A Dark and Stormy Knight

by Byrne, Kerrigan

  “He’s our mark.” Dorian made a quick assessment of the buildings and boathouses above the river. “Think you can climb that drainpipe there, and get to the roof above him? I’ll create a diversion and lead them away while you swipe what you can from the box.”

  “I’ll swipe the whole bloody box, see if I don’t.” Cutter nodded and spit in his hands before raking them through the dry bank silt and rubbing them together. They’d just have to get to the other side of the crowd and then, he’d grasp the drainpipe, shimmy hand over hand until he’d scaled the two stories, and scoot onto the roof poised to drop into the spot the blighter would abandon once he tore off after Dorian.

  This was one of his favorite ruses.

  Cutter didn’t care about the corpse. Hell, he’d seen his fill of death after the last typhus epidemic raged through the East End, what was one bloated river find?

  Boring, was what.

  He followed his friend as they shouldered and shoved and jostled as many people as they could, their enterprising hands dipping into every place and coming up with coin more often than not.

  When they broke through to the front and took a breath, they each fished out their finds and shared a grin when they counted almost two shillings’ worth between them, more than a day’s wages around these parts. Today might make them rich, if they played it right.

  They were about to scamper around the half-circled arc to dive back into the other side toward the building when the entire crowd made a collective gasp and took a step back, leaving them strangely exposed.

  He barely heard the disbelieving whispers, so intent was he on his mission.

  “She’s in shreds…

  “What sort of animal…?”

  “…no more than a child…”

  Cutter turned his back on the river and made to dive back into the safety of the throng when Dorian’s hand clutched his wrist with an iron grip.

  He said nothing, but he didn’t have to.

  The demon that had haunted him all day now roared.

  It scratched and clawed and cut deep enough to sever a limb. That was truly what it felt like. Something had been cut out of him. Off of him. Something vital and dear. Gone.

  Amputated.

  He already knew before he turned to look.

  Before he saw the strands of identical golden hair sullied with river filth waving like soft reeds in the little dam created by a concrete dock. Before he registered the red abrasions at her wrists and bare ankles, or the ridiculous pattern of last spring’s coat, the one he’d given her, only one arm haphazardly shoved into the sleeve.

  Before it dawned on him that even such polluted water was never so red.

  The coin in Cutter’s hands fell to the earth. He stepped on them as he lunged forward, her name released to the sky by the devil who’d stalked him. Surely it had to be. Because no human creature could have made such an inhuman scream.

  Caroline.

  Chapter 1

  London, 1880, Twenty-Five years later

  Prudence no longer desired to be good.

  Or, rather, to be a Goode.

  It was why she stood at the gate to Miss Henrietta’s School for Cultured Young Ladies at midnight, her chest heaving and her resolve crumbling. She’d come all this way. And she wanted this. Didn’t she?

  Just one last night of freedom. One night of her own making. Her own choosing.

  One night of pleasure before her father foisted her off on the highest-ranking noble desperate enough to have her at nine and twenty.

  Three months. Three months until her life was irreparably ruined, and she’d have to love, honor, and obey the most notorious spirit-swilling, mistress-having, loud-mouthed, and fractious idiot in all Blighty.

  George Hamby-Forsyth, the sixth Earl of Sutherland.

  He’d marry her because she’d an obscene enough dowry to cover his debts and still maintain a generation or two.

  Not because he loved her.

  God, what a fool she’d been!

  For the umpteenth time, the tragedy of her gullible nature slapped her until her cheeks burned. Had it only been yesterday she’d found out her happy engagement was a farce? That everyone around her knew she would be wretched and humiliated, and still expected her to go through with it?

  That the two people closest to her in the world hadn’t loved her enough to tell her.

  The scene forever tormented her, illuminated just as clearly as it had been in the brightness of the late afternoon sun the day before. Every decision she’d made a perfect mix of timing and luck until she’d stumbled upon her own tragedy.

  Pru had been pleasantly exhausted after spending a day with the seamstresses for her extensively fine wedding trousseau. Her sister Honoria had accompanied her, along with their oldest friend and neighbor, Mrs. Amanda Brighton of the Farley-Downs Brightons.

