He’d done it because she’d possessed something few women did. An indefinable allure that made him forget anything resembling reason or thought of consequence.
He’d done it because he’d been hungry and desperate for so many things in his life, but no privation had torn at him with such strength until she’d offered herself as a banquet.
She flinched as though he slapped her, and he instantly regretted his harsh words. But he’d be damned if he’d take them back. If he’d allow her to think she had any kind of sexual thrall over him now. Or any power at all.
Because the precedent had to be set if this was going to work.
Morley remained silent. Waiting for her next move. He expected her to make demands. To use that night as blackmail and threaten to tell her father.
“I wanted so desperately to find you,” she murmured, as if in disbelief. “And here you were all this time, a charlatan charading as a gentleman.”
She didn’t know the half of it.
“A gentleman is nothing but a charade,” he said stiffly, returning to his vocation of scrubbing her hand.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The million rules a gentleman lives by, or ladies for that matter, it’s nothing but pretense, is it not? A construct to hide who we truly are. What we think. What we want. We are naught but artificial beasts.”
“No…” Her little nose scrunched as if he’d stymied her. “Our rules of civility separate us from the beasts.”
“Nonsense. The rules give us a pretty cage for our beasts to hide in. And let people like your lot put yourselves above the rest of humanity. It’s a way to identify who thinks they are made better than others by happenstance of birth and rigorous training.” He made a wry, bitter sound. “Well, any man can train himself. Just look at me.”
“What do you mean?” She finally pulled her hand out of his grasp, the soap making her clean skin slippery.
He meant to show her exactly who he was. Exactly what she was about to get herself into. “I come from nothing. Lower than nothing. That accent you say was a farce, it is the one I was born with. I used to speak like any other street rat out there, and high-born folk would kick me in the gutters.” He gestured to the wall, beyond which a bustling city scurried with unwanted children. “But I trained myself to act like them. To look and speak and dress like them. And now… I police them all. The entire city. And one of their own will be my wife.”
She put her hands to her eyes. “Tell me you are not engaged.”
He dropped the cloth into the bucket and stood. “Don’t be obtuse, I obviously meant you.”
“What? Absolutely not!”
An anger welled within him, one as ancient as he felt. The anger of every unwanted child. Every unrequited love. Every rejected, low-born git made to feel not good enough. “I don’t see that you have a choice,” he said in a slow, even tone. “If you’re pregnant with my child. I will raise that child, and that’s the end of it. In any case, it’s the best way of getting you out of this predicament.”
She sat on the cot with her hands in her lap, clenched and white-knuckled. “My father… he will never approve.”
“Oh, he will now.” Morley would make certain of it.
“But…” She held up the manacles surrounding her wrists.
“We’ll get to that,” Morley said darkly as he lifted the bucket of soiled water and stalked away from her.
One catastrophe at a time.
Chapter 8
Shackles came in many forms, Prudence decided. She was given a choice between two, and no matter which shackles she chose, they were until death.
They’d each left their marks on her body.
As she sat in her parlor—no, Morley’s parlor—her fingers idly traced the disappearing circles of irritation on her wrists where she’d been cuffed earlier and hauled into a private arraignment in front of a judge who’d lifted her confinement. He’d done this only after the Chief Inspector had promised a staggering amount of cash for her surety before he drove her to the registrar to trade her cuffs for a ring.
Despite everything, it had been Morley who’d looked as if he were bound for the gallows. He’d stiffly spoken their vows and signed paperwork before ushering her to his astonishingly handsome terrace in Mayfair.
Where Prudence’s family had been waiting.
Pru stared at the ring. The symbol of eternity. This day had been a bloody eternity.