Page 33 of To Sketch a Scandal (Lucky Lovers of London #4)

“Oh, we know that,” came a low voice from the doorway behind Warren.

He turned to find Harry leaning against the jamb, changed to bright silk trousers and robe after dinner, since unlike Warren, he was not going anywhere else at this hour.

Considering how far he’d gone for adventure in his youth, he was proving to have mellowed into a rather retiring sort of chap these days, even if he did not look it.

“ White’s sure is known to be very exclusive. ”

Warren envied Matty his blankness as his own face cracked into an incriminating grimace.

“Love, don’t give him a hard time,” said Anjali, a sigh in her voice like this was not the first time they’d discussed Warren in the recent past.

“I’m not,” said Harry. “I was actually just a little peckish, if you must know. Didn’t mean to interrupt.

” He went about applying butter and sugar to some of the remaining rotis, a snack they used to sneak as boys that he now indulged in in his own house without an ounce of shame.

He brought enough to the table to go around.

“Thanks,” Warren said as politely as he could. “But I have to go.”

“No, you don’t,” said Harry with a casual shrug.

“There is nothing necessary about your weekends away, Warren, just as there’s no real need for Anjali to do all this kitchen work when there’s a hundred cooks who’d be more than happy to handle it for her.

” Anjali gave him an offended look but he just ripped a piece off his roti and stuffed it in his mouth.

Once he’d got it down, he went on. “That one’s a matter of pride and household harmony, of course, but when it comes to you and your club, Warren?

I’m not sure we all have quite the same understanding of your charade that it’s needed.

I’m supporting the family, and you have a new enterprise in your art that suits you and your station better than that serving ever will.

And since you let it slip to Mother that you’ve been lying about what you’re doing—”

“I do work as a bartender at an exclusive club,” Warren snapped, nervous about the turn in the conversation. “It’s not White’s. Fine. I admit it—I exaggerated the status of it. But I’m not a complete liar.”

“Just an incomplete one. Right.” Harry busied himself with his sweet for a moment until Warren couldn’t take the suspense a second longer.

“What do you want me to say?” he said. “If you wanted all the details of what I did to keep us afloat while you might as well have been on the bloody moon for a decade, you should have considered checking in occasionally. I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“Perhaps not,” he admitted. “But you owe Mother one. She won’t let you see it, but she’s in a state over not knowing where you’re actually going on the weekends, especially now that you don’t need the money.”

“Maybe I want to have a bit of my own money,” he spat. “Ever think of that?”

“Please don’t panic, Warren,” Harry said.

His smugness gave way to a misty sort of smile.

“I’ve been on the sea a long time, remember.

I’m well aware that there are more reasons a man might keep two lives than the obvious evils that a mother’s mind jumps to.

And I also know you shouldn’t ask certain questions about those reasons once everyone’s feet are on dry land.

I won’t ask you those questions. But Mother is asking them of me, and soon, she will ask them of you directly.

It’s fraying her nerves, not understanding what you’re up to.

Surely, you don’t want to see her suffering over you. ”

Warren’s shoulders slumped at the idea. “Of course I don’t.”

“Then if you are going to continue with whatever life you’ve built up on the side now that you don’t have the excuse of poverty to cover it, the three of us need to get a story straight,” he said.

“One that is as honest as possible, but vague enough so we don’t see anyone—you or Mother—hurt too badly. ”

There were several very unpleasant things about this, not least of which was the idea of more purposefully lying to his mother. He’d built his story up bit by bit over the years, slowly and inexorably enough that it no longer felt like deceit. But it was.

“You’d do that?” Warren said. “Help me make it all work? Why?”

Harry and Anjali met eyes very briefly.

“We saw how you drew him,” Harry said very simply.

Warren froze.

“Drew who?” he asked.

“Your friend,” said Harry, not unkindly. “Mr. Shaw, I believe it was?”

He knew he should have taken that bloody drawing out of his sketchbook, that it said too much somehow. He looked desperately between Harry and Anjali, hoping he’d misunderstood what was being said.

Anjali, though, was nodding her surprisingly unembarrassed agreement.

“As Harry said, Warren, we’ve been at sea a long time.

