Page 24 of To Sketch a Scandal (Lucky Lovers of London #4)

Matty had some misgivings about the agreement, but they were simply not strong enough to overcome Warren’s field of gravity as the days went by.

He was honest, and helpful, and so handsome it could hurt just to look at him.

He somehow managed to balance sarcastic and gentle, socially comfortable yet streaked with flashes of unexpected eccentricity.

He was bloody fascinating. When Matty got back to class the next week, he didn’t think he could change easels or pick other partners or avoid dogging the poor fellow on the way out the door if he tried.

He wasn’t sure whether this effect was coming from Warren himself, or from the change in Matty’s lifestyle outside the classroom.

He was spending less time at Scotland Yard than he’d ever done before, leaving the office when his work was finished rather than staying until he could put it off no longer.

He found he hated his room less, now that it was filling with things that struck his fancy.

It was a relief to relax his rigid adherence to schedules, to let his hands and eyes do more work than his mind did, to leave off vanity for comfort and expression.

He suspected, however, that this might be weakening his impulse control where Warren was concerned.

Thoughts of their thwarted pleasure in the alley were coming frequent and fervent, begging for a completion that could not be fooled by the late-night efforts of Matty’s hand.

The indulgence of his appetites had always been practical, focused more on timing and location than anything terribly personal.

He could not remember desiring an individual this way before, this sort of slow torture of learning all the ways a man’s smiles and spirit rendered him more tempting than any conveniently-placed stranger could ever be.

He ought to have called upon his years of order and mental strength to nip it in the bud, but he didn’t want to.

The desire itself felt good even if it never wound up consummated, felt free and different and piqued his curiosity.

Cultivating an erotic obsession, he told himself, was probably one of the most artistically-minded things a fellow could do.

Maybe it would show up in his drawings. Or in his eyes when he begged the Buttersnipes to let him join their private classes.

Perhaps they’d sense the tension of all this unresolved passion, and mercifully grant him an outlet, proving their guilt or innocence at last, and then…

And then Matty would go back to Scotland Yard, perhaps with a promotion under his belt that would require more structure than ever before.

And that…surely that would be lovely. After all this nonsense.

* * *

In any case, the nonsense was still in full swing, so to the pub they went for the third time after class, without even a word of discussion about what had become a habit.

The sense of a shared mission had helped their friendship—for certainly, that’s what it was now—grow easy on the surface, in spite of the doubt they both had underneath.

As they walked the familiar route, they chatted amiably about their days apart and hardly watched where they were going, seeming drawn to make eye contact even as they moved forward along the busy street.

Warren opened the door for him, when they arrived. They started toward the four-seat table they’d sat at last time, one that gave them space to spread out.

Not even halfway across the dining room, however, they were stopped by a man holding himself very straight and tall, arms crossed like a barricade against any soft feeling.

The manager, probably. The bloke was older than them by a goodly margin, wearing green bracers on his sleeves and possessing a chest, Matty determined after all his recent observational training, the exact size and shape of the ale keg behind the bar.

“Is there a problem, sir?” The question left Matty’s lips sounding surprisingly genuine—not much in the way of innocence or manipulation in it. He hardly sounded like himself. He rather liked that, but unfortunately, it did not smooth a single thing over with the chap.

“Bad for business,” the manager growled, lips hardly moving beneath the droop of his mustache.

“Taking up seats, lingering for an hour with nothing but specks of foam in the bottom of your glasses, staring at my customers like they’re bowls of bloody fruit.

” He shook his head. “No. Not this time. You take a normal table, order normal food, and behave in a generally normal fashion, or you take yourselves somewhere else.”

“We’re not hurting anyone,” snapped Warren, matching the manager’s acidic tone and even bumping it up a notch.

He gestured around the dining room, which was, at most, three-quarters occupied.

“It’s not like you’ve had a full house since we’ve been coming in.

Plenty of chairs. And we do order. If you need us to refill to hold the table, we will.

You could stand to ask for what you want instead of getting in a tizzy over our inability to read your mind. ”

It was an admirable response, but not an especially effective one.

The manager hefted his chest like he intended to carry it off behind the bar and tap it.

“We’re not a flophouse for that Butter-bloke’s strays.

” He pointed in the general direction of the art school down the street.

“You aren’t the first to come in, and won’t be the last, but I’ll not be overrun by the wrong sort.

I’ll hold those sketchbooks for you behind the bar, if you’d like to stay and enjoy a quiet meal before taking your so-called artistry elsewhere. ”

He held a ruddy hand out.

Warren tightened his hold on his sketchbook like he’d knife anyone who dared to touch it. Matty, on the other hand, felt a flicker of interest at the man’s words.

“So-called?” said Matty, light and eager as he could manage, though his false-charm muscles felt a little rusty. “What makes you say that? I only ask, because the class is expensive and I’d hate to think I’d been led astray.”

