Seducing a Stranger: Goode Girls Book 1 and Victorian Rebels Book 7 (A Goode Girls Romance)

by Kerrigan Byrne

  Deadeye.

  “I was a pickpocket and thief bound for a prison cell until one night…” He hesitated as the boy on the street corner lifted his finger to his cracked lips to hush him.

  Don’t tell her. Don’t trust her.

  But…what if she could understand where he’d come from? What he’d lost.

  What he’d done.

  What if his admission repulsed and terrified her? What if she told? She’d have the final secret. One that could rip his entire life to shreds and dump him right back into the gutter.

  If he didn’t hang for it.

  “One night…the Vicar took me in and gave me a place to stay when I had none,” he explained lamely, vaulting over the most important parts. “He was the one who nudged me to reinvent myself through documents I’d receive when joining Her Majesty’s Regiment. And upon my return from war, he handed me the paper wherein there was an advertisement for men of my physical build and prowess to wear the uniform of the London Metropolitan Police.” He sent her what he hoped was an unconvincing smile. “The rest, as they say, is history.”

  “That was truly wonderful of him,” she murmured, extrapolating what she could from his vague memoir. “And so you repay him for his kindness with a monthly stipend?”

  Morley seized upon the opportunity to distract her from the entire conversation.

  “I give him the entirety of my salary as Chief Inspector,” he revealed.

  She visibly blanched, her mouth falling open as she gaped at him as if he’d ripped off his skin to reveal a demon. “But…but…how do you…?” Good breeding caused her to shy away from conversations about money. To know a man’s work, even one’s husband, might be considered vulgar. He pinpointed the moment she made peace with that vulgarity.

  “I always wondered how you, even on a Chief Inspector’s salary, could afford such a lofty address,” she said. “Even my father has mentioned his government pay wouldn’t cover food for our horses, let alone our houses. He’s always implied our money comes from his land and shipping company.”

  His lips compressed ruefully. He was still looking into where exactly her father’s wealth came from.

  “Then…what about you, husband?” It was her turn to stare out the window. “If you were raised in these gutters and went straight from the army to the police, then how did you amass enough of a fortune to speak for me, without a need for my dowry? Dare I ask if you are a thief still? If the money you pay to the church is penance?”

  “Actually,” he said, becoming rather amused. “I suppose I did thieve a bit when making my fortune.”

  She did her best not to look appalled, and almost pulled it off. “You didn’t!”

  “Don’t fret, I only stole information.”

  She leaned forward as if entranced. “Tell me.”

  “Once I was back from the army, I would be asked to go to exhibitions by my former regimental officers so they could place bets on me.”

  “What sort of exhibitions?”

  “Shooting ones, mostly.”

  “Shooting ones? Why?”

  He gave her the short answer. “Because I was a rifleman in corps.”

  Her eyes narrowed to slits as she tilted her delicate chin in assessment. “You must have been a rather incredible rifleman if you were asked to compete in exhibitions.”

  “Tolerably good.”

  “Oh come now, you’d have to be more than tolerable if they—”

  “They called me Deadeye. It doesn’t matter.” He felt his neck heating again as he rushed past to avoid her comments or questions. “At one such event, I overheard my Captain discussing an investment scheme with an American by the name of Elijah Wolfe, a ruthless and unscrupulous miner who was drumming up funds to reopen his dying town’s defunct iron mines. He was able to find no support whatsoever and I could smell his desperation. But despite all that, there was something about him…”

  “Did you save a grateful noble from being fleeced by this unscrupulous American Wolfe?” she guessed.

  He emitted a low sound of amusement. “I gave Eli everything I’d won on the exhibitions for a ten percent share. It was barely enough to keep his mine open for a month, let alone pay the workers.”

  Her eyes went round as saucers. “You made your fortune in iron?”

  “No,” he said wryly. “The mine is still defunct, as it only took a month to exhaust it. However, another mineral often resides where iron is found. A great deal less of it, worth a great deal more.”

