Page 39 of To Sketch a Scandal (Lucky Lovers of London #4)

She was so terribly slow on the uptake—red-faced from an unladylike amount of wine at this hour—that Anjali managed to appear from the other room, trousers and all, and get the strategically hidden salts into Warren’s hand without speaking before the lady managed to even get her distressed hand off her own bosom.

Once he’d got Mother to come to, and was supporting her as they went for the bedroom, he paused on the way out to whisper to Anjali, “Occupy the bloody useless nobs for a moment, would you?”

“If you insist, brother,” she muttered back with a little wrinkle forming along the bridge of her nose.

* * *

He settled Mother into bed with the mix of brandy, hot water, and mysterious droplets her expensive new doctor had prescribed.

“Go on,” she said once she was comfortable and looking more alert. “The nurse and Anjali are here for me.” She paused with a top-notch sense of drama. “I know you were in a big rush to get to White’s before this happened, and I’d hate to hold you up any longer than I already have.”

Warren did his very best not to groan. “Mother. It’s not White’s.”

“It’s White’s until I get some explanation as to what other club in the city of London could inspire such loyalty.”

“I’m glad to see you’re feeling better so quickly.”

“Don’t get cheeky with me, Warren.”

“I’m sorry,” Warren said. He sat heavily in the chair by her bedside, finishing the knot about his neck that he’d had to leave undone.

“It’s just that I like the work, Mother.

” Ever think of that? he thought but did not add.

In fact, he tried not to think it quite so hard either, lest she accuse him of thinking cheekily as well.

“Unless the club is prestigious in the extreme, it’s below your station now,” she explained.

“The women were just asking me where you were off to, you know. Mrs. Applegate wanted to know if we could attend her supper party this evening. And I have to tell her that my son is…what? Serving, that’s what. It doesn’t reflect well, you know.”

God help him.

“You’re right, Mother,” he sighed. “My mistake. It’s White’s after all.”

She glared again, and nodded, and sipped at her medicine until he took the hint and got on his way.

* * *

“I don’t know what to bloody tell her!” he told Matty the next day.

It was them on pillows now, heaps of them in the biggest bedroom, with cups of brandy not watered down or medicated but there to warm them until they found the motivation to get dressed and fix the fires.

The club was even colder today than it had been, a condition of the place much improved by Matty’s company.

“She knows I’m lying, but what she doesn’t understand is that I have to lie.

It wouldn’t do her any good at all to know ‘what other club inspires such loyalty.’ My brother already figured it out, but he and his wife are bleeding pirates or something now, apparently, and just want me to handle myself in a way Mum can make sense of.

No one seems to get that I liked how things were.

We were poor, but we were doing pretty well, all things considered, and I liked it.

Now…now I have to worry what the neighbors think?

” He snorted a bit of bitter laughter. “Neighbors who do nothing but drink port and have dinner parties, and can’t even be counted on for the least bit of help in an emergency?

You know, the neighbors thought pretty highly of me on the other side of the neighborhood, I’ll tell you that much.

They were fighting each other to get me to marry in. ”

“Funny.” Matty rolled half on top of him and smoothed the hair off his forehead. “For some reason, you don’t strike me as the marrying type.”

“Wonder where you got that impression.” He squeezed Matty’s arse and tugged him in tight. “Anyway. Got any brilliant advice for me?”

“Brilliant advice?” Matty raised a brow. “Warren, have I told you about my relationship with my mother?”

“No.”

Matty paused. It had clearly been a quip that had been met with more sincerity than he anticipated.

“That’s because I don’t have one,” he said grimly. “There’s no advice to give.”

It struck Warren that things had been a little one-sided in their conversations. Matty talked a lot about his failing occupation, Detective Barrows, and the others at Scotland Yard. He never went further back into his history than those professional relationships.

