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.”
Blackwell looked bored, as though he’d already figured out the future direction of the entire conversation. “I’m certain you’re aware that on Thursday next, Lady Anstruther is helping Farah to host another one of her charity balls, this one in support of their communal project, a home for wayward boys in Lambeth.”
Morley nodded. He was aware. “Indeed, it is that exact event where I hope to catch this reprobate in the act. To draw him out. With the four of you there and on alert, there is a much better chance of—”
Trenwyth stepped forward, his eyes glinting as dangerously as a blade. “I’ll be damned before you use Lady Anstruther as bait for a violent sadist.”
“She’s in danger from this threat no matter where she is.” Morley reasoned. “As evidenced by the morbid ‘gift’ he left on her property, the bastard is demonstrating that even her home isn’t completely safe. A structure that large is impossible to fortify without a small battalion, and we simply don’t have the resources.”
A storm gathered on Trenwyth’s features. “If she needs someone to protect her home, I’ve more than established that I’m capable—”
“She’s specifically requested that it not be you,” Morley cut in.
The duke perceptively flinched, though Morley ascertained that a shadow of guilt and comprehension crossed Trenwyth’s demeanor before he summoned an opaque façade.
“I have O’Mara in the home, whom I know both you and I trust with our lives. Rathbone patrols the grounds, and nothing gets past his notice.”
“Even still,” Trenwyth bit out. “I’m to be her escort to the ball.”
Morley realized that the duke’s feelings for the woman had progressed beyond mere neighborly concern for a kindhearted widow. He was acting like Morley would expect any of the other present men would in regard to their ladies.
Interesting, that.
“Have you discussed this arrangement with Lady Anstruther?” Morley asked hesitantly.
“There’s nothing to discuss,” Trenwyth stated. “If she’s to attend, I’m taking her, or she can bloody well stay locked in the house.”
Knowing looks slid between the men behind Trenwyth’s back, accompanied by the smirks of those who’d been in just his position. Felt the same frustrated possession, and lost the battle to it.
Was it possible that Trenwyth was in love with Lady Anstruther? He’d been there earlier that night, had discovered the strangled kitten alongside her and her staff. The bodies of five men paid tribute to the ardency of his protective instincts toward her.
What if Trenwyth knew that she was becoming an invaluable piece to a puzzle involving a serial murderer? Would he still feel the same about her?
Morley debated long and hard whether to include the present company in his theory. Over the past three years, slim, fair-haired women in their twenties had been strangled and molested in an eerily similar fashion and in alarming numbers. The problem was, until Trenwyth had requested that Morley look into the disappearance of his lady friend, Ginny, no one had connected the murders. They occurred in very separate parts of the city and to women who had no prior connection to each other.
The latest victim, Lady Broadmore, for example, wouldn’t be caught dead in the company of Flora Latimer, the first victim, the prostitute found strangled at the Bare Kitten. Then there’d been Rose Tarlly, a charwoman who’d lived off Old Fenchurch Street. Ann Keaton, a nanny who worked in a more genteel neighborhood two blocks down from the capital building. And finally, Molly Crane, a nurse at St. Margaret’s Royal Hospital.
Morley had been at a loss to figure just how the killer selected these women other than their strikingly similar appearances. Until a few hours ago, when he remembered that Lady Anstruther had introduced her sister as Miss Isobel Pritchard.