Besides Hiram, there had been no one in the house he’d cared to talk to and once his brother had left, Morgan had considered himself alone, knowing his life was no longer his own.
He was glad he now had new memories of Hiram to keep with him always and memories of a nephew, who if he ever returned to London would take Morgan’s place as the marquess. Morgan could only hope.
“I mean, I wish to go to my townhouse.” Morgan was not ready to go to the mansion, not ready to take his brother’s place, though he knew it to be his duty.
Something flickered in her dark eyes, and she turned to look out the carriage. “I know what you meant.”
Morgan tried to mask his emotions like his mother, a skill he’d mastered at a young age that had done him well as a spy… though annoyance bubbled in him and threatened to boil over. “Is that where you are taking me? To my townhouse?”
“Yes.”
He held back giving a loud sigh, but when the silence began to annoy him as well, he asked, “Why are you wearing black?”
“My eldest son is dead, according to the Crown,” she whispered. “A mother wears black when her child dies.”
Morgan grunted.
She looked at him. “Why are you dressed like a commoner? You’re the Marquess of Durham now. You can’t go about like this anymore.” The words deserved a scowl or, at the very least, an inflection on the words. Instead, they were simply words.
“I know who I am.” He had to fight from straightening his clothes. Instead, he pressed his hands to his knees and dug his fingers in.
“How was France?” A change of topic.
“It’s quite French.”
The only sign that his reply vexed her was in the short pause before her next words. “I find it odd that none of my friends in that country saw you.”
“France is a large country with many people.”
“I have many friends,” she said evenly, and Morgan knew she was implying that the ‘friends’ she’d sent to look for him had been more like her own set of spies. He didn’t know who was worse where it came to their abhorrent level of nosiness, his mother or the Duke of Wardington.
It reminded him of the other conditions of his marriage that Hiram had told him about. It was a shame he couldn’t bring them up now. If he did, his mother would know he’d seen Hiram and that would be a mistake.
“I’ve chosen a wife for you,” she said as she changed the subject yet again. That was her way. It never allowed anyone to settle around her, keeping them all on edge. “You’ll meet at your engagement party in two days’ time.”
So, there was her reason for seeking him out. He had two more days of being a bachelor. The fact that he would meet his wife at their engagement party didn’t bother him in the least. He suspected that she would be just another one of his mother’s spies… which would not be good, considering the many secrets Morgan had to keep. He would hate to kill his wife if she opened her mouth about the wrong thing. “She’s agreed to this arrangement? She doesn’t even wish to meet me before?”
“Of course, she has. You’re a marquess.”
“Of course.” He suspected the woman was just like his mother. Cold. Unfeeling. “Very well.”
She nodded, and the carriage stopped. He didn’t live far from the docks. It kept him close to his shipping company, close to the government buildings, and far, far away from his mother.
He stood and said, “Good day to you.”
“Don’t you even wish to know her name?” his mother asked.
“I’m sure addressing her as ‘my lady’ will do.” He shut the door behind him and went up to his door. His butler opened it for him, and Morgan was given a full report on the current news about Creed. His staff were all spies. Every man and woman had been enlisted to help the O.S.S. get Creed. Sadly, yet not surprisingly, there was not much good news.
One of the men the O.S.S. had taken from Creed to work for them had gone missing, a bald man by the name of Silas Christoph. He, along with three of the men working under him, had disappeared while Morgan was away. Everyone suspected Silas and the others had either fled or were once again working for Creed.
Creed didn’t operate like the common criminal. Instead, he hired fools who claimed to be working for themselves, who, in turn, hired even bigger fools who never knew they were working for Creed. It left the entire city without a good place to look for evidence that would put Creed on a boat to Australia.
“On a happier note,” his butler, Horace, began, “Creed has gone into hiding. Simon has put all his efforts into turning the public against him. It’s made people more fearful of being associated with a possible criminal.”
“Well, at least that’s some good news.”
Horace took his jacket and made a face at the smell of the sea. The old man was a spy, but he was also a butler, and Morgan had a feeling he’d never see that jacket again unless it was in his fireplace. “And then there are the stabbings.”
Morgan stilled and looked at him. “Stabbings?”
Horace nodded. “London has run rampant with them, mostly in the East End.”
“Why?”
Horace shrugged. “Some speculate it’s the lack of jobs. People are hungry. Others believe it’s the lack of Creed’s presence. They feel a leader is needed, even a criminal, to oversee crime.”
Morgan grunted. He didn’t like hearing that his city had fallen into chaos, even the East End, which was known to have its crimes, but not of the magnitude Horace spoke of. Most of the people in the East End were simple working folk. What had caused this rise of stabbings? He was sure Creed was behind it.
Once the meeting was over, Morgan called for a bath, quickly changed, and set out for the docks once more.
Atlantic Imports’ dock was like a city in itself with shops, a laundry facility for the men, and sleeping quarters for those who didn’t have a home of their own. Two large warehouses held ships, some being loading while other were pulled in for repairs. The busy depot was alive with action. He stopped to talk to a few of the managers about shipments and laborers before heading to his office.
He arrived at his office’s foyer to find his secretary openly flirting with the only other person in the building. The woman’s back was to him, but from what Morgan could tell, she was a woman of Society. Her morning dress was a pale-yellow silk dress of high quality, which made her own hair look like spun gold in comparison. She was slim where a man wished and round where he appreciated, and slightly taller than most women.
He stilled at the sound of her laugh, caught off guard by the abundance of joy in it after suffering his mother’s company. It was not common for women of the beau monde to express themselves so openly and never with a common worker like his secretary, Mr. Garvey. If it were anything to go by, Mr. Garvey’s face told Morgan that the front of the woman was just as stunning as her backside.