Pru would lie awake and listen to him putter about behind the locked doors. Sometimes it sounded as though he’d brought his enemies home to grapple with them in the middle of the night and she’d burn to know what he was about.
He’d be gone before she awoke.
She never saw him. They never spoke. But she knew her husband kept apprised of her. That the staff, meager as it was, updated him on her well-being.
After a particularly restless night where she’d vomited until the wee hours, she’d been presented an effervescent drink by the thin, birdlike cook at the lonely breakfast table.
“From the master,” the woman had told her. “To settle your ills.”
She’d not even been able to stomach her usual breakfast of toast that morning, but the moment the ginger ale had fizzed its way down her throat and spread relief in her belly, she’d thanked the stars for him.
The gesture, tiny as it was, had touched her.
He cared.
More likely about the baby rather than her, but even so. She wasn’t surprised, per se. She remembered his deference the night they’d been lovers. The tempering of his strength. The tenderness of his touch. The attentiveness to her pleasure.
To dwell on it now would drive her deeper toward madness.
A tray had appeared in her parlor, and upon it she found little treasures almost every morning. A furniture catalogue. A card of information for a staff employment company. Clothing patterns and collections for infants from which she could order.
She’d never had to send for her things from her father’s house, workmen had simply arrived and collected her. She’d gone to her parents’ house in her husband’s fine carriage, finding them conspicuously absent, and had gathered what belonged to her.
And a few things that didn’t.
They’d moved and unpacked her entire life without her having to so much as lift a finger.
Chief Inspector Sir Carlton Morley did just about everything around the house…
Except sleep. Or eat. Or live.
She might as well reside in a crypt for all the interaction she had. Ester, Lucy, and the footman, Bart, were polite but disinclined to break the barrier between mistress of the house and staff, regardless of her clumsy attempts. They treated her with careful suspicion, and in the moments they weren’t aware of her regard, open disapproval.
Mercy and Felicity had sent word that they were only allowed to call around once per week.
There’d been no word from Honoria. And Pru had not spoken to Amanda since that day in Hyde Park. All her other acquaintances assumed she’d escaped her despair to Italy.
But no. It was right here. Screaming at her through the silence and loneliness that pressed her down from all sides as she stood between two locked doors.
Dammit. She’d had enough.
Prudence waited until Ester had gone out to the market, and went below stairs to pilfer the master set of keys from their hook in the pantry. She’d done this before, on day three, and discovered that none of the master keys matched the locks for the two mysterious doors.
Morley probably kept them upon his person.
The master set did, however, grant her access to his office.
Out of respect for her husband, she’d not disturbed the room past a curious peek that day. What if he somehow discovered that she’d snooped? She’d no desire to incur his wrath.
Today she was past caring. She needed a diversion. She needed to know.
It took her an hour and a half of rifling through his office to find what she’d somehow suspected would be there. He was so tidy for a man, so orderly, so comprehensively methodical. If he thought of everything, then he’d keep in the house just exactly what she’d been searching for.
Spare keys.
They’d been tucked into a file of legal papers in a drawer marked “security.”
Clever.
They burned her palm as she raced back up the stairs. Her heart trilled in her chest like a captured sparrow as she stood in front of both doors.
She selected the left one first. Inhaling a bracing breath, she slid the key in the lock and turned it, unlatching the door.
Upon first glance she was disappointed. She hadn’t really known what to expect, but in her more fanciful moments she might have conjured a lair befitting the so-called Knight of Shadows. Uniforms maybe. Weapons. Masks and the like.
Unsurprisingly, it was nothing more than an immaculate bedroom. Even the dust motes that’d danced across her open windows didn’t seem to dare venture into his space. The bedclothes had not a wrinkle. The shaving implements gleamed in a row on the curio as if they’d been shined with the silver.
But the faint scent of shaving soap clung to the air as the opaque water in the bowl had yet to be refreshed. That and other aromas drew her deeper into the room as if she’d been summoned by a spell. Cedar and fresh linen.
And that masculine spice that was distinctively him.
The rustle of her skirts disrupted the almost mausoleum-like silence as she drifted to a high-backed chair where a dressing gown had been neatly draped but obviously discarded after use.
Lucy hadn’t laundered it yet or changed the pitcher, which meant that Morley, the master of the house, had straightened his own bed and shined his own shaving accoutrements.
What a bemusing man.
Unable to stop herself, Prudence lifted the robe to her face and inhaled. Since her pregnancy, she seemed to have the nose of a bloodhound. She’d never forget the warm, wild scent of him. It taunted her now, surrounded by his things as she was.
It might be the only appetizing aroma she’d encountered for weeks.
Belatedly, she looked around the room and noticed something amiss. The paper on the walls was decidedly feminine, little forget-me-nots wrapped in ribbons. There was no view on this side of the house, and the space was decidedly smaller than her chamber at the end of the hall.
Her sound of wonderment snagged the air as the robe slipped from her fingers back to the chair.
He’d surrendered the master suite to her. The room with the best view, the largest bed, and the most comfortable furnishings.