“Can I ask what happened, there?” Warren half-expected Matty to balk. He did go quiet for a disconcertingly long time, busying himself with little kisses across Warren’s chest. But eventually, he rested his chin on Warren’s shoulder and drew breath to speak.

“Not a lot to say,” he said. He traced Warren’s collarbones softly as he talked.

“She was not married, and I was not wanted. I was probably better off with her than I’d have been at an orphanage, but she paid me little mind beyond keeping me alive.

She had more pressing interests of gin and makeshift fathers for me, men who’d come round for a few months before packing up, never to be heard from again.

The last of those fellows that I ever met suggested she sell me when they’d drunk their way through all our money—my pretty face would catch a good sum, he thought. ”

He looked so calm that Warren felt like he was having some prank pulled on him.

In his position behind the bar, he’d heard his share of nasty stories, but rarely from anyone he was particularly invested in; certainly not from anyone quite so dear as the one still swirling shapes across his chest like he was practicing in his sketchbook.

“Anyway,” Matty went on, “I thought that if my face was worth something, I ought to be the one making the profit off it, not him. So I decided to run away while the choice was still mine to make. And…well, I’ve already told you the outcome of that debacle.

I was caught out practically on day one, fortunately by someone whose capacity for pity had not yet been exhausted.

” His lips paused, but his finger was still going, tracing hearts above Warren’s own.

“I don’t know what my mother thought about her fellow’s idea.

I admit, my fear of finding out was not the least of my reasons for running off.

We were so distant by then anyway, but a betrayal like that…

I couldn’t have borne it. I held very fast to my ability to forgive her shortcomings, and I hated the thought she might finally do something I could not excuse.

So I just never went back after Barrows put me to work.

I told him I was an orphan—he knew it wasn’t true, but let me have my story—and he put me up in a spare room until I was able to rent my own.

His wife bloody hated me, and it was lonely in its own way too, but Barrows took an interest in my well-being.

He expected me to help him on cases where I could be an asset, but otherwise, I was fed and kept warm and even properly educated until I could make it on my own.

So. I cannot count it as anything but an extreme improvement in pretty much every way. ”

Warren had long understood that Matty’s attachment to his position as a detective was not entirely rational. He had not, however, quite grasped the depth of that.

“So you grew up with him, then, Barrows,” Warren said. “You didn’t just work with him. You slept in his house. You shared his table. I admit, I thought it was a bit strange how attached to him you are, but it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?”

He felt Matty nod. “Indeed, though sadly I think it was no more than a pity case. The attachment goes in just the one direction. As most of my attachments have done. Barrows. My mother. Even Mr. Forester—”

“Not me,” Warren said, nuzzling at his temple, trying to cheer him. “This one goes in both directions. You know that, right?”

“Hmm,” said Matty with a little laugh behind it. “I try to.”

Warren held him tighter, as if to prove it for good and all. “So you never went back?” he asked after a moment. “Not even to say goodbye?”

“Well, technically I did return to where she lived, once,” Matty admitted.

“Made it all the way to the door, in fact. Stood there staring at it for what felt like an hour. But… I knew I wouldn’t find anything behind it that would do either of us any good.

She didn’t want to hear from me. And honestly, I was worried about what her companion might do, if he was still around.

Barrows’s offer seemed so much better for everyone so… I just turned around and left.”

“Matty,” he said, snorting with a bit of highly inappropriate nervous laughter. “This is bloody dreadful .”

“I’m very glad you think so,” said Matty earnestly.

“It says good things about your own circumstances. But as far as the fate of unwanted, East End children go, I have seen much, much worse in the course of my work. Worse than I hope you can imagine, my love. I cannot help but count myself very fortunate. Scotland Yard has been complicated, but I’ve at least gotten some justice for a few of those little ones who weren’t so lucky, over the years.

” He leaned up on his elbows at last, angling that angelic face and those glowing eyes of his in Warren’s direction.

He gave a little close-lipped smile. “I admit, it’s especially hard to have a lot of regrets with a view like this. ”