The Highwayman (Victorian Rebels Book 1)

London certainly looked different when one knew their life was in danger. Though street mobs obeyed and shadows parted for her influential new husband, Farah still found herself shrinking from dark alleys and checking around corners for a murderer, or for Warrington, himself, to seize upon her.

“Stop that,” Dorian ordered from the shadowed corner where he watched Madame Sandrine turn her into a human pincushion.

“I haven’t moved one iota in nearly three hours’ time. I’d first have to be doing something in order to cease doing it.” The endless standing had made Farah irritable, and after this fourth garment, the novelty of such fine apparel was beginning to wear off.

“You keep checking out the window for danger,” he accused.

Drat, she had been doing just that. Eyeing the richly attired citizens of the West End in a ridiculous search for a would-be assassin. Gritting her teeth against an itch on her collarbone, she fought the overwhelming urge to scratch at it. How would she even know what an assassin might look like? “Can you blame me under the circumstances? Perhaps being a target for powerful enemies is all very typical for you, but I’ve still yet to adjust to it.”

“And you won’t have to,” he said casually. “It won’t be long before we have Warrington’s head displayed on a spike from the London Bridge.”

“Not—literally?” Though the image didn’t disgust her as much as it should.

He cast her a look of droll exasperation.

“Well, one can never tell with you, can they?”

Her infuriating husband looked pleased with himself, and Madame Sandrine chuckled. “You picked a good wife, Monsieur Blackwell. She is, as we say, a femme forte.”

Farah inwardly felt guilty for all the discourteous thoughts she’d been having about the woman whilst submitting to her ministrations. “You are too kind, Madame Sandrine.”

“Hah! Your husband knows better than that, n’est-ce pas?”

Farah’s smile disappeared at the sly look the lovely brunette slid toward Blackwell. A few extra discourteous thoughts stunned her as Dorian awarded the dressmaker a civil nod, which was akin to an all-out declaration of affection for him.

Farah’s eyes narrowed at the woman, who didn’t notice because she was calculating the remarkable breadth of Blackwell’s shoulders. Just how well did they know each other? Had the lady put her hands on him? Had he allowed her to take his measurements and dress his impressive physique? It seemed oddly galling that, though she’d coupled with her husband, whoever tailored his clothing would still be more intimately acquainted with his body.

He was regarding Farah with the queerest expression when she couldn’t stop herself from lifting her disapproving gaze toward him. Could he read the odd mixture of curiosity and suspicion on her face? The knave’s own look hovered between disbelief and satisfaction.

He almost seemed contented. Most men wouldn’t dare think of accompanying their wives to a dress fitting, let alone refuse the distractions of a paper or book.

But not Dorian Blackwell. True to form, he watched, looking on with mild interest as Madame Sandrine tucked, pinned, measured, wrapped, and hemmed. Sometimes it seemed he couldn’t stop himself from staring, as if he drank her in with his gaze. Savored her. The intensity of it left her more than a little discomfited.

Her husband. A thief, a highwayman, a criminal.

A coldhearted killer.

But she’d known that, hadn’t she? Somehow, it seemed excusable for him to take down the dregs of society. To disappear men more villainous than himself; monsters, crime lords, and pimps. But officers of the law? Men she might have known and maybe even befriended.

She remembered their first conversation back in his study at Ben More. His devastating description of the hellish tortures he and Dougan had endured as boys.

And that was just what the guards did to me.

Swallowing strong emotion, Farah locked eyes with him. The wounded one glimmered with blue fire from the shadows. Swirling with things he would never say out loud. He couldn’t bear to be touched. Couldn’t relinquish a modicum of composure or control.

It was difficult to imagine the strong, lethal predator in front of her as a small boy, let alone a victimized one. Somehow, with a man such as Blackwell, it would be easy to assume that he’d always been the force of nature he currently was. That maybe, through some Olympian feat, he’d appeared on this earth in his mature, powerful body, birthed by a potent, mystical darkness.

But that wasn’t the case, Farah thought, her chest clenching for him. He was as much a product of the past as she, more so even, and he’d spent many of his formative years helpless, wounded, and afraid.

