“How … many are there?” she asked curiously.
It took him a moment to tally, which meant his holdings were vast. “I assume you’re wanting me to include my international residences. So counting the Mediterranean villas and the vineyard in the Champagne region of France—”
“Villas?” She gasped. “As in plural?”
The ghost of a smirk haunted his lips.
Farah pressed her hands to her overheated cheeks. The wife of a highwayman. A disgustingly wealthy highwayman, granted, but a criminal all the same. Had she and Dougan truly been so prophetic as children? Was she actually considering this? Considering … him?
Seized by the sudden need to reconcile, she wanted to smooth out the bunching of constant tension at his shoulders. To warm the patina of frost from his stare. To produce a crack in the smooth, armored mask of his features. If she were to give this any further thought, she needed to find something human about the Blackheart of Ben More.
She skimmed wrinkled fingertips across the surface of the water. “Before I say anything else, I feel it’s right to say that I didn’t mean to be so insulting to you earlier. I’ll admit to being rather out of my depth here. Being so ordered about doesn’t bring out the best in me, I’m afraid.”
Blackwell made a dry noise. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m the last man alive who would condemn bad behavior. In spite of that, I concede you have every reason to doubt, despise, and fear me.”
“I don’t despise you…” Though she couldn’t honestly deny the doubt or fear part.
“Give it some time,” he muttered wryly.
That coaxed a smile from her, and she studied him from beneath her lashes, noting with some pleasure that she’d been effective. Blackwell had unclenched his fists and his unsettling eyes conveyed, if not warmth, an acceptable amount of equability.
Her heart began to pound with such strength that her whole body vibrated with it. The beat could be heard in her noisy exhales as they stared at each other. The entire island, the ocean beyond, the Highland air, itself, seemed to catch on her inhale and hold, waiting for the word hovering at the tip of her tongue to escape the prison of her lips.
Once this particular convict was set free, it could never again be reclaimed.
Yes. Not usually such a terrifying word, but at this moment it seemed to equally represent either salvation or damnation.
Of course, she could always say no.
Though the way Blackwell was staring at her now, she had a feeling that word meant very little to him. Not many people denied Dorian Blackwell and lived to tell about it.
Oh, Dougan, why send me this dark horse? Farah inwardly railed. Why ask the devil in the flesh to find and protect me?
Young Dougan couldn’t have known how the man in front of her would affect her. How dangerous he truly was, because of the reckless impulses pouring through her veins and settling in the most secret of places.
He couldn’t have known how much Dorian Blackwell secretly thrilled her. How his eyes on her made her feel helpless and powerful at the same time.
She would never tell Blackwell that it was his words about Dougan’s wishes that had persuaded her in the end. Had he lived, would this all have turned out differently? Would Dorian Blackwell still be the lesser half of the so-called Blackheart Brothers? Dougan would, even now, be a mere three years from his release from that hellish place. Would the three of them have made some kind of life together?
She’d never know.
Either way, it seemed her destiny to end up the wife of a highwayman.
The devil in question stood silent and motionless as she argued with herself, but the need to breathe overtook both sides of the debate and Farah realized it was now or never.
“I have one condition.” The words rushed out on a gusty exhale.
“This ought to be interesting.” Blackwell impatiently crossed his heavy arms against a heavier chest, but his eyes lit with a victorious spark. “Let’s hear it.”
“I will not reclaim the Northwalk fortunes just to lose them again to some distant relative when I die. So, if I am to marry you and give you the title of earl, then you will provide me with something else I want.”
“The Townsend wealth, the title of countess, and relative autonomy.” He ticked these off on his fingers. “What else could you possibly want of me?”
“Other than Dougan, I’ve been without a family for over twenty years.” Farah pushed herself up until she stood before the Blackheart of Ben More completely nude. “What I want from you is a child.”
CHAPTER TEN
Dorian couldn’t recall the last time someone had shocked him. Years. Decades, perhaps. He’d seen so many variants of naked women, so many other things that would break most people, and over time the ability to feel surprise had abandoned him.
Or so he thought.
His thoughts became as scattered and aimless as the rivulets sluicing down her lush curves. She was a goddess rising from the water. Like Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, except with heavy silver hair darkened by her bath that, unlike Venus, she didn’t use to hide her feminine secrets. She stood with her chin held at an obstinate angle, her shoulders straight in an observance of good posture, those soft gray eyes staring at him with a mixture of resolution and expectation.
Farah was offering her body to him. She wanted him to say something. To respond to her demands. But how could he, when all that glorious skin was bared to him, flushed pink with heat and not a little shyness? The condensation in the atmosphere blurred any sharp lines or bold colors with a dreamlike ambiguity that drew him closer to the bath.