Page 43 of To Sketch a Scandal (Lucky Lovers of London #4)

“You should certainly check with your brother,” Matty said.

“If I’m understanding your relationship correctly, that’s the least problematic possibility by far.

Otherwise, someone in the boardinghouse or class must have gotten to it when our backs were turned.

And if they went to that sort of trouble…

well.” He took a very deep breath, trying to keep the shudder out of it.

“They’re not calling that new law ‘The Blackmailer’s Charter’ for nothing, are they?

Do you have any idea how inundated Scotland Yard has been with stupid bollocks like this the past few months?

A letter here, a photograph there, enemies and desperate men trying to take each other down?

We don’t even bother trying to keep up with half of it. ”

Unless the evidence was especially specific or the accused was of particular interest, of course.

A lord. A politician. A famous figure. A detective .

He could not even bloody bear to think what might happen if he was at all recognizable in the picture and it wound up at the Met.

If he were recognized, he somehow doubted the drawings would be treated with the same exhausted eye-rolling that most of this sort of sordid evidence was garnering.

“God, that would be miserable business,” said Warren with a sigh and a roll of the eyes that seemed more casual than it should have been. “I’ve dealt with much closer calls, though.”

“Really? You’ve been blackmailed?”

Warren looked at him like he was very naive, and maybe he was. “This time, at least, I’ve got money,” Warren said. “If someone pops back up with the pictures in the next few days, I can pay.”

“We best hope it was a classmate, then, and not one of the boarders,” said Matty, mind still racing. “They know who I am, and would know how much their material is worth.”

Warren looked at him, and for a split second, Matty saw a flash of something he didn’t like at all. Like maybe someone who’d warned him off this affair had a point after all. But it lasted so briefly, Matty might well have imagined it.

* * *

They talked through the rest of the details of their case—for of course, that’s how Matty was thinking of it already, those grooves carved too deeply in his mind to approach it any other way.

Thoughts of leaving Scotland Yard on his own power were overshadowed by all the more dreadful ways his career might come to an end if he did not get out ahead of this.

While Warren promised to check with his brother, Matty doubted anything would come of that. Given what he knew of Harry Bakshi, he had no reason to do such a thing without telling Warren he’d done it. The motivation just wasn’t there.

For his own part, Matty examined the boardinghouse parlor, where they often took tea and behaved very innocently.

They were sometimes joined by the landlady, served by the kitchen girl, or accompanied by others in the house who read or tinkered on the piano in the evenings.

While it seemed unlikely, they’d occasionally been distracted enough that someone might have poked about in the unattended sketchbook.

Without any other leads, he could not rule it out.

When Monday morning came, he could think of nowhere worse to be than his Scotland Yard office, where Barrows was gone forever and it was just him and Ashton and whoever else they wanted him to work with, having been, not just unpromoted, but actively downgraded to filing other detectives’ papers and taking their notes.

He got in to find he was still not assigned to a particular case, and yet somehow, some-fucking-way , Detective Ashton was on his arse within the first hour and did not let up no matter how calm and accommodating Matty tried to make himself in response.

Handwriting’s dreadful on this report, Shaw. I’m going to need it done again.

Why weren’t you there to take minutes on the pawnshop murder? I don’t care that you had another assignment, Shaw, you should know what comes first.

Shaw, where the devil is that folder? Yes, I gave it to you, don’t argue facts with me.

Shaw this. Shaw that. Shaw, you bleeding idiot, why didn’t you…

? Each one of Ashton’s terribly friendly , companionable demands felt like another box to the ears, until, by midafternoon, Matty could have sworn they were literally ringing.

This time, though, there was no escape. Ashton had taken over Barrows’s desk, so there was no time to recuperate from the onslaught with a friendly face and a strong cup of tea before the next round.

Fortunately, one or the other of them left occasionally, but what the devil was Matty going to do when they eventually had to work a case together?

It was bad enough sitting across from Ashton and taking his orders on this scattered basis, but how on earth would they manage to actually get anything done?

“Shaw.”

Matty’s hand clenched around his pen as he rewrote the offending report from earlier.

