Page 50 of To Sketch a Scandal (Lucky Lovers of London #4)

On Saturday night, Matty returned to the Gull, the pub he’d stayed at the last time Warren concocted an ill-conceived plan to get him into The Curious Fox.

He had a reasonably edible supper, some more of their nice stout, and a friendly chat with that same probable prostitute who reassured him (with evidence, this time) that she really did keep a few fresh toothbrushes handy in her reticule, mostly for her own good, and had never once lied to him nor to anyone else about their history, so-help-her-God.

Hopefully, that was a sign of things to come.

Shy of ten o’clock, as agreed, he left his post at the Gull’s sticky bar and went to The Curious Fox.

Warren handed check-in duties over to the doorman at ten so he could focus on fixing drinks for the theater casts, crews, and audience members who flooded the place after Saturday night’s shows.

A prompt arrival on Matty’s part was vital.

A late arrival could put him at the mercy of the doorman, and, worse yet, risked Warren’s heartfelt confession being interrupted by a slew of literal clowns.

Faced with the Fox’s dingy gray door, Matty took a deep breath and tried to steady himself. His feet itched to turn back as he had at the Buttersnipes’ or Barrows’s. But this time, Warren would not be behind him, to talk him back onto his rocker and into his future.

Because it was Warren waiting for him on the other side.

Knock knock.

As promised, it was Warren who greeted him, glittering in that amber waistcoat Matty liked.

He leaned in the doorway. A lock of hair fell rakishly into his eyes as he held out a feathered pen and a ledger with a sly smile.

The only thing that kept him from being the stuff erotic art pieces were made of was the lumpy scarf around his neck.

“Name?” he asked, as if he’d never once moaned it in any of the rooms behind him.

“Matthew Shaw.”

“Occupation?”

“Aspiring artist.”

“Aspiring artist,” Warren repeated with lush enthusiasm. He dusted Matty’s nose playfully with the feathered pen. “Now that’s one I haven’t heard in at least…twenty minutes.”

Matty’s face burned at the sight of Warren in his element again for the first time since their original meeting. He was always stunning, but when he turned it on, he was a bloody masterpiece.

“You act like this for everyone who comes in?”

“Sure do,” said Warren with a wink. “What do you think?”

“I think I can’t believe you’ve never been arrested.”

Warren ushered him inside with a warm hand on his back, laughing. “They’ve never put me away for anything, but, Matty, sweetheart, who said I’ve never been arrested?”

They passed through the first layer of curtains, but before they got to the second, Warren pressed him to the wall. He pushed one leg between Matty’s and leaned in close.

“I forgot the most important question, Mr. Matthew Shaw, aspiring artist,” he whispered. “No one gets into The Curious Fox without someone to speak for them.” He nipped Matty’s bottom lip. “Tell me: Who are you here with, tonight?”

Chatter, footfalls, and clinking glasses drifted from the other side of the curtain. While the idea that he might soon be part of it was thrilling, a few bits of Matty were distraught that this wasn’t the start of one of their private trysts.

“I’m here with Warren Bakshi,” Matty said, a little breathless. “The barkeep.”

“Yes, you are.” Warren kissed him deep, quick, and dirty. “And don’t you forget it.”

Still dizzy from that kiss, he said, “How exactly would I forget it?”

“You’d be surprised who forgets what their first night at the Fox.” Warren was teasing, but with a thread of very charming seriousness. “Come in with one bloke, next thing you know, they’re wandering off with the first pretty face to make eyes at them.”

“This isn’t technically my first night at the Fox,” Matty reminded him.

“And I already wandered off with the first pretty face to make eyes at me last time. Wandered so far I met his mum last week.” He leaned up to plant a peck on Warren’s forehead.

“So, I think I’ve probably got that one out of my system. ”

“In that case.” He glanced nervously at the curtain. “You ready?”

“To be forced into an impromptu marriage ceremony, or get kicked out on my arse?”

“Either. No telling which we’re facing.”

“I’m ready if you are.”

Warren gave him one last kiss, for luck, then brought Matty through the curtains.