The fellow’s mustache twitched. He seemed glad to have been asked.

“You lot always come in, sit around drawing or talking upstart nonsense, next thing I know you’re selling portrait sessions to my customers or worse, trying to drag them off to become ‘artists’ themselves.”

“Do we really?”

“Yes, you do,” he declared. “I don’t like it. I won’t have it. So hand the books over, or take your leave.”

Matty was hungry and didn’t mind putting the sketching off—a meal with Warren sounded fine on its own. If he was lucky, maybe he’d even get a little more information about the Buttersnipes from the manager. But Warren was shaking his head.

“I ain’t handing over my sketchbook,” he said. “That’s ridiculous. Come on, mate, we’ll find another spot.”

With that, he took Matty’s arm and steered him out. The afternoon light felt very bright after adjusting to the darker pub.

“I wouldn’t have minded,” said Matty.

“Yeah, well.” Warren glared back the way they’d come. “You get asked so politely to meet some arbitrary standard or leave a place often enough, and you do start minding. Some of us have to be awfully well-behaved, you know, depending on the neighborhood.”

Matty felt silly, to have not considered that perhaps a place’s patience for oddness was more limited for Warren than it might be for himself. He wondered if they would even have been noticed, if Matty had been someone who looked more like Sanford Binks.

“My landlady puts meals out every day, if you want to just come along home with me,” Matty said. “You won’t have to behave there.”

“Where, exactly, do I not need to behave?” Warren said with unrestrained amusement. “In your room, Matty? Is that what you’re saying?”

Matty’s face flushed hot. “That’s not what I meant—”

“We can find another pub, love.”

It did not escape Matty’s notice that he’d gone from “mate” in front of the manager to “love” out here where no one was listening.

He knew it wasn’t personal. That Warren threw that word around easy as Matty could call his superiors “sir.” But it didn’t matter.

It ruined him completely, and the next thing he knew, he was saying something very stupid:

“Sure, we can find a pub.” He shrugged. “But then we’ll be wasting a perfectly good excuse, won’t we?”

The clop of carriages and babble of voices in the street filled the silence that followed Matty’s too-honest pronouncement.

He had never, not once, felt his face go so terribly hot, and without anything he could do to rein it in.

The words were inelegant. Unattractive. Baldly revealing.

The sort that could kill a case or even a try for trade in an instant.

And now Warren was staring at him, and he had no idea what the devil was going on behind those bright eyes.

“Matty,” he said at last, with a touch of reluctance. He lowered his voice under the sounds of the busy street and adjusted his sketchbook awkwardly. “I’m not really supposed to see you. Like, personally. I’m already pushing it, with the extra tutoring.”

Matty paused. The better—or maybe just the better-trained—part of him wanted to let it go.

But this new aspect of himself that he’d made or found or been cursed with was growing stronger, and that aspect wanted to get Warren alone again so desperately, it clouded out all other concerns. It would not be disappointed so easily.

“I know full well you don’t always do what he says,” Matty muttered, referring to Warren’s boss.

“’Bout seventy percent, I’d say,” Warren admitted.

“I’ve heard you sneak off against his wishes all the time,” said Matty. “Is this really so much different?”

It was. And they both knew it. During the investigation of The Curious Fox, Matty had broken into the safe that held Mr. Forester’s club ledgers.

Every member was impressively well vetted, with proto-blackmail always at the ready to thwart informing or other bad behavior before it started.

Matty was quite the opposite of vetted: he had, in fact, fooled Mr. Forester about his identity for a full six months.

No wonder he could not trust in the safety of Matty’s presence.

And he shouldn’t—what Mr. Forester and even Warren didn’t know, was that Matty was an even bigger risk than they realized: his sullied reputation at the Met meant his personal habits could be scrutinized at any time.

As of yet, Superintendent Frost did not seem anxious to uncover a scandal, but that could change.

It very well might once Barrows was out of the way.

As all this grim practicality soaked into Matty’s soul like spilled tea, he shook his head. “Never min—”

“It’s got to be an extension of the class,” Warren interrupted, quickly and quietly. “So long as we’re still going to practice drawing, I’ll come with you.”

“That’s what makes the difference? Your excuse?”

“Yes,” said Warren without hesitation. Matty did not miss the hungry look in his eye as it drifted quite a bit south of Matty’s face. “Some rules are for breaking. Others aren’t. It’s not our fault we’re in the same class. So if it’s an extension of the class, then it ain’t my fault.”

When he looked up again, Matty was surprised to find a fire lit behind his gaze. Clearly, Matty was not the only artist around here who’d been nursing a little passion on the side.

“In that case,” said Matty, very careful, unblinking. “Would you give me a practical lesson in artistry, Warren? At my place?”