“Gemma!” For the second time that night, Farah threw her arms around the woman. “You may have just saved the day!”
“Awright, awright…” The woman shrugged out of her embrace, uncomfortable with the genuine show of affection. “Can’t ’elp you out there in the real world. No one would take the word of a lot of cocksuckers like us over that of ’er magistrate ’usband, Mr. Warrington.”
“What about Madame Regina, herself?” Farah asked, both her excitement and trepidation building in tandem. “As Lucy Boggs’s employer, wouldn’t her word have some clout?” She looked back at Morley who stood over them with his arms folded and a rather dazed expression frozen on his features.
Shaking his head as though to clear it, he didn’t look at Farah, addressing Gemma, instead. “Miss Warlow, if you’d give us a moment alone. Mr. Beauchamp will give you tea and something to eat until the surgeon is available to see to your injuries.”
“Fank you, Chief Inspector.” Gemma flicked a concerned one-eyed look to Farah, who nodded, before sliding off her chair and stepping out of the office, closing the door behind her.
Morley shook his head, looking at her as though he’d never seen her before in his life.
“She’s right, you know. Everyone knows it’s too easy to pay a prostitute, or a madam, to do or say anything you like.”
“I do realize that. We’ll go about it in a different way.”
“The official Queen’s Bench decision on the case is tomorrow morning.” Morley pointed at a discarded newspaper on his desk.
“Don’t remind me.” Farah held a hand to her fluttering stomach. This all seemed to be happening with the speed and inevitability of a runaway locomotive. The miraculous recovery of a very fake Farah Leigh Townsend. Escaping Warrington in the Yard. Her abduction and subsequent marriage to the Blackheart of Ben More. Returning to London. And tomorrow she would claim her birthright.
“All this time?” Morley asked. “A countess? Why didn’t you…? How long did you…? What happened?”
“That is a very long story.” Farah moved her hand to her head, a needling ache prickling behind her eyes.
“One that involved Dorian Blackwell?”
“Interestingly enough, yes, in a roundabout way.” She sighed and stood, bringing herself closer to Morley’s handsome, downturned face. Heart clenching, she reached up to his jaw. “I promise to explain when all of this business is handled.”
Recovering from his shock, Morley closed his eyes, but then backed away from her touch and retreated to his territory on the opposite side of the desk. “In reality, I was never officially more than your employer. Regardless of what I said before, you don’t owe me an explanation.” He took in a deep breath, picking up a file and staring at it, though Farah was certain he couldn’t even read the name in front of him at the moment. “How do you propose to reclaim your legacy?” he asked genially. “I assume Blackwell has some nefarious plan?”
Farah smiled a little. “All I have to do is prove that I’m the real Farah Townsend. I lived her life as a child, I’ll know things about my parents, my home, my past, that the imposter couldn’t possibly know. I only have to convince the court.”
“It’ll take more than that, I fear.” Morley shrugged. “Paperwork. Documents like records of birth and records of where you spent your childhood as an orphan.”
Farah blanched. “How did you know I was an orphan?”
He gave her a droll look and she realized the idiocy of the question before he answered.
“Farah, your childhood, your miraculous resurrection, has been all the society papers have reported on for weeks.”
Farah had heard, of course, but she rarely wasted her time reading the society papers when there was a book to be had.
“I could help you,” he offered without looking at her. “As you know, the records commissioner’s office is attached to this building, and since it is the middle of the night I could—”
“Mr. Blackwell already has that well in hand.” Farah grimaced.
Morley’s eyes narrowed and she could almost hear him thinking. “When we brought him in, somehow he…” Morley squeezed the bridge of his nose and growled. “I should have known. It was too damned easy an arrest for the likes of him.”
He looked up at her and they shared a knowing, frustrated chuckle over the infuriating man to whom she was now married. And just like that, the tension between them was dispelled, and the past became the past. A melancholy idea of what might have been and could never be.
“I’ll release your husband and his valet,” Morley said on an exhausted sigh. “But that doesn’t mean I’m still not watching his every move.”
“I know.” Farah gave in to the impulse to hug him, but kept it brief and distant, for both their sakes.
“You’re a good woman, Farah. I’ve always admired you.” Morley paused, a muscle in his jaw working to hold something back. “If he ever hurts you—hell, if he makes you unhappy in any way, come to me. I’ll sort him out.”
Farah felt every ounce of tenderness she put into her smile. “Thank you, Carlton. And, you were wrong, you know, about only being my employer. You were—are also a very dear friend.”
He gave his desk a wry smile. “Don’t twist the knife any further.”