In a clever strategy, he’d crafted his vengeance around hers, so that she couldn’t separate herself from him if she wanted to achieve it. Dorian Blackwell wasn’t the sort of man to kill needlessly. Those guards whom he’d confessed to killing, if they’d mistreated Blackwell, they’d also likely victimized Dougan and countless other incarcerated boys. How many of those children had been innocent, as Dougan was? If that was the case, then Farah not only understood his lethal actions, she fought back a dark sort of approval. It was surely wrong, but she couldn’t bring herself to condemn him for it.

How strange that she felt more indignation for the genial tilt of his lips toward Madame Sandrine, than the deaths of three people. What sort of woman was she becoming?

“Madame Sandrine’s father, Charles, is my tailor,” he explained, a pleased smile toying with the corner of his mouth. “He spent a span with me in Newgate. I’ve known the family for some time, including Sandrine’s husband, Auguste.” He put undue emphasis on the word.

“Before we were tailors, my family were smugglers,” Madame Sandrine announced proudly. “But my father was wounded by the police and incarcerated. He always tells me that he could not have survived in an English prison without the Blackheart Brothers. And even after that, Monsieur Blackwell bought and leased us this palace in the West End, and now we are among the most elite tailors and dressmakers to the ton. The only payment he accepts is the exclusivité of my father’s expertise, and now, mine for you, Madame Blackwell.”

“Merci,” Farah murmured, swinging back to regret for her ire at the French woman as she still stared into the eyes of her husband. How was it that she was beginning to consider him more of a philanthropist than a philistine? Was he corrupting her somehow? Or was she finally seeing the truth? That the Blackheart of Ben More just might have a very big heart, indeed.

“I think this dress will stun the nobility, and leave them stupefied with envy and lust,” Madame Sandrine announced with relish.

“I’m just glad it’s not crimson, like everything else you drape,” Farah said to her husband as she glanced at her transformation in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors across from the raised podium on which she stood. The creation of blue silk evoked the midnight sky, as it wrapped her bosom and waist in bejeweled gathers before cascading from her hips in a dark waterfall. The shamelessly cut bodice was lent a hint of respectability by folds of a shimmering diaphanous silver material draping from a choker of gems about her neck and flowing down her shoulders like moonbeams. To call them sleeves would have been a mistake, for all they concealed.

Madame Sandrine threw a teasing look over her shoulder at Blackwell. “How fitting that the color of blood is the one you prefer the most.”

“Not for her,” Dorian rumbled.

The seamstress lifted a winged eyebrow, but didn’t comment. “Voilà. I believe that is all I’ll need from you today, Madame Blackwell. I can have these finished in the morning, and in the meantime I have a lovely soft gray frock hemmed with tiny pink blossoms that will bring out the color in your cheeks.”

“Thank you, Madame Sandrine. I apologize for the imposition upon your time.”

“Nonsense!” The woman gathered herself from the floor in a pool of skirts. “In this shop, time stops for Dorian Blackwell, and now his femme, as well.” Gingerly, she helped Farah out of the dress, leaving her only in her corset and underthings. “Next I shall bring an assortment of lingerie.”

“Oh, no, that’s quite all right,” Farah protested. “I have plenty of respectable—”

“Yes, bring them,” Dorian interjected. “Only your best.”

“That goes without saying. A newly wedded husband wants nothing to do with respectable undergarments.” The dressmaker tossed a lascivious smile toward Farah. “I have just the things that will keep the mistresses’ beds empty and cold.” She bustled out, sweeping the blue gown with her.

Mistresses? Farah glanced at Blackwell. He wouldn’t ever have mistresses, would he? No. He could barely bring himself to lie with her. But what about the future? What if he developed a taste for sex that she could not fulfill? What if he found someone whose touch did not repel him?

A brightness glimmered back at her from where her dark husband sat in the shadows. A look not of laughter or joy precisely, but a rearrangement from his usual cold calculation. A sense of reclining and recreation, and dare she say joviality?

“Don’t tell me you’re enjoying this,” she warned.

His smug look became a full smirk.

“She thinks you have a harem of mistresses.”

“I believe you’ve pointed out before, it’s a common misconception.”

“I’m fairly certain Madame Sandrine would like to apply for a position within the ranks,” Farah muttered.

“I find that jealousy becomes you, wife.” The suggestion in Dorian’s voice caressed all the way down to her respectable knickers.

“Don’t flatter yourself.” She was not jealous. Though, she had to admit, the suggestion that she couldn’t please a husband such as the Blackheart of Ben More enough to keep him from straying hurt more than she’d expected.

