Farah had never felt so small and insignificant in her entire life. She’d been to the Royal Courts of Justice innumerable times in her career with the Yard, and walked past the impressive Gothic white-stone building on her way to work every day. But her presence had always been part of the silent workings of the legal process, on hand with documents and such. Never had her voice echoed in the hall of Her Majesty’s High Court, and never in front of the Queen’s Bench.
It amazed Farah that even here, in the imposing buttressed stone of the great hall, men, women, and nobility alike avoided the path of Dorian Blackwell. Though the hall bustled with more members of the ton and agents of the crown than Farah had ever seen, she and her husband were still able to make a rapid pace.
Up until the previous year, the King’s Bench had held its court in Westminster Hall, as it had since the eleventh century. Now, by royal writ of Queen Victoria, herself, the King’s Bench became the Queen’s Bench and moved from Westminster to the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand. Though, as it had for hundreds of years, the High Court of Justice remained the epicenter of the sovereign’s official word and royal administration in the realm. The office of lord chief justice had long since replaced the presence of the regent at court proceedings, and as such became one of the most powerful seats in the empire.
Farah found it difficult to look anyone in the eye as all who’d gathered followed their progression toward the Chambers of the High Court. The byzantine cathedral feel of the great hall intensified as voices hushed upon their approach. The hush wasn’t full of reverence, but curiosity and speculation.
Farah was certain her heartbeat could be heard by all as she watched the intricate geometric designs of the marble floor disappear beneath the billowing skirts of the midnight silk dress Madame Sandrine had delivered late last evening.
The prior night hadn’t done much, if anything, to dispel the anxiety tightening an iron band around Farah’s lungs. Once she’d collected her husband and Murdoch from the reception sergeant at Scotland Yard, they’d taken a cab to Dorian’s luxurious terrace in Mayfair. The blood had been wiped from his face, but it still stained the crisp collar of his shirt and darkened his already black jacket.
Her husband had yet to utter more than a crisp, monosyllabic reply to the myriad of questions, gratitude, and apologies she’d showered upon him.
“Are you all right?” she’d asked.
“Quite.”
“Did they hurt you?”
“No.”
“You saved our lives at the docks, you know.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry for involving you in such a dangerous misadventure. But Gemma and I are supremely grateful for what you and your men did.”
“Hmm.” Once his pathetic communication dissolved to nonexistent, Murdoch had picked up the conversation on his behalf.
“Think nothing of it, lass,” he’d soothed, casting a dark look at Blackwell. “We’ll get Miss Warlow on the way in the morning.”
“I’m just glad I was able to persuade Chief Inspector Morley to release you so quickly. I couldn’t bear the thought of your incarceration overnight, or longer.”
“Ye canna know how much we appreciate it.” Murdoch had patted her hand in a fatherly gesture.
At that, Blackwell had leaned forward, unlatched the door to the cab, and leaped out before the driver had fully come to a stop. He disappeared into the night and Farah had not seen him again until he came to collect her and Murdoch the following morning to convey them to court.
Murdoch had assured her again and again that their short time in the strong room had been not only uneventful, but rather amenable. “The bobbies were fair and civil, and Dorian even conversed with one of his contacts, though I didna catch what was said.”
“Then why is he so upset?” Farah had asked.
Murdoch shrugged and regarded her with a little pity. “Canna say, lass, just that Blackwell has his moods sometimes. Doona fash yerself over it. Just get some sleep, we’ve a big day tomorrow.”
Sleep had been next to impossible, even in the elegant, luxurious bed. Finally, Farah had drifted into a restless sort of limbo, tossing about in the darkness, her stomach rolling and her jaw clenching as images of the past haunted her dreams. Her father’s pale, waxy face at his wake, the cheeks sunken in from dehydration brought on by the devastating illness. Warrington, who’d seemed like a giant to a seven-year-old, bending down to inform her of their engagement. Sister Margaret’s intimidating robes and wimple. Father MacLean’s thin, lascivious mouth. Dougan’s dark eyes and sharp features. Small and symmetrical, twisted with boyish mischief and incessant curiosity.
She’d called out to him in her dreams, begged him to run. To survive. To live on so she didn’t have to face this horrid world with only a dark and broken man beside her.
