Pru and she locked eyes with the man she’d desperately tried to please her entire life.
And she saw what broke her heart.
Doubt.
He might claim to believe her, but he didn’t in his heart.
“What am I going to tell your mother?”
He left before she could answer, taking the hand-wringing reverend with him.
And they were alone.
Pru looked down, locking her knees to keep from going to him. From prostrating herself in front of this stranger.
So much blood.
She’d been so proud of this dress. She’d loved it. And now… it was all she could do not to rip the blasted thing off and throw it in the fireplace.
They stared at each other for a silent eternity, and when she could bear it no longer, she took a step forward.
“Prudence Goode,” he stated blandly. “I’m arresting you under the suspicion of the murder of George Hamby-Forsyth, Earl of Sutherland.”
“It’s you. I know it’s you. I’ve been looking everywhere since that night—”
“I told you to leave him,” he said furiously, stabbing a finger at the body of her would-be husband. “I ordered you that night, and here you are.”
“I know.” Her miserable heart shriveled away from him.
“Did you do it?” he asked, his eyes snapping with constrained anger. “Did you kill him?”
“No! I just told you what happened. He was already—”
He held a hand up, turning half away as if he couldn’t stand to look at her before he gathered himself and faced her with a greater sense of calm.
“Tell me the truth,” he said with more restraint. “And this could be one more secret between us. Tell me now and I’ll do everything in my power to keep you from the gallows…”
Pru stared at him incredulously. He didn’t believe her. He truly didn’t think she was innocent. Her heart dropped like a stone. This man… this stranger who knew her more intimately than anyone in the world. This dream lover who’d treated her with more care than anyone in her life…
He thought she was a murderer.
“I won’t go to the gallows,” she said stoically. “I don’t need your help.”
“Like hell—”
“They won’t hang a woman in my condition.” Her hand went to her waist. This had been her secret. Not the murder.
His mouth opened soundlessly, and his fists curled shut as he stared at her for a multitude of shocked moments. “You’re…pregnant?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “And the child is yours.”
Chapter 6
Morley retreated to his office on the third floor of Scotland Yard and stared at nothing for the space of an entire hour. His mind churned almost as sickeningly as his stomach.
Disbelief warred with distrust over acres of despair within him. And within that bleak, vast landscape a tiny pinprick of light pierced him.
A child? His child?
Had he ever dared to hope for such a miracle?
Did he believe her…about any of it?
How often had he fantasized about finding her? This goddess he’d met in the night. How many times had he wondered if he’d passed beneath her window without even knowing?
And, once again, she’d exploded into his life.
Covered in blood. Quite probably a murderer. And carrying a baby…
Christ, could this situation get any worse?
A sound drew his attention to the door, and Morley looked up to see the most vicious, notorious pirate since Blackbeard saunter in with his hat tilted at a jaunty angle.
The man had come up with him in the East End as Dorian Blackwell, but a brush with death and a bout of amnesia had shucked the identity from him. Since they’d parted after Caroline’s death, he had been christened The Rook on his pirate ship, but had recently married and subsequently shucked his murderous moniker for a brand-new one. Ashton Weatherstoke, the erstwhile Earl of Southbourne.
Known to his friends simply as Ash.
“Can you believe that wedding?” Ash tugged at the collar he wore impossibly high to cover the scars left by the lye meant to dissolve his body in the mass grave he’d crawled out of twenty odd years ago.
Morley stood to shake his hand, grateful for a friendly face on this, the rottenest moment of his adult life. They’d come so far from their days as street rats together, but some things never changed, like the man’s impossible sardonic wit.
“I wasn’t aware you were invited,” Morley said. “I didn’t see you there.”
Ash smirked. “Oh, I was and declined the boring invitation, but it’s all over London in the space of three hours. An Earl falling over dead at his own wedding? Whispers of foul play? What a bloody debacle, eh, Cutter?”