Page 7 of Crying Wolfe
“Morley?” he said in disbelief.
“Eli?” The rifle lowered, revealing a head of tousled gold hair and the winter-blue glare of Sir Carlton Morley, Commander of Scotland Yard and his friend of some ten years or more.
The girl froze. “You know each other?”
A raven-haired woman in a violet wrapper burst into the room behind Morley, followed by a lean, curly-haired man struggling to both stuff his nightshirt into his trousersandkeep his crooked spectacles from falling off his nose.
The woman Eli quickly recognized as Prudence, Morley’s wife, as they’d met socially upon his arrival the day before.
“What the devil is going on here?” she demanded, lifting her lamp to further illuminate the chaos in the tiny room.
Eli swung the waif to Morley, presenting the thief to her master for a fair judgment. “I found this little chit in my observatory slipping treasure into her pockets.”
She struggled like a bunny with both feet caught in a snare. “I—I wasn’t—I didn’t—He shot at me!”
“He bloody did what?” Prudence stepped forward, pulling up short when Morley threw an arm out to his side to impede the storm of wrath gathering on her features.
“I shot at an intruding shadow,” Eli defended. “I didn’t even aim, obviously. And I’d no idea she was a girl until I caught her.”
Morley eyed him skeptically. “That doesn’t explain what possible motive you could have to be here…in her bedroom.”
“She’s like her cat,” he gritted out, gesturing to the window with his free hand. “Just climbed right up and out the top window and pussy-footed it over here along the ledge. I followed her with no other motive than to get back what she took from me.”
“Your story is utter tripe,” Prudence Morley accused. “My sister is not a thief, Mr. Wolfe, and we do not own any cats.”
“Then who the hell is that?” he stabbed his finger at the little, yellow-eyed fiend licking what was probably Eli’s own blood from between his claws. “She had a name for it and everything.”
Collectively, they turned to stare at the girl whose wrists were still firmly but carefully shackled in his hand.
Her complexion went from pale to a ghost-white iridescence he found a bit concerning.
“I can explain,” she said weakly.
“Someone had better do just that!” shrilled a terse, operatic voice from the doorway.
The light from the hall illuminated a tall woman with hawkish features, whose plaited, gray hair was mostly contained by a ridiculous sleeping cap trimmed with scads of lace.
“Lady Brackenfeld!” Though he had to be approaching thirty, the curly-haired man’s voice broke like a lad’s whose balls still struggled to drop.
“Lucy and I heard what we thought might be gunshots, and then several crashes and a struggle.” Hugging a shawl around her thin, sharp shoulders, she peered at the tableau with a dignified disdain only demonstrated by the elderly and the ecumenical.
Christ, what fresh British bullshit was this, now? And why the hell did everyone look as if they’d just swallowed the wrong end of a corncob?
“All is well, Lady Brackenfeld.” Prudence abandoned the lamp to the side table to gesture back into the hall. “It’s just a comical misunderstanding. Why don’t you and Lucy enjoy a bit of sherry to calm you back to sleep?”
The sour-faced woman dismissed Prudence’s overture with a sharp sniff. “I fail to see what misunderstanding could possibly result in Miss Rosaline entertaining a nearly naked man in her boudoir with only her night-shift on.”
Eli glanced down. He wasn’t even close to naked. He’d punched his arms into a shirt and pulled on trousers and boots before taking his pistol into the observatory. Sure, he’d missed a few—if not most—of the buttons and without a belt the trousers sat a bit low on his hips, but—
An iron hammer slammed into his gut as suddenly, all the words Prudence Morley had uttered permeated his famously thick skull.
My sister isn’t a thief.
Sister?
His fingers sprang open, freeing her instantly as he, once again, wiped—no, scrubbed—his hand on his trousers. “Look, I didn’t—”
“No one is interested in a word from you, young man.” Mrs. Brackenfeld lifted an imperious chin as she rejected Eli, altogether, before pinning Morley with her icy gaze. “For the sake of your brother-in-law’s title, and my husband’s shares in the shipping company, I was prepared to believe that he was a good candidate for our Lucy. However, we cannot be expected to abide this sort of chicanery. I mean,really, his younger sister dallying with such a…ruffian. And under his own roof! The absolute cheek.”
