The Highwayman (Victorian Rebels Book 1)

“Why doona ye go with her?” Murdoch asked for maybe the millionth time. “It’d be a damned sight better than staying locked up here and working yerself to death.”

Dorian looked up from where he unpacked crates of books he’d unloaded this morning, and swiped a forearm across his sweating brow. He’d been up and down the library ladder possibly hundreds of times today, and planned to climb it a hundred more, until every book had been placed where it belonged. Maybe then, he’d expand the wine cellar. Regardless of his past, there were times his hands ached for the feel of a sledgehammer or a pickaxe again. Perhaps he’d dig a tunnel to France. By himself.

“Blackwell—”

“It’s this, or drinking,” Dorian interrupted. “Pick one.”

“Drinking yerself to death would certainly be more enjoyable,” his steward muttered.

A flurry of dust erupted as Dorian dropped a pile of gold-leafed hardcovers on the table with a loud crack. “Is there something that needs attending?” he asked irately.

“Yer wife,” Murdoch challenged.

Dorian paused, a pang of pure agony spearing through him with such force he couldn’t bring himself to lift his head above the book spines in front of him. “Careful, old man.”

“Ye aren’t even going to say good-bye?”

“She’s going to Hampshire, Murdoch, not the Indies. It’s an hour or so by train.” Dorian sorted through books he could not see, moving them from pile to pile just to avoid the knowing stare of his oldest living friend. “It’s better this way,” he finally murmured.

“Ye’re a bloody idiot,” Murdoch declared.

“And you are this close to losing your—”

“She’s yer Fairy, Dougan. How can ye possibly let her go now?”

“Don’t call me that.” An abyss that could encompass the night sky had opened up in his chest a week ago, on that day in the gardens, and Dorian rubbed at his sternum, wondering when it would burst from his rib cage and swallow the earth. “You’ve seen what I’ve done to her.” He fingered a page, receiving a cut for his troubles. “It was never part of the plan to keep her with me. She wants to make me a father. We both know that’s a terrible idea. I’m not—whole.”

“She loves ye,” Murdoch offered.

“She loves her memories of Dougan. She’s known Dorian for such a short time, and I’ve already done more damage than can be repaired.”

“But, what if ye—”

“What if I broke her?” Dorian seethed, advancing on Murdoch. “What if I hurt her in my sleep, or worse? What if I lost my temper? What if I lose my mind?”

“What if ye let go of yer past and she made ye happy?” Murdoch retorted. “What if she gave ye peace? Maybe a little hope?”

Dorian swiped a bottle of Highland scotch he’d been nursing and took a deep, burning swig before turning toward the window overlooking the drive. Maybe he would drink himself to death. At least then the fire in his belly would be something other than this numb sort of despair. And wouldn’t Laird Ravencroft be glad to hear of his demise? By his own whisky, no less.

“There is no hope for a man like me,” he told his reflection, and the pathetic bastard in the window seemed to agree, looking back at him with disgust. “No peace to be had.”

After a hesitant moment Murdoch asked, “Are we going back to Ben More, then?”

A black coach and four pulled into the circular drive and rolled to a stop beneath the portcullis. Dorian watched its progress with a sinking desolation. “I will likely be, but you’re to accompany Lady Blackwell to Northwalk Abbey.”

“But sir!” Murdoch argued. “I havena packed.”

“I had them pack your things this morning,” Dorian informed him. “I don’t want her traveling alone and Argent is—occupied.”

“Very well,” Murdoch acquiesced. “But she should get used to the idea of her being alone. Ye’ve just cursed her with a life of nothing but isolation. She’ll be the unwanted wife of the Blackheart of Ben More. How lonely do ye think that’ll be?”

Dorian took another swig, his books forgotten, his head swimming in scotch and misery. “Have a safe journey, Murdoch,” he said in dismissal.

“Rot in hell, Blackwell,” Murdoch tossed back before quitting the room and slamming the door.

He already was, Dorian thought with a wry huff before taking another swig. He didn’t think he stood staring out at nothing for that long, but before he knew it Farah stepped from under the front awning.

There couldn’t be a picture of a more elegant and refined countess. Her traveling dress, a jewel green with gold ribbing at the hem of the jacket, matched the hat covering her intricately pinned hair. A tasteful black feather flowed from the hat and matched the gold and black bobs at her ears.

