The Highwayman (38 page)

Her stomach heaved, and Farah swallowed against the sting in her cheeks and the saliva flooding her mouth. “You've been
living
here?” she asked, horrified. “All this time?”

“I told you, Northwalk is
my
home.” He placed the torch in an ancient metal sconce, never once looking away from her. “Your father, Robert, promised it to me.” He spat the name. “Promised
you
to me, so that I may be part of its legacy.”

“Why did he do that?” Farah asked the question that had been on her mind since she'd been old enough to understand. “What did you have on him to get him to acquiesce?”

Warrington spat on the ground, his eyes becoming wells of black hatred in a face that was ghostly white for lack of sun. “You would think so, you useless bitch.” He stepped toward her, and she backed away, her heart pounding wildly. “I was eighteen when you were born, and had already been licking your father's boots for a year. Did you know that in the queen's army it's money not aptitude that makes you an officer? Your father was a privileged earl who'd only ever shot at foxes and peahens, and I'd been infantry since I was fifteen, having lied about my age. I had to shine his shoes, brush his coat, pin medals he never earned. And all the while, I pretended to love him like a brother. Convinced him he couldn't do without me.”

This shocked Farah. “You mean—he betrothed us because…”

“Because I convinced him I could love, protect, and adore a spoiled git like you.” He stood in front of her now, the pistol pressed into the tender flesh beneath her jaw. Farah could feel it as she swallowed, and morbid, terrified thoughts crowded out all else.

“I didn't know all this,” she whispered, trying not to focus on which was worse, his breath or the smell of the bucket in the other corner. “Please,” she beseeched him with her eyes. “It doesn't have to end this way. I can give you the money that you would have been promised as my dowry. You can start over somewhere on the Continent or America. Stake a claim on land that's your very own. Have something no one can take from you.”

“It's too late for that!” he screamed in her face, the vibrations echoing off the stone walls and being absorbed by the dirt floor. “Too late for me,” he said in a quieter, flat tone, trailing the nose of the pistol down her neck, past her collarbone, and resting it in the valley between her breasts. “Too late for
you.
”

“It's never too late,” she told him. “As long as you're alive, you can choose to
live
. To be happy, even if it means starting over.” She truly believed that. Though she felt as though she could see her chance at life draining away along with the last of the sanity in his eyes.

“That bitch I married gave me a whore's disease. The doctors say I'll be dead within a month, but it'll steal my mind before it takes my body.”

With every breath, Farah's chest pressed against the pistol, now warmed by the heat of her skin. The sensation terrified her, paralyzed her body, but her mind raced for a way to survive.

He had nothing left to lose. He lived only for revenge.

“I
was
going to rape you,” he informed her in a voice as soft as death. “I was going to make you waste away with me, rotting from the inside. But it seems that I am no longer able, the syphilis has stolen the use of my cock.”

Grateful for that small mercy, the threat had bile crawling up her throat, and a moan of disgust escaped her lips.

The weight of the pistol left her ribs as he backhanded her across the mouth so hard she had to blink against spots of blindness and regain her bearings. When her vision cleared, the pistol was inches away from her forehead at the end of his outstretched arm. She could only focus on it or his face, but not both.

“Don't act like you're better than lying beneath the likes of me,” he snarled. “You may be a countess by birth, but you've already wallowed in the mud with the lowest kind of filth. You've corrupted that perfect body with his touch and shamed the Northwalk title and the Townsend name by becoming a Blackwell. It would disgust me to lie where he's already been.”

Farah wiped a trickle of blood from the side of her mouth. A cold rage blocked out the pain and sharpened her vision, even in the dim light. “Do not speak ill of my husband,” she warned in a voice so hard it didn't even sound like her own. “You're not even fit to lick his boots, not worthy to speak his name. He's better than the law, more powerful than any lord, and more of a man than you'll
ever
be.”