No one looked their way at first, but Matty himself could do nothing but stare around in shock.

He’d spent many hours here during the day, and had stopped by for a drink that one night when all the fun had been going on upstairs.

It had looked like a very standard place that night, if a touch overdecorated, but Warren had since told him that was cover for rowdier behavior in the other room.

Now, though, it was populated to its usual extent, and Matty was mesmerized.

This was no seedy coffeehouse, but nor did it have the debauched allure of a full-on brothel.

Sodomy happened only in the back rooms, of course, but barely a glance around the place showed conspiracy to commit it between blokes flirting at the bar, female impersonation at a questionably-legal betting table, and an embrace that would constitute gross indecency behind a clumsily-pulled alcove curtain.

(Probably. No one really knew what constituted gross indecency exactly, not even Matty, who had for a while been expected to know how to spot it.)

But as Warren took him by the hand and led him through the room, that habit of mind that led to a list of crimes went quiet, and he started to see something quite different—groups of friends, pairs of lovers, tables of revelers, all of them finding blessed escape for the moment.

He’d gone back and forth, in the days since leaving the Met. But he knew, right then and there, that he’d made the right choice. To pretend he belonged on the opposite side of all this was far more degrading to his spirit than any other role he’d taken in his years there.

The last table they passed was that of the creatively attired gamblers, interspersed with two more obvious gentlemen, a smiling one with a peacock feather in his hat and a big surly one with spectacles.

There was an outright shriek from one of the frocked folks at that table, and for a second, Matty thought the time had come for him to be thrown out on his arse.

The shrieker jumped to her feet. Matty would not have recognized her at all, if not for the way she…

he…? (Matty was embarrassingly of his depth on that particular point.

He’d have to ask about manners when he got a chance.) In any case, what was unmistakable was how the person pulled a fan out of the folds of a lacy dress like a rapier and waved it in Warren’s face.

This was a transformed Noah Clarke, Mr. Forester’s lover and the whole reason Matty was here tonight.

“You actually brought him?” Mr. Clarke said, astounded.

He looked back at his companions at the table, who were whispering with each other curiously.

“B-but… I didn’t think…” There was bald shock on his painted face as he gaped at Warren.

“You’re Warren Bakshi . You aren’t actually supposed to go through with it!

You don’t fall in love and make declarations. You’ve been telling us that for ages.”

Matty cocked his head to the side, confused. “But… Mr. Clarke, this was your idea in the first place.”

“No, it was your idea, I just allowed you to entertain it,” he snapped. He looked oddly panicked. Behind him, the whispers of the others were intensifying, their own pink and red smiles widening mischievously. “But… I didn’t think… Th-the bedpost …”

“Miss Penelope,” said Warren slowly, no less than amazed. “Did you bet the others I wouldn’t go through with it?” He grabbed the fan just above where Noah’s gloved hand clutched the base, grinning wickedly. “Did you bet them, and lose ?”

The response from the table was all the answer anyone needed, titters and cheers and the fellow with the peacock feather shouting, “Told you so!”

“Not yet!” Mr. Clarke—Miss Penelope, it seemed, as that’s how everyone else was referring to her just now—said, snatching her fan back. She narrowed her eyes at Warren. “You brought him,” she said. “But you haven’t gone through with the rest of it. So I haven’t lost yet.”

“Penny,” Warren said, “do you have any idea how much money I’ve lost to you at the card table over the years?” She shook her head. “Well, I keep that count on the other bedpost. Why don’t you go look it over and recalculate the odds I’ll go through with it now that I know it will hurt your pocket?”

The others loved that. In their celebration, they tried to get Warren to introduce Matty to them right then, but he shook them off.

While they knew Warren was due for some sort of uncharacteristic public confession, they did not, it seemed, know exactly who Matty was and why such theatrics were necessary in the first place.

Warren clearly wanted to keep it that way for now.

“Later,” he said. “Let me secure your win, first, before she finds some way to twist it in her favor. You know how she is.”

They did know how she was, it was unanimously agreed, and sent Warren and Matty on their way to their final trial.