An awfully considerate gesture, for a man who couldn’t bring himself to share a meal with her, let alone a conversation.
It first occurred to her to offer the gesture back to him. To tell him she didn’t want it, that she’d take the smaller room so he could once again enjoy his own accommodations.
If he’d only come home.
She’d have to figure out how to offer without him finding out she’d snooped.
Heaving a morose sigh, Pru left and locked his room, burning with curiosity about the next door. She fumbled with the key twice before opening it, and when she finally managed, she stood in the doorway for several moments while tears stung behind her eyes.
The room was in disarray. A lovely chaos. The entrails of packing crates were strewn about their treasures as if the unpacking had been interrupted.
This was what her husband had been wrestling with the past few nights.
Floating inside, Prudence touched each one as if it were made of the most fragile glass.
A wicker cradle. An expensive-looking perambulator. Delicate furniture ready to store tiny things. Soft blankets and cushions. Cunning toys.
Her breath hitched as she stopped in front of a fine-crafted rocking chair. The piece, itself, was lovely but what had her transfixed was the simple little doll placed just so on the velvet cushion.
Pru couldn’t say why she used infinite care to retrieve it. The doll was neither fragile nor costly. The body little more than soft fabric stuffed with batting and covered in a white eyelet lace dress. The round head fit in the palm of her hand, the face painted somewhat catawampus, and the hair comprised of soft strings of lose gold yarn tied with blue ribbons.
No, the doll wasn’t at all extraordinary.
But the thought of the man she’d married. The intense, mercurial knight selecting it for this room�
� now that was… that was…rather a marvelous image.
Smoothing her fingers through the strings of yarn she wondered, what if their child bore his golden locks? Or the impossible silver-blue of his eyes?
Little butterflies erupted in her belly, this time not at all precipitating sickness. This person they’d created… would sleep here, God willing. Would fill this house with commotion, and maybe a little cheer.
Lord knew they all needed an injection of that.
As Prudence spun in a circle for a moment, taking in the soft butter yellows, muted pinks, and periwinkles of the room, some of the weight pressing upon her fell away. Morley might not be ready to be any kind of husband, but he was preparing to be a father.
And, it seemed to her, relishing the venture.
But, why lock this room away from her?
A dark thought landed in her stomach, crushing the butterflies beneath a stone. What if he meant to raise this child without her? What if—
A ruckus interrupted the stillness of the house. Doors shutting, heavy footsteps on the wood floors downstairs. The scurry from elsewhere as Lucy and Bart rushed to attention.
Of all the days for her husband to come home before tea!
Prudence abandoned the doll to its perch and flew out of the room, locking it behind her. She raced down the first flight of stairs, but it became instantly obvious that she wouldn’t have time to return any of the keys. Masculine voices filtered closer to the base of the stairwell.
“Bloody traffic,” Morley’s growl echoed up to the second floor. “Has the Earl of Northwalk arrived yet?”
“Not yet, sir,” Bart replied.
“Good. Bastard is just as insufferably punctual as I am, which means I have to make a point of being early.”
Pru suppressed a little flutter of panic. An Earl? Coming here? Now?
Northwalk, the title itched at her memory. Something so familiar and yet, she was certain they ran in higher circles than her family.
“I finally abandoned my coach to jog here. The rain soaked through my jacket. If I’ve time, I’ll go upstairs for another.”
Panicking, Prudence shoved the keys behind a potted plant beneath a window, and did her very best to affect a glide as she descended the final stairs to the main floor, hoping to cut him off.
Conversation seized as both men looked up at her appearance.
Pru faltered halfway down.
Why did he have to be so unspeakably handsome?
Why did he have to be so categorically inaccessible?
A week’s time had almost blunted the reality of his imposing, vital allure in her memory. She’d almost forgotten the very sight of him threatened to steal every breath from her lungs and every thought from her head.
Her husband’s gaze swept over her. An arrested expression tightened the casual one he’d been wearing for Bart, his eyes flaring with something intense and ephemeral.
Before she had cause to hope, his features shuttered with the immediacy of a shop locking down for a long absence.
Bart had only just taken his employer’s hat and coat, draping the later damp garment over his arm. He turned and bowed to her low enough to show the round bald spot on his pate. “My lady,” he addressed her diffidently.
“Good afternoon.” She shook herself from her thrall and summoned what she hoped was a convincing smile. “I’d no idea it’d begun to rai—”
He’d already swept through to the corridor to hang his master’s things, apparently feeling no great need to await her reply.
Pru battled with an acute misery that warred for sovereignty with shame. She was such an unwanted stranger here. This didn’t feel like her house.
Nor did it feel like her life.
And the man at the foot of the stairs wore more of a mask now than he ever did as the Knight of Shadows.
He just looked at her with those alert, assessing eyes. She’d begun to feel that even his silence was an investigative technique. A weapon he used against her.
An effective weapon, at that.
Because she felt wounded. Bruised.
But then, everything about him was weaponized. The smooth, composed movements of his powerful limbs, hinting at a controlled brutality. The precisely cut layers of his hair, the perfectly pressed creases of his suit, and the carefully manicured elegance of his hands.