Dorian drank in the sight of her. Committed it to his memory as he had none other. The indent of her waist. The fourteen ruffles of her pelisse. The delicate curve of her neck and the way a few lone ringlets draped down her shoulder.

Don’t look back at me, he begged, unable to tear himself away from the window. Don’t give me another memory of your eyes to haunt my dreams.

It had been at his insistence, hadn’t it, that she go and properly claim her father’s Hampshire castle? He could no longer stand her presence beneath his roof. No longer watch her while she slept and not be tempted to take her. To hold her. To curl against her body and lose himself to the oblivion she found so easily.

The blood of the dead and dying didn’t haunt her dreams.

And he had to make certain it stayed that way.

Don’t look back.

If she did, he wouldn’t be able to let her go. He’d lock her in the tower like some pirate’s captive and—and—well, it didn’t bear thinking what he’d do. All manner of debauched perversions, that’s what. He’d use her in all the dark and devious ways he’d been trying not to obsess about since that first night.

He took another swig.

Murdoch took Farah’s hand to help her into the coach. She paused, her chin dropping and tilting toward where he stood at the grand library window.

He put his hand on the windowpane, feeling more like that boy at Applecross than he had in years. Don’t look back at me.

And she didn’t. For there was nothing to see.

*   *   *

Farah stood on the banks of the river Avon and enjoyed a few minutes of rare and blessed silence. It wasn’t that she minded all the callers and well-wishers who had swarmed upon Northwalk Abbey; in fact, they provided a lovely diversion. One could not dwell on a broken heart when there was a house to put in order and a past to reclaim.

Breathing in fragrant air chilled by river water and sweetened with bluebells, Farah turned back to admire the gables of Northwalk Abbey. Diversion only took one so far. The mind was a powerful tool, but altogether useless when it came to matters of the heart.

Farah had done everything she could think of to keep herself occupied. Renovations to Northwalk Abbey, working with Murdoch to transfer, claim, and understand her finances, which were more vast than she realized, and acquainting herself with Hampshire society. She was requested to every drawing room, solarium, and dining table, as the Countess Northwalk became the latest and most stylish controversy. Not just because of who she was, but also because of to whom she was married.

Deciding to head back, she kicked at a rock with the toe of her walking boot. She certainly didn’t feel married. It had been two extremely busy and exhausting months since she’d left Blackwell House in London. Busy because of all she’d accomplished, and exhausting because of the sleepless, lonely nights.

Northwalk Abbey seemed immense and empty, even after she’d requisitioned Walters and Tallow from Ben More to help, and installed Gemma with Walters in the kitchens. In truth, she’d thought that might anger Dorian enough to come after her and reclaim his staff for Ben More. But he didn’t. According to Murdoch, he remained in London, becoming such a recluse, people feared him a prisoner of his own home.

More like a prisoner of his own mind, Farah thought.

“When do ye think we should go back to London?” Murdoch had asked at the end of that first dreary month.

“Probably the first week of never,” Farah had retorted, hating the bitterness in her voice. It covered a wound she felt like she’d never be rid of.

“My lady…” Murdoch had begun, but in the end, hadn’t been able to think of anything to say.

“I mean it. I’m not going back to him. Northwalk is my home now. He can sit in his bloody castle and brood his life away.” She couldn’t believe how angry the subject made her. How utterly disappointed and frustrated. Farah had always considered herself a calm and reasonable woman, prone to curiosities and independence, but not fits of temper and ranting. “We were given a second chance at life—at happiness—and I’m going to grasp it. Whether he does or not.”

Farah would have regretted those initial words to Murdoch except they’d seemed to galvanize him, somehow. And he’d, in turn, taken his second chance with Tallow.

The footman, now turned butler, smiled more these days, and stuttered less. Though he and Murdoch kept their relationship very much to themselves, Farah didn’t miss the way they protected or encouraged each other, the light brushes of one’s hand against the other’s shoulder as they passed, or the fact that Tallow’s room hadn’t been slept in for ages.

It had taken her another month to admit that she wasn’t happy. Not even close. A desperate loneliness haunted her quiet moments, and had begun to stalk her regardless of how many people she surrounded herself with.

