Free After the Scandal by Elizabeth Essex

moonlight.
    “Filled it with something else entire, haven’t I? Something you’d better mind, Robertson, you buggering bungler.”
    The miscreant couldn’t hide his startlement—which was second only to Claire’s—or his amusement. His head jerked back before he narrowed his eyes and peered more closely into the misty murk. “Jesus God. Tanner? That you?”
    “It is.”
    Claire could hear the sly smile in His Grace’s voice, even as his hands reached back to herd her into the shelter of his height.
    “Well, fuck me blind.” The miscreant gave a wheezy chuckle. “Look at you all toffed up like a flash cully. Why did you not cry beef?”
    “Didn’t ask, did you?” His Grace’s cool, amused baritone eased over the top of his crooked smile. But the duke’s voice was different. Less smooth. Rough around the edges.
    “Didn’t, did I?” Claire saw the yellowy glint of the footpad’s grinning teeth flash in the watery light. “What in seven hells are you doing out on a night like this? Though fuck me, it’s good to see you again. And yer lovely dolly mort there, as well.” The footpad canted a wiry eyebrow in her direction, before he reached a meaty paw out to His Grace, who actually took it.
    “I’d rather not fuck you, if it’s all the same to you. And neither would my lass.” The cadence of his voice was sliding into the same dockside gurgle as that of his strange acquaintance.
    “Your lass, eh?” The bald footpad wagged his shaggy eyebrow at her admiringly. “She looks like she could butter a man’s parsnips nicely with—”
    “Shut it.” His Grace pointed that wicked blade at the miscreant’s heart. “ My lass. So treat her gentleman-like.”
    Astonishment was a pale description of what Claire felt at His Grace’s words. She felt strange and tingly again, not with cold, but with warming heat—that lovely feeling of safety.
    “Oh, easy, lad. That’s the lay o’ that land, is it?” The miscreant nodded his head respectfully toward her. “I wish you joy, missus.”
    “Thank you,” she said because she didn’t know what else to say.
    “Listen to that. Quality she is, Tanner. She’ll do the governess for you nice. Hain’t seen no one do a governess like yer sister, and old Nan herself, back in the day.” The bald man seemed to think this was a remarkable accolade he was bestowing upon Claire. “Yer man’s a dab hand—a damn good knuckler, missus. Best there is. You stick with ’em. The Tanner’ll see you right in the end, he will. Even if they hang ’em in his fancy togs at the end. Hang us all, won’t they, Tanner?”
    “Not if they don’t catch us.”
    “Ha-ha,” the miscreant barked. “Too true. Too bloody true. Stay on our toes, then, won’t we? On our toes.”
    “Will do. Now off with you, before you ruin my rig with all your palaver.”
    “Ha-ha!” the man chuckled again before he shuttered the lantern. “Good to see you in the old roads, Tanner. Good to see you.” And then he and his silent partner shuffled off down the alley.
    In the moment after they were gone, Claire realized that His Grace had come to stand so close, she could register his heat and solidity through the material of his evening coat.
    “You weren’t supposed to speak,” he admonished.
    As if her speaking had been the strange thing. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, because she was brought up with manners, and politeness was always her first refuge.
    He nodded sharply, accepting her apology. And then if the confounded man didn’t smile and toss her a wink. “Not to worry,” he whispered directly into her ear. “It’s all sorted now.”
    And then he patted her back, and was off again, slinking as sure-footed as a cat down the rutted, foggy way.
    By the time she caught up with him two houses down, he had laid poor Carter’s body on the ground, and was vaulting over the top of an ivy-covered wall in one single, agile leap.
    And he was gone.
    And Claire had no refuge left at