Page 106 of The Duke With the Dragon Tattoo
It was exhausting, to say the least, reliving two entire decades in one day.
How incredibly strange that Cutter Morley, the boldest thief in the empire, had, because of the death of his sister, become one of the most powerful men in London. The chief inspector at Scotland Yard.
Ash still couldn’t fathom it.
“Why the name Carlton?” he queried, making a face. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for such a toff moniker.”
Morley shrugged, adopting a rather sheepish smile. “I knew I had to reinvent myself, but as a grief-stricken lad, I hadn’t exactly thought it through. When I showed up looking to enlist in a regiment, I knew that if I were to attainanything in life, I couldn’t be Cutter anymore. When they asked me my name, I panicked, and read Carlton off an advertisement for the Carlton football club.”
“Did you ever see war?” Ash tried to picture the lanky lad he’d known in regimental reds.
“I did,” he answered. “I served in Egypt and Afghanistan. I never lost the designation Dead Eye” He mimed looking down the barrel of a rifle. “I’ve more confirmed kills than any rifleman in the Queen’s Army.”
Blackwell never seemed to cease shaking his head, staring at Morley with one wide, disbelieving eye. “I still can’t seem to think past the part where you were a thief.”
Ash surveyed the reclining assemblage in the parlor. Perhaps three of the most intimidating, powerful, and somber men in the empire, natural enemies in every way, drinking identical snifters of Scotch whisky as they laughed and reminisced about the skills acquired by means of their misspent youths.
“I—suppose this means we have to make peace.” Blackwell extended his hand to Morley, who regarded it like one might a proffered soiled linen. “Oh, come now, Morley. We’ve made a tenuous connection over the years, haven’t we? Dare I say, an armistice of sorts? You have poached my favorite assassin for your own employee.”
“I’ve always maintained criminals make the best coppers.” Morley clapped his hand into Blackwell’s and shook it, firmly. “I suppose since we share a past with this one, we’ll be sharing a future, as well.” He shoved a thumb toward Ash. “Though befriending the notorious Rook would most certainly cost me my job.” The chief inspector glanced toward the door through which Lorelai had disappeared. “There is the trivial matter of the late earl…” A new anger narrowed his eyes to slits of wrath. “Though, after hearing your tale, I can’t say I’m sorry he’s dead.”
It had taken some time, but after Morley and Blackwell had untangled Ash’s memories of his first two decades, he had then filled them in on the subsequent twenty years. Waking up in the grave, being healed by Lorelai, then shanghaied by Mortimer, becoming the Rook. The Claudius Cache. All of it.
Blackwell’s eyes brightened, as though struck by an ingenious idea. “I don’t suppose you can claim your wife’s brother was killed by the Rook and, in turn, you hunted the pirate down and took your revenge…”
A twinge of displeasure twisted inside of him. “You mean… Ash Weatherstoke should kill the Rook?”
Morley gave a rather Gallic shrug. “You’d be a national hero. People would be less likely to consider your past, or investigate the origins of your dukedom.”
Ash considered the idea for the space of a drink.
The parlor door burst open, and Veronica rushed in brandishing a hastily scrawled letter.
The pallor of her skin and the panic with which she flung herself at them drove Ash to his feet.
“She’s gone!” the former countess cried as she shoved the paper into his hands.
“Lorelai?” Ash seized Veronica, shaking her slightly. “What do you mean, she’s gone?”
He’d known Lorelai had been upset by the revelation of Caroline, and his first inclination had been to go to her. However, Blackwell had reasoned it was best for him to unravel his emotions about the past for himself before attempting to present the future to his wife.
It had seemed like wise advice at the time.
“Did she leave?” he demanded as the fraught woman blanched at the sight of his provocation. “Was she angry? Where would she go?”
“This is your fault!” Veronica spat, a righteous verdantfire blazing in her wide eyes. “You never should have broughthiminto our home!”
Him?A pit of dread opened beneath Ash’s stomach as he glanced down at the letter. He had to force his hands not to shake as he scanned the familiar writing. His rage threatened to blind him, but he forced himself to devour every word.
To count every syllable.
For that was the number of times he’d drive his blade into Moncrieff’s body until the blighter hadn’t a drop of blood left.
“What is it?” Blackwell prompted.
“My first mate is displeased with my taking a bride,” he said in a dispassionate voice that belied the rage stoking inside him. “He’s sent me an ultimatum of sorts. He’s taken a large contingent of my crew and gone after the Claudius Cache. Conversely, he’s appropriated Lorelai and placed her on a flesh-smuggling ship full of foreigners bound for Marseilles, from which the cargo will be distributed to places unknown.” At the thought of Lorelai, this very moment, sailing farther and farther away from him, the note crumpled in his fist. She was delicate, fragile. He knew the conditions people were forced to endure on just such a shop.
If one of Lorelai’s eyelashes were out of place, he’d carve every inch of skin from Moncrieff’s body. “He’s left me with a choice. I can join him and my crew and plunder the Claudius Cache as was our original plan, or we can chase Lorelai to Marseilles and save her.”