“I’m right here,” Dougan had crooned through her dream, his face sad and fierce. But his voice. His voice was nothing like she remembered. It melted into something dark and cavernous. A man’s voice. Sinister, dangerous, and smooth. Like brimstone gliding over ice.
You’re not here, Farah had thought as she felt herself sinking into the void of oblivion. I’m so lost. So lonely. So—afraid.
“Sleep, Fairy mine. You’re safe.” A slight tickle at her scalp told her that Dougan had wound his finger into a ringlet, pulled it softly, and watched it bounce back into place before winding it again. Like always.
He was here. She was safe.
She’d slept then, and awoke with the crisp, salted tracks of dried tears running into her hair.
Farah knew she should be thinking on the enormity of what was about to happen as they stood in front of the gilded doors of the High Court. But she found herself studying Dorian’s profile, interrupted by the black strap of his eye patch, and wondering if Dougan ever featured in the terrors of his dreams.
Or if she did.
She wanted to cry out for him to wait when he reached for the doors to the courtroom, but she forced herself to remain stoic. Like him. If Dorian Blackwell could maintain his composure after everything he’d been through, she could, too. Throwing her shoulders back and steeling her spine ramrod straight, she tilted her chin a notch above stubborn to pretentious.
Eschewing polite behavior, Dorian preceded her into the courtroom instead of holding the door open for her.
Farah couldn’t have been more grateful.
Proceedings had already begun, and Farah realized with a start they were technically committing an act against the crown.
An astonished hush blanketed the dark wood of the stately High Court room. Those who crammed the pewlike benches turned back at their entry, very much like an audience at a church wedding. Except, no one was pleased at their arrival. The kindest expression Farah could find was one of shock. It all disintegrated from there to disapproval, disbelief, and in some cases, outrage. She followed him up the wide aisle, the thick burgundy carpet muffling her steps.
“Mr. Blackwell!” bellowed a smallish man with an inappropriately large head made all the more bulbous by a long, curled, snowy wig. He sat behind the tall dais, the middle of three such attired men, his station dignified by the silver seal affixed to the middle of his black robes. “What is the meaning of this impudence?”
Of course Lord Chief Justice Sir Alexander Cockburn was acquainted with Dorian Blackwell, or at least knew him on sight. The justice had a reputation for sport, adventure, socializing, and womanizing. Though he was something of a legal genius, it was a subject of much contention how the Scotsman had risen to such an illustrious position with his besmirched reputation.
Farah stared at the broadness of her husband’s back with stunned amazement. Did Dorian have anything to do with Lord Chief Justice Cockburn’s stunning career trajectory? It wouldn’t surprise her in the least.
“My lord.” Dorian executed a formal bow in a manner that could arguably be called mocking. “May I present to you the Right Honorable Farah Leigh Townsend, Countess Northwalk.”
An audible gasp echoed through the courtroom and beyond, as some of the crowd outside the doors pressed forward behind Farah to witness these highly unprecedented happenings in an already high-profile case.
“This is an outrage! I demand these insolent criminals be arrested at once!” Harold Warrington perpetually appeared to have just sucked on a lemon. In spite of that, he had the handsome and hearty form of someone born to farmer’s stock rather than the historically incestuous aristocracy. An infamous hedonist, his skin and hair hadn’t fared well against the years of overindulgence, but his stature evoked that of Goliath as he surveyed the court with the air of a royal rather than the civic servant he was.
The sharp rap of a gavel pierced the bench, but it was not the lord chief justice who’d employed its use. The man to his left sat behind the nameplate of Justice Roland Phillip Cranmer III, though everyone knew Justice Cranmer had recently and mysteriously gone missing.
Farah recognized the face behind the gavel as Sir Francis Whidbey, a newly appointed justice of the High Court. He exchanged covert glances with her husband as he addressed Sir Warrington. “Sit down, Warrington. I’ll remind you that you’re not a member of the peerage as yet, and are still an officer of this court who should know better than to speak out of turn!”
Farah was acutely aware that she and Dorian had only just committed that selfsame act, but she wisely kept her own counsel. Besides, she couldn’t have spoken if commanded to at the moment. So much for her self-possession.
Dorian approached the bench without being invited, which elicited more gasps and even brought the two red-coated queen’s guards posted at the edges of the bench rushing to restrain him.