  “Really?” she asked. “What is that?”

  He caught her hand and gently squeezed the tip of her glove from the long middle finger, sliding the garment from her creamy skin. Holding up her knuckles, he kissed the ring on her finger.

  “Gold.”

  Chapter 15

  Prudence barely tasted her pasta. Instead she chewed on a puzzle, determined to uncover just what secret her husband was keeping from her.

  She studied him across a private garden table behind what was possibly the most charming Italian café in the city, and contemplated everything he’d been in his exceptional life.

  An urchin, a thief, a crack shot rifleman, an exhibitionist, a knighted war hero, an officer of the law, a vigilante, and a venture capitalist with interest in an American gold mine worth a fortune.

  And, quite possibly, a liar.

  Not about the gold, which was both startling, fascinating, and wonderful. But about what came before.

  His childhood.

  He’d left something out of that story, she was certain of it. As he’d spoken of his time at St. Dismas, she could feel him jumping over the graves of long-buried emotions, ripping up their headstones to pretend they’d never existed at all.

  What a complicated man she’d married. Possessed of dichotomy between a heart capable of such unequaled valor, gallantry, and courage tied to a mind bedeviled by skepticism, enigma, and for lack of a gentler word, fear.

  It was a word he would toss away and spit upon if she accused him of it. But if she boiled the amalgamation of his wariness, mysteriousness, and protectiveness down to a reduction as thick as the wonderful sauce anointing her pasta. She was certain she would find fear the main ingredient.

  Not a fear of death or danger. His nocturnal vocation was evidence of uncommon bravery in the face of death.

  So, what terrified this bold and daring knight? What drove him to hide himself, his past, in the shadows?

  What had been done to him?

  Or…what had he done?

  “You’re not eating,” he prompted over a sip of his coffee. “If it’s not to your taste, we can go elsewhere.”

  Jostled from her thoughts, Prudence picked up her utensils again and crafted herself an especially delicious bite. “No, it’s marvelous. I was just lost in thought.”

  “Oh? About what?” He ate like he did everything else, she noticed, with correct and decisive efficiency. He’d been served a dish of pasta stuffed with meats, cheeses, and savory herbs in a voluminous red sauce, whereas she’d instantly selected the butter and white wine reduction over Capelli d’Angelo.

  “I was thinking you’re the one who needs to eat more,” she said.

  “I’m consuming a veritable mountain of food right now.” He gestured to his plate. “In fact, if we keep this up, I’ll need to have my trousers refitted.”

  Hardly. He was filling out a little, but the extra portions seemed to simply fuel the production of muscle rather than storing anywhere unsightly. “Yes, but, before I started prevailing upon you to take me to all these wondrous places, it was the perception around the house that because of your punishing schedule, you’re woefully undernourished. Beyond that, you barely sleep.”

  She’d noted that in the past week his skin had gained a bit more color, and his cheeks filled from rather gaunt to merely sharp. He’d been eating better, but the smudges beneath his eyes remained, and the lines of constant strain, of ever-readiness, still etched into the chiseled handsomeness of his features.
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  His utensils stilled in his pasta and he stared down at the food with a queer little smile that vanished as quickly as it appeared. “I’ve heard officers complain for years about their wives nagging them to stay home more often. To take better care of their health.”

  She bristled a little until he graced her with a look so tender, she might have melted into a puddle beneath her chair.

  “I always envied them.” The glint in his eye dazzled her more than the sunlight fragmenting off the spray from the little garden fountain. Their round table was large enough to hold their meals, but only just, and it precipitated them sitting in such a way that their knees often brushed. An embarrassment of hyacinth, calendulas, and lilac blossoms cosseted them from the din of diners inside, creating a lavish, intimate oasis of their own in the middle of the world’s largest city.

  “Well, Lady Morley,” he said around a circumspect bite of bread. “My lack of slumber is entirely your fault. Before you tempted me to your bed at all hours, I’ll have you know I managed quite well to wedge sleep into my schedule.”

