Page 45 of To Sketch a Scandal (Lucky Lovers of London #4)

Matty sat heavily upon the bed. Unable to look Warren in the eye, he let his pillows have him, heels of his hands pressed to his forehead as he spoke to the ceiling.

“Probably nothing good,” he admitted at last. Long last. Far too long a last to be considered reasonable at all. His insides curdled terribly. How could he have let it go this far? Bloody hell, he was a monster…

He felt the weight of Warren on the mattress beside him, a hand resting gently on his leg. “What’s that supposed to mean? Nothing good?”

“Means he wrote me just after the pictures went missing,” Matty mumbled. “And same day I walked out of Scotland Yard. Funny timing, isn’t it?”

“How would he even know about the pictures?” Warren asked.

“He wouldn’t,” said Matty. “Unless someone at the Met had something to do with it. Someone who is now going to be even angrier with me than before, and without worry that my actions might cause a public scandal now that I’ve left.”

The fingers of Warren’s hand, still on Matty’s leg, unmistakably tightened.

“Is that likely?” he asked.

“I wish I knew.”

He dared at last to uncover his eyes. He was surprised to find that Warren did not look especially concerned.

“How would they manage it, though?” Warren asked.

“It’s not like I leave this thing lying around for any old bobby to find, and based on the sort of cases you said your unit is involved in, I can’t imagine they’d have anyone sneaking about to catch one detective getting up to a bit of naughty portraiture, love.

” His hand on Matty’s leg relaxed, then squeezed in a decided fashion. “I think it sounds a little paranoid.”

Matty turned his head to glare into a pair of very skeptical brown eyes. “Do you have a better explanation at this point?”

Warren gave a decidedly impatient sort of click. “Any of the others, probably,” he said. “The dog, even.”

“There was no drool or teeth marks on the torn pages,” Matty said, a bit impatient himself.

“It’s not the bloody dog this time. It’s also not your brother.

Nor do I think it’s a blackmailer, from here or anywhere else—I think a simple black mailer would have come looking for their money by now, there’s no sense sitting on something like that. ”

“The pictures aren’t even that bad,” Warren snapped. “Suggestive, yeah. Bit embarrassing, in the wrong context. But not damning by themselves. Every museum in London houses worse. They’re decidedly front-parlor stuff.”

“Even worse,” Matty explained, this idea really digging its heels in.

It was neat. It was tidy. It fit everything he was feeling about the terrible ending to a career he’d thought a done deal for life.

“If they’re not damning, they’re not worth much, are they?

We might let a blackmailer keep them and take our chances on reporting him , in that case.

If not money or family security, what other motivation is there to take such things, unless they back up some more convincing evidence they already have on hand? ”

This time, the warmth of Warren’s hand left him entirely, his gaze going almost as cold as the absence of his comfort on Matty’s leg.

“Evidence on hand?” he repeated. “What evidence would they have on hand?”

Matty squeezed his eyes shut again. It had never seemed a good time to mention the reputational problems that had led to the Met becoming so miserable in the first place.

“I am not,” he said slowly, “completely free of all suspicion from some of my former coworkers, alright? There’s not…

Evidence might have been overstating the situation.

It’s rumors, really, nasty schoolboy name-calling and whatnot because of the sorts of roles I was taking on for my cases.

And it just occurred to me that someone might have gone and taken that bollocks to the next step, and that maybe Barrows wants to warn me about it. ”

He watched miserably as Warren perused the note again.

“This notion came to you last Monday,” he said.

“If you really believe it’s what you say it is, why the devil didn’t you mention it before?

Why didn’t you mention that there were rumors before either, while we’re at it?

Don’t you think I ought to know if I’m caught up in some Scotland Yard scandal as soon as possible? ”

“Of course.”

“Then why are we just having this conversation now?”

“Because I’ve lost my ability to practice care and discretion around you,” he snapped to the ceiling.

“I’m sorry, Warren. I wanted to talk to Barrows first to either confirm or deny that I was right, and I would have done, but I left the note out on the desk because you have turned my brain to utter mush, apparently.

