Page 63 of Seducing a Stranger
“No one else was home.” She wrinkled her nose. “My father isn’t the most scrupulous of men, but he wouldn’t hurt me.”
“You don’t know what men will do when threatened,” he lectured. “And you can’t understand how you’ve complicated things. To procure evidence like this, I must go through the proper channels. If anything is to hold up in court then—”
She stood also, his reaction to her gesture crushing any exuberance she’d felt. “Youforget I’ve been a Commissioner’s daughter for as long as I can remember. Why do you think I didn’t bring you the original copies? Surely you could come up with a reason for a warrant, and then procure the real thing.”
At that, he froze, regarding her as if he’d never seen her before. “Yes. I suppose I could.” His gaze warmed to something that looked like admiration as he drifted around his desk. “Forgive me…” He paused, suddenly distracted as his notice drifted over her, lingering at the swells of her breasts hugged by her fine high-necked gown, the curves of her hips accentuated by gathers of silk.
She’d dressed for him. To please him. And she found a giddy satisfaction that her endeavor had been successful.
“You didn’t have to bring them all this way,” he said in a voice roughened with a darker, more primitive emotion. “This isn’t an agreeable atmosphere for you. You could have given it to me at home.”
She shrugged and looked around curiously. “I wasn’t worried about being recognized, as I’ve never been here before, and I was already in town at the doctor’s so—”
“The doctor?” He tensed. “Are you all right? Is the child—did something happen? You sit and rest.” He grasped her shoulders and pressed her back into the chair before striding to the doorframe. “Dunleavy, get my wife something to drink, and if it’s that swill that passes for tea on the sideboard, I’ll demote you.”
Prudence twisted in her chair in time to see the lumbering man with the red mustache pop his head around the doorjamb to gape at her. “That was…I mean…you’ve a wife?”
One look at the wrath on his boss’s face, and the big man scampered away, reminding her of a dog needing to find purchase on a smooth marble floor.
Prudence stood again. “Nothing is amiss. I had an appointment with Lady Northwalk’s doctor and midwife, that’s all.”
“Yes, butwhy?” he demanded, his muscles bunched with agitation.
“Well, it is common to be checked by doctors regularly when in my condition.”
His lips twisted with grim approbation. “You didn’tinformme of any appointment you had with a doctor.”
“Why would I? Men don’t usually bother with such matters.”
“When have I ever given you the impression I’m like most other men?”
“Here you are, Mrs. Morley! I found you some of the good stuff fresh-brewed by that fancy ponce DI Calhoun.” Dunleavy appeared with a clattering porcelain tea set on a tray that looked patently ridiculous in his mallet-sized hands. He walked like a man on a tightrope, his tongue out in concentration. “Swiped it right out from under ‘is nose afore he had a chance to taste it.”
“I don’t mean to conscript someone’s tea,” Pru protested.
“’E were right chuffed when I told him who it were for.”
“It’s Lady Morley,” her husband corrected with a sharp edge as he relieved the man of his tray and set it on the edge of his desk before pouring her a cup.
“Right, right, and a fine lady you are!” Dunleavy looked back and forth from her to his boss with a smile so wide it shoved his apple cheeks so high his eyes half closed. “Sir and Lady Morley, as I live and breathe! ‘Andsomest couple in the whole of the city, I’d wager. I don’t know why we always just assumed ya were a bachelor, din’t we, Sampson?”
A little fellow poked his head around the mountain of a man, his checkered wool suit hanging on him like it would a spindle of limbs.
“We always just assumed,” he agreed in a voice as reedy as he was.
“No wonder the Chief Inspector din’t tell us of ya, my lady,” Dunleavy went on, swiping off his hat. “You’re much too young and beautiful for the likes of ‘im, in’nt ya?”
“You’re too kind. I’m Prudence Morley, it’s a thorough pleasure to meet you both.” She extended her hand to them, receiving their deferential accolades as she enjoyed using her new surname in her introduction more than she’d expected.
Suddenly the two of them were three, and then four, the company in the office multiplying exponentially until Prudence felt as if she’d been introduced to every detective, sergeant, constable, and clerk on the entire floor.
Unsurprisingly, no one recognized her as Prudence Goode. Her picture never made it next to George’s in the papers, as she wasn’t high enough in rank to be a socialite nor low enough to be in their social class. Nor would these working men have aught to do with her father who held his offices in a separate government building.
To them, she was Prudence Morley, and her pedigree meant nothing past the man at her side. Didn’t bother her one bit.
“Your husband’s been keeping you secret, all to himself,” a stout man of dusky complexion tattled.
She lifted her brows across at Morley, who seemed to be grappling with the storm of his temper before he allowed himself to speak.
