

With the Buttersnipes being our only domestic suspects, Scotland Yard’s reputation can’t afford to miss something under our nose right now.

I need to complete a full investigation before putting a conclusion on the record. ”

“Do you think they did it?” Warren asked. “Off the record, of course.”

Matty paused. “I shouldn’t tell you.”

“I shouldn’t help you.”

“Fair enough. No. So far, I don’t think they did it.

I think the Met is hoping to save face through a quick, domestic win, rather than the hassle this will be if it’s a Continental operation.

I do think the Buttersnipes’ advertisements might be criminally misleading, but that’s outside my department.

If it makes you feel better, your help might prove them innocent of anything serious. ”

“It does, actually.” Warren considered all that, still buzzing with the thrill of getting all this insider information. “So, it’s just the drawing, then? You don’t need me to do anything sneaky for you?”

“Not at all. That would be…” He stopped midsentence, mouth still open, eyes suddenly unblinking as something uncomfortable seemed to occur to him. “That would be rather unethical, I think? T-to ask something sneaky of an untrained civilian?”

It came as a question, and did not seem to be hypothetical because he waited expectantly for Warren to answer.

“Er, well, yeah,” said Warren, bewildered. “I think it would be.”

Matty took a deep breath, but then shook something off with a physical start.

He took a gulp of beer and when he put the glass down, he’d gone perfectly blank again.

“All I’m asking,” he said with newfound steadiness.

“Is for some help improving myself. As an individual. So that I can take those skills with me into the case, which I will handle by myself and also… So maybe I can develop a little hobby of my own.” His face went very pink.

“Something to settle my spirit, when this case is over and things at Scotland Yard become a little more complicated. I find I’m enjoying the pursuit more than expected.

So there’s a double edge to the request, if I’m to be truly honest with you.

It’s professional, yes, but also personal. ”

The beer here was bitter, but impressively cold.

Warren doodled a pattern on the glass’s frost as he considered the idea.

“You know,” he said slowly, “you didn’t have to tell me about the case.

You could have just asked for help with the hobby thing and kept the reason to yourself. I’d have done it.”

“I considered that,” said Matty. “But I didn’t want to lie to you again.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.” Matty shrugged, turning even pinker across his cheeks. “It just didn’t seem the thing to do.”

Warren said he needed time to think about it, but it became very clear, very quickly that something other than his brain was doing the thinking for him where Matty Shaw was concerned.

That flush. That unexpected honesty. Those damned fucking dimples Warren was so desperate to make appear as often as possible.

Before their food even arrived, Warren agreed.

* * *

The following week saw them back again, same place, same ale, same order, but they took a bigger table toward the back of the dining room so there was space for their sketchbooks. They put their chairs on the same side of it, selected unsuspecting targets at other tables, and sketched.

“You live with you brother, then?” Matty asked, eyes trained on a stranger with a walrus mustache and an uncannily slow nod.

Warren looked away from his own inspiration, the hassled-looking woman behind the bar. “Feeling chatty, are we?”

Matty shrugged, pencil going slowly and stiffly along his paper. “I don’t have to be.”

Warren watched him for a moment, then said, “I do. Live with him. That’s new, though. It was just me and my mother for years. It’s just recently that Harry—that’s my brother—appeared back out of nowhere with enough money and influence to start bossing us all around.”

“I see.” Matty paused his pencil, then turned his sketchbook to Warren. “How’s this?

“You need to press even lighter still.” Warren’s own pencil drifted to Matty’s page, whispering featherlight strokes atop Matty’s dark ones. “That way you sort of build the shape up, rather than carving it in stone straight off.”

“That makes sense.” Matty tried to emulate what Warren was doing, the tips of their pencils bumping briefly before Warren snatched his back. “So. Did he boss you into taking the class? Your brother? Is that how you wound up in it?”

“Not exactly,” Warren said. He winced internally when he remembered who he was talking to, but he did not know anyone who wanted to hear him complain about a fortune falling in his lap; Matty, however, was rather obligated to be his audience as they sketched and sipped and snacked together on the same side of the table.

“But he got married while he was overseas, and now I’m caught up between my mother and sister-in-law in the household space.

My mother’s not always well, you see, and I was doing a lot of the domestic work. ”

“Ah,” said Matty with a hint of a smile. “That probably made you a very able barkeep, I should think.”

“Sure did,” said Warren with a little spark of pride shooting through him.

Matty’s attention to things like that hadn’t gotten old yet.

“But at home, another woman around means I’m basically out on my arse.

It’s stupid. She’s a lovely person, Harry’s wife, but she’s a sailor’s girl.

Hardly even lived in a house, much less kept one.

She could just hire some staff and forget about getting my mother’s approval, but she’s as bloody determined to do this thing she’s terrible at as you are.

Without half your excuse to justify it.” He sighed and plucked up an olive, perusing Matty’s page.

“That’s looking a lot better, lov—” He cleared his throat. “Mate.”

“You think so?” Matty gave no hint he’d caught Warren’s slip, but he surely had. He missed nothing. “It seems strange.”

“Keep at it. You can add the darker lines for definition when the basic shape is built.”

Warren watched him as he went on, that devilish tongue between his teeth as his concentration increased. His sketch was still decidedly wrong in ways that were hard to articulate, but he was at least sketching now instead of smearing the black lead around like a child with a stick of chalk.

“So your sister-in-law,” said Matty. “She’s taken over your duties?”

“That’s right,” Warren admitted. “She’s off the sea and settled in England now, and feels like she has to take up the women’s work to keep my mum happy, and unfortunately, I think she’s right about that.

So I do the obvious; follow in my father’s footsteps the best I can during the day by taking art classes, and head home to burnt rice every night like a proper man.

” He strongly debated not saying what occurred to him next, but now that he’d gotten started, he could not seem to stop.

A bartender spent hours listening to the woes and joys of others—it was very rare that anyone sat quietly and did the same for Warren.

“My only comfort is that I can escape all that at the Fox on the weekends. Not a proper man or woman to be found there. I don’t need the money anymore, and Mr. Forester and some of the patrons drive me up the wall sometimes, but honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without it. ”

He was surprised how the words flowed out of him.

He hadn’t discussed much of this with his friends yet, in part because he wasn’t ready for the ribbing he’d get about the art classes.

Warren Bakshi the barkeep had that certain reputation at the Fox, after all, the one he very much enjoyed escaping into, but that quite purposefully did not bring many details from his home life.

They knew the good news that his brother was home after Warren had presumed him dead, but that was about it.

It was nice to finally get the full complexity of the situation off his chest, especially when Matty spared a little laugh for the ridiculous impracticality of it, rather than indicating that Warren should be pleased about such a change to the structure of his days, upon such an arbitrary line of what sort of body should be assigned to which tasks in a household.

“Well,” said Matty, “whatever the reason, I am selfishly glad you took the class.”

His voice came with such gentle friendliness that Warren looked up from their sketchbooks to examine his profile. His face was blank, though, hand busy with his pencil. Maybe he’d imagined it.

“Yeah.” Warren forced a chuckle. “You need all the help you can get, don’t you?”