The Highwayman (39 page)

“Fairy,” he groaned against her lips, and Farah thought she detected the brogue of their childhood. He seized her mouth. Possessed it. Drove his tongue into her with deep, drugging thrusts.

Farah wanted to leave this place. To escape the smell and the death and the fear. But she felt her husband's ribs expanding with heaving, painful breaths against her chest, and detected bone-deep tremors running through his solid frame, and so she stood passively in his arms, submitting to his scorching kisses.

He said her name almost incoherently between rough drags of his hard lips and bristly chin. “Fairy.
My Fairy.
”

She tried to answer him, to soothe him, but each time she took a breath, he claimed her lips again. His own breaths began to slow to a less alarming rate, rattling out of his broad chest in deep, ragged pants.

Farah wasn't aware that they weren't alone until some rather loud throat clearing echoed off the castle walls. “Blackwell…” She recognized Kenwick, one of her handymen, who addressed her husband. “What do you think we should do with this?” He kicked at Warrington's limp body with the toe of his boot.

Dorian lifted his head, his eyes clearing of their clouded frenzy. Inspecting her again, he seemed to only just notice the thin translucence of her nightgown.

“Get rid of it, Kenwick,” he said darkly, taking off his cape and settling it around Farah's shoulders.

Farah lifted an eyebrow as the enveloping warmth instantly sank through her gown and into her skin. She shivered, not from the cold, but a deep, intense relief. “Kenwick? You know my handyman?”

He didn't even have the decency to look sheepish, and Farah narrowed her eyes at him. “Just how many of
my
staff are in
your
employ?”

Dorian didn't answer. Instead, a strong arm swept beneath her knees and lifted her until she was cradled to his thick chest.

“I'm perfectly capable of walking,” she informed him, wriggling in his grasp.

“Hold still,” he ordered, climbing the stairway.

She did as he said, only because she didn't want to survive all this only to die from a fall down the stairs. Now wasn't the time. She had a few choice things to say to her husband.

 

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-FOUR

“Murdoch!” Farah cried, as they stepped through her shattered wardrobe. She struggled to be let down, but Dorian held her in a vise grip.

A pile of rumpled dresses lay strewn about the floor like bright casualties of a horrific battle. Her room was torn apart, as though tossed by a frenzied thief searching for treasure.

“He's being seen to,” Dorian said.

“He could
die.
” She thrashed about in his arms. “I must go to him!”

Her husband subdued her resistance with embarrassing ease, his jaw set in a hard line. Shards of timber crunched beneath his boots as he carried her into the hallway where a standing Murdoch was being supported by Frank and Tallow. Gemma held a cloth to his side, and Farah was overjoyed to see that the blood hadn't soaked through yet.

“Doona ye worry about me, lass,” Murdoch admonished. “I've enough flesh around my middle. The bullet just took a bit of it, 'tis all.”

Relief doused her with alarming force, renewing her struggles with vigor. He still looked alarmingly pale, and sweat glistened on his brow. “Murdoch! You need a
doctor
.”

“Bah!” He motioned with his head to be led toward his rooms at the far end of the hall. “Nothing some whisky and a few stitches willna fix. It was more the shock of the shot than the bullet itself that took me down, I'm ashamed to say. I'm getting too old for this sort of thing.”

Desperate to see for herself, she pushed against her husband's unyielding chest. “Blast it, Dorian. Put me down!”

“No.” His strong arms held her impossibly tighter, but he glowered at Murdoch. “You
will
be seen by a doctor and that's final.”

“A-a doctor's been c-called for,” Tallow informed them, looking in no better shape than Murdoch, who wore the most stubborn look Farah had ever seen.

“Send him for Lady Blackwell once he's finished with Murdoch,” Dorian ordered sharply. “And have a basin and soap brought.”

“No, no. Don't bother. I wasn't hurt in the least,” Farah insisted. “You'd
see
that if you set me down.”

Dorian stared down at her with a startling expression of possession and mystification. “I—can't.”