  “Do let’s go to Hyde Park,” Pru had gestured expansively toward the park in question, shaking Amanda’s arm in her eagerness. “I’m dying to sweep by Rotten Row and take a few turns on Oberon.”

  “I’m game for it.” Honoria, her eldest—already married—sister, had lifted her nose and squinted into the distance where the horse track colloquially known as Rotten Row bustled with the empire’s aristocracy, both human and equine.

  Amanda was more Honoria’s age than Pru’s—which was three years older—but she and Amanda shared a blithe and energetic nature that made them natural mischief-makers and thereby the swiftest of friends.

  Honoria, though a beauty, was born to be a dreary proper matron, and fulfilled her vocation with dreadful aplomb.

  “I wouldn’t at all mind examining the new stags on the market,” Amanda said with a sprightly grin lifting her myriad of freckles. She tucked one arm into Pru’s and the other into Honoria’s, and nearly dragged them both toward the square.

  Prudence’s ride along the row had been every bit as exhilarating and satisfying as she’d imagined. Friends and acquaintances had called out their hearty congratulations, which had produced the sort of smile that she felt with her entire self.

  It’d dimmed when she’d a brief encounter with Lady Jessica Morton, who was the reason everyone had called her “Prudunce” in finishing school. But even her spinster nemesis had gritted out her felicitations. Had Jessica’s smile been on a dog, it would have been called a snarl, and Prudence had to fight a spurt of victorious wickedness.

  Jealousy was such an unflattering color.

  Oh, it wasn’t her best quality, this, but it had felt indescribably good to “win,” for lack of a better word. Her entire life, she’d come in second. Second eldest and second prettiest of the four so-called, “Goode girls.”

  Second married, as well.

  But to an Earl! And not just any Earl, but one of the most marriageable bachelors in the realm. Her happy engagement was delicious any day but became pure truffled pleasure when trotted out in front of Jessica.

  Bidding a cheerful farewell to the retreating back of her childhood antagonist, Pru had handed Oberon to one of the grooms, and set off to meet the ladies for tea.

  Bouncing her riding crop off her thigh in high spirits, Pru had searched for them, eager to share her bit of gossip about her conversation with Jessica.

  She found Honoria and Amanda on a bench with their heads together. They admired a group of smartly dressed young men prancing about on thoroughbreds and sipped thin glasses of lemonade that sweated in the summer heat.

  She was about to call out to them when she fumbled her riding crop and dropped it, kicking it behind a tree.

  Cursing her constant clumsiness, she scampered after it, and was still stooping to retrieve it when Amanda had said, “How bold of Lady Jessica to approach Pru in public.”

  Honoria retrieved a compact mirror from her reticule and checked the hue of her perfect lips, the pallor of her dewy skin, and tucked a stray dark hair back beneath her hat before snapping it shut. “I detest Jessica Morton. She tormented Pru endlessly in school.”

&nb
sp; Amanda made a sour face, as if her lemonade had suddenly become too tart. “I’d thought her affair with Pru’s fiancé concluded, but now I’m not so certain.”

  Honoria’s excessively pretty features pinched into a frown of disapproval. “George and Jessica? Are you quite certain?”

  Heedless of her new wine velvet riding jacket, Prudence had pressed her back to the tree, less a furtive move than a collapse. She needed something to hold her up.

  George…Her George…and Jessica Morton?

  When? Why? And how? And how many times? And… When?

  Certainly, she’d never assumed he’d been a saint, not with his roguish good looks, but now that they were to marry, she’d thought he’d have no need for other women.

  That she’d be enough.

  That their love would contain all the passion he’d require.

  Amanda swatted at an insect with the fan previously hanging from her white-gloved wrist. “I heard about it at the Prescott Ball, Maureen Broadwell and Jessica Morton complained that Sutherland is a base and venal lover. She said, and I quote, ‘That man can read a woman’s body like a blind man can read music.’”

