With This Kiss: A First-In Series Romance Collection

by Kerrigan Byrne

  Perhaps he needed his mask.

  “If you pull on these cords, the heavy drapes will fall and block out the sunlight if you are prone to sleeping late.” He demonstrated by tugging on a tasseled cord releasing one of the cobalt velvet panels. “This one next to it secures the drape back in place without needing to tie.”

  “How clever,” she murmured.

  “I thought so.” His hands clasped behind his back in a regimental pose and they stood like that, staring at each other for longer than was comfortable.

  It struck her in that moment how little she knew this man. How little she understood him.

  He stood like a soldier, but wore white-tie finery. Just today he’d been a blackmailer and a bridegroom. He was a Chief Inspector. A vigilante. A knight. Her lover. A husband.

  Her husband. One who had certain rights. One to which she had certain marital duties.

  Despite herself. Despite everything, a little flutter of excitement spread through her belly.

  “Well.” Morley cleared his throat and skirted nearly the entire room to avoid her in a controlled dash for the door. “Good evening to you.”

  “Good evening?” She parroted his words back to him as a question. Wasn’t this their wedding night? “Where are you going? That is…are you…coming back?”

  He stopped in the doorframe, his wide shoulders heaving with a long breath before he slowly made an about-face to regard her with a strange and vigilant wariness. “Only a base creature would expect you submit to the marriage bed after such a traumatizing few days.” His expression turned hesitant. “You don’t know me very well, but I assure you, I am not a man who is prone to—the kind of behavior I demonstrated upon the night we met.”

  The realization that he was being considerate warmed Pru a little. “It seems that night was out of character for us both.”

  His eyes skittered away. “Yes. A hard-won lesson of our mutual folly.”

  Something about that statement tempted her to argue but she could find no words. “I appreciate your consideration, and you’re correct. I don’t know you at all…” Pru fiddled with her wedding ring as she took a tentative step forward, latching on to an idea. “Perhaps you could stay for a while. We could talk. We could…become acquainted. I don’t relish the idea of being alo—”

  He retreated a step to hers, shaking his head decisively. “I’ve work to do.”

  Pru frowned. “Work? You mean… as the Knight of Shadows?”

  “Among other things.” His features locked down and everything about him became as hard as granite, including his voice. “You do realize if you utter a word about the so-called Knight of Shadows, the house of cards I’ve managed to build around you will collapse entirely. Any notions of ruining me will only lead to your own damnation.”

  Perhaps this was why he’d been so cold. So distant. He thought she might reveal his secrets to the world, thereby ruining his life. He hadn’t cause to know otherwise, it wasn’t as though they’d a relationship built on trust.

  “I’d never,” Pru vowed. “You have my word.”

  She tried not to let it hurt her feelings that her word didn’t seem to allay him in the slightest. “Very good.” He gave her a stiff nod that might have been a bow, and his weight shifted to take a step away.

  “Wait!” she called, evoking the brackets of a deepening frown.

  “What else is it, Miss Goode? I did not lie when I said I had duties to attend.”

  The irritation in his voice stung her sinuses with the threat of overwhelming emotion. She turned from him, grateful to have a reason. He’d called her Miss Goode, as if he’d forgotten that she’d taken his name.

  “My buttons,” she croaked huskily. “They’re in the back and if I haven’t a lady’s maid… I can’t reach them.”

  She waited in the silence with bated breath until, finally, the creak of the floorboards announced his approach.

  Prudence tightened her fists in her skirts and forced herself to be still as his fingers found the top button of her plaid, high-necked gown and released it. Gooseflesh poured over her and a little tremor spilled down her spine as he was unable to avoid brushing the upswept hair at the nape of her neck.

  She closed her eyes again, swamped with an overwhelming longing. Gods, she wanted him to hold her.

  No, not exactly. Not him. Not this wary creature of starchy reticence and wary silence. But him. The Knight of Shadows. She’d never felt as safe and marvelous as she had in his arms. Clutched to him. Pinned beneath him. Clenched around him.

  Was he gone from her forever?

  Had he ever truly existed at all?

  She listened for his breath, and realized he held it.

  The buttons gave way beneath his deft motions and she couldn’t seem to summon words until he’d made it below her shoulder blade. Then everything she was thinking burst out of her like a sneeze.

  “It’s only that I have so many questions and so many fears that I feel I will die if I don’t know something. Can’t you understand how that feels? Is my life in London over? My reputation ruined? Does everyone think me capable of murder? What about George’s funeral, I’ll be expected to attend, won’t I? Unless everyone thinks I killed him, then… Oh God. And what about you? Everyone will think—”

  “People will think what I tell them to think,” he said in a voice only a fraction less even and measured than his hands upon her buttons. “Only a trusted few know of your arrest last night and even fewer your release. The reverend has been silenced. Honoria and William have been sent away. Your fiancé had blessed little in the way of family, and his earldom is passed to some distant Scottish cousin who is happy not to ask too many questions. As for my part, I’m investigating the matter thoroughly, though Argent is officially handling the murder inquest for the sake of records, and a more secretive man you’ve never met.”