“You can assign me a great many sins, but self-approbation is not among them.” Dorian’s voice danced with amusement, and Farah had to fight back a threatening smile.

“If self-approbation were your only sin, you’d be an honest and virtuous man,” she quipped, lowering her lashes to hide her enjoyment.

“You weren’t looking for virtuous when you found me,” he said softly.

She made a sound of mock outrage, and chucked a balled-up stocking at him and he caught it. “You know full well I didn’t find you! You took me captive!”

“Is that how you remember it?”

“That’s what happened,” she insisted.

“I recall being quite captivated when first we met,” he said lightly. “Helpless, I daresay.”

Farah’s snort turned into a reluctant laugh. “Don’t be charming. It doesn’t suit you.”

The glimmer in his blue eye became a twinkle, the curve of his mouth lifted a little too far to be called a smirk anymore. But a smile? Almost … “No one’s ever accused me of being charming before.”

“You don’t say.” Lord, were they—flirting?

Madame Sandrine’s swishing skirts announced her arrival. “Here we are! The latest in Parisian fashion.” She selected a particularly thin bit of lace chemise in the palest shade of lavender from her cart, stocked with everything from corsets to drawers, stockings, garters, and nightgowns that barely covered enough to deserve the name. “This would go with these stockings—”

“Wrap one of everything,” Dorian ordered.

Farah imagined her dumbfounded look was just as ridiculous as the seamstress’s. “But, that’s a small fortune in underthings, for which I really have no need.”

“As it so happens, I have a small fortune to spend on underthings.”

Madame Sandrine’s throaty laugh set Farah’s teeth on edge. She reached into the cart and picked up a long sheer gown comprised of fine black lace.

Farah didn’t miss the tightening of her husband’s features.

Perhaps these would push him over the edge, entice him to “defile” her again. A blush climbed up her cheeks as Farah imagined herself in nothing but this bit of lace, drawing the lustful mismatched gaze of her husband. The garment was almost more indecent than being naked. Something a mistress would wear. Or a prostitute.

A horrific realization seized her, and Farah gasped, letting the garment slip from her fingers before she covered her suddenly burning eyes with both hands.

Prostitute. “Gemma!” she groaned. Tears squeezed from her clenched eyelids as she considered all the terrors the woman faced in her absence. Farah had promised the poor prostitute that she’d be there before her release from Scotland Yard. That she would help her escape the clutches of Edmond Druthers. She’d been so busy what with getting drugged, kidnapped, and subsequently married, that she’d all but forgotten. “What have I done?”

“What are you talking about?” Dorian’s voice was closer, alert, and concerned. “What’s the matter?

Slowly, Farah lowered her hands, revealing the wide form now towering in front of her. A dark notion swirled in the periphery of her moral conscience. Her husband was none other than the formidable and notorious Blackheart of Ben More. His name struck fear into the hearts of the most hardened criminals, to say nothing of his menacing features and powerful frame.

She only hoped that her outlaw husband would be willing to place his ill-gotten skills at her disposal. Sucking a bracing breath into her lungs, she prepared to speak the words that might just strike her final alliance with the devil. “Dorian, I need your help.”

*   *   *

A silent, expectant aura lifted the fine hairs on the back of Dorian’s neck as he surveyed the foul-smelling mists of the London docks. He didn’t have time for this. Furthermore, he didn’t like bringing Farah here. The dangers of the London neighborhood of Wapping didn’t exactly rival that of Whitechapel, but one didn’t bring their treasures here and hope to keep them. At least not at this hour of the early morning with all the river pirates and smugglers making use of the dark wharfs along the Thames.

Three things kept his shoulders relaxed as he strolled down Wapping High Street with Farah beside him.

The first was the thick copper hair, wide shoulders, and long stride of Christopher Argent, who guarded Farah’s other side. Dorian’s London assassin had the eyes of a hawk and the reflexes of a mongoose. Nothing would leap from the shadows that Argent didn’t see coming.

The second was that Murdoch flanked Farah and, despite his stout frame and advanced years, he was handy with a pistol or two. Though Dorian saved pistols as a last resort, as they tended to rouse the coppers if fired within the city. No need for that, tonight. Or ever.

