Page 25 of A Dark and Stormy Knight

George. What happened to you? She stared down at him, unable to blink. His long body remained face down where he’d landed. His skin no longer ruddy from drink, but white. Whiter than hers, even.

Poor George. He’d been merry this morning. Insufferable and already drunk. And now…

The door opened. A man entered.

And the pandemonium stopped.

Everyone obeyed his command for silence and, for the first time, Pru’s throat relaxed enough to allow a full breath. The sick sense of impending doom released the band around her ribs and her stomach stopped threatening to jump into her esophagus.

Everything would be all right.Hewas here now. Even though the world was upside down, he would know how to put it right.

Except… who was he?

She couldn’t look away from the blood.

“Prudence,” her father barked, as if he’d been saying her name for a long time. “This is Chief Inspector Sir Carlton Morley. You tell himeverything, do I make myself clear?”

“I don’t…want to hold this anymore,” she whimpered, unable to peel her fingers from around the knife. God it was so big. It had been stuck in George’s muscles.

She moaned.

“Let me have the knife, Miss Goode.” A deep, cultured voice came closer, and a hand covered with a white handkerchief relieved her of the weapon. She’d never been more grateful for anything in her life.

“That’s one of our daggers!” Reverend Bentham exclaimed. “It’s a holy relic.”

“It’s evidence, I’m afraid,” the Chief Inspector said. “You can request it back once this affair is settled.”

That word.Affair.It made her want to cry.

Gaining some strength, Prudence lifted her head and lost what was left of her breath.

Those eyes.

They had once been liquid for her behind a mask. They had watched her come apart.

He’dmade her come.

Chief Inspector?There must be some mistake. He was…a stag. No, not that. A shadow. Or he had been on a night nearly three months ago.

Pru gaped at him, dumbfounded, searching a face she’d committed to every corner of her memory.

He was at once the same and yet vastly altered. His hair a shade lighter than gold in the gleam of the noon sun through the windowpane. His suit a somber grey. His jaw sharp, clean-shaven and locked at a dangerous angle.

Her lover had been rumpled and dark, his hair the color of honey, or so she’d thought on a moonless night. He’d emanated sex and menace. Hard hunger and brutal masculinity.

The Chief Inspector was all starch and serenity. A dapper, terse, and proper gentleman clad in a fine cut jacket with an infinite supply of decorum.

But that strong jaw. The sinfully handsome features cut sharp as crystal and then blunted with the whisper of ruthlessness. All of this slashed clean through with a sardonic mouth.

Itwashim.

She was sure of it… wasn’t she? No one else had eyes so light, so incredibly elemental. Like the color of lightning over the Baltic Sea.

Those eyes bored into her now. Flat, merciless, and unsympathetic. He regarded her as if she were the last personalivehe wanted to see.

As if she were lower than the earth upon which they’d sinned.

If she’d any hope that this man would be her ally, it was dashed upon the rocky shards of his glare.