A Dark and Stormy Knight

by Byrne, Kerrigan

  It might be the only appetizing aroma she’d encountered for weeks.

  Belatedly, she looked around the room and noticed something amiss. The paper on the walls was decidedly feminine, little forget-me-nots wrapped in ribbons. There was no view on this side of the house, and the space was decidedly smaller than her chamber at the end of the hall.

  Her sound of wonderment snagged the air as the robe slipped from her fingers back to the chair.

  He’d surrendered the master suite to her. The room with the best view, the largest bed, and the most comfortable furnishings.

  An awfully considerate gesture, for a man who couldn’t bring himself to share a meal with her, let alone a conversation.

  It first occurred to her to offer the gesture back to him. To tell him she didn’t want it, that she’d take the smaller room so he could once again enjoy his own accommodations.

  If he’d only come home.

  She’d have to figure out how to offer without him finding out she’d snooped.

  Heaving a morose sigh, Pru left and locked his room, burning with curiosity about the next door. She fumbled with the key twice before opening it, and when she finally managed, she stood in the doorway for several moments while tears stung behind her eyes.

  The room was in disarray. A lovely chaos. The entrails of packing crates were strewn about their treasures as if the unpacking had been interrupted.

  This was what her husband had been wrestling with the past few nights.

  Floating inside, Prudence touched each one as if it were made of the most fragile glass.

  A wicker cradle. An expensive-looking perambulator. Delicate furniture ready to store tiny things. Soft blankets and cushions. Cunning toys.

  Her breath hitched as she stopped in front of a fine-crafted rocking chair. The piece, itself, was lovely but what had her transfixed was the simple little doll placed just so on the velvet cushion.

  Pru couldn’t say why she used infinite care to retrieve it. The doll was neither fragile nor costly. The body little more than soft fabric stuffed with batting and covered in a white eyelet lace dress. The round head fit in the palm of her hand, the face painted somewhat catawampus, and the hair comprised of soft strings of lose gold yarn tied with blue ribbons.

  No, the doll wasn’t at all extraordinary.

  But the thought of the man she’d married. The intense, mercurial knight selecting it for this room… now that was… that was…rather a marvelous image.

  Smoothing her fingers through the strings of yarn she wondered, what if their child bore his golden locks? Or the impossible silver-blue of his eyes?

  Little butterflies erupted in her belly, this time not at all precipitating sickness. This person they’d created… would sleep here, God willing. Would fill this house with commotion, and maybe a little cheer.

  Lord knew they all needed an injection of that.

  As Prudence spun in a circle for a moment, taking in the soft butter yellows, muted pinks, and periwinkles of the room, some of the weight pressing upon her fell away. Morley might not be ready to be any kind of husband, but he was preparing to be a father.

  And, it seemed to her, relishing the venture.

  But, why lock this room away from her?

  A dark thought landed in her stomach, crushing the butterflies beneath a stone. What if he meant to raise this child without her? What if—

  A ruckus interrupted the stillness of the house. Doors shutting, heavy footsteps on the wood floors downstairs. The scurry from elsewhere as Lucy and Bart rushed to attention.

  Of all the days for her husband to come home before tea!

  Prudence abandoned the doll to its perch and flew out of the room, locking it behind her. She raced down the first flight of stairs, but it became instantly obvious that she wouldn’t have time to return any of the keys. Masculine voices filtered closer to the base of the stairwell.

  “Bloody traffic,” Morley’s growl echoed up to the second floor. “Has the Earl of Northwalk arrived yet?”

  “Not yet, sir,” Bart replied.

  “Good. Bastard is just as insufferably punctual as I am, which means I have to make a point of being early.”

  Pru suppressed a little flutter of panic. An Earl? Coming here? Now?

  Northwalk, the title itched at her memory. Something so familiar and yet, she was certain they ran in higher circles than her family.

  “I finally abandoned my coach to jog here. The rain soaked through my jacket. If I’ve time, I’ll go upstairs for another.”