Picking her way through the gardens, Farah veered for the kitchen doors as she smelled Walter’s baking. Perhaps he’d prepared some spring fruit and cream. Or, if she were lucky, followed through on his threat to make an olive oil cake with preserved cherry compote that he’d read about in an Italian cookbook. They’d just received a shipment of dark Spanish chocolate. He’d probably worked wonders with that.

Stomach rumbling with anticipation of what she might find, she swung open the door to the entry and was rendered speechless by the scene that greeted her.

A towering Frank held Gemma in his embrace from behind, his chin resting on the curve where her neck met her shoulder as he watched her fold confectioner’s sugar into some kind of concoction.

Farah observed them from the doorway, neither of them having noticed her yet. Ingredients splayed across the wooden island in disarray, and Farah knew that this was Gemma’s doing, as Frank tended to be fastidious to the point of compulsive with the cleanliness of his kitchens.

The basins, sinks, stove, ovens, and cutlery of Northwalk Abbey had all been his own requisitions and they eerily resembled those at Ben More.

Gemma hadn’t so much transformed in two months as adapted. Her dresses were newer, her skin and hair more luminous, but she maintained her stubborn sense of self and wielded her bawdy personality like a weapon.

Yet, as Farah watched her with Frank, she spied an expression on the woman’s face she’d never before imagined. A vulnerable insecurity.

“You whisk it too rough,” he guided gently, engulfing her stirring hand with his gigantic one. “Slow. Like this.”

“I told you I ain’t no good at this,” Gemma protested churlishly. “I can roast the bloody hell out of a bird, but baking gives me a fever.”

Frank turned his head and kissed her jaw. “You’re good at this,” he said with absolute conviction. “You’re good at lots of things.”

“Get on with you,” Gemma chided. But the woman smiled down at their joined hands, and relaxed into his arms.

Farah glided backward until she was certain they wouldn’t notice her and pulled the door shut as quietly as she could.

Gemma and Frank? Frowning, she made her pensive way to the front entrance. She’d been too wrapped up in ignoring her own problems to notice their attachment. Or perhaps she just hadn’t wanted to see the affection and hope blooming here at Northwalk. Everyone was seizing their second chances at life. And love. Murdoch and Tallow, and now Gemma and Frank.

Farah was happy for them. If any man would treat Gemma with kindness and infinite patience, it was Frank. And the former prostitute likely wouldn’t mind his slow speech or simple ways. A gentle giant like Frank Walters would allow her freedom, protection, and would more often than not defer to her for all decision making. Gemma would finally have control over her life, and the pure kind of love only a man like Frank could give.

Farah couldn’t pretend that all of this romance didn’t make her solitude that much more pernicious. She didn’t want to be bitter. Didn’t want to resent the good fortune of those she cared about. Such tendencies were beneath her.

And yet …

The tender intimacy of a gentle embrace like the one she’d just witnessed caused a yearning so palpable her skin ached with it. Every affectionate touch Murdoch and Tallow shared felt like a blade sliding between her ribs and nicking at her heart.

Farah knew she possessed a capacity to love that was greater than most. Sometimes, she was filled with so much care, so much brimming affection, she thought it might encompass the entire world. She wanted to hold every unloved child, to save every wounded soul. She wanted to embrace the man she loved, and have him return that love in kind.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

Tears stung behind her eyes and only managed to irritate her.

Enough of this, she told herself. Hurrying up the wide marble steps to Northwalk, she swept past Tallow. “Do you know where Murdoch is?” she asked him.

“T-t-the study, my lady.”

She was already halfway up the grand marble staircase when she thanked him, gripping the black banister to propel her faster.

Murdoch looked up from the big oak desk in the study as she entered. Once he took in her troubled expression, worry lines appeared between his brows.

“Are ye well, my lady?”

“Quite well, thank you,” she lied, suddenly uncertain why she’d sought him out.

“Is there something ye needed?” he asked carefully, following her restless pacing from one end of the study to the next.

“No. Yes.” Farah paused her pacing, then started again, nearly unsettling a globe unlucky enough to be in her path. “I—I’m not sure.” She’d just been so melancholy. Felt so—abandoned. But now, staring into the patient gaze of her friend, it all seemed so silly, and also hopeless.

It wasn’t the understanding in his eyes that unraveled her. It was the pity.