The third, and most important, was that he remained Dorian Blackwell, and he owned the interest, goods, and loyalties of more than half the dock smugglers and river pirates along the Thames. This was his world. Not because he belonged here, but because he ruled here. Anyone they’d likely meet would either owe him fealty, money, or blood. And if someone stepped in his path, he’d collect his due.

If the Thames was a river of filth and sewage, Wapping High Street was a river of brick and stone. The structures here were comprised mostly of moldy warehouses and crumbling manufacturing buildings made obsolete by the new industrial revolution. The cobbles shone blue from the full moon, as street lamps were spaced much less liberally here than back on the lively Strand or in wealthy Mayfair. The moonlight never reached the deep alleys or narrow roads that led from the thoroughfare out to the docks.

This was a place for men who lived in shadows. Men like him.

Dorian glanced down at his wife. Her upswept ringlets glowed in the moonlight like a silver beacon against the seedy grime barely concealed by the night. He should not have brought her. Should have insisted she stay back in the safety of his terrace.

They shouldn’t be here at all, chasing after errant prostitutes. They’d interviewed over a dozen between Queen’s Head Alley and where they now stood on the corner of Brewhouse Lane. Farah had offered them coin, resources, and a place to sleep for any information about her friend Gemma Warlow.

Dorian couldn’t understand her grim determination. There were too many prostitutes to save. Too many orphans and urchins to house. Too many of the wretched and starving to feed. Chances were they’d go to all this trouble and the whore would run back to her master the moment her bruises healed and the man called her to him with a flippant apology.

Dorian had known and hated Edmond Druthers for years. The man was the human equivalent of the toxic sludge that gathered along the banks at low tide. No one wanted it there, but no one knew quite how to rid the city of it.

Gods, this was a bloody waste of time.

But Farah’s acute distress and earnest tears had unstitched him, and Dorian had known for some time that he could deny her nothing. Not even this fool’s errand. Christopher Argent kept stealing disbelieving looks at Farah, his blue eyes reflecting the ambient glow like an alley cat’s. Dorian understood why the man would dare in his presence.

First, because Christopher Argent was an unfeeling, fearless killer-for-hire.

And second, because most of the incarcerated men at Newgate had considered Dougan’s Fairy some mythical creature, a sight too rare and beautiful to be beheld by a common man. Maybe even a fancy born of an imagination keen enough to take possession of the prison. To meet her was to gaze upon a fantasy realized, to remember the desperate yearnings of a lonely prisoner bereft of kindness, mercy, or beauty. To be blinded by the embodiment of all three of those things. For a man like Argent, one born into incarceration, the sight might have him reassessing some long-held cynical philosophies.

But judging from the curious yet calculating look sparkling in Argent’s pale eyes, Dorian realized he could be mistaken. Seventeen years and he still knew next to nothing about the man other than the fact that Argent would kill without question and was abjectly loyal to him.

Farah was oblivious to the man, so intent was she on the rescue of her friend. She likewise ignored the sounds of drunken dockworkers spending what they won in many belowground gin hells for a cheap fuck, and approached the women who stood in the streets, brave enough, or desperate enough, to service thieves, smugglers, and dock pirates. Her composure was impressive as she conversed with these women without fear or judgment, even recognizing some of them by name. They might have been respectable ladies meeting in a city park, rather than unwashed wraiths stinking of sweat, sex, and in some cases, disease.

Problem was, Farah was getting nowhere, and with each dead end, her shoulders would lose a bit of their starch, and her eyes lost a bit more hope. Dragging Blackwell and Argent in her wake guaranteed her loose tongues, as no one would dare deny them, but it seemed that Gemma Warlow was nowhere to be found.

“I’m beginning to wonder if Druthers hasn’t—killed her,” Farah worried. “And it would be all my fault.”

“How in God’s name would it be your fault?” Dorian asked, staring down two sailors who leaned against an abandoned building. Hired muscle, possibly, awaiting an incoming shipment of smuggled goods, pocketing what would have been paid to the crown in import taxes.

Not his freight. They didn’t have anything scheduled until a company fleet arrived from the Orient in a week’s time.

Dorian heard his name spoken in awestruck whispers and knew the men wouldn’t be a bother. But they shouldn’t be looking at his wife like they did, so he didn’t break his glare until they found something interesting to study about their boots.

