Page 8 of To Sketch a Scandal (Lucky Lovers of London #4)

Over the past two weeks, Warren had spent every extra moment at the club decking out the upstairs parlor for the drag party and consulting on his friends’ gowns and wigs.

By the time the party came round, he could well imagine the wicked and delightful sight going on above his head.

This sense of knowing exactly what he was missing was intensified by the piano music, shrieks of laughter, and joyous footsteps that no informer would miss even in the unlikely occurrence of Warren catching one.

While Warren was typically pleased to stick to the club’s security protocols, they challenged him tonight.

At home, everything was in service to Harry and his new wife’s supposedly imminent arrival, Mother going so far as to rally the women to start the cooking in her certainty that they would arrive on the exact date she’d calculated.

Miraculously, she’d had only one spell through all of it, but leaving her while she was in this state made him sick.

And leaving her for this? Serving some dozen blokes too scared to step upstairs but too stuck in their habits to go anywhere else? It was nearly intolerable.

At least, as Forester had promised, Miles Montague was there to keep him company.

A gruff, wild-haired erotic novelist, Miles wasn’t one for snug crowds or inordinate amounts of risk.

Though he was as scared and stuck in his habits as the rest of Warren’s charges tonight, he was at least fun to talk to, and even to flirt with, because he always got flustered.

It never went anywhere, though. The fellow was bafflingly faithful to Warren’s old chum Charlie, whose bright laughter was recognizable even through the floorboards this evening.

“He’s having far too much fun without you.” Knowing Miles preferred wine and they’d both be down here tonight, he’d broken out a better bottle than he normally bothered with. He topped off the glass and winked. “You ought to get back at him.”

“Is that so?” Miles braced for this old song and dance of theirs with a scolding half-smile. “Got any ideas?”

“A few.” Warren put his chin in his hands on the bar and batted eyelashes up at his old friend.

Miles shook his head. “You’ve got a real way about you, Warren.”

“What way?”

“The way of a bloke who wants nothing more than to see me in trouble.”

“Oh, but, Miles, that’s not true at all. I want to see you in trouble, sure, but there are at least a dozen other ways I’d like to see you too, if you know what I’m saying.”

Miles’s little smile cracked into a quiet laugh. “God, I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

“Waltzed, even.”

As if summoned by even the least serious threat to his lover’s fidelity, Charlie Price emerged from the back door with Noah Clarke—Forester’s darling—hanging on his arm.

They were quite a sight. Charlie’s face was done up, frock coat ruffled and flowered, top hat feathered halfway to hell.

Noah was in his full drag costume, Miss Penelope, with butterflies pinned to his bonnet, swirls painted on his face, and a feathery fan in his hand.

“Are you supposed to be down here, lookin’ like that?” Warren said as Charlie swiped a sip of Miles’s wine. “Thought you was supposed to stay upstairs if you dressed up.”

“Don’t panic,” said Charlie over the snatched glass. “Forester said I pass as an actor and gave me the go-ahead to come down.”

Warren looked Noah over. “What’s your excuse?”

“That I’m so terribly convincing it hardly matters,” he said in the high, brash voice he used in character before adding in his normal register, “Also: I love him to the ends of the earth, but he can’t tell me what to do all the time.

The world’s not going to end if I’m down here for two minutes.

He’s being a touch paranoid, in case you haven’t noticed.

” He took Charlie’s arm again and looked mournfully at Miles, who’d loosened up substantially over the years but was still known for a thick streak of overcaution.

“We’ve been bonding over this shared trial of ours. ”

“That’s why she came to help me scoop you up.” Charlie tugged at Miles’s arm. “The wedding’s about to start. Forester’s got everything all set up—you’d think it was his own matrimony, the attention to detail—he’s got Mr. Gray in an antique veil and everything.”

“He always thinks the pairs he set up belong to him,” Warren muttered. “Bloody romantic fool. It’s nothing special.”

“Perhaps not,” Charlie admitted. “But it’s shaping up to be a riot. You should come, Miles.”

Miles looked torn between adoration and security. “It’s not my scene, Charlie.”

“Just for a bit. I promise, you won’t regret it.”

When Miles waffled, Noah swooped in. Rather expectedly, his “help” in this matter revealed itself to be a well-used pack of playing cards that he dug out from his padded bosom and shuffled expertly on the bar in front of Miles.