“Why don’t ye sit down?” He motioned to the plush bronze settee and pulled the cord to ring for a maid. “I’ll call for tea.”

Farah didn’t want to sit down, but was suddenly too tired and heavy to stand. Murdoch ordered tea while she stared at her hands, then settled himself next to her. He was quiet while she gathered her thoughts, her courage, knowing that she’d speak as soon as she could.

“I miss him,” she admitted to her lap.

“No more than I’m certain he misses you.”

“A part of me hoped he’d come, and a part of me knew he wouldn’t.” She turned to him, dashing at angry tears. “He was right, you know. I am a fool.”

“Doona say that, my lady.” Murdoch reached for her hand. “He is the fool. Love and fear are the two strongest emotions known to the heart of man. I’ve never seen Blackwell afraid, it’s part of what’s made him so dangerous. No matter how much he’s acquired, he’s lived like he’s had nothing to lose. Like he didna fear death.”

Farah stood, too restless to sit any longer. A hot ire speared through her like a lance, settling close to her heart. “He doesn’t fear death, but he fears life? That’s so ridiculous!”

“He’s a dangerous man, my lady. He’s afraid he’ll hurt ye. He’s afraid to let himself hope, to lose ye again. He almost didna survive the first time.”

Farah wrapped her arms around herself and leaned against the desk. “All the terrible things that happened to him—they were a result of his love for me. Do you think that’s why—”

“Nay.” Murdoch put a staying hand out, but didn’t go to her. “Many different circumstances and forces converged against him. His path may have been similar whether ye were a part of it or not. Such is the lot of so many bastards and orphans.”

“It just makes no sense,” she lamented. “Why be so afraid of losing something, you deny yourself of it? Everyone is entitled to a chance at happiness. Even the Blackheart of Ben More. Especially him.”

“So are ye, my lady.”

“So I am.” Farah straightened, galvanized by a moment of self-discovery. “I’m so angry with him. He thinks he’s done me such a favor by restoring my birthright, and it isn’t that I’m not grateful. But his methods have stolen from me the one thing I’ve ever wanted.” She was gesturing wildly, ignoring Murdoch’s growing alarm.

“What’s that?” he asked hesitantly.

“A family, Murdoch.” Farah marched behind the desk and extracted a sheet of monogrammed paper and pen. Two monthly courses had come and gone since Farah had last seen her husband, and each one had been a reminder that her thirtieth birthday approached, and her child-bearing years were numbered. “If he’s too afraid, too stubborn to love me, that’s his prerogative. But if Dorian Blackwell thinks he can deny me what he promised, he has another thing coming.”

“What do ye plan, my lady?” Murdoch rose slowly.

“I’m writing a letter.”

He eyed the paper dubiously.

“I am going to live my life, Murdoch,” she announced. “I intend to have my family, whether he’s a part of it or not.”

Murdoch sat down like a man readying for the gallows. “No one gives Dorian Blackwell an ultimatum who doesna regret it,” he cautioned.

“This isn’t an ultimatum, Murdoch. This is his last chance. And while he might be afraid to seize it, I’m not.”

“Ye might destroy him, lass. Doona tear him down.”

Farah glared up at Murdoch, though she understood and appreciated his loyalty to her recalcitrant husband. “I have worked with nothing but men for over a decade,” she informed him. “I know exactly how to dismantle them, and how to put them back together. You think it’s difficult? I would have built him back up, Murdoch. We could have had the future that was stolen from us.” She took the tall seat at the desk.

Murdoch stroked at his close-cut beard for a moment before reaching for the pen and unscrewing the cap with infinite slowness and handing it to her. “I think all this time, I’ve been afraid of the wrong Blackwell,” he mused.

*   *   *

“You look like hell,” Christopher Argent observed mildly as he puffed on a cigar in Dorian’s London study.

Dorian bloody well knew what he looked like. He cringed at the memory of what he’d seen in the glass this morning. He’d lost weight in the past two months. His skin clung more tightly to his sharp, heavy bones and caused every scar and line of age to stand out. He did, indeed, look like some dark creature that’d dragged himself from the bowels of hell. He ate little. He slept less. He worked, he drank, and he haunted the streets of London in the dark looking for trouble.

Sometimes he found it. Sometimes, it found him.

And yet he lived. He yearned.

