A Dark and Stormy Knight Read online

  It’d never much bothered him before that night with— No. No, he didn’t allow himself to dwell on that. To transpose sylphlike features over Millie’s bold ones, if only because she shared the slight build and black hair of the woman who haunted his dreams.

  Because he’d almost convinced himself the most memorable night of his life had been exactly that. A dream. A strange fabrication of fancy. A hallucination induced by exhaustion, an overtaxed psyche, and vacuous lack of sex.

  “Oh, I realize you two men are of the opinion it’s sensational and absurd,” Millie continued. “But if you think about it, a villain setting out to commit a crime might think twice if he’s worried about running afoul of the Knight of Shadows.” Reaching up, the celebrated actress smoothed an errant auburn forelock away from Argent’s soulless eyes. She touched him with the absent fondness of a longtime lover and Morley had to look away from them both. He sought refuge out the window in the bustle and unaccountable brightness of a late-summer London morning.

  “And don’t be too sore at the writers,” she prodded Morley. “Anyone in my profession would commit murder for that sort of free press.”

  He’d committed murder for it too…

  The Knight of Shadows. Another farce. Another mantle he’d thrown over his own shoulders almost purely on accident. One night, ages ago, Chief Inspector Carlton Morley had been denied legal entrance to a brothel where he knew evil men sold young, desperate foundlings to disgusting clientele.

  He’d a suspicion the Justice involved in his denial was a customer.

  The voices of every victimized child he’d ever known had torn through him. Dorian, Ash, Argent, Lorelai, Farah…

  Caroline.

  He could not abide it. Would not allow it. Not anymore. Not in his city and especially not within his own departments of Justice.

  His questionable decision fortified by more brandy than he’d like to admit, he’d tied a mask over his eyes, and broke out the tools of a trade he’d long since deserted.

  And a boy he’d long since buried.

  He thought he’d left Cutter Morley in the grave he’d dug, but neither was it Sir Carlton Morley who’d shot every pimp in the brothel dead before sending the youths to refuge at St. Dismas Church in Whitechapel.

  That night something had eased within him. A sense of helplessness he knew every police officer carried around with him.

  The shackles the law locked upon its enforcers were both right and necessary. And yet, they created certain loopholes that became leashes whereby a lawman might be forced to watch an atrocity happen without being able to take recourse.

  After years of fighting, of watching the system of which he was a part of, fail so many, mainly those unfortunates believed by most to reside beneath notice, he could stand by no longer.

  He was the knighted war hero Chief Inspector because he had to be, and he’d become the Knight of Shadows because London had needed him to be.

  How many bodies were there now? The pedophile watchmaker on Drury Lane. The murdering rapist in Knightsbridge. A maniacal doctor who performed gruesome experiments on his immigrant patients, often resulting in disfigurement or death. Two brothers who’d taken everything from their infirmed aunt and moved into her house, effectively keeping her prisoner whilst they spent her meager income.

  He’d meant to merely evict them, but one of the men had pulled a pistol on him. And well…Morley’s dead-eye had done the job for him.

  Then there’d been—

  “The public so loves a memorable sobriquet.” Millie interrupted his thoughts.

  “The public are idiots,” Argent reminded her.

  “A public you both protect, I might remind you.” Millie smacked him square in the chest, and Argent smirked down at her.

  “If you ever hit me and I find out about it…” He tonelessly poked fun at her petite stature and feeble strength.

  Though, Morley supposed, most anyone seemed diminutive next to the ginger giant.

  “Think of everyone we know with anointed designations they never thought to give themselves,” Millie ticked their connections off on her fingers. “The Rook, The Demon Highlander. The Blackheart of Ben More, The King of the London Underworld, though I suppose those two only count as one…” She trailed off and turned to her husband. “How did you escape without a moniker?”

  Argent gave a rather Gallic shift of his shoulder. “If an assassin becomes famous enough to be recognized, it’s time for him to retire.”