  Panicking, Prudence shoved the keys behind a potted plant beneath a window, and did her very best to affect a glide as she descended the final stairs to the main floor, hoping to cut him off.

  Conversation seized as both men looked up at her appearance.

  Pru faltered halfway down.

  Why did he have to be so unspeakably handsome?

  Why did he have to be so categorically inaccessible?

  A week’s time had almost blunted the reality of his imposing, vital allure in her memory. She’d almost forgotten the very sight of him threatened to steal every breath from her lungs and every thought from her head.

  Her husband’s gaze swept over her. An arrested expression tightened the casual one he’d been wearing for Bart, his eyes flaring with something intense and ephemeral.

  Before she had cause to hope, his features shuttered with the immediacy of a shop locking down for a long absence.

  Bart had only just taken his employer’s hat and coat, draping the later damp garment over his arm. He turned and bowed to her low enough to show the round bald spot on his pate. “My lady,” he addressed her diffidently.

  “Good afternoon.” She shook herself from her thrall and summoned what she hoped was a convincing smile. “I’d no idea it’d begun to rai—”

  He’d already swept through to the corridor to hang his master’s things, apparently feeling no great need to await her reply.

  Pru battled with an acute misery that warred for sovereignty with shame. She was such an unwanted stranger here. This didn’t feel like her house.

  Nor did it feel like her life.

  And the man at the foot of the stairs wore more of a mask now than he ever did as the Knight of Shadows.

  He just looked at her with those alert, assessing eyes. She’d begun to feel that even his silence was an investigative technique. A weapon he used against her.

  An effective weapon, at that.

  Because she felt wounded. Bruised.

  But then, everything about him was weaponized. The smooth, composed movements of his powerful limbs, hinting at a controlled brutality. The precisely cut layers of his hair, the perfectly pressed creases of his suit, and the carefully manicured elegance of his hands.

  Hands that could manipulate just as much pain as pleasure from a person.

  There were men who radiated menace, danger, or violence. But her husband hid all that and reserves of so much more behind the cool, placid lake of his façade.

  He was the danger you never saw coming until it was too late.

  “You’re…home,” she observed, cringing at the daft bloody obviousness of her statement.

  He addressed her with a curt nod, his eyes breaking away from her for the first time, allowing her to breathe. “I was just informing Bart I’ve a meeting best conducted here rather than the office.”

  “An Earl, I heard.”

  His mouth twisted ruefully. “A courtesy title, but yes.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” She hoped she didn’t sound as pathetically eager as she felt.

  “Not especial—” he looked sharply toward the door and cursed under his breath, his expression turning pained.

  Pru hurried down the remainder of the stairs. “What is it?”

  “He didn’t come alone.” Agitated, he took three steps away from her and thrust his fingers through his hair, smoothing it back. “I’m in no bloody mood.”

  “Did he bring his solicitor?” Pru
guessed, wondering if he meant to interrogate the man without one.

  “Worse.” A beleaguered breath hissed out of his throat. “He brought his wife.”

  Pru brightened at the prospect of female company. She was acquainted with very few Countesses and even if the woman were difficult, she likely couldn’t hold a candle to Prudence’s own mother.

  “I’m quite finished,” she declared. “I can entertain the Countess while you conduct your interview.”

  A frown pinched his brow. “Finished with what?”

  “No,” she laughed. “I’ve attended finishing school with excellent marks. I know how to receive someone of her station.”

  “Oh.” Surprisingly, his frown deepened. “Well that will be of little consequence to Farah.”

  An instinctive little needle of discomfort pricked her. Farah? Not Lady Northwalk?

  The bell chimed and Bart materialized from behind them to answer.

  Her husband faced the door with the grim determination a battle general might face an onslaught of marauders. “I suppose it would be cruel not to tell you that Farah used to work as a clerk at Scotland Yard. I’ve known her for nigh on a decade.”

  “Why would it be cruel to—?”

  “Because Blackwell is certain to mention that I asked her to be my wife.”

