all prone to bragging. I want to hear everything.”
Despite his protestations, she was inundated by his praise. Did she know he’d shot a man threatening his own mother at greater than fifty paces? He’d not only nabbed the thief of the Wordston Emerald, but recovered the gem and returned it to his owner. He heroically pulled fourteen men out of the rubble when the Fenians bombed the Yard some years ago. If they were to be believed, he’d had single-handedly reformed the Blackheart of Ben More.
“All right, that’s quite enough out of you lot!” Morley shouldered past his men to widen the door in a not-so-subtle invitation to leave. His skin darkened to crimson at the collar and the color began to creep into his cheeks. “Lady Morley was just departing. She needs her rest.”
Never had she seen such a crowd deflate so rapidly.
“You’ll visit us again?” Dunleavy asked.
“Of course.”
“Can’t believe you kept ‘er such a mystery, Chief Inspector. Next, you’ll be telling us you ‘ave an entire brood we’ve never met.”
“Not yet.” Unable to contain her smile, Pru placed a hand on her stomach as it still maintained the illusion of slender beneath her corset. “But I’ve been to see the doctor today, and he’s confident that before spring…”
The men gasped and crowed, chuffed, and chuckled with enough enthusiasm to do any cadre of grandmothers proud. They took her hands and kissed them, and many of them moved to give Morley a grand slap on the back or an energetic handshake in congratulations of his virility.
Prudence couldn’t remember the last time she’d enjoyed herself so thoroughly. There were words one didn’t say in the aristocracy. Things one didn’t even express. Babies were announced on paper and then hinted at as a “happy event” or “new addition” until the woman went into confinement. Isolated as if her pregnancy was a shame.
But not so here. She was celebrated. And so was the father-to-be.
She looked over at him, suddenly overwhelmed with something that very much felt like joy.
His thunderous expression had morphed to more thunderstruck than anything. As if he’d stepped into some world adjacent to the one in which he usually resided, and couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. He accepted the shakes and slaps and hearty compliments, looking around uncomfortably as if he didn’t know where to put them.
One thing became instantly, and heartbreakingly clear to Pru. Her husband’s subordinates didn’t just venerate and admire him…
They loved him.
Because he was a good man and a great leader. Someone who not just commanded respect but deserved it. He put wrong things right every day. He took care of so many details at home, she was certain he was just as thorough in his business, if not more so. No task was too menial or too difficult. He did what must be done without compunction or even complaint.
Prudence knew enough about the world of men to realize that was a very extraordinary thing.
A virtue to respect. A man to venerate.
He shredded his own soul and sacrificed his own health and happiness for countless Londoners who would never even know to whom they should be grateful.
How many women had the honor of sharing the life of a great man? A man who would leave his mark on the world and not have to sing his own praises because others did so. How many could claim to be honored to walk next to her husband?
To share a child with him.
She had to blink away a misting of emotion as the wonderment flowed through her.
Morley’s forehead furrowed in concern as he caught her overwrought expression and was at her side in a moment, gripping her elbow to support her. “I’ll walk you out,” he murmured before addressing the room at large. “And I don’t want to see anyone on this floor. You’re either on the streets hard at work, or on your way home for the evening, is that clear?”
The men hopped to obey him, but not without jibes and whispers and merriment.
Morley pulled her off to the left toward the door to the back stairs. “I am your husband,” he hissed.
“Yes…” was her slow reply. “That’s been quite established.”
He turned her to face him. “You mustn’t keep important things like this from me.”
Her eyes worked from side to side, searching for his meaning. “Like…like what?”
“You went to the bloody doctor, Prudence,” he said in an exasperated whisper, drawing her through a hidden door and into an alcove full of dusty boxes. “I should