Page 40 of To Sketch a Scandal (Lucky Lovers of London #4)

Clearly, that was bollocks, but Warren accepted the deflection and the distraction Matty dragged them into for a while.

He wanted to know more about Matty, hard as it might be to hear, but…

there was time. As he held Matty and let him return the tone of this bedroom into something easy, he felt very sure of that.

Matty would be here, because Matty was reliable and devoted and loyal to the point of foolish.

That was not unique to his relationship with Warren, but specific to his soul.

He’d been loyal to Barrows, to Forester, to his shoddy drawing practice—Warren had little to fear, he knew, now that Matty had attached himself to his side.

But it suddenly occurred to Warren, as he absorbed that certainty, that the structures holding them together were not nearly as reliable.

A class that would end. A boardinghouse where a wrong step could spell disaster.

And a club that Warren could not explain to his family, where he was lying and sneaking about week after week, risking his place by bringing Matty in while convincing himself that such a scheme could possibly go on forever.

And for what? Because he decided he’d rather break rules than make new ones.

Forester was not actually unreasonable. In fact, his attachments were always decidedly reciprocal, including the friendship he had with Warren, no matter how strained the professional aspect of it made things sometimes.

If Warren had been brave enough from the beginning to admit just how much Matty mattered to him, Forester might have tried to work something out.

But Warren’s cowardice and attachment to his image had bungled that pretty badly.

He started to wonder, as he realized how fragile a circumstance he’d created, if he might be able to unbungle it.

He brought it up later, when they were dressed and had begun putting the room back together.

“Matty,” he said carefully, as they each took half of the fresh sheet to lay it out smooth upon the bed they’d mussed up that morning. “You know how you said, first time we were here, that you’d be willing to stay so late Forester would have to drag you out by the ankle?”

Matty raised an eyebrow at him from across the bed. “Yes…”

“I was thinking…not today, I’d need to prime things a bit, make sure they land in our favor, but… Do you think that maybe, sometime soon, we could try—”

The first sign that something wasn’t right was that Matty—who was always so beautifully attentive—broke eye contact abruptly while Warren was still speaking.

The second sign came when Warren finally heard what Matty must have noticed first.

Bells.

“Shit.” Warren dropped the sheet and whipped around. Bells. Not far-off bells, from the front. Close ones. From the hall just outside their open door.

Warren’s first impulse was to hide Matty wherever he could.

He wanted to make things right, yes. Wanted to admit his feelings for Matty and maybe even what they’d driven him to.

But he could not just get caught red-handed, not like this, with the room in shambles and Matty’s scarf round his neck.

To be ready and waiting for a confrontation looked like a levelheaded decision, made to force the change he wanted on equal terms.

To be busted with a pile of dirty sheets balled at his feet looked like mutiny.

Before he could figure out where to even put Matty, the intruder was in the doorway.

But it wasn’t David Forester.

Whether that was for the best or the worst remained to be seen.

“Well, well, well,” came a voice pinched with barely-contained amusement. “What have we here?”

Noah Clarke, Forester’s dedicated love and longtime best mate, stood with the keys to the club in his hand.

He was fashionably suited but rumpled, like he’d come straight from the tailor shop he ran just off Savile Row.

He was glancing between Warren (whom he would have expected) and Matty (whom he certainly had not), with no small amount of suspicion.

“H-hullo, Penny,” said Warren as innocently as he could, trying to kick the old sheets under the bed like the ass he was and referring to Noah by his drag name to really indicate how entirely expected and casual this entire moment was, nothing interesting to see here at all, is there?

Certainly nothing to report back to Forester, who would never have trusted that bloody key to anyone but Noah.

He almost couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen this coming. “What brings you so early?”

Noah paused. He didn’t look it, with his frill-trimmed clothes and dramatic demeanor, but he had an unexpectedly good mind under his too-long hair and ribbon-wrapped top hat. It made him a real devil at the card table. Warren could see it working at this equally noble task now.

“Annabelle needs my feathered fan for her next show,” he said carefully. “David gave me the key so I could stop by for it.”

“Oh, well, go ahead.” Warren gestured toward the wardrobe where some members stored their drags for safekeeping.

He ignored Matty entirely, like he was, perhaps, just a serving lad come a bit early and not worthy of notice.

