“Where,” he said, without turning, “have you been?”
I swallowed. “With Steele.”
He turned so swiftly I flinched.
“At four in the morning?” His voice was dangerously soft. “Explain.”
“We went to the Lambeth Parish mortuary,” I said.
“A mortuary?” Outrage, horror bled into his words. After a brief struggle to collect himself, he demanded, “To what end?”
I drew a steadying breath. “Steele and I have been investigating the disappearance of several young women. Girls who vanished without a trace. He made enquiries at Scotland Yard. Tonight, he received word that another body had been recovered.”
“How did you find out about this?” Cosmos asked.
“He sent a message earlier. He had received copies of the reports from Scotland Yard—files on the women who had gone missing. There were so many that he wanted me to review them with him. When news came that a body had been found on the Thames, we knew we had to determine if she was one of the missing.”
“And so you went,” he said, his tone hardening. “Without a word to this household.”
“Yes, I did.”
The silence that followed was far worse than his shouting.
“A mortuary is no place for a lady,” he said at last. “You should not have gone. Steele should not have allowed it.”
“We had to see her before the Yard interfered. Before evidence disappeared. Before?—”
“You should not have been out at all,” he cut in. “You should have been in your bed where you belong, not involved in some tawdry investigation.”
I met his gaze. “Cosmos, please. This is not about impropriety. This is?—”
He pounded the desk so hard, I jumped.
“It is precisely about impropriety!”
He stepped toward me, face pale with fury. I’d never seen him like this.
“You left this house in the middle of the night. Without notice. Without a chaperone. You returned with lanterns lit across the square so everyone could see you sneaking back into Rosehaven House.”
“I came in through the rear entrance.”
“Do not interrupt me, Rosalynd! No respectable woman visits any man—duke or otherwise—in the dead of night.”
My blood iced.
“By morning, half the neighborhood will know,” he continued. “The servants will whisper. The gossips will feast. And Petunia—Petunia woke screaming for you because you were not here.”
I pressed a hand to my forehead.
“I didn’t think?—”
“No,” he said. “You did not.”
“I thought the household would sleep.”
“You thought wrong.”
He paced away, then back, agitation radiating from every step.