  Chapter 11

  “Carlton Morley, you unforgivable rogue!” An angelic beauty with a coronet of silver-blond ringlets swept into their grand entry in an energetic flounce of mauve silk. “When Dorian told me you’d taken a wife, and under which circumstances, I nearly collapsed.”

  Pru stood blinking at the uncommonly lovely woman in open-mouthed dismay as Morley stepped forward to receive her light kiss on the cheek.

  They knew the circumstances of their marriage? All of them?

  Even Miss Henrietta’s garden?

  “You forget I know better,” Morley replied in a voice infused with a charm he’d never bothered to apply with Pru. “You’ve never fainted in your life.”

  The appearance of Farah’s husband had Prudence forcing herself to unclench her fists. She’d have to accept his hand, and it wouldn’t do to have her palms bleeding from where her nails had dug.

  “This is my…wife, Prudence Good- er Morley.” He said the word wife as if it tasted strange in his mouth. “Prudence, might I introduce Lady Farah Blackwell, Countess Northwalk, and her husband, Dorian, the Earl.”

  “Technically my son is the Earl,” Blackwell said. “I’ve titles enough, and I actually earned all of them.”

  Of course! Prudence recognized him now. This was Dorian Blackwell, the Blackheart of Ben More. Who could care to be an Earl when you were once the King of the London Underworld?

  The man was monstrous large and dark as a fiend. Despite the eyepatch, his gaze was keen and rapt, as he assessed her with undue intensity.

  Pru thought she saw something like a comprehending approval in his smirk.

  “Lady Morley,” Dorian Blackwell greeted as if he’d never before thought to utter those words together. He bent over her knuckles and pressed a kiss to the air above them, never touching the skin. “It’s been the cause of much speculation between Farah and me as to what prompted Morley to so hastily take a wife.” In an inappropriate show of public affection, he straightened to put his arm around his Countess, and rested his hand low on her waist just above her bustle as if it belonged there. “I think the mystery has been solved, my love.”

  Farah turned her saintly smile upon Prudence. “You’re a beautiful woman on any day, Lady Morley, but in that lilac gown you’re a vision. Utterly glowing with maternal beauty.”

  Glowing? Surely not. She’d been losing weight because of her inability to digest food. She was pale, wan, and her eyes sunken with dark circles beneath. She felt more like a shade than an actual person.

  They were being kind, of course.

  She had to pinch herself to stop gawking like an open-mouthed carp. “I-I thank you, my lady, my lord. What an honor to greet you both.”

  An honor, and a horror.

  The Blackwells were a sight unto themselves. He, dark as a demon with a demonic air of handsome ferocity, and she his unfettered radiant counterpart. It was plain as day Dorian Blackwell adored his wife.

  The question was, did Farah return his affections? Or did she still covet Morley?

  How could she not? Blackwell was a compelling man, if not specifically handsome, and he’d an air of vital masculinity few possessed, however he was a shadow in Morley’s golden presence.

  At least where Pru was concerned.

  She looked to Morley, who wore an expression of one in a dentist’s lobby awaiting a particularly unpleasant procedure.

  The question was what? Did he not want the woman who owned his heart to meet the woman who now lay claim to his name?

  The very thought was like a punch to the ribs, taking the wind from her lungs as well as her sails.

  She didn’t know which would have been crueler, for him to tell her or not… she might have been tempted to like the Countess had she not known her husband had once desired her.

  That he’d wished to share a home and children with her.

  Had they kissed, she wondered.

  Prudence had kissed a few men in her two seasons out, enough to know that kissing Morley was an experience that eclipsed all else.

  “Carlton, allow me to purloin your wife whilst you and Dorian conduct your affairs. I’m dying to know her.”

  Carlton? Even Pru, herself, wasn’t on such intimate terms with him. Moreover, every time she tried to pin the name upon him in her mind, it refused to stick.

  “Lady Morley?” Farah Blackwell didn’t wait for her husband’s reply. “Let’s retire to your preferred rooms.”

