unreliable, lost in the miasma of misinformation that was the London press.
They all remembered a mask covering the upper quadrant of his face and the fact that he often wore a hat.
He wore many hats. Both figuratively and literally.
Morley sighed before admonishing Millie. “You of all people know better than to believe what you read in the papers. I don’t do half the good they credit me. Or, rather, this bollocks Knight of Shadows doesn’t.”
“The fact they’ve guessed you’re a knight means it is possibly getting dangerous out there for you,” Argent warned.
“I think the title is a coincidence.” Millie waved a dismissive hand. “With that mask on, he could be anyone. The public has merely distinguished him by merit of his service on their behalf. Though everyone’s dying to know. I saw an advert for him in the lonely-hearts column just yesterday.” She turned to Morley, pursing her lips playfully. “If you’re interested, a Miss Matilda Westernra is just nineteen and wants you to know you’ve touched her virtuous heart. I dare say stolen it.”
“That’s disgusting, I’m twice her age.” Morley shifted in his seat. “Besides, I’ve no interest in touching or stealing hearts, lonely or otherwise.”
“If you don’t wish to touch her heart, I’d wager she’d let you touch her—”
Millie scowled at her husband. “Christopher, if you finish that sentence, so help me.”
“What? I was going to say virtue.”
“Like hell you were.”
Morley realized it spoke to the esteem in which Argent held him that he was allowed such an unfettered view into the man’s personal life. Even though Argent worked for Morley, only a fool would consider himself Argent’s boss.
And Morley was no fool.
Except, it seemed, when it came to women.
“Knight of Shadows.” Argent grunted in a manner a kind man might have called a laugh.
A fit of hysterics for the terse giant.
“Sod off,” Morley muttered, as their carriage pulled alongside Holy Trinity Cathedral, and the footman opened the door.
Five years hence, if anyone had told Morley he’d be sharing a carriage with Christopher Argent, the Blackheart of Ben More’s former right-hand assassin, he’d have laughed at them.
Or punched them.
But here they were, climbing the stairs on a perfectly good workday to attend a rather mandatory society wedding.
“How’d you get roped into this?” Morley queried out of the side of his mouth. “I wasn’t aware you knew the couple.”
“I don’t,” Argent said, looking around rather mystified. “Millie had me try on a new frock coat she’d had made for me, and suddenly I had some place to wear it.”
Morley chuckled at that, but then Argent shrugged. “Actually, I think…she knows the bride, Prudence Goode, through her sisters who volunteer at the Duchess of Trenwyth’s Ladies’ Aid Society.” Argent lifted his chin to the door where the father of the bride stood to shake hands. “When Millie realized their father was your immediate superior, and therefore mine, she said we both had a reason to attend.”
Morley and Argent shared a look of chagrin. The second daughter of Commissioner Clarence Goode, Baron of Cresthaven, was marrying some Earl from somewhere, and if Morley was absent from the festivities, as he longed to be, he’d hear no end of it. Attendance was expected of him. And Carlton Morley always did what was expected.
So that his sins were never suspected.
As he mounted the stairs to the chapel, a raven cackled from where it clung to the stone banister, taunting him and twitching its wings.
A raven on a wedding day. Wasn’t there some wives’ tale about ravens being harbingers of death or doom or some such? He paused, staring at it intently, transfixed by the brilliance of its feathers. Brilliant, he thought, because while the bird was black, it reflected the entire spectrum in the sun with a glossy iridescence.
Just like her hair had done when the lamplight had shone through the water…
He shook his head, trying to dislodge the thought.
Most of the time he was glad he didn’t know her name. Because then she’d become too real. He couldn’t shrug that night off as some fantastical dream that’d happened to someone else.
Other times, he longed for her to be something other than a pronoun.
Her.
Blinking, he turned from the blasted creature, taking the stairs two at a time to catch up to his compatriots.
He had to stop this lunacy. To cease searching for her in every slim, raven-haired woman of passable good looks he saw on the streets. Or the park. Or Scotland Yard. Or in a bloody church.