The Highwayman (24 page)

Not only did her eyes feel more opened, somehow, but her heart, as well.

Curse her expressive face, he must have read her probing thoughts. Because before he even withdrew from her body, he drifted back behind his screen of shadows and ice, leaving her cold and vulnerable and alone.

Don't go,
she thought desperately. She'd unlocked something. Exposed it. But couldn't decipher what it was yet, or what it meant. She needed more time, just another moment with him. Beneath him.

“I must,” he clipped, drawing out of her body and off the bed.

Farah frowned at his back as he adjusted his clothing and buttoned his jacket over the front of his trousers. She hadn't realized she'd spoken aloud until he answered her.

“Why?”

Dorian retreated from the question, walking over to the basin and pitcher and pouring water over a towel.

Why?
The reasons were innumerable. He was both protector and coward.

Protector, because his nightmares, while physically harmless to him, might prove lethal to her. If he woke in a panic, fighting off his memories, he'd likely break her before he'd fully become aware.

Coward, because he couldn't face her hatred in the morning. Couldn't see the marks the bindings had left on her wrists. Couldn't bring himself to witness the regret and disgust when she realized what she'd done. What he'd done to her. That he'd taken her precious innocence and left his tainted seed inside of her.

Twice.

He wrung the excess water from the towel and returned to her. She looked like a captured goddess. Like the spoils of an ancient war, tied and displayed for her new lord's pleasure.

He'd treated her as such.

And he deserved to die for it.

Releasing his necktie that bound one of her hands, he pressed the cloth into it. He should stay and wash her. But the sight of her broken virginity might send him over the edge. Better that he escape, while he still could. While he was still together, because surprisingly, he was. He was strong. He'd kept his word. His duty was absolved. She could untie the knot of her plaid with relative ease.

Of Dougan's plaid.

His composure cracked.

“Stay?” she prompted softly, her eyes almost obscured by heavy lids and thick lashes. “I'll not—reach for you.”

“Sleep now,” he commanded, turning away from the beckoning halo of her curls. Dousing candles on his way to the door, he didn't look back as he left her in darkness.

Once the latch clicked behind him, his control gave. Imported carpets muffled the sound of his knees hitting the floor. He'd been a fool to think he was strong. A bloody fool.

He had an evident fucking weakness. One with liquid gray eyes and silver curls.

And God help him if she ever found out.

 

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

“Good morning, Mrs. Blackwell!” Daylight burst into the room, jarring Farah awake as drapes slid along their rails, grappled by a cheerful Murdoch. “I trust ye slept well?”

The sun battled its way through high white clouds and low gray mist, but still managed an illuminating brilliance.

Only in the Highlands.

“Good morning, Murdoch.” Farah yawned, blinking the film of sleep from her vision. “What time is it?”

“I let ye sleep as late as I dare, lass, but Blackwe—Jesus Christ Almighty, the bloody oaf tied ye up?”

Startled, Farah tested the movements of her arm, only just becoming aware that her left hand was still above her head, secured by Dougan's plaid to the headboard. She must have been so exhausted last night that she'd drifted off without untying herself.

Farah looked up at the hand that had since lost all feeling resting limply against the mattress and headboard, wrapped in a faded cloth woven with black, gold, and blue.

A reminder of what binds us,
she thought. The interpretation of her husband's words now alarmingly literal rather than just figurative.

Murdoch rushed to her side, reminding her that she'd also fallen asleep quite nude. Grasping the bedclothes to her chest, she allowed him to work the knot free.

“No wonder he lit out of here this morning like the devil chased him. He knew we'd all turn on him and flay his skin from his bones with a dull knife for treating ye like this. And on yer wedding night! I doona care if he is Dorian
bloody
Blackwell, when I see him I'm going to—”

“It's all right, Murdoch,” Farah soothed, testing her tingling fingers once they were released and wincing as the blood rushed back with little needles of fire. “It needed to be done in order to—You see, I reached for him in a moment of…” Farah closed her eyes against the blush heating her skin. When she opened them again, Murdoch regarded her with a mixture of regret and understanding, carefully handing her plaid back to her.

