The Highwayman (28 page)

Dorian stepped forward, taking a coin from his pocket and holding it up to the bit of wan streetlight from the adjacent corner.

“I'd take on all four of you for that,” she said, greed and want flooding her suggestive words.

Dorian swallowed revulsion, wondering how long it had been since the woman bathed. Chances were she only got the most blind or desperate of customers anymore, her age and years of use sitting heavy on her skin and rotten teeth. “Warlow,” he reminded her.

The prostitute shrugged a bony shoulder. “'Er face is too busted to work, so she's standin' lookout for a shipment for Druthers. She's s'posed to send a runner to fetch 'im from the Queen's 'Ead Pub when it gets 'ere.”

Dorian tried to ignore Farah's horrified gasp. “Where?” he demanded.

The woman extended a bony finger toward the river where Brewhouse Lane ran straight into the Executioner's Dock.

“Excellent.” He tossed the coin to the woman.

“You take care, Black'eart,” the whore crowed at him as her hand snaked out and caught it. “The shadows be too full tonight of men wif dark coats and shiny weapons. They've driven ev'ryone inside.”

“Good,” Dorian clipped. “Let's hope they stay there and out of my way.”

The woman's cackle ended on an airless cough. “Wif you and Argent on the street, they'll all fink a war's brewin' in Wapping.”

“If there was, I'd have brought an army with me.” Dorian turned away, hoping to get to Warlow before whatever shipment she awaited arrived. “Stay off the Executioner's Dock, just in case,” he threw over his shoulder.

Farah hurried after him, and he slowed his stride so she could keep up. “Executioner's Dock?” she queried. “Sounds ominous.”

“It isn't used for its original purpose anymore,” Dorian said, attempting to soothe her obviously jangling nerves. “The crown used to hang river pirates and smugglers from the Executioner's Dock in centuries past, and leave them there as a deterrent to others. Nowadays that's rather out of practice.”

“And that very dock is used for smuggling?”

Dorian smirked. “The warning failed. Most criminals saw it as a challenge. Wapping, specifically this dock, has been the epicenter of underground trade ever since.”

At the mouth of the pier, where the stones became planks beneath their feet, Dorian nodded to Argent, who melted into the shadows and disappeared down a side alley, with an almost mystical silence.

The dock running parallel to the river was wide enough for a freight cart or about a handful of men standing shoulder to shoulder. Smaller piers branched from it with various boats and planks bobbing in the lazy black ribbon of the Thames. Upon long-standing order of the crown, the pier that completed the Executioner's Dock was to remain as empty as it was now. But night after night, dark boats and darker men made it their port to London's commerce.

“I think I see her!” Farah indicated a stack of crates loosely covered with a canvas blocking more than half the dock one pier to the north. Perched atop the haphazard pile was a smallish boy of maybe eight and a taller feminine form, hunched together against the chill.

“You are to stay by my side, unless I tell you otherwise. Is that understood?” he commanded his wife.

She craned her neck to look up at him and stunned him with what shone from her soft gray eyes. Gratitude. Trust. “Of course,” she promised.

Dorian lost himself to it for a moment. Perhaps this wasn't such a colossal waste of time, after all.

Murdoch cleared his throat. “The whelp already spotted us and scampered off,” he warned. “I expect we doona have much time before we've unwanted company.”

Dorian tore his eyes from his wife. She was too much of a distraction out here. He needed to be sharp and ruthless. Not for the first time, he cursed her presence. She'd insisted Gemma wouldn't go with them unless she came along, and neither of them was familiar with the prostitute, so they'd not be able to identify the real Gemma. And yet, Dorian couldn't help feeling like he should have insisted they take the whore, willing or no, and deliver her to Farah's feet safe and sound.

How did his wife keep talking him into foolhardy things? After tonight, he'd have to look into that.

The crates were in a shadowed swath of walkway equidistant from the gas lamps doing their best to illuminate the pier. As they approached, the plump figure hopped down from her perch, preparing to bolt.

“Gemma!” Farah called. “Gemma, wait!”

The figure froze, and Farah held her hand out, though the woman was not yet within reach.