Hands that could manipulate just as much pain as pleasure from a person.
There were men who radiated menace, danger, or violence. But her husband hid all that and reserves of so much more behind the cool, placid lake of his façade.
He was the danger you never saw coming until it was too late.
“You’re…home,” she observed, cringing at the daft bloody obviousness of her statement.
He addressed her with a curt nod, his eyes breaking away from her for the first time, allowing her to breathe. “I was just informing Bart I’ve a meeting best conducted here rather than the office.”
“An Earl, I heard.”
His mouth twisted ruefully. “A courtesy title, but yes.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?” She hoped she didn’t sound as pathetically eager as she felt.
“Not especial—” he looked sharply toward the door and cursed under his breath, his expression turning pained.
Pru hurried down the remainder of the stairs. “What is it?”
“He didn’t come alone.” Agitated, he took three steps away from her and thrust his fingers through his hair, smoothing it back. “I’m in no bloody mood.”
“Did he bring his solicitor?” Pru guessed, wondering if he meant to interrogate the man without one.
“Worse.” A beleaguered breath hissed out of his throat. “He brought his wife.”
Pru brightened at the prospect of female company. She was acquainted with very few Countesses and even if the woman were difficult, she likely couldn’t hold a candle to Prudence’s own mother.
“I’m quite finished,” she declared. “I can entertain the Countess while you conduct your interview.”
A frown pinched his brow. “Finished with what?”
“No,” she laughed. “I’ve attended finishing school with excellent marks. I know how to receive someone of her station.”
“Oh.” Surprisingly, his frown deepened. “Well that will be of little consequence to Farah.”
An instinctive little needle of discomfort pricked her. Farah? Not Lady Northwalk?
The bell chimed and Bart materialized from behind them to answer.
Her husband faced the door with the grim determination a battle general might face an onslaught of marauders. “I suppose it would be cruel not to tell you that Farah used to work as a clerk at Scotland Yard. I’ve known her for nigh on a decade.”
“Why would it be cruel to—?”
“Because Blackwell is certain to mention that I asked her to be my wife.”
Chapter Eleven
“Carlton Morley, you unforgivable rogue!” An angelic beauty with a coronet of silver-blond ringlets swept into their grand entry in an energetic flounce of mauve silk. “When Dorian told me you’d taken a wife, and under which circumstances, I nearly collapsed.”
Pru stood blinking at the uncommonly lovely woman in open-mouthed dismay as Morley stepped forward to receive her light kiss on the cheek.
They knew the circumstances of their marriage? All of them?
Even Miss Henrietta’s garden?
“You forget I know better,” Morley replied in a voice infused with a charm he’d never bothered to apply with Pru. “You’ve never fainted in your life.”
The appearance of Farah’s husband had Prudence forcing herself to unclench her fists. She’d have to accept his hand, and it wouldn’t do to have her palms bleeding from where her nails had dug.
“This is my…wife, Prudence Good- er Morley.” He said the word wife as if it tasted strange in his mouth. “Prudence, might I introduce Lady Farah Blackwell, Countess Northwalk, and her husband, Dorian, the Earl.”
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br /> “Technically my son is the Earl,” Blackwell said. “I’ve titles enough, and I actually earned all of them.”
Of course! Prudence recognized him now. This was Dorian Blackwell, the Blackheart of Ben More. Who could care to be an Earl when you were once the King of the London Underworld?
The man was monstrous large and dark as a fiend. Despite the eyepatch, his gaze was keen and rapt, as he assessed her with undue intensity.
Pru thought she saw something like a comprehending approval in his smirk.
“Lady Morley,” Dorian Blackwell greeted as if he’d never before thought to utter those words together. He bent over her knuckles and pressed a kiss to the air above them, never touching the skin. “It’s been the cause of much speculation between Farah and me as to what prompted Morley to so hastily take a wife.” In an inappropriate show of public affection, he straightened to put his arm around his Countess, and rested his hand low on her waist just above her bustle as if it belonged there. “I think the mystery has been solved, my love.”
Farah turned her saintly smile upon Prudence. “You’re a beautiful woman on any day, Lady Morley, but in that lilac gown you’re a vision. Utterly glowing with maternal beauty.”
Glowing? Surely not. She’d been losing weight because of her inability to digest food. She was pale, wan, and her eyes sunken with dark circles beneath. She felt more like a shade than an actual person.
They were being kind, of course.
She had to pinch herself to stop gawking like an open-mouthed carp. “I-I thank you, my lady, my lord. What an honor to greet you both.”
An honor, and a horror.
The Blackwells were a sight unto themselves. He, dark as a demon with a demonic air of handsome ferocity, and she his unfettered radiant counterpart. It was plain as day Dorian Blackwell adored his wife.
The question was, did Farah return his affections? Or did she still covet Morley?
How could she not? Blackwell was a compelling man, if not specifically handsome, and he’d an air of vital masculinity few possessed, however he was a shadow in Morley’s golden presence.
At least where Pru was concerned.
With This Kiss: A First-In Series Romance Collection Page 54