I never would have made a mistake like that before. Never.”

Warren looked torn between taking that as a compliment or an insult, and frankly, Matty wasn’t sure which he’d meant it as himself.

“You should have told me,” he said quietly. “Why didn’t you?”

“I wanted to talk to Barrows first,” Matty repeated.

“That’s not a reason, it’s a want,” said Warren. “Why didn’t you tell me, Matty?”

“I…didn’t want to drag you in further,” Matty said. “If I’m right… Did you sign the pictures? While we’re on the subject.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Then if I’m right, it’s the fact that I posed that’s the relevant bit of evidence. Since they took it from the sketchbook, and you didn’t sign it, they’ll have a hard time proving you’re the one who did it. And even if they tried, it’s not really you they want—”

“Why does your tone have me thinking the real reason isn’t quite as noble as you’re saying?”

Because love is really dreadful if you want to keep anything at all to yourself. Matty thought it so loud, he wouldn’t be surprised if Warren had heard it. I can see why I’ve never risked it before, can’t you?

“Matty!”

“Because Mr. Forester is right about me,” he snapped, sitting up at last to look Warren in the eye.

“There. Are you happy now? He’s right. I’m trouble.

More trouble than anyone so lovely as you has any reason to put up with, much less speak for to all his friends.

I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to prove him right.

Not…” He faltered under Warren’s gaze. “Not yet,” he whispered.

“I wanted another day before it got complicated.”

“Another day?” said Warren accusingly. “Or another weekend?”

“Warren—”

“You were going to wait until I vouched for you at the club,” he said sadly. “Until I’d stood up and made a bloody fool of myself in front of everyone who matters to me, saying you were perfectly safe and honest and ought to be given a fair shake.”

“I wasn’t planning to wait any particular amount of—”

“But you would have,” he said. “Wouldn’t you?”

Matty didn’t think he could deny that. Not based on the way the conversation had refused to leave his mouth for days. He wished it weren’t true. But it probably was.

“I… I could be wrong about the whole thing,” he said shakily. “In fact, you’re probably right. They don’t use plain clothes for something as small as this, it would hurt public opinion—”

“I have a family, Matty,” Warren interrupted.

There was a level of hurt in his voice Matty could hardly believe he’d put there.

“And that family has a reputation. A very good reputation, which is something a family such as mine doesn’t always come by so easily.

My lives must be very carefully balanced, now that there are people trying to decide whether to invite my mother to their dinner parties.

She likes those sorts of things a lot, you know, and she missed them, when I couldn’t afford us an in with that sort of company.

Say what you will about whether that’s right or wrong—it doesn’t matter.

I don’t want to take it from her now that she’s got it back.

Staying balanced is hard enough as it is; I cannot maintain it if I do not know what I’m working with. I thought you understood that.”

He paused for a moment, a moment that Matty felt desperate to fill with something, anything that would fix this. “Warren—”

“But you don’t, do you?” he went on. His voice was no longer filled with anger, but something much, much worse: pity. “You don’t understand it. The family thing. How important it all is. And why would you?”

Never before had Matty really felt like the broken thing he was.

He’d seen so many unwanted creatures like himself shattered and smashed beyond all recognition in the course of his work, that the ghastly crack through his own middle had seemed very mild in comparison.

But Warren was clearly staring right at that crack now.

He obviously did not see it as some scratch to be ignored.

He stood up, leaving the mattress bereft of his weight.

“I have to think,” he said, grabbing his coat.

Matty sat bolt upright. “Warren, I’m sorry—”

He came back over. And while he did lean down to kiss Matty on the forehead, it was not an especially warm gesture.

“I need to think,” he said again. “I’ll see you in class. You can…you can let me know how it went with Barrows then. If it’s possible for you.”

He shrugged the coat on, took up his hat, and walked out the door.

“Warren!” Matty called. “You forgot—”

But the door clicked shut.

Matty stared at the abandoned scarf, which had been left hanging limp on the peg, its shadow swinging sadly beneath as it swayed with the haste of Warren’s departure.