“Mrs. Mackenzie?” A shocked reedy voice struggled through split and swollen lips. “Wot are you doin' out here?”

Farah quickened her step and reached for her friend, despite Dorian's orders. The women collapsed against each other with different versions of relief. Though the grimy prostitute was taller and much larger than Farah, Dorian watched his wife pull her friend into her bosom and hold her there in a very maternal gesture. She didn't seem to spare a thought for her fine new gray dress or the fact that the woman had dried blood matted to her dirty hair.

It was Gemma who spoke first. “I been sick wif worry over you,” she scolded Farah against her shoulder. “You didn't tell no one you was leaving, Mrs. Mackenzie.”

“
You
were worried about
me
? You dear thing.” Farah stroked the woman's hair, her cream silk glove coming away soiled, as she flicked her eyes toward Dorian. “And it's—Mrs. Blackwell now.”

“As in, Dorian Blackwell? If you're married to the Black'eart of Ben More, I'm the bloody Duchess of York.” Gemma popped out of the embrace, staring at Dorian with the one eye that wasn't swollen shut as if she'd only just noticed him. “I'll be boffed,” she breathed.

“Your Grace.” Dorian dipped his head at her, inwardly wincing at her injuries.

“Oh, Gemma! Look what that fiend did to you!” Farah gingerly smoothed dirty brown hair away from the angry wounds.

Druthers had left no part of the unlucky whore's face unpunished. A dark anger surged inside of him, and he instantly respected the tough woman.

“'Ow'd a lady like you shackle Dorian fucking Blackwell? I'd already bet me garters you'd brought Morley to heel.”

“We'd best leave if we don't want any trouble,” Murdoch warned.

“You're coming with us.” Farah linked her arm through Gemma's. “We're taking you away from here.”

Gemma wriggled out of her gentle grasp, casting fearful looks up into Dorian's scarred eye. “Better not, kind girl,” she denied gently. “You don't want Druthers after you, now. He's already sore you got to me the first time.”

“I'm not a girl,” Farah protested. “We're the same age.”

Gemma stepped back from Farah's second advance and Dorian hated the hurt confusion on his wife's face as she paused. He knew what the prostitute was thinking even before she said it.

“No, we in'nt,” the woman said wearily. “I'm as old as the sea and tired of this game. Barely werf the trouble to fuck anymore.”

“Don't say that, Gemma!” Farah insisted. “I refuse to be shocked.”

The whore took another step back. “It's true. Druthers don't 'urt your face if 'e finks it'll still make 'im money.”

Farah would not be deterred. “Gemma, come with us this instant, we must hurry. We must go
now
.”

Gemma shook her head. “Go where?”

“My home, of course. We'll give you shelter and food and safety.”

“Then wot? 'Ow will I keep meself? I don't live off charity, and who'll 'ire the likes of me? You?”

Farah nodded emphatically. “Of course I will!” At Gemma's skeptical look, she rushed on. “As it so happens, I've acquired a household from my father. I'll need it staffed.”

Gemma threw up her hands. All the talking had caused the cut in her lip to reopen, but she didn't seem to notice. “Don't know 'ow to do much else than lie on me back and spread me legs. Wot would you do wif a whore in a fine 'ouse? Get out of here, all of you, before there's blood spilt.”

Only someone with a death wish spoke that way in his presence, and Dorian read that wish in Gemma's hard, dead eyes. She was beyond caring, her spirited demeanor more a habit now than anything.

“Gemma—
please
!” Farah's voice thickened with confusion and tears. “Please come with me? I couldn't bear it if you stayed here.” The desperate, frustrated admonishment tore at Dorian's guts. He stepped forward, but paused when the prostitute took a frightened retreat.

“We'll send you to Ben More so you can recover,” he offered lowly, trying not to frighten the woman further. “While you're there, Walters can show you your way around a kitchen. We'll join you once our business here in London is concluded.”

The look of adulation Farah sent him gave him strange stirrings in his chest. Like someone had released an army of moths in there.

Gemma Warlow regarded him with something else, entirely. Skepticism, or more accurately, outright disbelief. “Why? Why would the richest thief in England stick his neck out for a frowaway like me? You're not known for your mercy, Blackwell.”