“My lords, I have here official documents supporting the validity of our claim.” He brandished a file of paperwork he’d pulled from his coat. “Including Lady Townsend’s birth certificate, church records of her years at Applecross Orphanage, the falsified record of her death, and also—”
“Where did you obtain these records, Blackwell?” the lord chief justice demanded, holding up his hand to stay the guards.
“I also have included a copy of our marriage license.” Blackwell blithely ignored the justice’s question. “The importance of which we can discuss later.” He threw a look to the assembly that had a ripple of ironic laughter passing around the room.
“Impossible! I have a legal and binding betrothal contract signed by her father!” Warrington exploded to his feet, ignoring the grasping entreaties of his wigged lawyer.
The third justice leaned forward. “And so you’ve claimed that you have already married her, Warrington. So, why the objection?”
“You—you’re right, my lord.” He motioned to a dainty, well-dressed blond woman at his elbow with wide and vacant blue eyes. “This is my wife, Farah Leigh Warrington, Countess Northwalk. Formerly Farah Leigh Townsend. How dare you try to usurp her birthright, you conniving liar!” Warrington turned his wrath toward Farah, his already ruddy skin taking on the patina of a tomato.
Farah, however, was transfixed by the third justice, recognition storming through her that had nothing to do with her past seventeen years as Mrs. Mackenzie.
“Rower,” she breathed, reading the nameplate in front of his wizened face.
“Speak up, lady,” the lord chief justice commanded.
Farah glided toward the face from her past that was lined with two lost decades of age, but still had very much the same piercing eyes and severe features. “You are the Baronet Sir William Patrick Rowe, whose estate is in Hampshire,” she said. The crowd strained to hear her low voice; such was the silence that a loud breath could be heard grating out of someone’s lungs. “You—you were a lieutenant in the Queen’s Rifle Brigade under my father, Captain Robert Townsend, Earl Northwalk. You sculled together at Oxford, and my father called you ‘Rower.’”
The man in the wig looked stunned and narrowed his eyes at Farah. “Come closer,” he ordered.
Farah approached the bench. “I remember your thirtieth birthday party,” she murmured to him, “because you were kind enough to share a piece of spice cake with me, as it was my fifth birthday on the day after. Yours is September twenty-first, I believe. And mine is September twenty-second.”
“Good Lord,” Justice Rowe exclaimed, peering into her eyes with a similar recognition. “I do remember that!”
“Anyone could have attained that information!” Warrington protested. “Don’t let this—this renowned brigand and his doxy make a mockery of this esteemed court!”
“I’ve heard enough out of you, Warrington!” the lord chief justice warned. “Next outburst and I’ll have you banished from this courtroom!”
Warrington’s red color intensified to a purple hue, but he sat, shaking with barely leashed rage.
And not a little bit of fear, Farah assumed.
Lord Chief Justice Cockburn turned back to Dorian, affording Farah less than a cursory glance. “Mr. Warrington has a point. He’s provided documents identical to those you have and has the added superior claim. He was steward to the late Earl Robert Townsend and trustee of his estate. He’s known Farah Townsend since birth, and has a long-standing betrothal contract. What cause have we to doubt his wife’s claim to the Townsend legacy?”
Farah glared at Lucy Boggs, who was silently twirling a ringlet, obviously fabricated by a curling iron, around one anxious finger.
“I have witnesses, my lords.” Dorian swept his hand to a pew at the back of the court.
Warrington’s lawyer finally objected. “This is highly irregular and I would like to request that we meet in chambers to discuss how to further proceed.”
“Bollocks!” Warrington’s chair scraped against the floor as he leaped to his feet once more. “There is no reason to delay this any further. Blackwell has fabricated witnesses and I want a chance to refute them. After almost twenty years I have uncovered the missing Northwalk heiress and I demand to be granted what is mine!”
Justice Whidbey turned his hawklike face toward Warrington. “Don’t you mean, for your wife to be granted what is hers?” he queried. “Surely you know that when one is not born a peer of the realm, as husband to a countess, one’s title as earl will be a courtesy only. One would be called ‘Lord’ and granted stewardship of the properties, but the other rights and privileges of peerage will only be granted your heir and issue.”
Farah gaped, turning a wide-eyed glance over her shoulder at Blackwell. He stood at the mouth of the aisle with his hands clasped behind him, seemingly unaffected by the justices’ words.