  Honoria’s breath hitched on her sip of lemonade and she hid a series of delicate coughs behind her handkerchief.

  Pru swallowed back her own sob. The Prescott Ball had been only a fortnight ago. George had been her escort…and these women had been discussing him in such a manner as he waltzed her on the tops of clouds.

  “Poor Pru,” Amanda tutted, waiting for Honoria to finish her coughing fit before adding, “Don’t you find it a bit disgusting how many bastards Pru’s dowry will keep up once George has his hands on all her money?” She sighed, then shrugged it off as if it were no more disappointing than a broken fingernail.

  Bastards?

  Pru had tugged at the high neck of her gown, fighting for breath.

  All she’d ever wanted was children.

  To tuck chubby little limbs into bed. Kiss scraped knees and tears. She wanted to hear the peals of laughter when their strong daddy would toss them in the air and allow them to climb on his back.

  George had been that man in her dreams. So dashing and virile.

  He already had children?

  Honoria had leaned forward, looking intently toward the track as if searching for Prudence’s form. “Poor Pru, indeed. George has convinced everyone that he loves her. Even William…even me. I suppose we should tell her.”

  William Mosby, Viscount Woodhaven, was George’s closest compatriot, and Honoria’s husband.

  Now that Pru thought about it, Honoria hadn’t seemed particularly pleased with the betrothal, and she’d always assumed it was because Pru was marrying an Earl when William was merely a Viscount, and thereby his social inferior.

  She’d been so absurdly blind.

  Amanda let out a disenchanted sigh. “Pru needs to learn how the world works, eventually. That it’s not all ponies and balls and butterfly nets.”

  Honoria sucked her lip between her teeth, a gesture she made whenever she was conflicted. “Though, I’d hate to ruin her wedding for her, and it’s not as if she can break the engagement now. I should have warned her off George ages ago, but William expressly forbade it.”

  Amanda nodded, smoothing the creases from her cream gown. “It’s kind of us, I think, to maintain her frivolous naiveté for a bit longer.”

  “Yes. Kind.” Honoria’s famous composure crumpled for the slightest moment, uncovering the features of a woman beset by abject misery. “She’s a lifetime to be disappointed by a husband.”

  Pru clapped two hands over her mouth to keep from saying anything. From screaming in the middle of the bustling park loud and long enough for all of London’s elite to hear. She couldn’t face them yet. She couldn’t sort through her hurt and anger and humiliation enough to land on a single thing to say.

  Frivolous naiveté? Was this really what they thought of her? Her best friend and her elder sister? Honoria… the woman she’d idolized for the whole of her life. The bastion of feminine perfection against which she’d been measured. The loveliest debutante to grace Her Majesty’s halls in decades.

  And Amanda? The naughty sprite who’d collected all her secrets and her sorrows. Who’d bounced and giggled through life with nary a care.

  “Speaking of disappointing husbands…mine will be back in town tomorrow night,” Amanda distracted Pru by saying. “And so, I think that one with the muscular legs will be my next acquisition.” Amanda pointed in the direction of the riders, and Pru blinked through gathering tears in confusion.

  Her friend had never expressed a great interest in horseflesh, and her husband was more interested in estate acquisitions than equine. He owned half of Cheshire.

  “I’ve always admired your taste,” Honoria said approvingly.

  Amanda leaned in closer. “Lady Westlawn told me he brought her to completion twice in one night. In fact, he was so skilled, she gave him one of her coveted diamonds.” The sound Amanda made was laced with enough licentiousness to bring about a biblical plague.

  Pru gaped. They weren’t speculating about horseflesh at all. But the men astride!

  “To the Stags of St. James.” Amanda lifted her lemonade for a “cheers” in the fashion of a bawdy sailor at a public house. “Are you certain you won’t try one?”

  Honoria clinked her glass with Amanda’s but set it down at her elbow. “As tempted as I am, William has me on a tight leash.”

  “That doesn’t mean you can’t come and look,” Amanda offered. “That’s nothing more than window-shopping, really.”

  “No. I suppose it doesn’t.” Honoria stood and drifted toward the Row, a trailing Amanda in her wake.