  “I’m glad you did,” Millie said with feeling. Though the man hadn’t retired because of any sort of infamy, but because he’d met his match. Her. The woman he’d been hired to kill, and instead fell in love with.

  Morley supposed he should be concerned about how many people were privy to his nocturnal identity by now. Argent had guessed that Morley had begun to spend his nights as a vigilante before he admitted it, only because he and the former assassin were once after the same villain on the same night.

  And what Argent knew, Millie knew also.

  Morley had confided it to his childhood best mate, now known as the Rook, which meant his wife, Lorelai, knew. And probably also the Blackwells, Dorian and Farah.

  The press had begun to follow his exploits but, as Morley had predicted, the descriptions of him scraped from the recollections of villains and survivors were notoriously unreliable, lost in the miasma of misinformation that was the London press.

  They all remembered a mask covering the upper quadrant of his face and the fact that he often wore a hat.

  He wore many hats. Both figuratively and literally.

  Morley sighed before admonishing Millie. “You of all people know better than to believe what you read in the papers. I don’t do half the good they credit me. Or, rather, this bollocks Knight of Shadows doesn’t.”

  “The fact they’ve guessed you’re a knight means it is possibly getting dangerous out there for you,” Argent warned.

  “I think the title is a coincidence.” Millie waved a dismissive hand. “With that mask on, he could be anyone. The public has merely distinguished him by merit of his service on their behalf. Though everyone’s dying to know. I saw an advert for him in the lonely-hearts column just yesterday.” She turned to Morley, pursing her lips playfully. “If you’re interested, a Miss Matilda Westernra is just nineteen and wants you to know you’ve touched her virtuous heart. I dare say stolen it.”

  “That’s disgusting, I’m twice her age.” Morley shifted in his seat. “Besides, I’ve no interest in touching or stealing hearts, lonely or otherwise.”

  “If you don’t wish to touch her heart, I’d wager she’d let you touch her—”

  Millie scowled at her husband. “Christopher, if you finish that sentence, so help me.”

  “What? I was going to say virtue.”

  “Like hell you were.”

  Morley realized it spoke to the esteem in which Argent held him that he was allowed such an unfettered view into the man’s personal life. Even though Argent worked for Morley, only a fool would consider himself Argent’s boss.

  And Morley was no fool.

  Except, it seemed, when it came to women.

  “Knight of Shadows.” Argent grunted in a manner a kind man might have called a laugh.

  A fit of hysterics for the terse giant.

  “Sod off,” Morley muttered, as their carriage pulled alongside Holy Trinity Cathedral, and the footman opened the door.

  Five years hence, if anyone had told Morley he’d be sharing a carriage with Christopher Argent, the Blackheart of Ben More’s former right-hand assassin, he’d have laughed at them.

  Or punched them.

  But here they were, climbing the stairs on a perfectly good workday to attend a rather mandatory society wedding.

  “How’d you get roped into this?” Morley queried out of the side of his mouth. “I wasn’t aware you knew the couple.”

  “I don’t,” Argent said, looking around rather mystified. “Millie had me try on a
new frock coat she’d had made for me, and suddenly I had some place to wear it.”

  Morley chuckled at that, but then Argent shrugged. “Actually, I think…she knows the bride, Prudence Goode, through her sisters who volunteer at the Duchess of Trenwyth’s Ladies’ Aid Society.” Argent lifted his chin to the door where the father of the bride stood to shake hands. “When Millie realized their father was your immediate superior, and therefore mine, she said we both had a reason to attend.”

  Morley and Argent shared a look of chagrin. The second daughter of Commissioner Clarence Goode, Baron of Cresthaven, was marrying some Earl from somewhere, and if Morley was absent from the festivities, as he longed to be, he’d hear no end of it. Attendance was expected of him. And Carlton Morley always did what was expected.

  So that his sins were never suspected.

  As he mounted the stairs to the chapel, a raven cackled from where it clung to the stone banister, taunting him and twitching its wings.