His sable eye met hers and Farah gasped. He knew. He’d known all along that he wouldn’t be granted the rights and privileges of nobility. He’d gone to all this trouble, played this dangerous and complicated game of chess, possibly even manipulating the seats of the High Court of England, to help her reclaim her birthright.
And for what?
Certainly his name would be prefixed with “Lord,” but as far as she could tell, that didn’t come with half the power and esteem his wealth and reputation already afforded him.
Why had he done all this? What was his intention?
“We’ll hear your witnesses, Blackwell, but let me warn you that you stand on unsteady ground with this court. You and this lady are very much in danger of egregious consequences.” The lord chief justice gave them each a practiced warning glance.
Warrington glared daggers at her, but allowed his lawyer to wrestle him into his chair.
“So it has ever been, my lords.” Dorian bowed at the waist and then turned to the pews in the back with a sweep of his arm. “Let me present to you Signora Regina Vicente, sole proprietor of a rather popular gentleman’s club here along the Strand.”
A tall, stately woman in a grand dress of dark plum stood and excused herself to make a procession up the aisle toward them. Her caramel skin and exotic bones proudly stated her Italian heritage, and she looked like a bronzed Roman goddess in a sea of pasty Brits. Her train was as long as any countess’s and her dark eyes sparked with intelligence and mirth.
At least someone was enjoying themselves.
“Madame Regina is prepared to testify that she has employed this woman who claims to be Farah Townsend as Lucy Boggs in her establishment some five months, before turning her employ to Warrington for a large sum.” Dorian gestured to the sheaf of paper in the woman’s silk-gloved hand.
Warrington pounded the table, but barely restrained himself.
“Is this true?” Justice Whidbey asked of the woman known as Madame Regina.
“It is, my lord,” she purred in a sultry Italian accent. “I have brought you the documents of legitimacy I demand from my employees, and also the receipt for money exchanged between Mr. Warrington and me.”
Whidbey held out his hand for them, and she glided toward him, handing over the crisp, official papers.
Warrington’s lawyer stood. “This is a joke. This story, these documents, they could both be forgeries produced by the infamous Blackheart of Ben More and this purveyor of filth and sin!” He gestured to Regina, who only quirked one dark eyebrow.
“He makes an excellent argument, Blackwell,” Lord Chief Justice Cockburn stated.
“I suppose he does.” Blackwell gave a very serious, meaningful look to Whidbey and Cockburn, ignoring Rowe. “Madame Regina has many, many stories to tell. Who’s to decide whether they’re truth or slander?”
Was it her imagination, Farah wondered, or did the two men behind the bench pale a little? Had Dorian just issued a veiled threat to the highest judiciary branch of government in the British Empire? In front of everyone? Farah felt like she might be sick.
In the silence that followed, Dorian gestured to another woman in the pew. “If you’re in need of another witness, how about this one?”
Another rumble of surprise mirrored Farah’s inner feelings as a stooped old woman in a black-and-white habit shuffled toward them. “Sister Margaret?” she breathed.
“Its Mother Superior now,” the woman corrected in her unmistakable crisp tone of cold piety.
Farah narrowed her eyes at the woman, remembering all of the harsh words and even harsher beatings she’d piled upon Dougan. Farah didn’t want to look at her, couldn’t fathom why the crotchety nun would speak in her defense.
“That is your witnessing signature on the death certificate of Farah Leigh Townsend dated seventeen years ago, is it not?” Dorian asked in a voice that had lost all of its prior mockery or even brash arrogance. His gloved hands fisted.
“Aye,” she affirmed.
“Explain to the court, then, why you falsified this official document,” Dorian ordered, returning the nun’s sharp look with a jagged one of his own.
“She was a precocious, heathen child.” Though the nun referred to her, she spoke of Farah as though she didn’t stand right in front of her. “She always followed the troublemakers and ruffians, one in particular, who had the very devil in him.”
“He did not,” Farah defended.
“He killed a priest!” the woman hissed. “Even ye canna deny that. Ye were there in my arms whilst he did it. Screaming his name like a possessed banshee.”
“You knew that priest was a—”
“That isn’t relevant,” Dorian interrupted them both, his voice hard and cold. “What is pertinent to the moment is that you knew Farah Leigh Townsend wasn’t dead.”
