“Unless Sutherland found out and threatened to destroy her with the secret,” Morley theorized.
“Cutter,” Ash said the name written on no documents and spoken by no one in the world but the unlucky few who’d known him decades ago.
Their eyes met, and suddenly Ash wasn’t a pirate king, or the Rook, but that black-eyed boy. The one with whom he roamed the streets and threw fists and stole food and created impossible futures.
“Congratulations, Cutter.” Ash’s lips lifted into the ghost of a smile, his dark eyes softening to something almost tender. “You’re going to be a father.”
The weight of that word knocked the wind from him. A father. He’d given up that dream years ago.
“What are you going to do about it?” Dorian, the besotted father of two children gave him perhaps the first look of commiseration he’d ever received from the man.
Morley stood and shouldered past them all, retrieving his jacket from where he’d hung it on the rack. “My job.”
Chapter 7
“I didn’t kill him.”
It was the first thing the woman said when Morley descended the stairs to the private interrogation cell in the basement of Number Four Whitehall Place with a bucket of warm water and stringent soap.
Prudence. Her name was Prudence Goode. He knew that now.
This chamber had, decades past, been used for little better than inquisition-like torture. Though the walls had been cleaned and scrubbed by a million different char maids, Morley could still smell the blood. It hung like condemnation in the air, flavoring it metallic and spicing it with mold and despair. He’d given Dorian the famous beating here. He’d used it to hide traitors for the Home Office and other high-profile criminals.
In the middle of the grey stone, she stood like a soiled white lily unlucky enough to adorn a battlefield.
Rumpled and bloodstained.
A tug in his chest had him clearing his throat. She was so sweet to look upon. So lovely and small and concerningly pale.
He’d thought he’d met enough conniving criminals, both men and women, to not be moved by seemingly innocent features. And yet, here he was, fighting the knight-errant inside him that desired to sweep her away from all of this and lock her in a tower where she would be safe.
Where she would be his.
“A clean frock has been sent for,” he told her, pulling a tri-legged stool from the corner to perch in front of the bench upon which she sat.
The manacles on her wrists weren’t secured to anything, she could have moved around easily. But she remained still, pressing her hands into her belly, as if holding on to what was inside.
A motherly gesture to be sure.
He sat close enough to watch her every expression intently, but far enough not to crowd her.
Far enough not to reach out, as he absurdly ached to do.
She’d been astonishingly fair-skinned the night they’d met. But today, even the slash of pink beneath her cheekbones had disappeared. Her lips retained no color. She seemed thinner now, less robust and vivacious.
This room did that to a person.
So did murder.
When she looked up, he made another astonishing discovery. He’d thought her eyes dark like Dorian’s or Ash’s, but he’d been mistaken.
They were the color of the sky before night descended. A deep, soulful midnight blue.
They widened at him, drenched with misery and fear.
“I didn’t kill him,” she repeated, her voice husky with unshed tears and the cold of this place.
Morley had made a profession of being lied to and could spot a crook with hound-like accuracy. It took him no time to suss out the merit of a man.
But women… What confounding creatures they were.
He read the truth on her open face. And it seemed so improbable. So unlikely.
That he now doubted his ability to interpret anything at all.
Morley set the bucket between them and remained quiet as he divested himself of his jacket and rolled his sleeves up his forearms. He placed a stool in front of her and crouched upon it. Next, he took the soaking cloth from the steaming water and scrubbed it with the sharp-smelling soap before reaching out, his palm up.
She stared at him for a long moment, the braid that had made a crown for her veil wilting dejectedly to one side. “Did you hear me?” she asked. “I said—”
“I heard you.” He kept his hand extended until she slowly peeled her arms from the protection of her middle toward him. The blood on her hands was no longer fresh, and some of