Warrington's lip curled, unveiling teeth barely rooted in a rotting mouth. “Too bad he'll never hear you say that. I imagine Dorian Blackwell will always wonder what became of his pretty wife. For he'll never find your body down here. We'll rot away together, buried in the same grave for eternity.” His finger tightened on the trigger, the pad turning white with the beginnings of pressure. “Good-bye, Lady Northwalk.”

 

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-THREE

Northwalk Abbey glowed against the night sky as Dorian pounded up on the back of his Thoroughbred. Every window blazed with light, and frantic movements from within prickled the hairs on the back of his neck.

Something was amiss.

Clattering into the cobblestone courtyard, Dorian leaped from his horse and threw the reins to a stable boy, his focus on the men clustered in the yard studying a map in their hands.

“What's going on here?” he demanded.

Peter Kenwick, an employee he'd installed to watch his wife, led the handful of men. His dark eyes widened as Dorian approached. “Blackwell!” he exclaimed, crumpling the map. “It's Murdoch, he's been shot.”

“Is he alive?”

“Yes, we sent for the doctor, and to get word to you. Tallow's with him now.”

Dorian ripped off his riding gloves and mounted the stairs two at a time. “Where is my wife? Who did this? I assume he's been dealt with.”

The men followed him up the steps, their silence screaming a warning. “Murdoch was found in Lady Blackwell's bedroom,” one of the men was brave enough to answer. “She's missing.”

Speared by an arrow of cold dread, Dorian spun at the top of the stairs and glared down at them. “What do you mean,
missing
?”

No one met his eyes.

“Answer me if you value your lives.”

Kenwick, more accustomed to Dorian's visage, stepped ahead. “All we know is we can't find her, or the gun. The house is being scoured, sir, and we were going to start a search of the grounds. She can't have gone far.”

The prick of dread turned to a douse of icy fear. “How long since the gunshot?”

“Minutes,” Kenwick answered. “If that long.”

Whirling so fast his black cloak flared, Dorian plunged into Northwalk Abbey, bellowing Murdoch's name. The bedrooms had to be on the second floor, so he dashed up the stairs, his boots barely touching the carpets. “Murdoch,” he roared. “Farah!”

Tallow ran around the bend of the hall to the right. “B-Blackwell! He's here!”

Murdoch sat propped against the wall outside a splintered door barely clinging to the hinges. A maid held pressure to his side with a heavy cloth.

“Murdoch.” He dropped to one knee next to the injured man. “Who did this?”

“Bullet grazed me flesh.” Murdoch waved him off. “Go. He has her,” his steward bit out through drawn, white lips. “Warrington.”

The bastard isn't dead.

“No!” Dorian exploded to his feet, his ice becoming that foreign fire, the one that stole his thoughts along with his breath. “Where did he take her? Which way?”

Murdock shook his head. “They never—left the room. I was by the door.” He winced and swore as the maid pressed harder on his side.

Dorian leaped into her bedroom, lit by a lone lantern. Walters and Gemma were already searching the balcony and beneath the bed. “She's not 'ere.” Gemma moaned fretfully. “We looked everywhere. There's no way anyone could have leaped off the balcony and lived, it's too high.”

Every muscle in his body tightened. “Murdoch,” he gritted out. “Is there a chance you lost consciousness? No possibility that they might have gotten past you?”

“Not a one,” Murdoch rasped. “Passing out would be a mercy.”

Panic threatened to choke his rage, and Dorian refused to let it. “Warrington's a dead man,” he announced to the men who'd only just crowded in through Farah's bedroom door. “And so is the imbecile who allowed him in. Which one of you was it?”

“It's impossible, Lord Blackwell,” Kenwick marveled. “We've attended our posts like you ordered. Not one of us has been late or remiss. We wouldn't dare fail you.”

“My wife is in the hands of my
enemy.
” The truth of it burned through his blood, making him wish a man could die more than once. He'd murder Warrington exactly the number of times he'd put his hands on Farah. The man's soul would expire before his body gave out. There were
ways.

And this time, he'd stay dead.

“We'll find her,” Kenwick promised.

“You'll answer for losing her,” Dorian vowed.

The man went whiter than Murdoch. “Blackwe—”

A shot volleyed through the castle, freezing them all. Then another.

