Dorian had known and hated Edmond Druthers for years. The man was the human equivalent of the toxic sludge that gathered along the banks at low tide. No one wanted it there, but no one knew quite how to rid the city of it.
Gods, this was a bloody waste of time.
But Farah’s acute distress and earnest tears had unstitched him, and Dorian had known for some time that he could deny her nothing. Not even this fool’s errand. Christopher Argent kept stealing disbelieving looks at Farah, his blue eyes reflecting the ambient glow like an alley cat’s. Dorian understood why the man would dare in his presence.
First, because Christopher Argent was an unfeeling, fearless killer-for-hire.
And second, because most of the incarcerated men at Newgate had considered Dougan’s Fairy some mythical creature, a sight too rare and beautiful to be beheld by a common man. Maybe even a fancy born of an imagination keen enough to take possession of the prison. To meet her was to gaze upon a fantasy realized, to remember the desperate yearnings of a lonely prisoner bereft of kindness, mercy, or beauty. To be blinded by the embodiment of all three of those things. For a man like Argent, one born into incarceration, the sight might have him reassessing some long-held cynical philosophies.
But judging from the curious yet calculating look sparkling in Argent’s pale eyes, Dorian realized he could be mistaken. Seventeen years and he still knew next to nothing about the man other than the fact that Argent would kill without question and was abjectly loyal to him.
Farah was oblivious to the man, so intent was she on the rescue of her friend. She likewise ignored the sounds of drunken dockworkers spending what they won in many belowground gin hells for a cheap fuck, and approached the women who stood in the streets, brave enough, or desperate enough, to service thieves, smugglers, and dock pirates. Her composure was impressive as she conversed with these women without fear or judgment, even recognizing some of them by name. They might have been respectable ladies meeting in a city park, rather than unwashed wraiths stinking of sweat, sex, and in some cases, disease.
Problem was, Farah was getting nowhere, and with each dead end, her shoulders would lose a bit of their starch, and her eyes lost a bit more hope. Dragging Blackwell and Argent in her wake guaranteed her loose tongues, as no one would dare deny them, but it seemed that Gemma Warlow was nowhere to be found.
“I’m beginning to wonder if Druthers hasn’t—killed her,” Farah worried. “And it would be all my fault.”
“How in God’s name would it be your fault?” Dorian asked, staring down two sailors who leaned against an abandoned building. Hired muscle, possibly, awaiting an incoming shipment of smuggled goods, pocketing what would have been paid to the crown in import taxes.
Not his freight. They didn’t have anything scheduled until a company fleet arrived from the Orient in a week’s time.
Dorian heard his name spoken in awestruck whispers and knew the men wouldn’t be a bother. But they shouldn’t be looking at his wife like they did, so he didn’t break his glare until they found something interesting to study about their boots.
“I told Gemma when I left Scotland Yard with Morley that I would return in the morning to help her figure out how to escape Druthers for good. When I didn’t show she must have felt so—Wait a moment.” She stopped walking and her vanguard paused as well as she turned on Dorian. Her eyes, once wide and luminous with tears, now narrowed with accusation. “This isn’t my fault, this is your fault.”
Argent hid his amused smile behind the upturned collar of his long, black coat, but Murdoch didn’t bother hiding his undignified snort of laughter.
Dorian blinked. “I fail to see how.”
“If you hadn’t kidnapped me, I’d have been there for her.”
“You also might have been murdered on the way to work,” Dorian reminded her stiffly. “There is a price on your head, you know.”
“Yes, but Gemma Warlow might be the one who is murdered now. Is my life any more important than hers?” Farah challenged.
“It is to me.”
Three pairs of eyes widened in the blue darkness, and Dorian narrowed his in challenging response. He’d step over a mountain of murdered Gemma Warlows if it meant saving Farah, and didn’t feel one drop of shame for the truth of it. Though her features told him shock had turned back into reprobation, and therefore Dorian wisely remained silent.
“I ’ear you’re lookin’ for Gemma,” a voice cooed from the stairs that led down to the Hangman’s Pub and emptied onto Brew House Lane.
His wife instantly forgot her ire, and rushed toward the top of the stairs, her eyes beseeching as she gazed down at an aging dark-haired woman dressed in little more than tatters. “Yes! Gemma Warlow. Have you seen her?”
The strumpet pushed matted hair away from eyes alight with calculation. She looked through Farah to Dorian, and saw opportunity.
“Wot’s it werf to you, Black’eart?” she asked in her thick cockney. “We all know just how deep your pockets be lined. And you know there in’t no questions on the docks wot’s answered for free.”
Dorian stepped forward, taking a coin from his pocket and holding it up to the bit of wan streetlight from the adjacent corner.
“I’d take on all four of you for that,” she said, greed and want flooding her suggestive words.
Dorian swallowed revulsion, wondering how long it had been since the woman bathed. Chances were she only got the most blind or desperate of customers anymore, her age and years of use sitting heavy on her skin and rotten teeth. “Warlow,” he reminded her.