“She ran off after that devil Dougan Mackenzie when the police took him away.” Margaret sneered. “I had fifty other children in my care. I couldna risk the reputation of Applecross over one missing girl. And so, yes, I falsified the document at the request of Sir Warrington.” She pointed her gnarled, arthritic finger at the man.
Those congregated in the courtroom gasped, and turned their collective heads toward the accused.
“Lies! I married Farah Townsend! The Northwalk fortune belongs to me!” Warrington exclaimed, leaping up again. “Tell them, Farah, tell them who you are!” With crazed eyes, he shook Lucy’s shoulders with bruising force, and she uttered a soft cry of fear.
The lord justice’s gavel pounded a deafening repeat against the dais. “I warned you, Warrington, you will be removed at once!” He motioned to the queen’s guard who seized a shouting Warrington and removed him from the room.
“I will have what’s mine! I will have justice!” Warrington threatened. “Farah, prove your worth! Prove to them who you are!”
Lucy stood, her blue eyes wide with fear and tears, looking like she wanted to bolt.
The chief lord justice pointed his gavel at her, his large head swiveling on his almost comically diminutive shoulders. “The next word spoken out of turn will earn the speaker a week behind bars, is that understood?”
Lucy nodded mutely, and the court’s notice seemed to return to the nun in tandem.
“Tell me,” the lord chief justice began. “You might be stripped of your habit and honorable name within your papist church for your lies. Not to mention the likelihood you’ll be brought up on charges of fraud. Why come forward now?”
Sister Margaret glanced at Dorian before answering. “When one lives as long as I have, one realizes it is almost time to face God and answer for my sins. This is one less mark against my soul. I care not for earthly things. I only want peace with the Lord.”
“And it is your sworn oath that the woman standing before us here is Farah Leigh Townsend?” Justice Rowe asked, gesturing to Farah.
“Yes, she hasna changed in almost twenty years.” The nun flicked a glance full of hatred at Dorian. “Still canna resist the draw of the devil.”
A tremor sliced through Farah at the old woman’s words. Dougan had called himself a demon the first time they’d met. If that sweet boy had been a demon, then Dorian Blackwell certainly was the devil.
And Farah was, indeed, helpless to resist his dark allure.
“I’ll admit, Blackwell.” The lord chief justice eyed them both. “I rather don’t know what to make of this. Two women claiming to be the Countess Northwalk. Each of them married to a self-serving scoundrel. I’m almost convinced to grant your wife’s claim. But I’m not sure it would hold up if appealed to the lord high chancellor, or Her Majesty.”
Dorian lifted a large shoulder in a debonair gesture. “Anyone who knows me knows I would marry no imposter. My lords, this was Farah Leigh Townsend, now Farah Leigh Blackwell. Of that I am certain. Tell me what you require for further proof, and I’ll provide it to you.”
Justice Rowe stood, reaching beneath his wig to itch at his scalp. “I can settle this,” he declared. “With your permission, my lord chief justice.”
“By all means.” Cockburn gestured for him to continue.
The French army could have invaded London and the congregation still would have remained where they sat, silent and riveted on what was to happen next.
“Both of you approach,” Rowe ordered, pointing to the carpet in front of his bench.
Palms drenching the inside of her gloves, Farah worked her throat over a desperate swallow that pushed against the gem-encrusted collar of her fine dress. She hoped to look more dignified than she felt as she walked the few paces to stand in front of Justice Rowe. Or below, rather, as the seats of the High Court were intolerably high.
A rustle of skirts told her that Lucy Boggs now stood next to her, but Farah didn’t dignify her presence by acknowledging her.
“Answer me this one question, and I’ll recommend to this court and to Her Majesty that your title and lands be returned to you.” Though he spoke in a conversational register, his voice carried through the silent hall.
He narrowed his eyes at Farah. “You referenced my thirtieth birthday party in which you were in attendance at Northwalk Abbey.”
“Yes, my lord,” Farah rasped.
“Which one of you can recall the birthday present I gave you that year? I’ll provide a hint to jog your memory, it was inside that little jewelry box with a painted ballerina on it. I recall little Farah Townsend’s fondness for ballerinas.”