“He didna hurt ye, did he?”

Farah shook her head, sitting up and inspecting the faint bruises around her wrists, and testing the twinges and aches in muscles she'd never before been aware of. “I rather think last night was more difficult for him than for me.”

“Aye.” Murdoch nodded his agreement. “I imagine so. This isna like him…”

Farah's lips lifted in a sardonic smile. “I would have guessed this is
exactly
like him.”

“Not when it comes to ye,” Murdoch insisted.

“What do you mean?”

The burly Scot cast his eyes away and turned from her, gathering familiar lacy underthings from where they draped, and laid them out for her at the foot of the bed along with her silk polonaise that she'd worn the night of her abduction. “I only meant that ye're Dougan's Fairy. He should have been gentle and taken great care with ye.”

Memories of the previous night singed through her with a vibrant thrill. Dorian hadn't been gentle, per se, though … “He was—careful,” Farah acknowledged. “There's no reason to be cross with him. As you see, I am well.” She offered him a smile, a little surprised, herself, that it was genuine. Until Murdoch's earlier words struck her. “Did you say that Mr. Blackwell—er, my husband left this morning?”

Murdoch turned to set a fire and offer her privacy. “Aye. He's procuring our passage back to London on the late afternoon train.”

“London? So soon?” Farah had wondered if they might not take a few days to adjust to married life. To, at the very least, get acquainted with one another. Perhaps take a few nights like the one before, and discover what other pleasures might be found in the marriage bed.

“There's a hot bath waiting in the washroom for ye.” Murdoch poked at the fledgling fire, urging it to ignite. “And I'd advise ye to hurry. I'll not want to be the one to tell Blackwell that we derailed his plans, as it were.” He chuckled at his own pun.

Of course,
Farah thought as she gingerly stood on shaky legs and reached for the silk wrapper next to her bed. Now that he'd claimed her, Blackwell would be in a great hurry to also claim the Northwalk title. Which meant dragging her back to London and parading her in front of a villain who'd once desired her as his wife, but now just wanted her out of his way.

By murdering her, if necessary.

Farah bit her lip, wondering, not for the first time, if Dorian Blackwell kept his promises as obsessively as he claimed. After she procured what he wanted, would her life mean anything to
him
? Was he truly any less of a villain than Warrington? Whose word did she have, other than a castle full of convicts and criminals, that her new husband and Dougan Mackenzie were as close as he claimed?

Farah held a hand to her lips, watching Murdoch's unhurried movements. She'd been so quick to believe them. So desperate for a connection with her past, with the boy who had been taken from her, that she'd readily accepted anything they'd said. Had already begun to care … What if she'd just made the gravest mistake becoming the wife of the Blackheart of Ben More?

What had she been thinking?

Doubt unfurling in her sore muscles, she glanced at the bed, remembering the reverence on her husband's face, the savage possession in his touch, the longing pleasure tinged with awe and wonder.

Such things could not be fabricated. Could they? Certainly not on her part. No, what happened between them last night had been real. So real that he'd retreated from it. From
her.

Farah had spent the better part of a decade around criminals and liars. And she believed, as much as she could trust her own judgment, that Blackwell had been telling her the truth when he promised to keep her safe.

God, she hoped so, because as much as she loved and missed Dougan Mackenzie, she wasn't ready to join him in the grave just yet.

*   *   *

The train from Glasgow to London whistled its final warning. The warm rush of steam colluded with the fog to obstruct the vision of the late-afternoon passengers. A footman turned the fine latch and handed Farah up into Dorian Blackwell's private railcar.

“We stowed Mr. Blackwell's luggage, but I doona see any here for ye. Should I hold the train while we fetch something?” The young man's wide brown eyes matched his constellation of freckles as he steadied her on the step.

Only for a man like the Blackheart of Ben More would they throw off the entire train schedule. And now, she supposed, for his wife, as well. “No, thank you, Mr. McFarley, I am not traveling with a trunk.” Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a coin and tipped him.

