“As sure as we are that you’ve nothing to do with it,” Ash said. “And we’ve all the evidence you need to open up further investigation. However, since this man is your only superior, and you’ve no quiet way to investigate your own officers, I’d suggest the Knight of Shadows conduct the inquiry.”
The Knight of Shadows. Did he want to be the sort of man who policed his own?
Was he truly so ignorant about what the Commissioner might be doing behind his back?
Morley stared at the three men who stood in front of his desk. Three men who’d once been three boys beaten down by the very laws that were supposed to protect them. They’d forged a bond together as teens in Newgate Prison that nothing on this earth could pull asunder.
Morley’s own path had taken him on an entirely different road. A road that became a line between them. A line as tangible as the desk behind which he stood.
Alone.
They’d always stand together, those three. And no matter how much they trusted him, Morley never saw the insides of those prison walls and would thereby forever stay on the outside of their coterie.
On the other side of the line.
He’d been fine with that because his life had become one of order and regimentation where theirs were chaos and anarchy.
Cutter had followed the laws of the streets once.
But Carlton could not. He didn’t exist without boundaries. He wanted the boundaries drawn in no uncertain terms so he could see exactly which parameters he was supposed to work within. He was a man forged in the meat grinder of war and then polished by the police force.
Except lately, the lines had been blurred by the Knight of Shadows. And he’d leapt over one particular line so far, he couldn’t see it anymore.
And the consequences were about to be cataclysmic.
He lowered himself into his high-backed leather chair. The legs of which no longer felt so dense and steady. As if he could topple from his throne at any time. “I hear what you’re saying, and I agree that this demands further investigation. But…there is a complication in regards to me.”
“Do tell.” Dorian’s eye sharpened, and he was instantly rapt. “You are a famously uncomplicated man.”
Morley let that go for now. “I’ve become a bit…” He cast about for the right word. Embroiled? Consumed? Obsessed? Entangled? “Involved with Commissioner Goode’s daughter.”
Argent perked to that. “Which one? Doesn’t he have several?”
Morley swallowed, knowing that once this was out in the open, he could never take it back. It would be painful to endure their reactions, but possibly worth it if they could help him see through his pall to a course of action.
“The one whose wedding was interrupted by a murder,” he muttered.
“Swift work, Morley,” Ash exclaimed. “That was only what, three minutes ago?”
“Hours—”
Ash didn’t appear to listen. “She’s not technically a widow, so you don’t have to wait the requisite year—”
Morley interjected. “No, you idiot, it was before today. Three months before.”
Dorian gave an exaggerated gasp and clutched at his lapels, adopting an overwrought conservative, blustery affect. “An affair, Morley? A Chief Inspector and a knight of the realm. How utterly reprehensible.”
“Morally derelict, I dare say,” Ash added with a lopsided grin.
“Quite right,” Dorian thumped him. “What will they think at church?”
Morley didn’t even have it in him to rise to their japes as he buried his head in his hands. “It’s worse than that, I’m afraid. I’ve locked her in one of the cells downstairs.”
A protracted silence caused him to look up, but he didn’t find the astonishment he’d expected.
In fact, these hard men with terrible reputations seemed to be fighting back almost proud smiles. “If I’m honest, Morley, a bit of kidnapping is no insurmountable impediment,” Ash shrugged. “Show us a man in this room who hasn’t had to lock his lady-love in some form of prison before she’d consent to be his wife.”
“It was a Scottish castle for me,” Dorian said with no little nostalgia.
“I’ll see your Scottish tower, and raise you a pirate ship,” Ash bragged.
“Closet,” the monosyllabic Argent added.
Each of them shared a chuckle and, not for the first time, Morley was hit by a wave of sympathy for their wives.
“What happened?” Ash asked Morley, after wiping his smile from his lips with the back of his hand.
Morley pressed two fingers to each temple and worked in circles. He was about to regret this, but he needed to confess. To purge the sin