Farah’s heart sputtered and died. She frantically searched her memory. When that produced nothing, she searched the face of the justice in front of her, who seemed as cold and stoic as Dorian. Her breath began to fail her. This couldn’t be. Her future couldn’t be slipping through her hands because of the faulty memory of a five-year-old girl. She looked back at Dorian, who studied her intently. What she read in his face almost caused her to faint.
It was the closest thing to helplessness the Blackheart of Ben More could convey.
Turning back to look up at the three imposing wigged men, she couldn’t form the words that would crush her credibility in front of all these people. Tears burned in her eyes. A stone of terror and loss formed in her throat, threatening to choke her. Oh, if only it would hurry!
“Yes?” Rowe prodded sharply.
“I—I—” A hot tear spilled from the corner of her eye and burned a trail down the side of her face. “My lord, I do not recall receiving such a gift on that birthday or any birthday. From you or—or anyone else.”
Farah couldn’t stop a glance at Lucy next to her, whose blue eyes now glittered with malice and victory. “It was a trinket, my lord,” she guessed in a prim voice, her gaze searching the man’s face with obvious assessment. “My childhood memories are vague, so much has happened since then, and I am recovering from a head wound.” She held a lace glove to her forehead with an overdramatic flare “But it was a necklace, wasn’t it? One that sparkled, or a bracelet?” She shrugged her shoulder with a coy blink of her lashes. “I was so small and my memory shoddy due to the injury, you see, so I simply can’t remember which.”
Farah had to swallow convulsively. It was a good guess, as guesses go. Convincing and probable, if not likely. The excuse of the head wound was a good one.
Damn it, why couldn’t she remember? Why had she failed so utterly? A jewelry box? Ballerinas? She’d been such an active girl that any jewelry she’d been given would have been lost or broken right away. It was Faye Marie who’d loved—
“My sister,” she gasped, then louder. “My sister!” She clasped her hands together in a pleading gesture. “My lord, I beg pardon of you, but you’re mistaken. I believe you gifted that treasure box to my older sister, Faye Marie. She’s the one who loved ballerinas. I was obsessed with—”
“Pegasus.” The old justice’s eyes melted from cold to kindness. “It was a trick question. I’d forgotten your birthday was so close to mine, and shared my spice cake out of pure guilt.” His lined face wrinkled as he smiled with a fond memory. “You were a kind little soul, unspoiled for a girl raised in such wealth. You forgave me instantly and informed me that spice cake was, indeed, your favorite present ever received.”
Farah began to tremble, great quaking shivers of relief making her legs unsteady. Dorian was there, his strong, gloved hands propping her shoulders up.
“Thank you,” she whispered, unsure to whom she was speaking as the room tilted and swayed. “Thank you.”
“You have your father’s shock of light hair and your mother’s lovely gray eyes,” the justice continued. “I’ve been half convinced it was really you since you walked into the courtroom.”
The lord chief justice cleared the surprise out of his throat before rapping his gavel to silence the wave of whispered exclamations echoing in the hall. “Nothing is final until I have the writ of the Queen,” he said. “But I don’t think I’m presumptuous in offering my congratulations, Lady Farah Leigh Blackwell, Countess Northwalk.”
“Thank you, my lord justice!” Farah’s face split into a smile so wide it made her cheeks ache. She turned to Dorian and threw her arms around him. “Thank you!”
He stiffened inside her embrace and she remembered herself, pulling away quickly. She didn’t dare look up at him just then, remembering he was still angry about something. Reaching for him in this public forum couldn’t have helped the situation.
“Arrest this woman, Lucy Boggs, and hold her for investigation,” Rowe commanded.
The lord chief justice leaned over his desk toward Farah. “May I ask you, Lady Blackwell, just where you have been all this time?”
“I—took a job at Scotland Yard under an assumed name,” she answered honestly.
“Why in God’s name would you do that?” he asked with an incredulous laugh.
Dorian cut in. “My lord, I’ve brought two more witnesses who would speak to an evil conspiracy on the part of Sir Warrington. Lady Blackwell was in hiding because she knew he was a threat to her life. My agent Christopher Argent and Inspector McTavish of Scotland Yard are both willing to testify that Warrington approached them about payment for the assassination of Lady Blackwell. I request he be arrested—for his own safety as well as hers,” he added.
“So ordered!” The lord chief justice banged his gavel one last time. “And may I add my congratulations to you both on your nuptials?”