  She’d have to take his word on that. “What about the press? An Earl dying at his own wedding is an enormous story. All the people in attendance…someone will figure out where I am and what we’ve done.”

  His sigh was a warm tickle on her neck. “For now, they’re chasing Honoria and William across the continent, thinking you are absconded to Italy to grieve and escape the horror of it.”

  She chewed on the inside of her lip. “Even still…there’s bound to be a scandal. The truth will come out eventually.”

  “What troubles you the most?” he asked disapprovingly, having undone enough of her buttons to make the bodice of her dress sag. “Scandal? Or the truth?”

  “I fear the consequences of what we’ve done,” she said, holding her bodice to her chest before turning to look at him. “I don’t want to raise a child under such a shadow.”

  The brow he notched was a few shades darker than his fair hair, and Pru realized her error. He was a shadow. The Knight of Shadows, in fact.

  “As a man who has braved many a scandal, I care not what is said behind silk fans.” He waved her worries away. “You’ve a bedroom rather than a cell. And no one as of yet calling for your blood. Until the inquest is over, it’s best you remain out of the public eye so that I might protect you as well as I can. Those are the only answers I can give you for now.”

  Bereft, shaky, and utterly exhausted, Prudence gathered the last bit of strength she had to square her shoulders and ask, “Promise me you’ll search with everything you have. Promise me you’ll look elsewhere than in your own house for the killer.”

  “I promise I will look where the investigation leads.”

  A desolate disappointment pressed upon her with a tangible weight, curling her shoulders forward as if they could keep his words from piercing her heart. “Do you believe me…husband? Do you believe that I am innocent?”

  His gaze became intent, searching, and then frustratingly opaque. “I believe you were right when you said that the truth will come out.”

  Pru successfully fought off crumpling until he’d turned his back.

  “Good night, Miss—” he paus
ed then, catching himself this second time. “Good night.”

  When the door closed behind him, Prudence limped to the bed as if a herd of horses had trod on her feet, suddenly hurting everywhere.

  She collapsed onto the counterpane and released the tears she’d been too numb to cry since this nightmare began. They broke upon her like the tide, threatening to pull her under their current of despair.

  She should have wept for a dead man. For the loss of her parents’ respect and her freedom. For the horror of her utter ruin and the fear of being unable to lift her head in society ever again.

  But she wept, because her husband couldn’t bring himself to say her name.

  Chapter Nine

  Morley didn’t think his wife was dangerous solely because he wanted her. She was dangerous because he wanted to believe her.

  He emerged from the underground tunnels into Whitechapel, searching for trouble. Aching for it. His muscles rippled beneath his skin. Ready. Oh, so ready. He felt hot and cold all at once. He needed to hit something. To maim. To pound.

  Fucking unfortunate word, that.

  Also…relevant.

  He’d wanted to pound into her everything he’d denied himself for the past three months. To thrust and thrust and thrust until he lost himself to the bliss he knew he’d find in her body.

  What harm could it do now?

  She’d almost seemed like she’d wanted it. Hadn’t she? No. No. Surely, he’d imagined the expectation in her eyes.

  The invitation.

  Leaving her like that, with her dress half hanging off her shoulders, was one of the most difficult things he’d ever done. God! Just uncovering her neck to the top of her corset—the mere sight of her shoulder blades had driven him mad with lust.

  For a stranger. For a possible murderer.

  For his wife.

  He was a beast on a short leash tonight. His wedding night. He’d used every ounce of civility he could feign on this difficult, exhausting day and now he could set free his wrath on the dregs of the city. Tonight, he was on the hunt for a singular criminal. A particular crime.

  And he knew just where to find it.

  He passed plenty of illegal acts. Bordellos, gambling hells, gin peddlers, thieves, and all sorts up to every kind of sin.

  This was his genesis, and might very well be his end. This putrid place where the shadows were full of danger and the pallid streetlamps only illuminated unpleasant truths. He slid between them like a cat, avoiding detection as even desperate, waifish fiends and daring prostitutes shrank from his shade.

  He heard the name whispered behind his back upon occasion.

  Is that him? The Knight of Shadows?

  The police beat was easy to avoid, he’d been doing it for decades. He knew their routes, and their times.

  Hell, he knew most of their names.

  What he needed to discover, was which ones sold cocaine to the innocent and weak.

  The deeper he drove himself into the squalid darkness of Dorset Street, the more layers of himself peeled away. He shucked off Carlton Morley. His stringent mannerisms and his staunch courteousness. He even yearned to be rid of the ridiculous mask and moniker of the vigilante.

  Tonight, he felt like someone else. Someone he thought he’d buried long ago.

  Cutter.

  As he lurked through the thoroughfares he’d once owned as Cutter ‘Deadeye’ Morley, he felt a piece of his puzzle click into place.

  For three bloody months he’d been turning a problem over in his mind, chewing it with as much success as he would a rock. Breaking against it. Grinding himself down.

  Who was the man who’d made the ballocks decision to fuck a stranger in a garden?

  Carlton Morley? Or the Knight of Shadows?

  He’d needed to come here to find the answer.