“I thank ye, Mrs. Blackwell.” His eyes sparkled at her. “Going to enjoy some shopping in London, eh?”

Mrs. Blackwell.
Why was it that the counterfeit name of Mackenzie had felt more accurate than the valid name of Blackwell?

She glanced down at her evening dress, the loveliest she'd ever owned, and realized that for people of the upper class, such garb would be acceptable traveling clothes. “I suppose I will have to, won't I?” Surely her everyday dark Scotland Yard clerk uniforms wouldn't do for a countess.

“Will ye be returning to Scotland soon, ma'am?”

“I am bound to visit regularly,” she answered honestly.

“Very well, Mrs. Blackwell, enjoy yer journey.” He tipped his cap and stepped back, hurrying toward the other rail workers milling on the platform next to the office door. Once she glanced over at them, they jumped and pretended they'd been looking elsewhere or were going about business other than staring at her. Something she'd have to get used to, she supposed. Anonymity had worked splendidly for her, and Farah mourned the irrevocable loss as she turned and latched the door on the conductor's last “All aboard” call.

In every room Blackwell occupied, a large chair seemed to take a central location, from which he sprawled and towered at the same time. He looked like a dark autocrat who soaked velvet and damask in the blood of his enemies and then adorned the textiles with gold tassels and illuminated them with a crystal chandelier. A despot with a taste for luxury.

His eye patch slanted across his forehead and shaped his glossy hair into a rakish wave. The good eye was fixed on some invisible vexation on the floor in front of him. A forgotten crystal glass of caramel liquor rested on one knee, clutched in a black leather glove that caused Farah's feminine muscles to clench.

Were those the same pair of gloves he'd worn the night before?

He stood when she moved from the shadow of the narrow hallway and passed the two long, lavish chaise longues that served as the alternate seating, accompanied by a small dining table with delicate Louis XVI chairs. He tossed his drink back and set the glass on the sideboard. A long silent moment passed as he began a thorough inspection from her sedately knotted hair all the way down to her one good pair of slippers, a questioning anxiety lurking behind the ever-present frost.

Long legs ate up the distance between them in two strides and he stopped just far enough away to be out of her reach. “Are you—I—”

Certain that catching the Blackheart of Ben More stuttering and speechless was a rare and marked occasion, Farah quirked her lip and eyebrow at him. “Yes?” she encouraged.

He blinked the moment away and brackets appeared around his hard mouth as it turned downward into a troubled frown. “We're visiting a seamstress the moment we get to London.”

“Oh? Why the moment we arrive? Don't we have rather more pressing concerns?”

His lip curled in the fashion that announced he was about to say something cruel. “I dislike that dress immensely, and I noticed you have none better in your wardrobe.”

“What's wrong with my dress?” She looked down at herself, smoothing a hand over the foamy green fabric that had cost a month's savings. “I thought the color rather suited me.”

“Yes, and so did Carlton Morley.”

Farah's smile returned. For someone so notoriously indifferent, her husband certainly had a jealous nature. The revelation shouldn't please her as much as it did. “Well, if my wardrobe insults you so, I suppose I'll have to resign myself to a new and expensive trousseau.” She gave a long-suffering sigh. “Such is my burden.”

Farah could tell she'd flummoxed him by his alert stare. “That … displeases you?”

Did it matter to him? “While a woman never likes to have her taste in fashion questioned, one can never go wrong by offering her a chance to buy a new dress.” She flashed him a cheeky smile. “Or several, in your case.”

Dorian studied her smile as his frown deepened and two furrows appeared between his ebony brows. It seemed that her good humor darkened his mood, almost as though he'd expected her to be cross or angry. “You should sit,” he ordered, gesturing to the plush chair he'd just vacated.

“Is that not
your
place?”

“Take it,” he insisted, his intent scrutiny oddly restless. One moment he was staring at her wrists, protected by silk gloves. Then he squinted at her left breast as though he could see through her layers to the plaid protecting her heart. He inspected other parts, her lips, her waist, and her skirts.