Dorian met her glare, but couldn't say the words, so he looked down at Farah who'd clasped her hands hopefully in front of her. She was the only reason. His only reason.

For everything.

A distinct bird whistle warned Dorian they had company before he heard pairs of heavy boots on the planks. Argent had found his perch.

“If your woman fancies a bit of quim, Blackwell, she'll have to pay for it, like anyone else.”

Dorian and Murdoch turned toward the grainy voice behind them.

Edmond Druthers was a sewer rat with delusions of grandeur. Despite the physical resemblance, he was repulsive, smelled of rubbish and refuse, and had the knack for survival and resourcefulness that kept him on the top of his own little dung heap.

Druthers wasn't alone. Three wide-shouldered sailors strode the length of the Executioner's Dock, all of them armed.

“Don't come near her.” Farah took a protective step in front of Gemma.

Dorian, in turn, stepped in front of his wife. He didn't have to tell Murdoch to use his girth to help corral the women back behind the crates. The sound of Murdoch's pistol cocking told him that should he fail, six bullets were waiting for four men. In Murdoch's hands, those were good odds.

Dorian placed himself between the crates and the wall, creating a semieffective bottleneck. Only two of them could come at him at a time, and unless he did something foolishly out of character, it was impossible for him to be flanked as the only alley for a great span was an abyss in his right periphery.

Once the women were secured out of sight, Dorian made a few quick calculations. He counted three weapons. A knife held by a lanky man he recognized by the street name Bones, as his gaunt skin stretched over a frame more heavy bone than heavy muscle. A cudgel brandished by a hard-bodied, long-haired sailor of African or Island descent. And, if Druthers was a sewer rat, then the monster running his thumb down the sharp edge of his kukri was nothing less than a bear. Immense, lumbering, and all ungraceful brawn beneath the thick pelt of dark hair. The size didn't fool Dorian, though. George Perth was one of the deadliest men alive.

Druthers had heard the Blackheart of Ben More was at his door, and brought the most lethal of his men out to brawl. The kind of brawl that someone wouldn't be walking away from.

Four someones, to be precise.

If anyone carried a pistol, it would be Druthers, but if he was expecting a shipment of goods, the last thing he'd want to do was fire it and alert the night patrol.

Dorian may just have to stake his life on that. “Gentlemen,” he greeted them ironically.

“What you sniffing around my cut of snatch for, Blackwell?” Druthers barked, his accent clearly marking his peasant Yorkshire ancestry. He motioned to Gemma and Farah through the slats in the crates. “Don't you got enough of your own?”

“What I have is a business proposition for you.” Dorian attempted to communicate in a language the bastard would understand.

Druthers motioned to Bones and the African to step ahead of him, which they did. “What makes you think I'd discuss business with a cornered pretender and a few whores? If I took down the king of the London underworld, I'd never have to buy me own drink again, not to mention the rest of the London docks would be up for grabs.”

A shadow shifted in the alley, and Dorian stepped back a few paces, drawing the criminals closer. “Think about your next move carefully, Druthers,” he warned with the arctic calm that had sent many a would-be attacker scrambling away. “I see this ending with your death.”

Bones and his compatriot passed the alley and reached the pile of crates, though they threw each other covert looks of uneasiness.

“You don't see nothing out of those eerie eyes, Blackwell.” Druthers addressed him but sneered at the women who remained wisely silent behind the crates. He wedged himself behind his advancing men, the bear with the kukri remaining at his side like a giant scarred sentinel. “What
I
see is a few cunts needing to be taught a lesson.”

“I couldn't agree more,” Dorian replied, tucking his hands behind his jacket to offer his chest as a target.

“My whore's too ugly for the four of us.” Druthers wet his cracked and peeling lips with a swipe of the tongue, his eyes snagged on what he could see of Farah. “But as soon as I've rid the world of Dorian Blackwell, your pretty, tight slut will be looking for a new man to ride.”

Some men felt fire lick through them when they were about to kill. It turned their skin red, made them sweat, filled their muscles with strength and heat and burned away all sense of logic and control.