The torture of her absence was worse than the cause of any mark left on his body. He was obsessed, possessed. His skin burned and his heart ached. He wanted. He needed. He craved.

“When’s the last time you shaved?” Argent queried, running an elegant hand over his own shadow beard, this a bit lighter red than the auburn of his hair. Cropped close to his sharp jaw, it made him look more like a rawboned, ferocious Celt than a gentleman.

Dorian ignored his questions. He’d bathed today after his work on the wine cellar. That was all he could muster. “Any sign of him?” he demanded.

Since Harold Warrington had paid for his release pending investigation on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder, he’d simply disappeared.

A corrupt judicial system was somewhat of a double-edged sword. Any judge willing to accept bribes or blackmail from one villainous reprobate, namely Dorian, certainly would turn coat for another.

Though the judge who’d released Warrington should have known better than to go against the Blackheart of Ben More, Dorian thought darkly. He’d deal with that later.

“That’s why I’m here.” Cigars always lent Argent’s rough voice even more gravel. “The bobbies fished a body out of the Thames this morning. McTavish says it’s Warrington.”

Dorian’s head snapped up. “Are they sure? Did you see the body?”

Argent nodded. “He was wearing the monogrammed jacket the villain disappeared in. You were right about him. Fat bastard was even more bloated by the water, took five coppers to lift him.”

A tension that had resided in Dorian’s shoulders these past months released, resulting in a throbbing headache.

Argent regarded him with those trademark cold, shrewd eyes that seemed less like he saw you as a human, and more like a creature he’d like to dissect.

“Why don’t you go to her?” Argent queried. “Now that Warrington is no longer a problem?”

“I—can’t,” Dorian admitted wryly. His body was strung too taut for that. Once he’d tasted the sweetness she had to offer, the oblivion that bliss afforded, he couldn’t even be trusted in the same room with her. Even now, his body responded.

Argent shook his head and unfolded his tall form from the chair, crushing his cigar on the tray. “Never thought I’d see the day Dougan Mackenzie gave up his Fairy.” He flicked a concerned glance toward Dorian.

“The next person to call me that is going to lose his tongue,” Dorian snarled. “I haven’t given her up. We’re married. She’s still mine.”

An amber brow conveyed skepticism, but Argent wisely kept his own counsel.

“A letter for you, Blackwell.” His butler brought in a flat envelope on a silver tray. Dorian took it, his stomach taking a dive at the sight of the Northwalk seal.

Why wasn’t she using his seal? he wondered as he broke the wax and unfolded the letter.

Why would she?

“I’ll take my leave, then.” Argent pulled the bell and requested his coat from a footman as Dorian read the words that drove rail spikes of rage through his temples.

Dorian,

I have given our situation a great deal of consideration, and have decided to subsequently release you from your promise. My intention to raise a family still remains. As such, I will be accepting another candidate to fulfill the required vocation until my objective has been attained.

It is my sincere hope that this letter finds you well and that you are able to find peace.

Yours,

Lady Farah Leigh Blackwell, Countess Northwalk

Crushing the paper in his hand, Dorian stood and hurled it into the fireplace. A fury the likes of which he’d never before felt bolted through him with such violence he physically jerked. Beneath the cold logic and cruel calculation of every villain lay slumbering a mindless beast of wrath, greed, and lust. This beast was cultivated in a more barbaric time, one where a man had to fight with his hands to keep what he claimed. He had to use rocks and weapons to crush his enemies. This beast surged through him now.

He would rip the limbs off any man who dared touch his wife.

Mine. His blood sang with the words. His breath flowed with them. His heart, the one he’d not thought to possess, beat the staccato of what he’d known since the moment he’d seen her on the Scottish moors all those years ago.

Only mine.

Argent’s words were nothing but the buzzing of an insect as he hurled himself past the man, reached for his coat, and bellowed for his horse.

He should have known she wouldn’t accept his terms, should have guessed she’d be obstinate. But he hadn’t considered that she’d dare to fill her bed with another man for the sake of a child.

Farah wanted a family? He’d plant a manor full of children in her belly. He’d take her until she could no longer walk. He’d tried the honorable route. Done his best to keep her safe from the menace and perils of his life.

No more. She’d won her dangerous game. She wanted the love of the Blackheart of Ben More? It was hers, and all the danger and darkness that came with it.