Page 75 of The Duke
Christopher Argent made no noise as he followed his former employer into the domain of his current one. Like Trenwyth, he stepped with the economy of movement needed to avoid detection, though Morley always noted his presence as a rather sinister black void. To have his back turned to Argent felt a little like he imagined it would when death came to call. The kiss of a chill vibrating the hair on his body to attention the moment before the scythe fell.
To Morley, Argent was a viper. The red of his hair a warning that one strike would mean death. The cold, reptilian gaze, the deceptively relaxed coil of his muscle, and the shocking speed of his exotic combat training marked him a most efficient killer.
Liam Mackenzie, the last of their clandestine gathering, shut the door behind him, his heavy steps muffled by boots made of the softest stag hide. Warriors like him just didn’t exist in this age of elegance and industry. He possessed little to none of the shadowy grace and superlative wit of his companions. He spoke his mind, revealed his emotions, and ate the heart of any that dared oppose him, after he ripped it from their chests with his freakishly large bare hands. He was the descendant of the fierce Picts who became rebel Jacobites, his blood fortified with that of long-ago Viking invaders.
To Morley he was a bear of a man, the kind hunted to extinction on this island ages ago. A gentle beast to his family, but a ferocious, unstoppable alpha predator with a vengeful streak as long as Hadrian’s Wall.
These men were all brutally efficient predators. Most of them nocturnal in nature. And recently he’d joined their ranks. Or, rather, he was about to ask them to join his.
Morley wondered where he fit in this pantheon of predators. A bird of prey, perhaps. An eagle-eyed raptor who kept watch on his city from the rooftops, and used his unnaturally honed senses to swoop upon his prey with brisk efficiency. He was neither as large as Ravencroft, as skilled as Argent, as feared and connected as Blackwell, nor did he wield as much physical and social power as Trenwyth.
However, he had a little of all of these traits. And he possessed something he was convinced many of these men did not.
A conscience. Or, more aptly, a purpose. He’d once been one of the nameless, innumerable criminal siphons on the city, and now he’d been dubbed her protector.
Her guardian.
And he feared the job was too large for one man… as evidenced by the room packed to the rafters with the dead.
Dorian Blackwell spoke first, his cultured accent learned rather than bred, and suffused with sardonic darkness. “Let me be the first to say, Morley, that I vow none of this blood was spilled by me. I spent the day at Covent Garden with my wife and children, and can produce many witnesses.”
A pang pierced Morley at the mention of Farah Blackwell. The kind, lovely, capable woman who’d once worked as a clerk at Scotland Yard. In her quiet, gentle way, she’d stolen Morley’s heart five years prior.
And just as amiably, she’d broken it.
The years dulled the pain of her loss, but never quite erased it. Every time he saw his former nemesis with the fair-haired beauty on his arm, the wound opened anew. Their day at Covent Garden could have been his. Those children, his children, their little heads crowned with fair locks rather than dark ones.
Trenwyth stepped forward, pulling back one of the sheets providing the corpses what dignity they could. “I can’t say the same,” he said dryly. “I can claim a handful of these and each one deserved what they got and more.”
“You don’t have to fear any legal repercussions, Trenwyth, that’s not why I called you here.”
To his surprise, Trenwyth made a dry sound of mirth. “I am once removed from a royal duke, Chief Inspector, I could slaughter anyone I pleased in the middle of Westminster and leave their corpses in the street without fear of legal reprisal.”
Morley thought he heard someone mutter, “Lucky bastard,” but couldn’t identify whom. Probably Argent.
“Isna that precisely what ye did this evening?” Ravencroft helpfully pointed out.
Trenwyth sent the Highlander a dark smirk, rife with self-satisfaction. “So it is.”
Blackwell turned to Morley, assessing him with the eye not covered by a patch. “Not that it isn’t always a right pleasure to see you, Chief Inspector, but might I ask why you’ve convened this conclave of degenerates?”
“And in a morgue, no less,” Trenwyth added. “I assume you’re trying to make some kind of point?”
“What I’m trying to do is avoid public speculation,” Morley said dryly.
“Then you shouldn’t have assembled us all in one place,” Blackwell scoffed. “We are each of us identifiable. Either famous or infamous.”
“Quite,” Morley clipped, unimpressed. “It is not because of your notoriety that I gathered you. Each of you has a very specialized skill set. That, and a compelling reason to use them on behalf of someone who may be in need.”
“Speak plainly, Captain,” the Scottish laird ordered, using his former military rank rather than his current title. “I doona ken what yer getting at.”
“The lady Anstruther is in apparent danger.” Morley didn’t miss how Trenwyth’s glare turned from a cool copper to a blaze of hellfire at his words. “Because each of you shares with Lady Anstruther your more intimate connections—”
“Ye mean our women,” Ravencroft clarified. “Our wives.”
“Precisely,” Morley continued. “I’m requesting your assistance in apprehending the threat against her.”
“I’m in,” Argent said immediately, his cold blue eyes glinting arctic. “I don’t like the violence today at the house next to mine. Lady Anstruther is a favorite of my wife’s, and she’s been kind to my stepson. He paints with her sometimes in her garden. It would distress them both if harm were to come to her.”