Murdoch's unmistakable bark of mirth startled them all. “Go see to yer man, Lady Blackwell. I think he's had the worst scare of us all tonight.”

Blackwell scowled at his steward, though he didn't argue as the wisely silent crowd suddenly found a new interest in helping the wounded man to his rooms.

Murdoch had been correct. Though Farah had stopped trembling, her husband's muscles still twitched as though being shocked with unwanted tremors. He stood in the middle of the hall, clutching her to him, looking like a man overcome by too many forces to endure.

“The master's rooms,” Dorian ordered.

“I was using the master's rooms.” Farah motioned toward the chaos of her chamber. “Take me in there.” She pointed to the countess's suite. It would be cold from lack of a fire, but they'd have to make do.

The only light was provided by a bright spring moon, filtering from the windows and casting the white counterpane with silver and blue. The sudden stillness and quiet jarred them both, and they took a moment to adjust.

Dorian's heavy breaths broke through the darkness, painting the night with the myriad of emotions Farah didn't have to see in order to understand.

“You can set me down now,” she assured gently. “It's safe.”

It took him two breaths to reply. “I—can't seem to release you.”

Reaching up in the darkness, she pressed her palm to his hard jaw, now rough with a few days' growth of beard. “You don't have to release me.”

Reluctantly, he lowered the arm beneath her knees until her feet reached the floor, though he didn't release her shoulders. “He
dared
strike you.” Dorian's savage voice didn't match the extreme gentleness of his thumb as he drew it against her faintly swollen lip.

Farah was hoping he hadn't noticed. She should have known better.

“It's nothing,” she soothed, pressing her hand against his glove.

“I wish I could resurrect the bastard and slaughter him again,” he growled. “Slowly.”

Farah stepped into him, still surrounded by his rough cloak. He didn't pull away.

“Did he touch you, Farah?” Dorian asked in an agonizing groan. “Did he—hurt you anywhere else?”

“There wasn't time.”

“When I heard those shots, I thought—”

She stopped his hard lips with a gentle press of her fingers. “Let's not dwell on the terrors of the day.” She pulled her fingers away. “Why are you here, Dorian?”

His already tense body hardened against her, his hands grasping her shoulders in a punishing grip. “Don't pretend you don't know. The
letter,
” he snarled. “Have you already taken a lover? Because I swear to Christ, Farah, if you value his life—”

Her fingers found his lips again, hope beginning to seep into her chest. “It would be impossible for me to invite someone into my bed so soon after you broke my heart,” she confessed.

“But you would have,” he accused, his lips moving against her fingers. “Eventually.”

“I thought so,” she whispered. “I truly
meant
to, but it took me seventeen years to even consider another after losing you the first time.” She put her head against his solid chest, marveling at his height and breadth. “I was hurt and lonely when I wrote that letter. I was angry with you for rejecting me. I wanted a child more than ever, because I
needed
someone who would accept my love. Someone who wanted it. Who wanted
me.
”

Dorian grasped her shoulders and drew her away, giving her a little shake. “
How
can you think I didn't want you?”

Farah gaped. “You sent me
away,
” she reminded him sternly. “I haven't seen or heard from you in two months.”

He bent until his face was close to hers. His white scar and blue eye caught a shaft of moonlight, and what she read in the stark hollows of his face told her everything she needed to know.

“
I
want your love,” he declared fiercely, clutching her arms with desperate fingers. “I came to claim what's
mine.
”

Farah's heart glowed and her body rejoiced. “Not if I claim you first.” She lifted up on her tiptoes and captured his mouth, twining her arms around his neck and shackling him to her.

He stood frozen in her embrace for a breathless, undecided moment before melting against her, around her, pulling her into the hard curve of his body with a deep groan of surrender.

Yes.
At last. The feel of her arms around him, her tongue entering his mouth, her body locked against his, was a sweeter victory than she could have imagined. It wasn't only desire and need she tasted on his kiss, but trust.

And that word was a foreign concept to a man like Dorian Blackwell.

For a boy like Dougan Mackenzie.