  A raven on a wedding day. Wasn’t there some wives’ tale about ravens being harbingers of death or doom or some such? He paused, staring at it intently, transfixed by the brilliance of its feathers. Brilliant, he thought, because while the bird was black, it reflected the entire spectrum in the sun with a glossy iridescence.

  Just like her hair had done when the lamplight had shone through the water…

  He shook his head, trying to dislodge the thought.

  Most of the time he was glad he didn’t know her name. Because then she’d become too real. He couldn’t shrug that night off as some fantastical dream that’d happened to someone else.

  Other times, he longed for her to be something other than a pronoun.

  Her.

  Blinking, he turned from the blasted creature, taking the stairs two at a time to catch up to his compatriots.

  He had to stop this lunacy. To cease searching for her in every slim, raven-haired woman of passable good looks he saw on the streets. Or the park. Or Scotland Yard. Or in a bloody church.

  The city was full of dark-haired beauties, it seemed, and that fact had threatened to drive him mad.

  One night, when he’d been unable to stand his longing, when his body had screamed for release and his every sense was overwhelmed by the memory of her, he’d gone to Miss Henrietta’s School for Cultured Young Ladies, and had lurked near the fountain.

  If only to prove to himself it had actually happened.

  He’d touched the smooth stone of the fountain ledge where she’d perched and lifted her skirts and the mere sight of her shapely calves had driven him past all reason.

  He swore he could still taste her, summer berries and female desire. He’d waited for her, his raven-haired miracle, and she’d not come.

  Not that he was surprised. He’d told her she wouldn’t find him again.

  And he’d meant it.

  Morley rubbed a hand over his face, scrubbing at a smooth jaw where she’d once found it stubbled, wanting to wipe her from memory.

  The Commissioner had disappeared into the church as he’d dawdled in reverie, and he’d missed the entire reason he’d attended this blasted wedding to begin with. To be seen by Goode, and thereby make his excuses to leave.

  This had to fucking stop, this…obsession with her.

  The entire affair had been a mistake. He’d never in his adult life done anything so ridiculous. So dangerous.

  So…marvelous.

  He hadn’t been himself that night. He’d been stretched at the end of a long-frayed rope. His will weakened by exhaustion and a seemingly futile struggle between him and the entire world. Between the two parts of himself. He’d been weak, there was no gentler word for it. Weakness wasn’t something he allowed, in himself or those who worked for him.

  This had to stop. He whispered a solemn vow then and there to never look another dark-haired maiden in the eye. Never search for her sharp jaw and arched brows, or her delicate ears with elfin tips.

  What would he do if he found her, anyway? She thought him a prostitute or, if she were a clever woman, she’d have worked out that he was the so-called Knight of Shadows because of his mask. Because he hadn’t taken her money. Because if she’d asked at Miss Henrietta’s or approached any of the Stags of St. James, they’d tell her he wasn’t among their ranks.

  Either way, she’d a secret that could crush him in the telling of it—not that she’d come out smelling of roses.

  Even so.

  It was better to stuff the entire misadventure into the past and forget it. Forget her.

  The church bells tolled the hour, or maybe the event, as Morley stepped into the already uncomfortably warm church. The organ music ground at his nerves, and he hoped to sit next to a large woman with a very busy fan, so he might not expire from the heat. How long was this bloody thing supposed to last? Did he have to go to the soirée after? If he made certain Commissioner Goode saw him at the ceremony, he could pretend he was lost in the crowd later.

  “Sir. Sir.” Someone clutched at his jacket, and he whirled to find a white-faced reverend at his elbow. “Sir Morley? Chief Inspector Carlton Morley?” the short, rotund old man whispered his name and title as if it were an illicit secret.

  “Yes?”

  “You must come with me. Oh God in heaven. Never in my life…” The Vicar’s words trailed away as he furtively skipped his gaze over the guests now trying to step around them since they’d stopped in the middle of the aisle.

  Instantly on alert, Morley glanced over at Argent, who made a baffled gesture.

  “Please.” The Vicar’s pallor was alarming. “Don’t make a scene.”