  Pru couldn’t stand any more. She’d fled home and immediately begged her father to break their engagement.

  He’d blustered through his stately beard. “You and your sisters are beautiful enough to tempt men away from their mistresses, Pru. I dare say Honoria did, and you’re almost her equal.” He patted her head with the sort of fond deference he showed his hounds. “Sutherland is an Earl, a vital man of true English blue blood and the…passions and tempers to match.”

  “But, Papa,” she’d sobbed. “He’ll humiliate me. He’ll make me a laughingstock.”

  “Nonsense. Sutherland has always been a discreet man. This marriage is your duty to your family, so don’t let your doddle-headed fancies of romance get in the way of that, do you hear me? You will say nothing of this to Sutherland and when he next comes to court you, you’ll keep a civil tongue in your head, or I’ll not be responsible for what I do!”

  A distraught and sodden Pru had then taken her shattered soul to her mother, asking her to mend it. Begging her to intervene.

  “It is the practice of men to have mistresses, dear. And you’ll find it’s a blessing in the end…” With that crisp reply, she’d nailed the coffin shut on any hope Pru had of reclaiming a sense of herself.

  Something had hardened in her then. A fist of rebellious anger clenched around the last glowing shard of her heart.

  The very next day, she had called upon Lady Westlawn and not-so-discreetly inquired about the Stags of St. James.

  Which was how she’d ended up here. At the garden gate to Miss Henrietta’s School for Cultured Young Ladies.

  St. James, she was told, was not a reference to the park or buildings, but to the patron saint of riding.

  Of all the vulgar things.

  As she stared at the gate, Pru gathered her resolve. She wouldn’t be like George. Nor would she be like Amanda. Once she’d taken a wedding vow, she’d keep it, regardless of what George decided to do. And if any children resulted from their marriage, she’d teach them to do the same.

  One deceit did not merit another.

  But tonight, she’d take a lover. A man who was nothing like the Earl of Sutherland in all his dark, brutish glory.

  She’d claim a night of pleasure for her very own. One night she controlled with her desires and whim
s, and where her satisfaction was the object of the deed.

  Because from what she’d heard, she’d live without it for the rest of her life.

  Pru pulled the hood of her cloak down to shadow her face from the gaslights perched atop the wrought iron gate and tapped on the third bar three times.

  A footman melted from the shadows, a pretty lad, barely old enough to shave.

  He gave her a curt nod. “Do you have an appointment, madam?”

  What had Lady Westlawn told her to say if she hadn’t made prior arrangements at Hyde Park? Oh yes.

  “I’m here to peruse the night-blooming jasmine.”

  The gate swung open on silent hinges and she took in a shaking breath. Thresholds, she’d heard were dangerous. Places of in-between, where fairy folk and demons could meddle with the living.

  Or so superstitious ancestors once believed.

  Tonight, she could believe it. Out on this street, she’d done nothing to speak of. She was no one of great importance. Prudence Goode. A second daughter of second-rate nobility.

  A virgin.

  To cross this threshold, was to be forever altered. Did a night like this always seem so monumental? Did the specter of fate seem to hover above every woman’s head upon making such a decision?

  Something intangible drifted above the lamplight but below the stars. Something sentient and dark. Perhaps a bit dangerous and wrathful, though she somehow wasn’t afraid.

  Destiny was on the other side of that gate, it told her. More than her virginity would be taken tonight.

  No. Prudence shook her head. No, not destiny. What whimsical tripe.

  She wasn’t here to court fate…only fantasy.

  It took two tries to swallow her nerves before she picked up her skirts, stepped over the threshold, and lost her breath to a marvel.

  For a moment, she wondered if she had, indeed, been snatched by the Fae.

  The gardens at Miss Henrietta’s School for Cultured Young Ladies might have been a fairy patch. Strings of beads and ribbon flowed from curious shaped hedges and foreign willows with lush, wilting limbs. They glimmered and sparkled in the dim lamplight along lustrous cobbles, illuminating paths to dark places.