Last night, her husband had put his wicked mouth on her, causing her unimaginable pleasure. Could she have the same effect on him? What if she pressed her mouth against that hard length? What would he do?
She turned her head, running her cheek along the slightly abrading fabric, feeling the heat of the flesh beneath.
“Farah,” He growled a warning.
“Yes?” she breathed, her chest suddenly tight, filled to the brim with anticipation, her body releasing a slick rush of desire.
“I brought ye tea and snacks!” Murdoch announced as the door to the bridge joining the railcars burst open with a blast of cold early-evening air. “They call this first-class fare, but if it is, I’ll eat my own hat.” He kicked the door closed. “Be glad ye left Frank at home; he’d be appalled.”
“Mr. Murdoch!” In her surprise, Farah stood abruptly, bringing her almost chest to torso with her husband, who stepped back. If Dorian Blackwell could look guilty, he almost pulled it off just then.
Murdoch stared for a beat longer than necessary. “I’ve—interrupted something.”
Searching her husband’s enigmatic face, she looked for the hope of regaining the moment, but his mask was back in place, and she gave a disappointed sigh. “Not at all, Murdoch, tea sounds just lovely.” She turned back to Dorian. “Join us?”
Dorian regarded the delicate table with even more delicate chairs and scowled. With the three of them, they’d have to sit rather close. “I have paperwork to attend and business to set in order before we reach London.” He abandoned them to their tea for his plush throne, ignoring them as effectively as though he’d shut an invisible door.
Farah watched his retreat with smarting eyes. Was he able to shut off his body’s response to her so completely? Would he always leave her so unsatisfied?
Regardless, tea and conversation with Murdoch was a lovely break from the ceaseless intensity of her husband’s company. They talked of pleasant things, books, theater, the Strand. Farah couldn’t help but steal glances at Blackwell as he wrote over a mobile desk, bent above ledger books and breaking the seals on important-looking documents. If he marked their conversation, he gave no indication.
After tea, she and Murdoch settled into a card game and laughed over some more amusing tales from the Yard along with more ridiculous happenings at Pierre de Gaule’s café beneath her flat. After one of her lively stories involving a Parisian painter and an English poet’s fight over a rather famous Russian ballerina, Murdoch held up his hand and begged her to stop, wiping tears of mirth from the corner of his eyes.
They took a moment to sober and he stood to pour them a glass of wine. “May I ask ye something that we’ve all been wondering, my lady?”
Farah lifted the wine to her lips and paused. “I’m not a lady yet, Murdoch, but you may ask me anything you like. I’m an open book.” Unlike some, she thought, her eyes sliding over to study the sinew of Dorian’s curved neck. Despite all they’d done last night, he was still such a mystery. She’d barely glimpsed more flesh than his face and throat, and hardly that. There was a powerful, masculine form beneath the layers of finery. Would she ever have occasion to gaze upon it?
Murdoch settled with his own glass and retrieved his hand of cards. “Where have ye been, lass?”
Farah paused, rolling the sweet blended red wine in her mouth before swallowing, trying to drag her thoughts away from her husband. Lord, would she ever get used to that word? “What do you mean?”
“Ye left that orphanage seventeen years back. Where did ye go? What did ye do to get by?”
Dorian’s fist made them both jump as it slammed down on his desk. “Murdoch,” he growled.
“Oh, doona pretend ye havena been dyin’ to know!” Murdoch was likely the only man alive who could wave a dismissive hand at the Blackheart of Ben More and keep the offending appendage.
“Have you considered that it may not be something she can bear to tell, or that you can bear to hear?” Her husband’s low voice rumbled from between gritted teeth.
“It’s all right,” Farah offered, setting her glass on the table. “The tale is neither terribly amusing, nor traumatic. I don’t mind telling you.”
“I’ll have no part of it,” Dorian stated without looking up from his desk.
“Then regale me, lass. How did the daughter of an earl come to work at Scotland Yard?” Murdoch asked.
Farah stared into the wine, a lovely plum color in her dainty crystal glass. It had been ages since she’d thought about those hellish, angst-ridden weeks after they’d taken Dougan away. “I found out from Sister Margaret that they’d taken Dougan to Fort William. On that same day I also learned that she’d informed Mr. Warrington of my—attachment to Dougan and that we’d attempted to run away, and he was on his way to collect me.”
“So ye ran?”
Farah smirked. “After a fashion. I was small enough to stow away behind the trunk strapped to the luggage rack on the rear of Mr. Warrington’s coach. Once they’d stopped looking for me, I rode behind Warrington’s conveyance all the way to Fort William, certainly a less comfortable journey than this one.”
Murdoch chuckled. “Bastard didna even know ye were there. Clever lass.”
Clinking Murdoch’s offered glass with her own, she gave him a wry smile. “Once I reached Fort William, they’d already sent Dougan off to a prison in southern Glasgow called ‘the Burgh.’ And so I stowed on a post carriage from Fort William to Glasgow.”