The Highwayman (31 page)

Her husband had yet to utter more than a crisp, monosyllabic reply to the myriad of questions, gratitude, and apologies she'd showered upon him.

“Are you all right?” she'd asked.

“Quite.”

“Did they hurt you?”

“No.”

“You saved our lives at the docks, you know.”

“Yes.”

“I'm sorry for involving you in such a dangerous misadventure. But Gemma and I are supremely grateful for what you and your men did.”

“Hmm.” Once his pathetic communication dissolved to nonexistent, Murdoch had picked up the conversation on his behalf.

“Think nothing of it, lass,” he'd soothed, casting a dark look at Blackwell. “We'll get Miss Warlow on the way in the morning.”

“I'm just glad I was able to persuade Chief Inspector Morley to release you so quickly. I couldn't bear the thought of your incarceration overnight, or longer.”

“Ye canna know how much we appreciate it.” Murdoch had patted her hand in a fatherly gesture.

At that, Blackwell had leaned forward, unlatched the door to the cab, and leaped out before the driver had fully come to a stop. He disappeared into the night and Farah had not seen him again until he came to collect her and Murdoch the following morning to convey them to court.

Murdoch had assured her again and again that their short time in the strong room had been not only uneventful, but rather amenable. “The bobbies were fair and civil, and Dorian even conversed with one of his contacts, though I didna catch what was said.”

“Then why is he so upset?” Farah had asked.

Murdoch shrugged and regarded her with a little pity. “Canna say, lass, just that Blackwell has his moods sometimes. Doona fash yerself over it. Just get some sleep, we've a big day tomorrow.”

Sleep had been next to impossible, even in the elegant, luxurious bed. Finally, Farah had drifted into a restless sort of limbo, tossing about in the darkness, her stomach rolling and her jaw clenching as images of the past haunted her dreams. Her father's pale, waxy face at his wake, the cheeks sunken in from dehydration brought on by the devastating illness. Warrington, who'd seemed like a giant to a seven-year-old, bending down to inform her of their engagement. Sister Margaret's intimidating robes and wimple. Father MacLean's thin, lascivious mouth. Dougan's dark eyes and sharp features. Small and symmetrical, twisted with boyish mischief and incessant curiosity.

She'd called out to him in her dreams, begged him to run. To survive. To live on so she didn't have to face this horrid world with only a dark and broken man beside her.

“I'm right here,” Dougan had crooned through her dream, his face sad and fierce. But his
voice
. His voice was nothing like she remembered. It melted into something dark and cavernous. A man's voice. Sinister, dangerous, and smooth. Like brimstone gliding over ice.

You're
not
here,
Farah had thought as she felt herself sinking into the void of oblivion.
I'm so lost. So lonely. So—afraid.

“Sleep, Fairy mine. You're safe.” A slight tickle at her scalp told her that Dougan had wound his finger into a ringlet, pulled it softly, and watched it bounce back into place before winding it again. Like always.

He
was
here. She was safe.

She'd slept then, and awoke with the crisp, salted tracks of dried tears running into her hair.

Farah knew she should be thinking on the enormity of what was about to happen as they stood in front of the gilded doors of the High Court. But she found herself studying Dorian's profile, interrupted by the black strap of his eye patch, and wondering if Dougan ever featured in the terrors of
his
dreams.

Or if she did.

She wanted to cry out for him to wait when he reached for the doors to the courtroom, but she forced herself to remain stoic. Like him. If Dorian Blackwell could maintain his composure after everything he'd been through, she could, too. Throwing her shoulders back and steeling her spine ramrod straight, she tilted her chin a notch above stubborn to pretentious.

Eschewing polite behavior, Dorian preceded her into the courtroom instead of holding the door open for her.

Farah couldn't have been more grateful.

Proceedings had already begun, and Farah realized with a start they were technically committing an act against the crown.

An astonished hush blanketed the dark wood of the stately High Court room. Those who crammed the pewlike benches turned back at their entry, very much like an audience at a church wedding. Except, no one was pleased at their arrival. The kindest expression Farah could find was one of shock. It all disintegrated from there to disapproval, disbelief, and in some cases, outrage. She followed him up the wide aisle, the thick burgundy carpet muffling her steps.

