Page 61 of A Dark and Stormy Knight
“The doctor?” He tensed. “Are you all right? Is the child—did something happen? You sit and rest.” He grasped her shoulders and pressed her back into the chair before striding to the doorframe. “Dunleavy, get my wife something to drink, and if it’s that swill that passes for tea on the sideboard, I’ll demote you.”
Prudence twisted in her chair in time to see the lumbering man with the red mustache pop his head around the doorjamb to gape at her. “That was…I mean…you’ve a wife?”
One look at the wrath on his boss’s face, and the big man scampered away, reminding her of a dog needing to find purchase on a smooth marble floor.
Prudence stood again. “Nothing is amiss. I had an appointment with Lady Northwalk’s doctor and midwife, that’s all.”
“Yes, butwhy?” he demanded, his muscles bunched with agitation.
“Well, it is common to be checked by doctors regularly when in my condition.”
His lips twisted with grim approbation. “You didn’tinformme of any appointment you had with a doctor.”
“Why would I? Men don’t usually bother with such matters.”
“When have I ever given you the impression I’m like most other men?”
“Here you are, Mrs. Morley! I found you some of the good stuff fresh-brewed by that fancy ponce DI Calhoun.” Dunleavy appeared with a clattering porcelain tea set on a tray that looked patently ridiculous in his mallet-sized hands. He walked like a man on a tightrope, his tongue out in concentration. “Swiped it right out from under ‘is nose afore he had a chance to taste it.”
“I don’t mean to conscript someone’s tea,” Pru protested.
“’E were right chuffed when I told him who it were for.”
“It’s Lady Morley,” her husband corrected with a sharp edge as he relieved the man of his tray and set it on the edge of his desk before pouring her a cup.
“Right, right, and a fine lady you are!” Dunleavy looked back and forth from her to his boss with a smile so wide it shoved his apple cheeks so high his eyes half closed. “Sir and Lady Morley, as I live and breathe! ‘Andsomest couple in the whole of the city, I’d wager. I don’t know why we always just assumed ya were a bachelor, din’t we, Sampson?”
A little fellow poked his head around the mountain of a man, his checkered wool suit hanging on him like it would a spindle of limbs.
“We always just assumed,” he agreed in a voice as reedy as he was.
“No wonder the Chief Inspector din’t tell us of ya, my lady,” Dunleavy went on, swiping off his hat. “You’re much too young and beautiful for the likes of ‘im, in’nt ya?”
“You’re too kind. I’m Prudence Morley, it’s a thorough pleasure to meet you both.” She extended her hand to them, receiving their deferential accolades as she enjoyed using her new surname in her introduction more than she’d expected.
Suddenly the two of them were three, and then four, the company in the office multiplying exponentially until Prudence felt as if she’d been introduced to every detective, sergeant, constable, and clerk on the entire floor.
Unsurprisingly, no one recognized her as Prudence Goode. Her picture never made it next to George’s in the papers, as she wasn’t high enough in rank to be a socialite nor low enough to be in their social class. Nor would these working men have aught to do with her father who held his offices in a separate government building.
To them, she was Prudence Morley, and her pedigree meant nothing past the man at her side. Didn’t bother her one bit.
“Your husband’s been keeping you secret, all to himself,” a stout man of dusky complexion tattled.
She lifted her brows across at Morley, who seemed to be grappling with the storm of his temper before he allowed himself to speak.
“Should I be offended?” she queried with a mischievous smirk.
“Not at all!” Dunleavy hurried to his defense. “He’s a jealous man, I think. Didn’t want the likes of us ‘round the likes of you, can’t say’s we blame ‘im.”
“Oh,” she drew out the word playfully. “A bunch of scoundrels, I see.”
“He keeps us in line, don’t you, Guv?” Sampson prodded Morley with a boney elbow.
“Not very well, apparently,” her husband grumped. “Don’t you lot have work to do?”
She put a hand on Dunleavey’s arm, noting that more of the men crowded around the office, unable to squeeze themselves in, but wanting a look. “Tell me, Mr. Dunleavy, is my husband a monstrous, iron-fisted curmudgeon?”
“Naw,” Dunleavy blushed and bristled his whiskers in a shy gesture. “He’s as fair as they come.”