Mr. Forester was behind the bar, fixing a couple of fizzes and humming to himself. Matty hated the thought that they were about to disturb his peace. He probably shouldn’t be so sentimental about the chap, but so it was. He really had liked working for him.

Still, the only way out of this one was through.

Warren went behind the bar to relieve Mr. Forester of the glasses and whisper something in his ear.

As Warren brought finished drinks to the correct customers, Mr. Forester turned around.

There was a sort of incredulous look on his face from whatever Warren had told him, but when his eyes landed on Matty, they became quite wide indeed.

Whatever Warren had said, it wasn’t Matty he’d expected to find.

“Mr. Shaw,” said Mr. Forester, polite but suspicious. “This…is a surprise.” He turned to Warren and lowered his voice. “Warren, I thought I made my thoughts pretty clear last time we talked about this. Could you explain—”

“I can.” Warren squared his shoulders and stared his manager down. “I can explain. I can explain very well. But not in words.”

He disappeared under the bar, and when he came back, it was with his sketchbook in hand. He put it on the bar and beckoned to Matty.

“Warren,” Mr. Forester scolded. “He can’t come back here—”

“He’s quit Scotland Yard, so just give it a second, would you, guv?” said Warren. Something in his voice made Mr. Forester back down as Matty came around to Warren’s other side.

From this vantage, he had a perfect view of the rest of the room.

While most were carrying on without much attention, Miss Penelope and some of her friends had sidled closer, and the pair who’d taken the fizzes were watching.

Well, one of them was watching, the younger one in the nicer coat.

The other was too enamored of his companion to pay attention to anything else.

Warren began flipping the pages of his sketchbook.

Matty drew his eyes away from the pair down the bar more reluctantly than he might have liked.

Something about them had caught his attention…

but there were more important things happening right now than a bit of brazen chatter.

He knew who he was here with, so why was he staring at these other chaps all of a sudden?

They weren’t even particularly attractive, to be sucking up his notice in a moment like this.

Well, one of them wasn’t, anyway. The other was, very much so. But Matty had never been drawn to fellows like the ones he played for a case…

Once again, he took charge of his eyes and put them where they belonged: on Warren’s drawing.

And he was glad to have done so, because what he saw was…

Well, it was beautiful.

“Warren,” Matty said, tracing the page with a finger. “This is…”

“It’s Matty,” Warren told Mr. Forester, as if the likeness were not half as perfect as it was.

“It’s Matty and my mother, on the night I introduced them to each other.

They were laughing just like this within minutes—they’ve both got good senses of humor, you know.

I didn’t think it was a good idea at first, but they got on well in the end.

” He sighed, and slipped a hand around Matty’s waist. “She can’t know the extent, of course, but you can, Forester.

You do, I think, now that you’re seeing the proof right in front of you. ”

Mr. Forester examined the drawing, and then Warren and Matty standing live in front of him. “You introduced Mr. Shaw to your mother ?”

“I tried to tell you we’d become friends,” Warren said.

“You’ve never introduced me to your mother, and we’re friends,” said Mr. Forester. “Just how often do you do that, exactly?”

“Exactly once.”

Matty hated himself in this moment. Because it was so sweet, so longed-for, so perfect, and yet his eyes kept drifting to that sodding pair of nobodies with their fizzes and their too-shiny hair…

Well, no. Not both. Just the one with shiny hair.

That’s the one who kept pulling his gaze, his attention, his sense of…

recognition. Because that’s what it was.

Not the face. He’d never seen the chap before.

But he recognized something in his actions, in his outfit, in the clearly false gems that decorated his fingers…

Matty’s curiosity coalesced all at once into understanding. An understanding that no one else in the room seemed to have, and for good reason: Matty was probably the only one among them to have intimate knowledge of just what was happening and how to spot it.

He was suddenly glad, very, very glad to have been convinced of coming here. Maybe Mr. Forester was right—maybe he was a risk—but he was something else too. Something that might just balance that risk out in the end.

He was an expert in knowing the enemy.

The slap of a fan on the bar startled him just as he was drawing breath to sound the alarm.