“Mr. Blackwell!” bellowed a smallish man with an inappropriately large head made all the more bulbous by a long, curled, snowy wig. He sat behind the tall dais, the middle of three such attired men, his station dignified by the silver seal affixed to the middle of his black robes. “What is the meaning of this impudence?”

Of course Lord Chief Justice Sir Alexander Cockburn was acquainted with Dorian Blackwell, or at least knew him on sight. The justice had a reputation for sport, adventure, socializing, and womanizing. Though he was something of a legal genius, it was a subject of much contention how the Scotsman had risen to such an illustrious position with his besmirched reputation.

Farah stared at the broadness of her husband's back with stunned amazement. Did Dorian have anything to do with Lord Chief Justice Cockburn's stunning career trajectory? It wouldn't surprise her in the least.

“My lord.” Dorian executed a formal bow in a manner that could arguably be called mocking. “May I present to you the Right Honorable Farah Leigh Townsend, Countess Northwalk.”

An audible gasp echoed through the courtroom and beyond, as some of the crowd outside the doors pressed forward behind Farah to witness these highly unprecedented happenings in an already high-profile case.

“This is an outrage! I demand these insolent criminals be arrested at once!” Harold Warrington perpetually appeared to have just sucked on a lemon. In spite of that, he had the handsome and hearty form of someone born to farmer's stock rather than the historically incestuous aristocracy. An infamous hedonist, his skin and hair hadn't fared well against the years of overindulgence, but his stature evoked that of Goliath as he surveyed the court with the air of a royal rather than the civic servant he was.

The sharp rap of a gavel pierced the bench, but it was not the lord chief justice who'd employed its use. The man to his left sat behind the nameplate of Justice Roland Phillip Cranmer III, though everyone knew Justice Cranmer had recently and mysteriously gone missing.

Farah recognized the face behind the gavel as Sir Francis Whidbey, a newly appointed justice of the High Court. He exchanged covert glances with her husband as he addressed Sir Warrington. “Sit down, Warrington. I'll remind you that you're not a member of the peerage as yet, and are still an officer of this court who should know better than to speak out of turn!”

Farah was acutely aware that she and Dorian had only just committed that selfsame act, but she wisely kept her own counsel. Besides, she couldn't have spoken if commanded to at the moment. So much for her self-possession.

Dorian approached the bench without being invited, which elicited more gasps and even brought the two red-coated queen's guards posted at the edges of the bench rushing to restrain him.

“My lords, I have here official documents supporting the validity of our claim.” He brandished a file of paperwork he'd pulled from his coat. “Including Lady Townsend's birth certificate, church records of her years at Applecross Orphanage, the falsified record of her death, and also—”

“Where did you obtain these records, Blackwell?” the lord chief justice demanded, holding up his hand to stay the guards.

“I also have included a copy of our marriage license.” Blackwell blithely ignored the justice's question. “The importance of which we can discuss later.” He threw a look to the assembly that had a ripple of ironic laughter passing around the room.

“Impossible! I have a legal and binding betrothal contract signed by her father!” Warrington exploded to his feet, ignoring the grasping entreaties of his wigged lawyer.

The third justice leaned forward. “And so you've
claimed
that you have already married her, Warrington. So, why the objection?”

“You—you're right, my lord.” He motioned to a dainty, well-dressed blond woman at his elbow with wide and vacant blue eyes. “This is my
wife,
Farah Leigh Warrington, Countess Northwalk. Formerly Farah Leigh Townsend. How dare you try to usurp her birthright, you conniving liar!” Warrington turned his wrath toward Farah, his already ruddy skin taking on the patina of a tomato.

Farah, however, was transfixed by the third justice, recognition storming through her that had nothing to do with her past seventeen years as Mrs. Mackenzie.

“Rower,” she breathed, reading the nameplate in front of his wizened face.

“Speak up, lady,” the lord chief justice commanded.