“I told Gemma when I left Scotland Yard with Morley that I would return in the morning to help her figure out how to escape Druthers for good. When I didn’t show she must have felt so—Wait a moment.” She stopped walking and her vanguard paused as well as she turned on Dorian. Her eyes, once wide and luminous with tears, now narrowed with accusation. “This isn’t my fault, this is your fault.”

Argent hid his amused smile behind the upturned collar of his long, black coat, but Murdoch didn’t bother hiding his undignified snort of laughter.

Dorian blinked. “I fail to see how.”

“If you hadn’t kidnapped me, I’d have been there for her.”

“You also might have been murdered on the way to work,” Dorian reminded her stiffly. “There is a price on your head, you know.”

“Yes, but Gemma Warlow might be the one who is murdered now. Is my life any more important than hers?” Farah challenged.

“It is to me.”

Three pairs of eyes widened in the blue darkness, and Dorian narrowed his in challenging response. He’d step over a mountain of murdered Gemma Warlows if it meant saving Farah, and didn’t feel one drop of shame for the truth of it. Though her features told him shock had turned back into reprobation, and therefore Dorian wisely remained silent.

“I ’ear you’re lookin’ for Gemma,” a voice cooed from the stairs that led down to the Hangman’s Pub and emptied onto Brew House Lane.

His wife instantly forgot her ire, and rushed toward the top of the stairs, her eyes beseeching as she gazed down at an aging dark-haired woman dressed in little more than tatters. “Yes! Gemma Warlow. Have you seen her?”

The strumpet pushed matted hair away from eyes alight with calculation. She looked through Farah to Dorian, and saw opportunity.

“Wot’s it werf to you, Black’eart?” she asked in her thick cockney. “We all know just how deep your pockets be lined. And you know there in’t no questions on the docks wot’s answered for free.”

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.

With Dorian, it was ice.

It hardened his muscles and crackled through his veins, freezing everything that made him alive. Human. It expanded to fill the empty spaces and reinforced any brittle parts. It dulled pain until people could chip away at him again and again, only to be bit by shards. The cold kept him sharp. Alert. Fierce.

And didn’t slow him down one bit.

With this many opponents, the fight would need to go quickly. Once a body hit the ground, another would replace it, and he couldn’t take the chance that someone might stand up and come at him again. No time to waste with punishing or wounding.

Lethal blows. Open veins. No survivors.

As Bones’s knife arced at his throat, Dorian crouched and wrenched the two long knives from their scabbards hidden against his back beneath his coat. He spun them so his thumb capped the pummel, and the blades rested along his forearms. On his way back up, he sliced through the meat beneath the pit of his attacker’s arm.

The man dropped his knife immediately as he severed the muscle and rendered his opponent’s knife arm permanently ineffectual. The piercing scream was cut short by Dorian’s second knife embedding deep into his throat.

Dorian was too focused on the next threat, the cudgel held in the coffee-skinned man’s leathery hand, to feel the warm arterial spray as he wrenched the blade out of Bones’s neck. The bleeding man made a terrible gurgling sound as his momentum carried him forward, and the body landed somewhere out of view.

Dorian almost missed the flash of auburn hair as Christopher Argent materialized from the alley and struck like a viper. One moment, the bear, George Perth, was just behind Druthers readying his kukri to strike, and the next, his limp feet were disappearing into the black alley.

Another unsuspecting victim of Argent’s famous garrote.

Dorian rushed the dark assailant, giving him a chance to raise his right arm for a blow that would have all the force of a speeding steam engine. That was, if Dorian had allowed it to land. Throwing his left knee into the unguarded torso, he heard the satisfying sound of the man’s breath leaving his body as he collapsed at the waist over his knee. One strong thrust of the knife to the back of the neck was enough to sever the man’s spinal cord.

He looked up from discarding the body, and found Druthers had pulled his pistol. “Not another move,” the brigand warned, his eyes peeled wide with fear. “I don’t want to shoot you, it’ll bring the coppers.”

“Then what do you propose?” Doran queried, fighting the need to look back and check on Farah. She’d never seen him kill before. What did she think of him now?

“Hand me the whore, she’s mine, and I’ll be on my way.”

“It’s too late for that, I’m afraid.” Dorian shook his head, slinging drops of blood from his blade with a flick of his wrist. “A man like me can’t leave an attack like this unanswered and hope to retain his place at the top.”

“I still have George,” Druthers threatened. “He’s the deadliest man in Wapping. You can’t kill us both before eating a bullet.”