  “O-of course. This way, Lady Northwalk.” She gestured toward the stairs to her second-floor parlor.

  “You’ll call me Farah, of course, all my friends do.”

  They weren’t friends, but Prudence nodded as she turned to lead the Countess away. She moved as if quicksand sucked at her feet, a sense of doom washing over her as she climbed the staircase. This woman in her wake, would she be cruel or kind once they were alone?

  Farah Blackwell knew who she was, and the circumstances of her marriage.

  Did that mean her husband truly trusted these people? Or that their secret was already out and they were trying to control the damage?

  Either way, brittle though she felt, she was determined to face this woman with dignity and aplomb befitting the Queen of England, let alone a knight’s bride.

  Farah couldn’t have astonished her more the moment the parlor door had shut behind them. She turned and swept her up into a desperate, but gentle embrace and held her there.

  “Oh, you poor dear, what a nightmare you’ve been through. When Dorian told me the extent of the situation, I haven’t been able to sleep but for worrying over you.” She pulled back for a moment just to look at her. “I hope you don’t mind the intrusion of a stranger, but I just had to see for myself if you are all right. Knowing Carlton, he’s bungled the entire thing, stashed you here, and thrown himself into his work.”

  Pru swallowed a lump of alternating emotions. Gratitude and jealously. “You certainly know my husband well.”

  A wry smile brought dimples to the woman’s cheeks as Farah pulled her over by the rain-streaked window. “I see you are aware of our former attachment,” she said, her grey eyes soft with understanding. “Then you must know how short and dispassionate it was. And how very long ago. I mean, my lands, I was still in my twenties.” She waved it all away. “Ancient history all but forgotten.”

  Pru wasn’t certain what to say. She was tormented by the memories of her husband’s very physical all-consuming passion. Was Farah being kind again? Or dishonest?

  Or had they truly not suited?

  “It’s nothing, my lady, should I ring for some tea?”

  “I’d rather you sit. I’m not certain how long we’ll be staying, and I hav
e a rather lot to say.”

  Carefully, Pru perched across from her on the emerald settee and gestured for her to go on.

  Farah’s manner was soft and somber as she leaned forward to say, “I worked as a clerk at Scotland Yard for a handful of years. I have known every sort of criminal, and my share of murderers, and I am convinced you are not one.”

  Pru let out a shaky breath. “How can you be so convinced?”

  “Well it makes no sense, does it? A woman in your condition doing away with the one man who can provide her the protection of his name on her wedding day. Found with the dagger in her hands and no story of defense?” Farah tutted and shook her head. “Furthermore, I’ve lived with a man whose life was ruined when he was wrongfully accused. There’s a very singular helpless fury in that. I sense it torments you, as well.”

  “I wish you’d convince my—” Prudence caught herself in time. “Well, everyone else.”

  Farah gave a short chuckle “They’re men, darling. Adorable idiots to the last. I’m sorry to say but your methodical husband will take incontrovertible proof to convince him, but it seems to me that he’s intent upon finding it.”

  Was he?

  “Listen.” Farah gathered up her hands. “I know you’ll feel isolated in the coming months, and that I cannot abide. I want you to call upon me for support in regard to all things. Be it men, marriage, motherhood… or Morley. I worked for the man for years, I am aware of his faults and flaws as well as his heroic qualities, of which there are many. I’ve birthed two lovely, healthy children of my own and I’ve been through—well, not what you are—but enough that I feel I can be sympathetic to your plight.”

  Pru didn’t know what to say, or even how to feel. It was all too wonderful. Too wonderful to be true?

  “How…incredibly kind of you.”

  “Also, I hope you don’t find me too forward, but I’ve secured you an appointment with my doctor who specializes in the care of expecting mothers. He’s the absolute best in his field, and he works closely with a local midwife, where they both tend to you and rely on each other’s expertise. I’d never trust my feminine health to anyone else. All of my nearest and dearest friends are patients.”