Page 76 of A Dark and Stormy Knight
Ash, Lord Southbourne, put his cane to his hat and saluted him with a piratical grin. “Look at us, Morley,” he commiserated with a devilish tone. “As boys, did you ever in a million years dream we’d claim the West End as our neighborhood, casually fetching our high-born wives to take back to our manor houses to swive them like the common perverts we are?”
“Never in a million years.” Morley couldn’t even bring himself to pretend to enjoy the Earl of Southbourne’s charismatic irreverence. He very much doubted this night would go in that direction with his own high-born wife.
He didn’t merit it.
“I saw the papers today, Cutter,” Ash said, sweeping him with an observant look bordering with as much filial concern as the shark-eyed pirate could muster. “How is she? How goes the investigation?”
Seeing no point in correcting the man regarding his name, Morley lifted his hand to the back of his tense neck and squeezed, trying to summon an answer.
He was saved from doing so by the doors being nearly yanked from their hinges, revealing a frowning Farah Blackwell backlit by enough lanterns to give the impression of a heraldic halo of an archangel.
Apparently, one on the warpath.
“Carlton Morley, you incomparableidiot,” she declared, planting her fists on the hips of her violet gown.
Morley winced. He might have known the women would rally against him.
It was what he deserved.
“Oh my,” Ash turned to him, his dark brows crawling up his forehead in surprise, and no little amount of delight. “I’m dying to hear this.”
“You told your pregnant wife you thought she might try to murder you in your sleep?” she nearly shrieked.
Ash gasped, pressing his hand to his chest. “Morley!”
Standing a few steps on the landing beneath where Farah seethed down at him, Morley squinted up, thinking that her words sounded a bit slurred and her eyes over bright.
“No!” he said reflexively, and then realized he was wrong. “That is, I didn’t deny—”
“I have never been so disappointed in someone in my entirelife,” Farah scolded.
“I know your husband, Lady Blackwell,” Ash jested. “I very much doubt that.”
Emitting a cavernous sigh, Morley nodded, intent upon taking his lashes. “Invite me in, Farah, and I’ll make amends.”
“I think not!” she snapped. “You’ll stand out there where you belong and explain yourself, or you’ll turn right around and go home.”
“But…” He looked to Ash for help, and found only avid, ill-concealed enjoyment. “This isn’t even your residence. Is Lady Trenwyth in there?”
She held out her hand against him with the judgement of St. Peter, himself. “You do not want to cross paths with the women in that house right now, Morley, as you are speaking to the only one who feels a modicum of compassion for you at the moment.”
“Don’t go in there, old boy,” Ash said out of the side of his mouth. “There are plenty of banisters from which to lynch you. Best you run and change your name…again.”
Shoulders slumping, Morley climbed the last few stairs to stand at least eye level with his accuser. “Let me preface this with the fact that I realize I handled the situation poorly.”
“Understatement, but go on.” Farah narrowed her eyes.
He turned to Ash. “Do you remember what Caroline looked like?”
The man’s lashes swept down. “Yes, but I don’t know what that has to do with—”
“Face like a fucking saint, she had,” Morley pressed on. “Eyes wide enough to contain all the innocence in the entire world.”
Ash’s lip twitched at a fond memory. “Yes, and the brilliant girl could steal bacon from a bloodhound and get away with it.”
“Precisely.” Morley turned back to Farah to elucidate. “My wife is the loveliest creature I may ever have the opportunity to envision in my lifetime. She’s radiant and sweet-natured and wise and I enjoy nothing so much as her presence. But, doesn’t that make for the perfect swindler? How can she ask me to trust her when I don’t know her?”
Farah’s brow crimped with concern as she contemplated his words. “You’ve lived with her for weeks. Surely you havesomeidea of her character now.”