So. There’s no shock in it for us. Like there might be for others.

” She smiled and patted his hand across the table.

“Affection comes in more forms than the land is always prepared to deal with. It would be understandable, if you’ve had to hide. ”

It took Warren a moment to understand what they were saying.

They thought the club was some cover for meeting Matty?

That Matty was a longtime lover of his, a fixture he’d built his whole life around over years, rather than a very recently acquired and admittedly ill-advised companion that had simply stumbled into that life by chance?

And they were fine with that because such lovers were perfectly alright so long as they were confined to boats ?

He realized very suddenly that he knew as little about sea life as Anjali did about kitchen fires. He was too stunned by their neutral assessment of such a shocking conclusion to bring himself to correct them.

“Well, ah. Thank you,” he said awkwardly.

“Think about how you want to explain yourself to Mother,” said Harry.

He grinned, annoyingly likable all of a sudden.

“And please, send your friend our regards. I acknowledge that you did not have it easy. I admit, I’d prefer to see you properly married, I’m glad to know you didn’t face these years all alone. ”

Warren had come into the house with a lot on his mind, and as he left it again, laden with the cooking that constituted his mediocre bribe for Forester and the contents of that very unexpected conversation, it seemed he had ten times as much to carry along.

* * *

Forester was delighted by Warren’s offering, and showed absolutely no suspicion either of its objective quality, nor of its purpose.

Once Forester was properly buttered (and a little red-faced from spice he clearly hadn’t prepared himself for) and they got started on their usual bar preparations, Warren broached the subject of admitting Matty to the club as Warren’s guest. If he could get a yes early enough, he might have time to fetch Matty at the Gull himself, rather than sending a messenger.

“Funny thing happened,” he said as casually as possible, hardly looking up from the lime he was zesting. “You know how I’m taking that drawing class on the off-days?”

“The one with the dog?”

“That’s it.”

“Of course, how’s it treating you?”

“Oh, fine.” He gave a short rundown of what he was learning, so as not to seem overeager for what he was really trying to discuss.

Forester was very friendly and supportive about the whole thing, which was heartening as he moved on to the subject of the day.

“But there’s something I didn’t mention at first that I probably should have.

It’s just that I was a little slow to put the pieces together, and by the time I did…

I don’t know. It just didn’t seem relevant. ”

Forester looked up from where he was mixing one of his popular cocktail syrups, a stiff movement that was substantially less buttered than Warren might have hoped.

“You’re acting strange,” he said. “What happened?”

“Nothing important,” Warren said quickly.

“Just… I realized that you might like to know that…that M—oh, what was his first name? Matthew , that’s it—Matthew Shaw happened to be in the same class.

Isn’t that a funny coincidence?” He laughed, to prove just how funny it was in spite of Forester’s obvious lack of amusement.

“He came in on a case…” He paused as Forester’s eyebrow crept up unhappily.

Warren quickly changed direction. “But was taken off of it! And was having a good time, you know, in the class. So he’s continuing…

” Forester’s look remained dark, so he veered slightly further into truth-stretching.

“He continued on with it. As a hobby, you know.”

Forester glared, arms crossed and lips pursed.

“He’s thinking about maybe getting into a new field,” Warren said, stretching the truth until it bloody snapped.

He hadn’t meant to do that, but now that he’d started…

“He’s not much getting along with the other detectives at the moment, it seems.” Now there was a lot of truth in that, too much, probably, because Forester’s mouth grew grimmer still.

“Might like to get out of the situation, he says, so he’s taking the opportunity—”

“He’s been in this class from the beginning?” Forester said, voice very dry. No butter to be found.

Warren winced. “Yes?”

“And you waited until now to say something?”

“He’s not bothering anyone. Just minding his own business as he…considered maybe starting over in something new.”

“An endeavor he’s apparently told you all about?” He paused, ostensibly to give Warren a chance to explain himself. When that didn’t happen, he went on. “Come off it, mate. I’ve known you too long. What’s this really about?”

It was much easier to lie to his mother than to Forester. Mother wanted to believe the best of him; Forester, on the other hand, was perfectly comfortable with the fact that not all Warren’s qualities were admirable.