Page 32 of Seducing a Stranger
“Something is rotten in the State of Denmark,” Dorian quoted significantly. “And the closer we come to the Yard, the more it stinks to high heaven.”
“Out with it, both of you,” Morley barked. “I don’t have time for your cryptic dramatics today.”
“No time for corruption in your own department?” Ash’s black brow arched, and he speared Morley with a meaningful look.
“We’ve information that the ironically named ‘Goode’ needs a bit of moral direction,” Dorian informed him with no small amount of smugness. “Who did we think of but your august self, Morley? This place is your life and your wife, and the shadows of justice your mistress. Goode’s the perfect man to ruin, especially for your career. You could rise and take his place.”
Morley shook his head, rejecting the very idea. On today of all days? Could he not escape the name Goode? “Why would I do such a thing? What have you heard?”
Ash turned from the window. The light reflected off the lye burn scars that crawled up his neck and clawed at his jaw. When he spoke, it was with a great deal less inflection than his more demonstrative counterpart. “Goode’s nobility was built hundreds of years ago on the import of lumber to our little island, but I have it on good authority that his shipping company is smuggling more than just wood. There’s a plant being hailed in the Americas as the new drug of the century.”
“The coca plant,” Morley nodded. “I’ve heard of it. It’s not exactly illegal to ship it here, and it’s widely used therapeutically.”
Dorian made a disgusted noise. “It is illegal if the substance isn’t declared at customs, and if it’s not being delivered to doctors, but instead distributed to obsessed ghouls by coppers who are little better than bookies handing out beatings if they’re not paid on time.”
Morley looked from Dorian’s one good eye, to Ash, and then to Argent, who studied the dark-haired men intently from where he held up the far wall with his leaning shoulders. “You’resureof this?” he asked.
Ash nodded. “I’m certain the plants are coming from his ships. Though where it’s being refined into cocaine, I couldn’t tell you.”
“AndI’mcertain the drug is being leaked onto the streets by your officers,” Dorian insisted. “In the poor and rich boroughs alike.”
“How certain?” Morley pressed.
“As sure as we are that you’ve nothing to do with it,” Ash said. “And we’ve all the evidence you need to open up further investigation. However, since this man is your only superior, and you’ve no quiet way to investigate your own officers, I’d suggest the Knight of Shadows conduct the inquiry.”
The Knight of Shadows. Did he want to be the sort of man who policed his own?
Was he truly so ignorant about what the Commissioner might be doing behind his back?
Morley stared at the three men who stood in front of his desk. Three men who’d once been three boys beaten down by the very laws that were supposed to protect them. They’d forged a bond together as teens in Newgate Prison that nothing on this earth could pull asunder.
Morley’s own path had taken him on an entirely different road. A road that became a line between them. A line as tangible as the desk behind which he stood.
Alone.
They’d always stand together, those three. And no matter how much they trusted him, Morley never saw the insides of those prison walls and would thereby forever stay on the outside of their coterie.
On the other side of the line.
He’d been fine with that because his life had become one of order and regimentation where theirs were chaos and anarchy.
Cutter had followed the laws of the streets once.
But Carlton could not. He didn’t exist without boundaries. He wanted the boundaries drawn in no uncertain terms so he could see exactly which parameters he was supposed to work within. He was a man forged in the meat grinder of war and then polished by the police force.
Except lately, the lines had been blurred by the Knight of Shadows. And he’d leapt over one particular line so far, he couldn’t see it anymore.
And the consequences were about to be cataclysmic.
He lowered himself into his high-backed leather chair. The legs of which no longer felt so dense and steady. As if he could topple from his throne at any time. “I hear what you’re saying, and I agree that this demands further investigation. But…there is a complication in regards to me.”
“Do tell.” Dorian’s eye sharpened, and he was instantly rapt. “You are a famously uncomplicated man.”
Morley let that go for now. “I’ve become a bit…” He cast about for the right word. Embroiled? Consumed? Obsessed? Entangled? “Involvedwith Commissioner Goode’s daughter.”
Argent perked to that. “Which one? Doesn’t he have several?”
Morley swallowed, knowing that once this was out in the open, he could never take it back. It would be painful to endure their reactions, but possibly worth it if they could help him see through his pall to a course of action.