Farah glided toward the face from her past that was lined with two lost decades of age, but still had very much the same piercing eyes and severe features. “You are the Baronet Sir William Patrick Rowe, whose estate is in Hampshire,” she said. The crowd strained to hear her low voice; such was the silence that a loud breath could be heard grating out of someone's lungs. “You—you were a lieutenant in the Queen's Rifle Brigade under my father, Captain Robert Townsend, Earl Northwalk. You sculled together at Oxford, and my father called you ‘Rower.'”

The man in the wig looked stunned and narrowed his eyes at Farah. “Come closer,” he ordered.

Farah approached the bench. “I remember your thirtieth birthday party,” she murmured to him, “because you were kind enough to share a piece of spice cake with me, as it was my fifth birthday on the day after. Yours is September twenty-first, I believe. And mine is September twenty-second.”

“Good Lord,” Justice Rowe exclaimed, peering into her eyes with a similar recognition. “I do remember that!”

“Anyone could have attained that information!” Warrington protested. “Don't let this—this renowned brigand and his doxy make a mockery of this esteemed court!”

“I've heard enough out of you, Warrington!” the lord chief justice warned. “Next outburst and I'll have you banished from this courtroom!”

Warrington's red color intensified to a purple hue, but he sat, shaking with barely leashed rage.

And not a little bit of fear, Farah assumed.

Lord Chief Justice Cockburn turned back to Dorian, affording Farah less than a cursory glance. “Mr. Warrington has a point. He's provided documents identical to those you have and has the added superior claim. He was steward to the late Earl Robert Townsend and trustee of his estate. He's known Farah Townsend since birth, and has a long-standing betrothal contract. What cause have we to doubt his wife's claim to the Townsend legacy?”

Farah glared at Lucy Boggs, who was silently twirling a ringlet, obviously fabricated by a curling iron, around one anxious finger.

“I have witnesses, my lords.” Dorian swept his hand to a pew at the back of the court.

Warrington's lawyer finally objected. “This is highly irregular and I would like to request that we meet in chambers to discuss how to further proceed.”

“Bollocks!” Warrington's chair scraped against the floor as he leaped to his feet once more. “There is no reason to delay this any further. Blackwell has fabricated witnesses and I want a chance to refute them. After almost twenty years I have uncovered the missing Northwalk heiress and I
demand
to be granted what is mine!”

Justice Whidbey turned his hawklike face toward Warrington. “Don't you mean, for your wife to be granted what is hers?” he queried. “Surely you know that when one is not born a peer of the realm, as husband to a countess, one's title as earl will be a courtesy only. One would be called ‘Lord' and granted stewardship of the properties, but the other rights and privileges of peerage will only be granted your heir and issue.”

Farah gaped, turning a wide-eyed glance over her shoulder at Blackwell. He stood at the mouth of the aisle with his hands clasped behind him, seemingly unaffected by the justices' words.

His sable eye met hers and Farah gasped. He
knew
. He'd known all along that he wouldn't be granted the rights and privileges of nobility. He'd gone to all this trouble, played this dangerous and complicated game of chess, possibly even manipulating the seats of the High Court of England, to help her reclaim her birthright.

And for what?

Certainly his name would be prefixed with “Lord,” but as far as she could tell, that didn't come with half the power and esteem his wealth and reputation already afforded him.

Why had he done all this? What was his intention?

“We'll hear your witnesses, Blackwell, but let me warn you that you stand on unsteady ground with this court. You and this lady are very much in danger of egregious consequences.” The lord chief justice gave them each a practiced warning glance.

Warrington glared daggers at her, but allowed his lawyer to wrestle him into his chair.

“So it has ever been, my lords.” Dorian bowed at the waist and then turned to the pews in the back with a sweep of his arm. “Let me present to you Signora Regina Vicente, sole proprietor of a rather popular gentleman's club here along the Strand.”

A tall, stately woman in a grand dress of dark plum stood and excused herself to make a procession up the aisle toward them. Her caramel skin and exotic bones proudly stated her Italian heritage, and she looked like a bronzed Roman goddess in a sea of pasty Brits. Her train was as long as any countess's and her dark eyes sparked with intelligence and mirth.