  It all made perfect sense now. He’d been so visceral that night. So raw and filled with every emotion he’d never allowed himself. Anger and lust and need and pain. He’d been so fucking hungry. Hungry for a kind of sustenance he’d never had.

  He’d been…

  Cutter.

  Cutter had fucked her because he wanted to. Because she was a bit of beauty and warmth he’d never allowed himself. The thief who’d never had parents to speak of, who’d learned his morals from whores and cutpurses. Who’d committed murder for the sake of revenge.

  And reveled in it.

  He covered up the murder in his past, and if he found out that she’d been the woman to stick that dagger into the Earl of Sutherland’s throat…he’d be tempted to cover that up too.

  Because despite everything she may or may not be… he still wanted her.

  Could she sense it, somehow?

  Was it because they had killing in common? Like begets like, after all, and if Prudence Goode was the woman he feared she was, had she selected him because her dark soul recognized his?

  Even as the suspicion lanced him with horror, his gut violently rejected it. She was a stranger, an enigma to him, but his instinct was to believe her.

  To trust her!

  Trust was not an emotion with which he was familiar.

  What did he know about her, really? That she was both bold and amenable. Her eyes were kind and her mouth wicked. She’d a temper, but was as levelheaded as anyone could expect under the circumstances. She succumbed to logic just as easily as lust.

  She might have killed a man in cold blood.

  What sort of mother would a woman like that make?

  A rueful sound echoed off the damp walls of a dank alley he all but slithered down. The irony of his hypocrisy both irritated and amused him.

  The father of this child was Cutter fucking Morley.

  And that was both why he’d married her and why he hadn’t touched her. No matter how her shape enticed him. Regardless of how the memories of her creamy thighs and silken intimate flesh tormented him. Despite the urge he had to throw caution to the wind and plunge his hands into her luxuriant hair and trail his mouth over every delectable inch of her—sampling summer berries and soft flesh…

  His leather gloves creaked against the tightening of his fists.

  He. Couldn’t. Touch. Her. Not until he found out if she’d innocent blood on her hands.

  There were reasons to kill. He kept reminding her of that because if she was found to be guilty, he wanted—he needed—a reason to save her.

  Because the life inside her womb was innocent. Pure and untainted by the ugliness of this world. Of these streets. And he’d be goddamned if he wouldn’t do everything in his mortal power to keep it that way.

  Six months. He had six months to investigate the death of Sutherland and the shipments of illicit substances sweeping the streets.

  He felt like a man standing before a tryptic of mirrors, seeing a separate reflection in each. One, the methodical Chief Inspector. The next, a vengeful vigilante. And the third… a boy with a terrible secret and a broken heart.

  To reconcile himself. He needed to shatter the third mirror.

  Two shades broke from the lamplight of a rotten pub moving toward the alley in between, stealing his focus. Morley trailed them, melting from shadow to shadow like death, himself.

  He moved when they moved. Waited when they waited, pressing himself against the corner of a building, listening to their excitement. Catching it with rampant kicks of his heart in his chest as the blue uniform of a London Metropolitan Policeman absorbed the light as he strode toward them, waving a walking stick.

  This was what he’d come to see. An exchange of illicit substances. This… was where his trail to the very source began.

  Morley waited for the men to pass the Copper his money. He waited until they checked the purity of the substance he handed back to them. He waited until they damned themselves.

  Moving slowly, he cracked his fingers and reveled in what was to come. Three criminals. One in his uniform wielding a nightstick.

  There would be pain. And he needed the pain. To inflict it. To endure it
. To escape.

  Yes. He’d put an end to Cutter very soon. But first…he’d use every weapon in his arsenal. He’d cut out the truth if he had to. The sooner the better.

  Because as much as he trusted no one, he trusted himself least of all…

  To keep his hands off his wife.

  Chapter Ten

  If it was the last thing she ever did, Pru was going to get behind the two locked doors in her house.

  She’d been staring at them for a week. Or, rather, they had been staring at her.

  They’d a somewhat strange relationship now, she and the doors. They greeted her every day on the way down to breakfast, beckoning to her with their iron latches and symmetrical arches. A cream-colored obsession, they were, and if she didn’t get behind them today, she’d give in to the madness waiting in the periphery of her thoughts. Threatening to engulf her and drag her to perdition.

  She couldn’t exactly say why it bothered her so much. Why she spent so long in front of them when there were so many diverting rooms to occupy her. The first floor alone contained the large drawing room, the dining room, and a morning room attached to the well-tended back gardens through which the modest stable and carriage house hunkered in a cozy stone corner. She’d found a small library, in which she rejoiced, connected to her spacious parlor on the second floor, along with a couple handsome unused guest rooms, and her husband’s study.

  The third story was where she slept, and only four doors graced the long hall. One was her bedroom and dressing room, obviously, and the other a washroom.

  She needn’t the deductive powers of a Scotland Yard detective to suss out that her husband slept behind one of the locked doors.

  In theory, at least.

  Nighttime was when her body reminded her she carried his child with bouts of vicious nausea. So, when she lay awake staring at the canopy, doing her best to contain the retching, she’d often hear the clip of his shoes on the floorboards as he returned home from occasional nocturnal adventures as the Knight of Shadows.