“Would Dougan Mackenzie forgive this coercion?” she challenged, doing her best to ignore the stirrings of her own body. “If you owe him as much as you claim, would he not wish you to spare my modesty?”
The spark of heat in his eyes died for a moment, before flaring brighter than before. “When we meet in hell, I’ll ask his forgiveness.” His mouth pulled into a harder line, his skin tightened over the sharp angles of his cheeks and jaw. His dark eye gleamed triumphant and also dissatisfied, his blue one conflicted and aroused, and both were locked on the soap hovering at her shoulder.
Farah understood what she must do to urge him to keep talking. Lips parting on an anxious breath, she slowly washed the slim expanse of her chest before dipping the soap below the water’s surface, running it over her breast.
The immediate reaction of her body was both unexpected and acute. Sensation ripped through her, starting at her nipple as the soap grazed it, and coursing through her limbs before settling between her clenched thighs. Farah forced her eyes not to flutter closed as she savored this new and profound awareness. Instead, she studied Blackwell for any signs that he recognized the effect he’d had on her. That she’d had on herself in his presence.
So intent was he on the spot where her hand had disappeared, she doubted he noticed her reaction at all.
“Go on,” she demanded breathlessly, hoping to keep him distracted as she sorted out the insistent pressure now burning through her blood and combating the chill in her bones brought on by the content of their conversation.
True to his word, he complied. The dispassionate tone of his voice again conflicting with the intensity of his bold regard. “Since Dougan would likely spend twenty years in Newgate before the crown revisited his case, he asked me to swear a vow on the debt I owed him of my life.” He trailed off when her breath caught as she washed her other breast.
“Which was?” she prompted.
“That when they released me, I would hunt you down and make certain you were safe and cared for.”
“As you can see, Mr. Blackwell, I’m quite unharmed and well cared for. You may return me to my life with a clear conscience.” Farah laughed a little. “That is, if you even have one.”
“I suppose it does remain to be seen,” he said mildly, though he still hadn’t lifted his notice above the slight ripples in the water. “My seven-year sentence was completed almost a month to the day after Dougan’s death. And the first thing I did was go looking for you.” He leaned forward then, like a great cat readying for his lethal blow. “Do you know what I found?”
“No.” A slice of dread began to tangle with the heat in Farah’s belly, just beneath where the soap hovered in her trembling fingers. “Tell me.”
“I will. As soon as you resume washing.”
“I—I’m finished,” she lied. “I’m clean.”
Flames licked at the ice in his blue eye. “You missed a spot.”
An answering heat bloomed deep inside her. Low in her belly, no, lower—in her womb. Farah wanted to hate him. He held her captive. Manipulated her emotions. Used this wicked compulsion to gratify his own perversions.
And yet …
As the soap slid through sparse curls and into the cleft between her thighs, ribbons of unexpected sensation stirred from her most intimate flesh and unfurled across the expanse of her skin. Her mouth dropped open, but she caught the moan before it escaped.
Their gazes collided, the flames in his eyes darkened as his pupils dilated.
He knew. Though he could see nothing, he knew exactly where her fingers drifted, and precisely where the soap slicked over already moistened skin.
Despite her mortification, Farah also marveled. She’d been bathing for almost three decades and, while she’d found a tremor of pleasure whilst lingering here, it had never been so achingly insistent, so full of demand and promise.
That demand, those promises, were mirrored in the stare of Dorian Blackwell.
Whatever he read in her eyes caused him to slam his lids shut, giving Farah an unimpeded view of the angry scar across his brow and eyelid. The wound looked deep and angry. It was a wonder he hadn’t lost his eye. When he reopened them, she found herself staring at his wounded blue iris with rapt attention. To her disappointment, he’d conjured his signature chill again, though he cleared his throat before speaking.
“I will tell you that I found you had your own share of secrets, and not ones best left to the darkness, like mine, but secrets that would rock the entire British Empire.”
The soap slipped from her fingers, trailing down her womanhood and disappearing into the water. All the warmth and pleasure dissipated, and Farah shook her head in shocked denial. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The frightening speed with which the atmosphere between them heated and cooled was enough to make one consumptive. Hadn’t she just been having one of the most intimate moments of her life? And now he wanted to resume talking about the past. Revealing secrets. Tearing open old wounds.
She’d changed her mind. She did hate him. She hated how he was shaking his dark head, but in a mock semblance of righteous censure.
“Applecross was, of course, where I started my search. The orphanage’s records showed that one Farah Leigh Townsend succumbed to a bout of cholera, her tolerance having been weakened by her family’s fatal disease.”
Farah knew all this, but found herself riveted, wondering if the Blackheart of Ben More was really going to sit in the only shadows of the bright room and uncover the only concealment she’d thought she’d had left. He’d used her real last name. Something she’d never disclosed to anyone, not even Dougan Mackenzie.