Page 22 of A Dark and Stormy Knight
“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’sdyingto 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 wasexpected.
So that his sins were neversuspected.
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.