“Let’s draw for it, amore ,” he suggested. “If your card’s higher, you stay snug down here. If mine’s high, on the other hand…” He smiled and flapped the fan toward the door that would lead them all upstairs to the wedding.

Warren’s regret at being left out spiked terribly. At this point, he wouldn’t even mind losing all his pay at Noah’s card table if only he could join in the game. And now they were taking Miles from him?

Noah was examining Warren’s expression from behind the fluttering fan. He seemed to misread it as suspicion. “Miles can go ahead and cut the deck if he doesn’t trust me.”

“Sure, he can,” said Warren, resentment tightening his voice. “And just how many aces have you got up that lacy sleeve of yours to make up for it if he does?”

Noah’s eyes brightened devilishly. “Well, it only takes one, doesn’t it?”

Though Miles pushed the cards away and put on a little more show of hesitation, his resolve began to break once Charlie rested his chin on Miles’s shoulder and presumably began whispering some creative and personal promises.

Enough was enough. Warren scoffed and moved on down the bar to find someone else to talk to.

“Where are you going?” Miles asked. “Aren’t you going to save me?”

Warren turned back, looking him over. “You’re a lost cause once Charlie is in the room, mate,” he said. “There’s no saving you at this point.”

Noah laughed, scooping up his cards (including the aforementioned ace) and tucking the lot back into his bosom. “He really is, isn’t he?”

“Don’t you act like you’re any different,” Warren snapped. “They may act like newlyweds, but you and Forester have been an old married couple since before I even met you.”

“Offensive,” said Noah testily, swatting at the air with his fan and eventually settling on Miles, since he couldn’t reach Warren. “Isn’t he terribly offensive?”

“He’s just scared he’ll wind up like us someday,” said Charlie smugly, stealing another nip of wine.

“That’s the only reason he pokes fun. Thinks it will save him.

But one of these days, the right chap’s going to walk through these doors, Mr. Forester will introduce the two of them with that way he’s got, and that will be that. ”

To Warren’s satisfaction, Miles and Noah both shot Charlie looks nearly as skeptical as Warren’s own.

“Warren?” Miles asked, like Charlie must have been talking about someone else. “ This Warren? In love?”

“I think you might do well to sneak a tea in before your next gin, amore . Your wits are flagging.” Noah laughed, taking Charlie’s arm again. “Warren’s immune to romance in all forms.”

“Yeah, I’m not exactly worried about that, Charlie,” said Warren. “I worry about a lot of things, but turning into a sappy little lovebird isn’t one of them.”

“I was like you not that long ago,” said Charlie with a wistful air.

“You think so?” Warren came back down the bar, turning his infamous charm back on as he leaned over it and looked Charlie right in the eyes.

“You’re the accountant here, Price. Why don’t you go run the numbers on that, see how things stack up?

I’ve got the raw data scratched on the bedpost for you. Last room on the right.”

He blew Charlie a kiss as the others laughed, fully on his side.

Charlie Price, bless him, had always been jealous of Warren’s charm.

It served him to think they were the same.

But while Charlie used to drown his substantial sorrows in the arms of whatever stranger would have him, Warren had never been drowning.

He was floating. He was living. He was Warren Bakshi the barkeep , and anyone who’d so much as poked a head into The Curious Fox knew exactly what that meant.

It meant hungry eyes, flirty touches, and cold drinks.

It meant pleasure over duty and possibility over plans.

It meant his friends would be as shocked to learn who he was at home as home would be to learn who he was here.

“Go on, lovebirds.” He gathered Miles’s glass up and gestured with it to the back door.

“Go join the rest. In a sense, this is my night off, if you know what I’m saying.

Not going to waste my time getting overly cozy with anyone who’d rather sulk around down here.

At least, not now that Miles is abandoning me,” he added with a pout and a wink that Charlie failed to pretend did not bother him in the slightest. “So leave me to it, and go enjoy your wedding. I’ll be here. Forester’s made very sure of that.”

The others still teasing Charlie for suggesting that Warren Bakshi the barkeep had it in him to be smitten for more than an hour, they left.

And though the fun of the jokes had added momentary joy to the dullness of his evening, the bar was dull all over again in the absence of an actual friend among a throng of customers.

“Be a dear, pretty thing. I could use another fizz.”