  Argent stepped forward. “Should I accompany—?”

  “No! Only Sir Morley.” The reverend was tugging on his jacket now, dragging him toward the back of the chapel like a recalcitrant child might his dawdling nanny.

  “We’ll find our seat and save you one,” Millie offered, tugging her husband in the opposite direction.

  Morley followed the frantic priest down an empty stone hall with vibrant purple carpets. “Lord Goode and the Viscount Woodhaven sent me to find you right away. There’s been a— Well, the groom. The bride. Oh my God, of all the nightmares. So much blood.”

  When Morley entered the sitting room, he froze.

  Not because of the blood, though it was everywhere. Soaking into the floral carpet, spreading past it onto the grey stone floor. Coloring the bodice of the bride’s cream dress in a dappled spray. Saturating her hem and train where she stood, paralyzed, in the puddle draining from a man’s neck. The dripping knife still clutched in her trembling, blood-drenched hands.

  The fucking priest had been right.

  Of all the nightmares…

  It was her.

  Chapter 5

  Prudence was locked in a chamber of red.

  She drowned in it. It filled her lungs so she couldn’t breathe. Her ears so she couldn’t hear. She could even taste it, or could she? Metal stained her tongue, but her mouth was as dry as sandpaper. Her throat wouldn’t allow her to swallow. She choked on her gall and grief.

  William was yelling. He’d found her like this. Poor William. She’d never liked Honoria’s husband because of this tendency of his…always making such a ruckus.

  “You bloody viper. You lunatic!” the Viscount accused. “How could you kill him? In a church of all places?”

  “I-I couldn’t!”

  Well, that wasn’t strictly true, now was it? She could have cheerfully murdered him many times over the past three months.

  “I didn’t,” she amended. She hadn’t.

  Pru looked down at her hands. Back at George. Over at William’s purple, puffy complexion, then down at her fiancé.

  The blood wasn’t pumping anymore but draining slowly. Staining her dress. Everything and everywhere. The pool spread; the blood followed her as she stumbled back a few steps. A train of condemnation.

  Oh God. She was going to be sick.

  Except had nothing left to throw up, not
since she’d emptied her stomach this morning.

  “Prudence, don’t you dare move! What have you done?”

  When had her father come in? She should be relieved, shouldn’t she? He’d know what to do.

  She lifted the knife to show him. Someone had stuck it into the place George’s shoulder had met his neck. This long, long, long knife. All the way in. Why would they do that? Where had they gone?

  It was so cold. So cold. And it had been so warm before in the crowded church. Warm enough to complain about it. They were both screaming at her. Making so much noise they could almost be heard over the bells. Wedding bells. Her wedding bells.

  It all clamored so loudly it was deafening, and yet also very far away. Bells and bellows. Her father shouting questions. William calling her every sort of name.

  Prudence tried to speak, but her throat wouldn’t allow it. Her tongue was stuck. Too dry.

  Why was she still holding the knife? Why couldn’t her fingers uncurl?

  George. What happened to you? She stared down at him, unable to blink. His long body remained face down where he’d landed. His skin no longer ruddy from drink, but white. Whiter than hers, even.

  Poor George. He’d been merry this morning. Insufferable and already drunk. And now…

  The door opened. A man entered.

  And the pandemonium stopped.

  Everyone obeyed his command for silence and, for the first time, Pru’s throat relaxed enough to allow a full breath. The sick sense of impending doom released the band around her ribs and her stomach stopped threatening to jump into her esophagus.

  Everything would be all right. He was here now. Even though the world was upside down, he would know how to put it right.

  Except… who was he?

  She couldn’t look away from the blood.

  “Prudence,” her father barked, as if he’d been saying her name for a long time. “This is Chief Inspector Sir Carlton Morley. You tell him everything, do I make myself clear?”

  “I don’t…want to hold this anymore,” she whimpered, unable to peel her fingers from around the knife. God it was so big. It had been stuck in George’s muscles.