that because of your punishing schedule, you’re woefully undernourished. Beyond that, you barely sleep.”
She’d noted that in the past week his skin had gained a bit more color, and his cheeks filled from rather gaunt to merely sharp. He’d been eating better, but the smudges beneath his eyes remained, and the lines of constant strain, of ever-readiness, still etched into the chiseled handsomeness of his features.
His utensils stilled in his pasta and he stared down at the food with a queer little smile that vanished as quickly as it appeared. “I’ve heard officers complain for years about their wives nagging them to stay home more often. To take better care of their health.”
She bristled a little until he graced her with a look so tender, she might have melted into a puddle beneath her chair.
“I always envied them.” The glint in his eye dazzled her more than the sunlight fragmenting off the spray from the little garden fountain. Their round table was large enough to hold their meals, but only just, and it precipitated them sitting in such a way that their knees often brushed. An embarrassment of hyacinth, calendulas, and lilac blossoms cosseted them from the din of diners inside, creating a lavish, intimate oasis of their own in the middle of the world’s largest city.
“Well, Lady Morley,” he said around a circumspect bite of bread. “My lack of slumber is entirely your fault. Before you tempted me to your bed at all hours, I’ll have you know I managed quite well to wedge sleep into my schedule.”
“I suppose I shall lock you out of my bedchamber, then,” she sighed as if it were a great shame. “If only because I care for your health.”
He nudged her knee in challenge. “Don’t you dare.”
She laughed flirtatiously before a note of uncertainty pricked at her. “I know you live two very important lives but…would you possibly consider…devoting a few nights to staying at home?” she ventured.
You could sleep with me, she didn’t say. Because he hadn’t yet. He would leave her in the night, beholden to his self-proclaimed duties as the Knight of Shadows. Upon his return, he’d sleep in the room down the hall from her. Her breath trembled in her throat enough that she had to tug on the high neck of her gown. “I know I don’t have the right to make undue demands, but once the baby comes—”
“Say no more.” He reached over and caught at the hand still fluttering at her chest, caressing a gentle thumb over her knuckles. “I’ve been thinking the very same—”
“Mi scusi, Signore Morley, mi scusi!” The proprietor, Francesco, weighted down by a magnificent mustache, a round belly, and a Sunday newspaper labored over to their table. "Il giornale! Il giornale! È così brutto quello che dice! Non ci credo!" He turned to her. “I do not believe.”
A dawning frown overtook all semblance of her husband’s good humor as he snatched the paper from the restaurateur and scanned it. Storms gathered in his eyes and thunder in his expression as he crushed it in his fist.
“Thank you, Francesco,” he said, his teeth never separating as his lip curled into a silent snarl.
“Of course…” The man shot her a look of pity and scurried inside, not wanting to witness Pru’s reaction to what she knew was going to happen. She wished she could follow him. Her heart became like a sparrow in a cage, flittering around her ribs as though searching for escape.
They’d drawn upon the luxury of luck for far too long. Eventually, the story would have to break. The truth was always going to come out, and with it a few lies as well, to flavor the story with delicious scandal.
She wanted to read it, but her eyes refused to focus. Not only did she blink back the threat of overwhelming tears, but also a creeping darkness at her periphery. She felt as though she’d been the victim of a blow to the head, and couldn’t seem to shake the accompanying disorientation.
She caught the unmistakable word in the title of the article.
MURDER.
“What? What do they say? Do they think I—”
“It’ll be all right,” he soothed, instinctively tucking the paper behind him.
“Tell me what they wrote,” she implored him.
He hesitated for a moment, before exhaling defeat. “It’s been released to the press that Sutherland was stabbed and that you were in the room with him. The article mentions his past…infidelities and your possible reaction to them.”