A soft knock on the door interrupted them, and Dorian turned to admit a maid laden with a basin of fresh water, linens, soap, and a candle. “You want us to lay a fire?” she asked.

“No,” Dorian clipped. “You may leave us.”

“Thank you, Molly,” Farah added as the maid bobbed a hesitant curtsy and scampered out.

Farah stepped to the basin, more than ready to wash the memory of that fetid hidden chamber and the very breath of Harold Warrington from her flesh.

Dorian followed, silent as a whisper, standing so close his chest grazed her back. “Let me,” he rasped in a voice made husky by darkness.

Farah reached for a soft and absorbent cloth and dipped it in the water. “It's all right, you don't have to.”

A warm hand reached from behind and covered hers. His gloves had disappeared, and only scarred male flesh rested against her skin. “Yes, I do,” he breathed against her ear.

New trembles seized Farah's body as he eased her fingers open and let the cloth fall into the water. These had nothing to do with fear or cold, but a budding relief. A powerful hope. Farah knew the significance of his gentle movements as he eased his cloak from her shoulders. A few soft tugs, and her nightgown floated to the floor.

Her eyes stung with hot tears, her vision blurring until she allowed them to pour down her cheeks at an alarming rate. He'd come for her. Just when she'd thought all was lost.

Using his hands, those strong, scarred hands, Dorian took her bare shoulders in the softest grip and turned her to face him. A tenderness she'd never before seen glowed unnaturally bright in the dim light of the lone candle. His skin against hers felt foreign and familiar all at once. Dorian Blackwell was
touching
her. Of his own volition. No fear flared in his eyes. No revulsion curled his lips.

Rough knuckles lifted to her cheek. “Why are you crying?” He crooned her first words to him with a look so warm and earnest she could see her Dougan staring out through his eyes. “Did you lose something?”

The tears fell faster, harder, drenching the fingers he brushed against her face.
“Yes,”
she sobbed. “I thought I'd lost the only family I've ever really known, the very moment I'd found him again. And it was worse that you weren't dead. That you sent me away.”

“What a fool I've been.” His hand lifted to cup her jaw, his thumb hovering over the bruise swelling around the small split there. “I thought you were safer without me. That, for once, I was doing the noble thing. It took almost losing you—God, Farah, I've never been so afraid.” His jaw clenched and his own eyes seemed to glitter with raw, agonizing emotion. “I thought I could live without you. But there
is no life
without you. Only existence. And that is a greater hell than what awaits me after death.”

Farah's breath was stolen by a small hiccup. “Well.” She sniffed. “If you're feeling noble in the future, just—stop. You're rather terrible at it.”

That drew the devilish sound of amusement that Farah had come to recognize as Dorian's chuckle. He gently pressed her down with his palms until she sat on the cushioned trunk at the foot of the bed, truly feeling naked for the first time since he'd undressed her.

“I mean it,” she admonished as she watched him rub the cloth along her favorite lavender-scented soap and wring it into the basin. She wrapped her arms over her breasts and crossed her legs, feeling rather brittle and exposed. “How are you supposed to keep me safe if you're far away?”

She submitted as he softly brushed the cloth against her lip and chin, and then wiped away the tears from her cheeks, rinsing the fine patina of suds with a clean section of the linen. He noted her nakedness with a banked heat in his eyes, but his concern seemed to outweigh his baser instincts.

“You'll never be rid of me now.” It would have been a tease from a less serious man, but coming from Dorian, it sounded like a dire warning. “You may come to regret it. My demons will haunt our lives.”

Farah reached for his wrist, stilling his hand and capturing his eyes with her own to make certain he understood her words. “I don't mind battling a few demons when I'm living with their king.” She smiled. “And I think, after a time, we'll chase them away together.”

He was silent, pensive, as he continued to wash her. His eyes and hands discovered parts of her for the first time. Parts that, while generally innocuous, became instantly arousing and sensual beneath his touch. He found places that made her gasp. The thin skin on the underside of her forearms. The dip of her waist. The curve behind her knee. The arch of her foot and between her toes.