  “I suppose I shall lock you out of my bedchamber, then,” she sighed as if it were a great shame. “If only because I care for your health.”

  He nudged her knee in challenge. “Don’t you dare.”

  She laughed flirtatiously before a note of uncertainty pricked at her. “I know you live two very important lives but…would you possibly consider…devoting a few nights to staying at home?” she ventured.

  You could sleep with me, she didn’t say. Because he hadn’t yet. He would leave her in the night, beholden to his self-proclaimed duties as the Knight of Shadows. Upon his return, he’d sleep in the room down the hall from her. Her breath trembled in her throat enough that she had to tug on the high neck of her gown. “I know I don’t have the right to make undue demands, but once the baby comes—”

  “Say no more.” He reached over and caught at the hand still fluttering at her chest, caressing a gentle thumb over her knuckles. “I’ve been thinking the very same—”

  “Mi scusi, Signore Morley, mi scusi!” The proprietor, Francesco, weighted down by a magnificent mustache, a round belly, and a Sunday newspaper labored over to their table. "Il giornale! Il giornale! È così brutto quello che dice! Non ci credo!" He turned to her. “I do not believe.”

  A dawning frown overtook all semblance of her husband’s good humor as he snatched the paper from the restaurateur and scanned it. Storms gathered in his eyes and thunder in his expression as he crushed it in his fist.

  “Thank you, Francesco,” he said, his teeth never separating as his lip curled into a silent snarl.

  “Of course…” The man shot her a look of pity and scurried inside, not wanting to witness Pru’s reaction to what she knew was going to happen. She wished she could follow him. Her heart became like a sparrow in a cage, flittering around her ribs as though searching for escape.

  They’d drawn upon the luxury of luck for far too long. Eventually, the story would have to break. The truth was always going to come out, and with it a few lies as well, to flavor the story with delicious scandal.

  She wanted to read it, but her eyes refused to focus. Not only did she blink back the threat of overwhelming tears, but also a creeping darkness at her periphery. She felt as though she’d been the victim of a blow to the head, and couldn’t seem to shake the accompanying disorientation.

  She caught the unmistakable word in the title of the article.

  MURDER.

  “What? What do they say? Do they think I—”

  “It’ll be all right,” he soothed, instinctively tucking the paper behind him.

  “Tell me what they wrote,” she implored him.

  He hesitated for a moment, before exhaling defeat. “It’s been released to the press that Sutherland was stabbed and that you were in the room with him. The article mentions his past…infidelities and your possible reaction to them.”

  “They’ve given me a motive.” She lifted her hand to her face, just to make sure she was still in possession of one, as it’d suddenly gone quite numb. “That can’t be all,” she fretted. “How did Mr. Francesco know to bring you the paper, does it mention our marriage?”

  His features became ever more grim. “Thankfully, no.”

  “Then…”

  He produced the paper and folded it so she could see. “Your portrait, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, dear God.” She looked down at the likeness, touched by a cold, cold horror. “What a rude sketch! It doesn’t even look like me.”

  “Not perfectly, but enough that Francesco stitched it together.”

  “What am I going to do?” she cried, unable to stop the words she didn’t want to read from jumping out at her. “They’ve made me out to be a villainess. They’ve all but made the adjudicator’s case for him.”

  “We’re prepared for this,” he said, attempting to calm her. “However, I think it’s best we go home.”

  “But…I’m supposed to go to the Duchess of Trenwyth’s Ladies’ Aid Society gathering with Farah today.” She looked down at her plate of cooling pasta disconsolately. She wasn’t finished, but she’d lost her appetite.

  “I’d rather you didn’t.” He gave his lips and hands one last wipe with his linen before tossing it on the table. “The damned vulture who wrote this, and any other press, will be looking for you. It’s best you stay out of the public eye for a bit, until we get this sorted.”

