Page 74 of The Duke
The congregation gaped at him in slack-jawed silence for a full minute. The only sound that of the maid’s quiet sobs. Whether it was shock at whatever had caused the scream, or that of finding a half-naked duke in the servants’ hall, it was anyone’s guess.
“Dammit, someone speak up,” he ordered, sweeping closer.
Cook, a thin woman, despite the elegant richness of her fare, noticed Imogen and put up a hand. “No, my lady, don’t come any closer!” she warned. “You’ll not want to see this.”
Trenwyth shouldered past them, paying no heed to his wound. Imogen skirted him, noting the way his lips thinned and skin tightened.
“What?” she queried anxiously. “What is it?”
“Imogen, don’t—” he began, throwing an arm out to catch her.
But he was too late. She glimpsed what was perhaps the most gruesome thing she’d seen that day.
There, on the stoop, neck wrapped with the ghastly familiar neckerchief—the one she’d stained with blood when she’d stabbed Mr. Barton—was the body of a tiny, strangled kitten.
CHAPTERNINETEEN
Sir Carlton Morley stood at the head of neat rows of dead bodies in the morgue like the professor of a particularly macabre classroom. Hands clasped just a little too tightly behind him. Eyes narrowed in deep, almost painful consideration.
Today, London was a city of tears.
Twenty people had been killed in the iron strikes, one of his own constables among them. Dozens of injured overwhelmed area doctors and hospitals. And then… there was the inevitable chaos that accompanied a citywide incident of this magnitude. Looters and thieves took advantage of an absent police force in other parts of the city. Women had been assaulted. Offices and shops overrun.
Five of these bodies—some laid out on discarded wood pallets as they’d run out of tables—were victims of the Duke of Trenwyth’s considerable wrath.
And who could blame him?
Lady Anstruther’s property had been invaded, and Trenwyth had seen fit to take justice into his own hands. There’d been no one else. It was time to face the facts; Scotland Yard was miserably inundated and underfunded.
Something more had to be done. Something drastic and effective. Perhaps it was time to stop trusting in the infinitely slow-turning cogs of the justice system.
His nose twitched at the mingling odors of astringent, preservatives, gas lamps, and so much death. Above this room, the clamor of loved ones waiting to identify their dead, of constables and coppers doing their best to keep the peace, and sundry other souls in need of justice awaited his appearance.
It wasn’t that he hid down here, in this concrete purgatory where the dead only spent a short time, he’d merely come here to think. He’d come here to plan. Often, the departed made better company than the living. They were certainly quieter.
Morley checked his watch, and surveyed the dead with a demeanor anyone would have identified as dispassionate.
Little did they know.
As a soldier, he had created a comparable number of corpses with his own rifle. Each felled with a vital shot. The lungs, the brain, or the heart were all organs of affect that, once pierced, became utterly useless. Both literally and figuratively.
His heart had been broken too many times to count, and there were times he feared it ceased to beat. But his lungs and body were strong. His mind sharp. And those could be used in tandem to make a most effective weapon. A weapon that could be wielded in times like this, against men who incited violence. Against those who oppressed the people. And anyone who would prey upon the innocent.
Something had to be done…
What he needed was a strategy. What heneededwas an army.
Morley didn’t have to look back as the men he’d been expecting filtered through the door one by one. He identified them each by their stride, by their particular scents, and by the indefinable energy he’d trained himself to recognize. As a child, he’d learned to read people, to see things that no one else saw, to observe a shift in nature, expression, or intent. As a man, he’d used that skill to be aware of those in his immediate vicinity, as he observed the rest of the world at a distance over the barrel of a long-range rifle.
Trenwyth entered first, as he was used to doing so by nature of his rank. His long stride remained unmatched by any man Morley had yet to meet, though he prowled with the light step of a spy. The duke was a particularly lethal combination of paradoxes. Patient and volatile. Principled and vicious. A nobleman, but by no means a gentleman.
To Morley, he was a wolf. The feral ancestor of man’s closest companion. A creature that often seemed most approachable, trustworthy even, but who would think nothing of ripping your throat out for the sheer pleasure of it.
As evidenced by the corpses they’d retrieved from the Anstruther mansion.
Dorian Blackwell followed Trenwyth, his expensive shoes producing an arrogant staccato on the spare floor. He was a man who hid from no one. His power evident. His name legendary. He could meld with the shadows, when necessary, but his style had always been rather elaborate. He was a man who understood both the physical and psychological benefits of warfare and terror, and had used them to his distinct advantage his entire life.
To Morley, he was a panther. Ebony-haired and black-eyed, ruling from his lofty perch, from which he only descended when the prey was ripe enough to strike his fancy.