“She does a bang-up job with the properties at that theater. If she says she needs it, I’m sure it’s irreplaceably perfect. ”

“Yes…” Unlike Warren, Noah was not ignoring Matty. He was, in fact, staring right at him, eyes narrowed. “I know you,” he said. Matty stood very still under Noah’s infamously intense stare. “I do. Why do I know—?”

Warren squeezed his eyes shut tight as the overdramatic gasp washed over him.

“You’re that valet!” Noah all but shrieked. “The pretty one. The one who turned out to be a bleeding police officer!”

Matty cleared his throat. “Special Investigations detective,” he corrected politely.

Noah clutched his chest like he’d uncovered the scandal of the century. “ Warren !”

“Will you just get your fan and get out, please?” said Warren through gritted teeth.

“Are you meeting up here off-hours?” When Warren finally opened his eyes, he found Noah was looking all around the room.

The sheets Warren hadn’t managed to hide.

The brandy glasses on the bedside table.

The tin of cream left out beside them. He did not have to be a detective or even have a particularly sharp wit to puzzle out exactly what was going on here.

“David told me you’d struck up a friendship.

He neglected to mention exactly what sort of friendship it was, though. ”

“That’s because he doesn’t know,” Warren said seriously. “And he can’t know. Not like this.”

Noah laughed with unbridled delight as he went to the wardrobe. He opened it up and began rifling through dresses and hatboxes for his fan.

“I don’t know what’s funnier,” he said. “That this devastatingly salacious rendezvous happened right under David’s nosy little nose, or that cynical slattern Warren Bakshi is rendezvousing at all.

” Having found the fan, he flicked it open, and then shut again, using it to point at Matty. “You did know that, didn’t you?”

“Knew what?” asked Matty. He was standing very still with his hands behind his back.

“That he’s cynical?”

“I suppose.”

“And a slattern?”

“No doubt.”

“Good.” Noah stepped in a little closer to Matty, fan held straight before him like a fencing foil.

While his voice stayed light, there was a distinct threat in it when he spoke again.

“I’d hate to think my dear friend, ah, lured you here under false pretenses.

That anyone , in fact, might have lured anyone here under false pretenses, if you catch my meaning. ”

Even if Matty suddenly admitted that he was a traitor after all, what exactly Noah thought he was going to do to a genuine lawman with that floppy feathered fan was well beyond Warren’s imagination. Fortunately, Matty didn’t so much as flinch.

“No false pretenses,” said Matty, hanging tight to that professional posture. “Though, if he had, I think you and I would agree it was just, wouldn’t we, Mr. Clarke? Considering my own history of falseness?”

“We would,” said Noah. He lowered the fan at last. “David doesn’t want you here.”

“I’m well aware of that.”

“And yet, here you are.”

“What can I say?” Matty shrugged. “Apparently, I’m a fool for cynical slatterns.”

A smile played at the corner of Noah’s mouth. “You and everyone else. Sneaking about with our dear barkeep when he’s supposed to be working doesn’t make you terribly special, Detective .”

The words stung so badly that Warren almost wished Noah had smacked him with the fan instead.

The thought that Matty was no different from any randy bar patron left him with a painful desperation to correct, but without a sense of how to do it.

After all, what right did he have to be angry with Noah for seeing him exactly as he’d always wanted to be seen?

Something of this must have shown on his face.

Not enough for Noah to notice—he was still smirking—but Matty was nothing if not attuned to details.

He stayed quiet for a second, as if waiting for Warren to speak for himself.

When that didn’t happen, he turned back to Noah.

The blankness he’d put on was replaced with something sharper, brighter, and dreadfully hard to argue with.

“Forgive me,” Matty went on, more energy in his voice as he stopped trying to blend into the wallpaper and took control of the conversation’s energy in one fell swoop. “But I beg to differ with you, Mr. Clarke.”

“Do you?” Noah looked surprised, but undeniably pleased to have been issued a challenge.

“Yes. We’re not sneaking around for the fun of it, but out of necessity. The situation is special indeed, as far as I’m concerned.”

“So you fancy you’re in love with him, then?” Noah chuckled, batted his lashes teasingly. “Is that what you’re saying?”