Dorian’s fist tightened on his knife, positioning it for what he needed to do next. “I’m assuming you meant George was the rather large gentleman with the kukri.”

Druthers didn’t miss Dorian’s use of the past tense, and his brow dropped with confusion as he did exactly what Dorian needed him to do. He turned his head and looked toward the empty spot from which the bear of a sailor had disappeared.

The moment Druthers looked away, Dorian let his knife fly. It embedded deep into the man’s right shoulder, and the force of it drove Druthers to his knees. The slimy bastard tried to raise his gun, but the knife impeded all movement, and Dorian was on him before he could grab for the weapon with his other hand. Druthers’s face made a satisfying crunch beneath Dorian’s boot, and the man crumpled to the planks with a pathetic noise. After kicking the gun across the dock and into the river, Dorian crouched over Druthers with his remaining knife pressed against his throat, one knee grinding down on the pimp’s uninjured shoulder.

Blood poured from Druthers’s nose and mouth, leaking into his eyes and ears. A man once thought dangerous now squirmed and writhed like a trapped snake, emitting little mewling sounds of pain.

Feeding a mean-spirited impulse, Dorian reached out and twisted the knife still protruding from Druthers’s shoulder. Pleasure speared through him at the hoarse noise that ripped from the pirate’s throat. Sometimes the pain was too great to take in enough air to produce a proper scream.

Dorian knew that all too well.

“I’m going to slit your throat,” he murmured to Druthers in a seductive whisper. “I’m going to watch the life drain out of your eyes as you struggle to draw breath and your lungs only fill with your own blood.”

“Don’t!” Farah’s desperate plea stayed the draw of his knife across the throat. Light footsteps ran up behind him.

“Stay back, Farah. Let me finish this.”

“You can’t kill an unarmed man.”

“Actually,” he gritted out, his knife nicking into the thin, stubbled flesh of Druthers’s neck, “the killing goes more smoothly once I’ve disarmed them.”

“Dorian…” She let his whispered name trail into the quiet sounds of the river. “Please.”

“He threatened you, Farah.” The cold rage surged again. “He should not be allowed to live.”

“It would be murder.” Instead of censuring, her voice was gentle behind him, using warmth to slowly melt the ice instead of force to bash up against it. “If you kill him in cold blood, this horrid man will be another black stain upon your soul. Must you grant him that?”

Dorian stared down into the disgusting, broken face of Edmond Druthers, and knew he didn’t want to add the man to the many that haunted his nightmares. Moreover, he didn’t want to turn back around and have the blood that Farah saw on his hands be a stain of dishonor.

Retrieving his knife from Druthers’s shoulder produced another tortured sound, but Dorian didn’t stop there. He sliced through the tendon in the man’s dominant arm. Edmond Druthers would never wield a weapon again.

“Dorian!” Farah gasped.

After wiping the blood from his blades on Druthers’s coat, Dorian stood and faced his wife. “Not a stain, my dear,” he said while replacing his weapons in their scabbards tucked beneath his coat. “But what’s one more smudge?”

Farah’s seemingly unearthly moonlight glow intensified as the corners of her mouth trembled before she fought off the mirth and pressed them together, adopting a stern look.

“Lord, you’re a wicked man,” she said wryly, as though she could think of nothing else and so she just shook her head in abject disbelief.

“So I’ve been told.”

A gunshot shattered the darkness. Shouting downriver echoed across the piers. A splash. Repeating shots.

Dorian thrust Farah behind him and backed them both toward the crates where Murdoch had drawn his pistol.

Irritation stabbed through him as he identified the dark shapes with buttons that reflected the brilliant moonlight spilling onto the Executioner’s Dock.

The tavern slut had been right when she said the night was full of shadows. In fact, those shadows had been full of the London Metropolitan Police.

A tall figure emerged from the army of coppers, wearing an impeccable gray suit and an air of superiority. “Lieutenant?” Carlton Morley’s pistol was aimed right where Dorian’s heart would go, his finger caressing the trigger with sensual promise.

A large blond bobby stepped from the line. “Yes, Chief Inspector?”

“Arrest them.”

“Which ones?” the lieutenant asked, his eyes flicking from Farah with astonished recognition to Dorian with apprehension.

Morley wasn’t glaring daggers at Dorian, but at Farah. “All of them.”