Page 81 of Seducing a Stranger
“I confess I was busy with other details when she said goodbye.” Anxiety crept into her eyes as well. “Do you have any reason to think she’s in danger?”
He wanted to say no, but something didn’t allow it. “She’s fainted once already and what with the investigation into her father…the story in the papers today…I don’t know. I sense peril.”
Next to him, Ash’s rangy frame tensed beneath his fine suit. “Those aren’t instincts you should ignore, Cutter. Go back to your house, tear it apart, I’ll look around here and we’ll rally if she’s not found immediately.”
“I’ll ask Dorian,” Farah said, visibly shaken. “He disappeared some time ago; I think he’s hiding with Trenwyth.”
Morley clapped Ash on the shoulder before he launched himself from the landing and down the stairs to the road. He ran the mile home flat out with lung-bursting speed. He juked about pedestrians and dove behind and around carriages to the stunned approbation of many a driver.
He didn’t care. Nothing mattered. He would tear the city apart. Hell, he’d burn it to the ground to find her. He’d dismantle every brick. Scorch every spire. Everything that’d ever mattered to him fell away in her absence, exposing exactly what she’d become to him in this short amount of time.
Did he fear for his unborn child? Of course, he did. But it washername echoing in every footfall. Prudence. His wife. His woman.
As he rounded the corner to his own street, he allowed himself to slow at the sight of a familiar coach idling in front of the golden brick terraces. He felt the fear leach out of him with each panting breath when he found his wife standing on their porch, staring at him as if he were a wolf loose in the middle of town.
“Morley,” Dorian Blackwell greeted him from the carriage window with the seemingly disembodied head and conceited smile of a Cheshire cat. “I’ve just spent the most entertaining hour with your lovely wife.”
The adrenaline still surging through him mixed with a knee-weakening sense of relief as Morley tried to lock eyes with Prudence. Instead of allowing it, she gave him her back to let herself in the house, closing the door behind her with a fatal click.
Morley fell on Blackwell like a rabid dog. “Where the fuck have the two of you been for an hour? I just came from Trenwyth Place, where Farah is looking for you. If I didn’t know how absolute your devotion to your wife is, I’d pull you out of that carriage and beat you to death for being alone with mine.”
To his surprise, Blackwell’s smile widened as he held up his hands. “Hardly alone, I conducted my sisters-in-law, Lady Ravencroft and Lady Thorne, to the Savoy where they are staying while in town from Scotland. I informed Farah thusly before we left.”
The very plausible explanation stole the wind from his sails.
“Yes, well…she did not mark you.”
“We’ll blame that on her third glass of wine,” Blackwell chuckled fondly.
Morley scowled, rippling with displeasure. “Why didn’t you drop Prudence here first? This is rather out of your way.”
“It was upon her request.” Blackwell’s one uncovered eye flicked a meaning-laden glance toward the ominously closed door. “If I’m honest, she wasn’t in any great haste to go home.”
Morley stood on his walk feeling like the war banner of a defeated army. Trampled. Torn asunder. And rather pointless anymore. He nodded his thanks to Blackwell, not feeling capable of forming kind words. “You might want to hurry back and tell Ash and your wife all is well,” he muttered.
“Certainly.” After a hesitation, Blackwell leaned out the window. “I know killers, Morley. I am one. You are one. We can sense each other, I think. Surely you already know she is not.”
The moment when the truth collided inside of him felt as though a thunderbolt had reached out of the sky and touched him. He suddenly knew what to do. He knew what to say.
Blackwell continued, “If you want my advice—”
“I don’t.” Morley pulled an abrupt about-face, and marched up the stairs to his home, hoping his wife hadn’t locked him out for good.
