“Of course not,” he scoffed. “I am, after all, a businessman. I can return your fortune to you, in exchange for access to the only part of London society still denied me.”
“I—I don’t understand,” Farah stuttered. “How will I do that?”
Blackwell leaned over the tub, bracing his hands on both sides, his powerful shoulders bunching as they supported his considerable weight. “Simple,” he purred. “You’ll marry me.”
CHAPTER NINE
Aye, Fairy, ye’ll have to resign yerself to being a highwayman’s wife.
Sounds like an adventure!
Farah stared mutely at the man looming above her with disbelief while memories stole through her bones like a soul lingering in a graveyard.
Dougan’s earnest dark eyes, alight with love, possession, and tender vulnerability, glowed at her through the obscure veil time cast on all reminiscences. How romantic the prospect had seemed when they were children, without the understanding of reality to temper their exuberant dreams of the future. But an entirely different set of eyes glowed down at her now, these displaying arrogant calculation and the possession of a much more adult variety.
A highwayman’s wife, indeed.
“What makes you think I’d marry the likes of you?” she declared with vehemence when she again found her voice. “That’s easily the most ridiculous proposal I’ve ever heard.”
“Please,” he scoffed, lip curling in distaste. “You forget I was there when Morley proposed to you. Besides, a proposal denotes a question, and I have yet to ask you one.” He pushed away from the tub and turned from her, his shoulders bunched tighter than before. “I informed you that you’ll marry me, and marry me you will.”
Farah squelched the childish impulse to splash him with water. “I most certainly will not!”
“It is foolish to deny the inevitable,” he threw over his shoulder.
That did it. Farah stared daggers at his broad back, knowing they were sharp enough for him to feel them, even though he faced the windows. “Explain to me how becoming the wife of the Blackheart of Ben More improves my circumstances. Other than your ill-gotten money, what else have you to offer me that I could possibly want? You said yourself you have no heart, no soul. A tarnished reputation. You don’t love me. You can’t even stand to touch me. Why would a woman like me ever want a life with a man such as you?”
“Why, indeed?” He turned to face her and Farah’s lips snapped together. She realized now just how he incited fear in the very souls of his enemies. He didn’t scald with a fiery temper. He didn’t intimidate with his superior size and brutal strength, though that couldn’t be ignored. It was the absolute rigid placidity of his arresting features. Bereft of animation, emotion, or acknowledgment, as though he considered the life in front of him as beneath his notice as that of a harmless insect. He’d be as likely to pass you by as he would to crush you beneath the sole of his boot and not even bother to scrape you off into the gutter. He was beyond arrogance. Above condescension. He would watch a cruel child pluck your limbs off, or survey the carnage of a civilization without a crack in his smooth façade.
Was he truly so cold? Had her words not affected him in the slightest? She wished he’d meet her ire with the evidence of a wound, with anger, with passion, with anything to show her he wasn’t as soulless as he claimed.
“I can offer you protection from the man who wants you dead, the safety and stature of my name, and the restoration of your parents’ legacy to you. In return, you can offer me the title of earl and a seat in Parliament.” Though his voice and deportment bespoke ambivalence, Farah had a notion of how much this meant to him. “Along with avenging Dougan Mackenzie’s death, there is quite a lot we can accomplish by joining forces.”
Joining forces? “You speak of marriage like a military commander discusses battle strategy,” Farah accused.
“In this case, that’s not a bad comparison. We’d be two allies with our own set of advantages, strategically aligning against an opponent for a mutual benefit.”
“Your benefit seems to outweigh mine. As I’m certain you’re aware, if I marry you, my parents’ title, wealth, property, and legacy wouldn’t be returned to me, it would legally belong to you.”
He waved a large hand to show how inconsequential her argument was to him. “I have wealth and property enough of my own. What need have I of an estate and a few tenements in Hampshire and a Mayfair mansion? I own more profitable land than the queen. I’ll sign a document giving you full rights to your father’s holdings before we marry. They would be yours to do with as you wish.”
A strange, paralyzing numbness born of shock and disbelief weighed down Farah’s limbs even in the buoyant water. Her sweet Dougan’s memory avenged. Her father’s beloved home restored. Her mother’s jewels and priceless art hers again, to cherish and admire. To pass along to further generations. With such resources, she could uncover the truth behind her parents’ deaths. Could demand justice for the usurper Warrington and his pretender bride.
Oh, Lord. Was she really considering this—this lunacy? She measured the man in front of her, a study in strength and darkness and ruthless control. Just what would agreeing to be the wife of the most infamous man in the empire entail? The very thought chilled the blood.
And yet …
“What do you want with a title and a seat in Parliament?” she queried.