“Yes, sir?” he said as pleasantly as possible.

Ashton didn’t go on until Matty deigned to look up from his useless work.

He finally did, only to find that Ashton was leaning back in Barrows’s old chair like he’d owned it forever, hands clasped comfortably behind his head.

He seemed to be surveying Matty—there was no other way to put it.

Smirking something dreadful. Eyes narrowed and flicking. Looking for further fault.

“I was just thinking, Shaw,” he said lightly, in that oh-so-friendly tone he took when he was about to tell Matty to be grateful for all his unjudging support. “You’re off the fraud case.”

“Well spotted, Detective,” Matty said before he could stop himself. Though his voice was bland as milk, Ashton’s face darkened when he caught the unblunted sarcasm behind it.

“Well, given that fact, don’t you think it’s time you left that raggedy artist look behind?

” His tone was light, teasing, one companion giving a bit of advice to the other.

But there was steel in his eyes. “That sort of stubbly situation you’ve got.

It’s not proper for an officer of the Met.

Not even one of your standing. Since you don’t need it for the case anymore, it’s probably time you got rid of it, don’t you think? ”

A flare of hot anger flickered to life from the embers that had been slowly smoldering within Matty’s belly all day.

“I’ve grown to like it this way actually,” said Matty with an apologetic little smile. “And seeing as no one’s trusted me yet with a new plainclothes assignment that might have other requirements, I think I’ll leave it as-is until that changes.”

Ashton became less casual then, folding his hands on the desk before him.

Why the devil he’d chosen this moment to berate Matty for his beard of all things was a mystery.

He’d looked too peaceful, he supposed. Ashton could not stand to see him off his toes for even a second.

Whatever the case, it had clearly become the most bloody important thing in the world all of a sudden, and there would be no putting him off.

“Tomorrow,” he said slowly. “I’d like you to come in looking fit for your office.”

“A mustache, then?” said Matty, voice so taut it was a wonder it did not snap.

Ashton laughed. “I mean, if you wanted,” he said, as if to want such a thing would be a grievous mistake. “But given the scraggly little thing you’ve managed so far, I think you’d do better to return to your clean look until you’ve grown up a bit.”

The flare within Matty climbed to a blaze, like someone had thrown a few handfuls of incriminating documents on it.

“I’m twenty-five years old.”

Ashton laughed as though it was all good fun. “Old graybeard, are you?”

“I think I’m going to keep it as is,” Matty said firmly.

Ashton ignored the finality in his voice entirely. “You are not,” he said. “You will come in looking proper for your post tomorrow, Shaw, and that’s final.”

Something snapped. And not a small something, either, not the mere result of Ashton’s poorly-disguised cruelty over the past few hours and days and even weeks.

It was not some thread that came apart under the intolerable tension, but a bloody bridge, huge and crumbling, pieces crashing into the water below.

He had given every ounce of his control over to this place for too long.

The support and fond-enough feelings of Barrows had made his demands and—yes, though Matty hated to admit it—his exploitation tolerable.

But Ashton was a hacksaw to those already-splintering cables.

He could not take another second of this.

He hadn’t gotten to see Warren’s picture of him, but he did not need to.

What he found reflected in those gorgeous eyes had apparently been enough.

Matty looked Ashton dead in the face and said:

“No.”

Ashton blinked at him slowly. “No?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Awful lot of insolence for someone on such thin ice, don’t you think?”

Matty stood up, slamming his pen so hard on the table that ink splattered across the report and clear across to stain the wood of his desk.

“Quit asking me what I think ,” he said, shouted, really, his voice filling the small room and likely carrying out the single window.

He was breathing heavily, hand still covering the pen like it was something he’d smashed and feared seeing how thoroughly he’d killed it.

“You don’t give a damn what I think , Ashton.

And if you think I’m going to make decisions about what to do with my own fucking face based on your opinions, then you’re bloody delusional. ”

“Want to go say all that to Superintendent Frost?” said Ashton in a dangerous voice. “Seems to me you’ve forgotten, once again, who your friends are—”