“Farah,” Dorian gasped. It had come from
inside
the castle, from inside the
walls.
Dorian walked to the east wall and pressed his hands against it, then his ear. She was behind there. He knew it. She wasn't dead. That shot wasn't for her. She was alive! She was alive because
he
was still alive. And if her heart ever stopped beating, his soul would follow her.

Feeling like an animal trapped in a cage, he hurled his body against the wardrobe, shattering the wood. He would tear this bloody castle apart brick by fucking brick. Starting with her bedroom.

*   *   *

“Good-bye, Lady Northwalk.”

Farah reacted before she thought, slapping at Warrington's wrist as he pulled the trigger.

The gun went off right next to her ear. She could no longer hear, but she could
kick
. And so she did, her foot coming up as hard as she could drive it between Warrington's legs.

Another bullet pinged off the stones, but Farah felt no pain, and so she lunged for the pistol, easily pulling it from Warrington's hand as he crumpled to the earth, clutching himself.

Fumbling for a moment, she got the pistol pointed in the right direction, and slowly backed away from Warrington. “Don't move,” she yelled, the sound still muffled. Every limb shook with a violence she'd never before experienced. Her left ear rang loudly, and another sound, like rushing water, competed for dominance, but she was alive.

She was
alive.

The foul words that spilled from Warrington's lips rivaled the filth of the pit. And Farah began to wonder just how she was going to climb the stairs—they were almost as steep as a ladder—while still training the gun on him. Should she run first and get help? Or make him climb at gunpoint? Should she just kill the bastard and be done with it?

The idea held appeal, and yet her stomach protested.

A loud explosion, like the shattering of wood and brick, startled her. Warrington took that moment to lunge toward her, his teeth bared as if he planned to bite.

Farah leaped back toward the corner, screamed, and pulled the trigger.

Warrington staggered, a hole opening just below his sternum, and fell. She felt rather than heard the vibrations of footsteps sprinting toward her.

The ringing had started to fade, and she might have heard a man scream her name, but she just stared and shook, wondering if she shouldn't empty the gun into the fallen man, just in case he rose again.

Warrington's eyes blinked rapidly. His mouth, ringed with blood, worked over words, though she couldn't hear any of them. The world began to spin, the ground beneath her feet pitching like a ship rolling on an angry sea.

A dark shadow leaped from the stairs, his long coat flowing behind him like demon wings, landing in between her and Warrington.

Dorian.

He looked like the devil, come to take his minion. His hair black as obsidian. His scarred eye glittering with so many dark things, Farah couldn't identify a single one through her shock.

“Give me the gun,” he growled. “His life is
mine
.”

His words seemed to snap Farah out of whatever threatened to pull her under. “No.” She scowled at him. “He attacked
me.
”

“Farah, you're not a killer,” Dorian soothed, a desperate tenderness glimmering from his onyx eye. “Now give me the gun.”

“I've—reconsidered my position on that.” She looked at Warrington's twitching leg, could hear the breath gurgle through his throat, and she felt woozy all over again.

In a flurry of swift and magical movements, Dorian took her gun, shoved her behind him, and shot Warrington squarely between the eyes like he was a dog that needed to be put down.

Farah took her hands from her ears and pushed at his broad back, fighting elation at his presence that rose through her fear, shock, and anger. “You needn't have done that,” she charged. “He wouldn't have survived my shot.”

Her husband turned on her, his eyes devouring every inch of her barely clad body as he tucked the gun in his belt. “He should have died slowly,” he said. “But he is still a stain on
my
soul, not yours.”

They stared at each other for a dark, tremulous moment.

“Dorian.” She breathed his name, and the sound of her voice seemed to unleash a torrent of raw, brutal emotion from within him.

She was at once trapped between the chilly stones and six feet of burning, aroused male. On a primitive groan, he took her lips in a fierce, possessive kiss. His gloved hands were everywhere, almost clinically, as though checking for injury, then he crushed her to him in an embrace that threatened to squeeze the breath from her.