  “I see the logic in that,” she said, her insides twisting with desperation. “Wouldn’t that prove the journalist’s point? I’ll be hiding in disgrace. I’ll look guilty.”

  Beyond that, she couldn’t go back to the way it was before, back to only having their quiet staff and dust motes for company. Back to sheer silence and distance from the one man who’d begun to mean so much to her. “How close is this to getting sorted, would you say?”

  She’d avoided pressing him about it too much. The past several almost carefree, passionate nights had heralded a new epoch in their relationship, and she’d convinced herself that he’d all but forgotten about his suspicion. That he believed she didn’t have blood on her hands.

  That he was looking to exonerate her.

  His face became a cool mask of careful emptiness. “I’ve a church full of suspects in Sutherland’s case, and we’re working through them as fast as we are able, starting with those closest at the time of the murder. Lord and Lady Woodhaven, your father, the Vicar, and spreading out from there. I’m even looking at Adrian McKendrick, the new Earl of Sutherland.”

  She nodded, scanning the paper again and again. “What about Father?”

  “My searches of your father’s warehouses and interests have borne some rather rotten fruit, I’m afraid,” he admitted reluctantly, examining her for a reaction. “I’ve found registers of shipments from ports where the plant is believed to be indigenous. Shipments that bear Sutherland’s name and signature. This intimates that your fiancé might have been in league with your father…and if that’s the case, we’ll need to add the Commissioner to the very short list of lead suspects in his murder.”

  “What?” She jerked entirely upright, dropping the paper into her food. “George wasn’t a businessman, he thought trade and shipping were, frankly, beneath him.”

  “And so he certainly did,” he agreed. “But impoverished nobility are being forced to consider all manner of desperate means whereby to buttress their dwindling fortunes. Could Sutherland have been one of them?”

  Stymied, she shook her head. “I never thought to ask. But I had reason to believe he was after my dowry when I heard that he’d several illegitimate children to support.”

  “Disgraceful bastard,” he said beneath his breath.

  She knew they shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but she couldn’t bring herself to disagree.

  Do you really think he and my father were…dear God. This just keeps getting worse, doesn’t it?” With trembling hands, she rescued the paper from her plate, and sta
red down at the words that damned her, possibly for the rest of her life. “How did they get this information?”

  He shook his head. “I thought we’d plugged all possible leaks,” he muttered. “The reverend, perhaps? He’d a jolt of conscience?”

  “I suppose…but it’s unlikely. Like you, my family have been patrons for years. He christened us all. What about anyone at the Yard? The judge? The registrar who married us?”

  He made a fervent gesture in the negative. “I called in a bevy of favors that you wouldn’t believe if I told you,” he said. “They all knew that hellfire would be preferable to the wrath I’d rain down upon their heads if they spoke out.”

  “What about Honoria’s husband, William?” she whispered. “He loved George and he was…was so angry with me. So certain I’d done it.” A band reached around her chest and tugged, forcing a rather forceful exhale. The same pressure cinched at her head in a vise-like grip at her throbbing temples. “If William thinks I got away with murder, he might be using popular opinion to force your hand. To make me pay.” She could say no more, her lungs had compressed the ability of breath completely away from her.

  “Your bloody family,” he gritted out, looking as if he might hurl the table in a fit of temper.

  The dam she’d built to stem the current of her emotion crumbled, overwhelming her entire being with a desolate flood of emotion. As a last stopgap, she pressed both of her hands over her mouth to contain the cries, but she still couldn’t seem to manage. They erupted from her as hot tears spilled in veritable rivers down her cheeks.

  He was at her side in a moment. Gathering her to him in a bundle of bereft limbs and hiccupping sobs. His chest was hard and steady as the rock of Gibraltar as the tides of her pain broke upon it.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he crooned, his hands doing a tender dance of comfort up and down her spine as he tucked her head beneath his chin. “There now. All will be well. You’re not in any more danger than you were before. Not with me to protect you.”