“Bless you, Gemma.” Farah stood, reaching for the wrapper.
Gemma’s face split into a wide smile as she handed Dorian the robe. “Guess you already been examined,” she intimated with a wink.
“See the doctor in,” Dorian clipped.
Though the rather elderly country doctor, a Sir Percival Hancock, tutted and blustered over Farah’s ill-treatment and small bruise, it didn’t take long for him to announce that she was hale and hearty. He left some sort of syrupy substance to help her sleep and calm her nerves, but Farah disposed of it the moment he tottered out to confer with Dorian about Murdoch. She’d seen the dangers of dependence on the opiate contained within, and couldn’t bear the thought.
Dorian returned almost immediately with a wilder cast to his features, kicking the door shut behind him and blowing out the candle.
Farah wrinkled a brow at his almost manic behavior. “What’s wrong?” she queried. “Is it Murdoch?”
“He’s fine.” Dorian reached her in two long strides and pulled her to him, fusing their mouths for the second desperate time that night. A rough tug preceded the chilly kiss of the night air as her robe dropped to the floor.
Not breaking the seal of their lips, Doran lifted her off her feet and carried her to the bed, setting her gently upon it. Pulling back, he stood above her, as he’d done once before, his gaze roaming her body as his fingers curled into familiar fists. “I want to touch you.”
Moonlight cast his features silver and shadow, and illuminated the vulnerability lurking beneath the lethal ruthlessness. He was once again that starving boy, trapped between his hunger and his fear.
Slowly, so as not to spook him, Farah rose to her knees. “Then touch me.”
His mismatched eyes dropped to her breasts, swaying with her careful movements. His tongue wet his lips, and yet he didn’t move. “I—shouldn’t.”
Farah tilted her head to the side in confusion. “You already have.”
He winced. “I couldn’t stop myself. I wasn’t in my right mind. I was mad with worry.” He turned his head and studied the bright moon shining through the window like a shameless voyeur.
They had a few things in common, her husband and the moon. They dominated the night. Created shadows and, yet, illuminated the darkness.
“Maybe I should order a proper bath,” he offered, not looking at her.
Farah shook her head in confusion. Now? She was naked, offering her flesh to him. “I bathed this afternoon. You only just washed me. I can’t be much cleaner than I am now.”
“Yes, you can.” His tormented gaze found her again. “I touched you, Farah.”
“I’ve been touched by you before,” she reminded him suggestively.
“You don’t understand,” he said through his teeth, and Farah feared that he might bolt again.
“You’re right,” she said gently. “You keep saying that, and I truly don’t understand why you’re repulsed by touching me.”
“No.” He stepped toward her, as though wanting to argue, but stopped himself. “That isn’t it.”
“Tell me,” she entreated him. “I deserve to know.”
He came to his decision looking like a prisoner readying himself for the gallows. As though, with his words, he would bring about irrevocable ends. When he spoke, it was with the voice of a dead man. “For a time I was the youngest inmate at Newgate Prison. The smallest. The softest. The—weakest. I won’t describe the hell that distinction brings.”
Farah held her breath to trap a sob in her lungs, knowing that the pity conveyed by her agony on his behalf would insult him.
“To say it was a nightmare would be kind. The brutality was all-encompassing. Sexual, physical … mental.” He lifted his eyes to her, covering the flicker of shame behind those familiar walls of ice. “Can’t you see how it changed me, Farah? Not only physically, but essentially.”
Aware of her nudity, Farah didn’t give in to the impulse to wrap her arms around herself, in case the motion conveyed the wrong message. “I remember our conversation at Ben More,” she said carefully. “You so much as told me about all that. And, you forget, I’ve worked at Scotland Yard for a decade. I’m aware of what happens in those prisons, how criminals prey on each other. It breaks my heart, Dorian, but it doesn’t color my opinion of you with darkness. You were young. You were small and helpless.” She inched toward the edge of the bed. “You are none of those things anymore.”
“You are such a fucking angel.” He said these words with his lips pulled back in a snarl. “And so you still do not see. I did not remain helpless for long. I took my vengeance.”
“Yes.” Farah nodded. “Yes, you told me about the guards, about other prisoners.”
“Those guards, that judge, they were lucky to die as swiftly as they did.” He stared into her eyes, unblinking, making certain she marked the horror of his every word. “I repaid all the sins committed against me in kind, Farah. My brutality surpassed that of anyone else. I didn’t hurt people, I broke them. I didn’t kill, I murdered. I didn’t punish, I humiliated, until only those loyal to us were left. Do you understand now?” he demanded. “Don’t you see? Everywhere my fingertips touch your sacred flesh, blood and filth is left behind like so much hot tar. Impossible to remove. I can’t do that to you, Farah.” He jammed fingers through his hair, his volcanic emotions preparing to erupt in front of her eyes. “I can’t—”