CHAPTER NINETEEN
NELL RETREATED TO her room with the books. She rid herself of the wig and spectacles and sat down to read. Novels!
She most wanted to read Summer in St. Ives, but she glanced at the first page of Sense and Sensibility and found herself caught. This was a novel about a young woman like herself, of good breeding but little money. The heroine’s name was even Elinor.
Nell read greedily. She knew she should have savored each sentence, but she couldn’t. She turned the pages swiftly, gulping down the words, almost swallowing each paragraph whole with her eyes. She finished the first volume, finished the second volume. Dusk began to gather in the sky. Nell read even faster, skimming down each page. Names jumped out at her: Elinor. Willoughby. Edward.
When Bessie came to help her dress for dinner, Nell was on the final chapter. “One moment,” she told the maid, holding up her hand.
Bessie dutifully waited.
Five minutes passed, during which time the fortunes of every character were resolved in a most suitable manner.
Nell closed the book with a sigh of contentment and hugged it to her chest. “Perfect,” she said. “Simply perfect.”
SHE WENT DOWN to the private parlor with her head full of the Dashwood family, but as she settled on the sofa the events of last night came flooding back.
The Dashwoods vanished abruptly from her consciousness. The parlor snapped into focus: the dining table, not yet set for dinner, the little writing desk in the corner of the room, the stout green sofa upon which she sat.
The sofa upon which Mordecai Black had kissed her.
Nell shivered in recollection. For a moment she tasted him in her mouth: heady, masculine, intoxicating.
Would Black kiss her again tonight?
She found herself hoping he would—but tangled with the hope and the anticipation was nervousness, because she knew that kisses were among the least of the intimacies that lovers exchanged. Once Black had tired of kissing her he’d want to move on to other things, and she had no real idea what those things might be. I should have read Summer in St. Ives instead.
But even though she wanted to find out what came after kissing, she was also a little afraid. Because intimacies were . . . intimate, and the thought of being intimate with Mordecai Black was as frightening as it was tempting.
Nell puzzled over that for some time. She wasn’t in the least afraid of Mordecai Black. She knew she could trust him, she knew he’d do his best not to ruin her . . . so why did she fear physical intimacy with him?
Because being intimate with Mordecai Black meant having no distance from him at all. He would come to know her better than any other human being. And that was frightening. What if he doesn’t like the real me?
The door opened. Black stepped into the parlor.
Nell’s heart gave a tremendous leap in her chest. She stood hastily.
Black closed the door. He stood for a moment, looking at her.
His gaze provoked the familiar chest-tightening, skin-tingling, pulse-fluttering response. Nell swallowed, and found her voice. “Any luck?”
Black shook his head. He crossed the room and took both her hands in his. “We’ll find her, I promise,” and his voice was so certain and so kind that Nell felt tears sting her eyelids.
She blinked them back, and gave him a smile. “I know we will,” she said, and wished with all her heart that she could tell him about her Faerie godmother, because beneath the kindness he looked tired and worried.
Black released her hands and stepped back as the door opened again. Two servants came in to lay the table.
Black strolled across to the empty fireplace and stood there, leaning against the mantelpiece, an air of boredom clinging to him. He didn’t look like a man who’d been holding her hands scant seconds ago; he looked like a man waiting for his dinner.
Nell took her seat again on the sofa and composed her expression into something genteel and respectable. She was good at genteel and respectable, she’d been practicing it her whole life—but it had rarely been so difficult. She didn’t want to be respectable right now. She wanted Mordecai Black to hold her hands, whether there were servants in the room or not.
She glanced at Black, standing by the cold fireplace, looking bored and beautiful and ever so faintly dangerous. If she had spent her whole life smothered in respectability, he’d spent his bearing the stigma of illegitimacy. The path he’d walked had been far harder than hers, and yet despite that—or perhaps because of it—Black was a good man. Better than her father. Better than Roger.
The ton wouldn’t agree. But birth didn’t equate to character, and respectability didn’t equate to virtue.
The late Lord Dereham had known his son’s worth. In public he’d been as poker-faced as an earl should be, but Nell had once seen him look at his son when he’d thought himself unobserved, had seen raw love on Dereham’s face, and deep pride. She’d wondered at it—wondered how on earth Dereham could be proud of so shockingly scandalous a son—but now she knew why: because Mordecai Black was as honorable as he was disreputable and as kindhearted as he was dangerous, and only the blindest of fathers could have failed to be proud of him.
Nell watched the servants place a roasted chicken on the table, a haunch of lamb, a gooseberry tart—and wondered whether Black had known how proud his father was of him.
Black pushed away from the mantelpiece. He politely held out a chair for her.
Nell sat and spread her napkin on her lap, genteel and respectable.
Finally the servants departed. She and Black were alone again.
Black carved the chicken, carved the lamb. Nell watched his movements—deft, confident—and thought about what he’d told her about Shoreditch, about Eton. She raised her eyes to his face. A strong, assertive face. A face that could have been cruel and sardonic on a different man, but wasn’t.
There were so many men he could have become given his childhood, and yet he’d become this one.
Nell served herself, and then said, “I don’t know if you recall the Epsoms’ ball last year?”
Black reached for the dish of sautéed mushrooms, and shook his head. “I’ve been to a number of balls at the Epsoms’. Don’t recall any of them in particular.”
“Your father was there. I saw him watching you while you danced.”
Black paused, a serving spoon full of mushrooms suspended above his plate.
“I’ve never seen a man so full of pride. Not in himself, but in you. He was bursting with it as he watched you.”
Black looked down at his plate.
“I imagine you know how proud he was of you, but if you didn’t . . . I thought you might like to know.”
“Thank you,” Black said. “I did know, but . . . thank you.”
He blinked for a moment, and she thought he swallowed, as if his throat was constricted, and then he carefully placed the mushrooms on his plate. “He was a good father. There were things I did that he didn’t approve of, things he did that I didn’t approve of, but . . . he was a good father.” He placed the serving spoon back in its dish and frowned. “A good father to me, that is. Not to my half sisters. That was his greatest flaw: he couldn’t see the value in his daughters.”
Nell wondered what the earl had done that Black didn’t approve of. She could think of two things—aside from his lack of love for his daughters. The first was siring an illegitimate child, and the second was ignoring that child for the first eight years of its life.
Nell ate slowly, and thought about Black’s childhood. “Did you ever see your mother again?”
“No. She died when I was fourteen. Father made me go to her funeral. I didn’t want to.”
Black’s expression mirrored his voice—faintly pensive—and then he smiled. “Mother’s cook was there, so it was a good thing I went. I might never have seen her again otherwise. As it was, I asked Father to give her an annuity, and he did.”
“Is she still alive? The cook?”
Black nodded.
“What’s her name?”
“Dorothy Black.”
“Black?” Nell said, lifting her eyebrows. “But that’s your surname.”
“I chose it because of her.”
“You chose your own surname?”
“And my first name, too,” Black said. “Mother only ever called me Boy, and Dorothy called me Ducks. I didn’t know my real name until Father told me.”
“What is it?”
“Bamber. Bamber Pew.”
Nell stared at him. Mordecai Black’s real name was Bamber Pew? She blinked, and blinked again, and then asked, “Why Mordecai?”
“Mordecai Schneider was a prizefighter, a thug of a man, ripped someone’s ear off once with his teeth. The Jewish Mauler, they used to call him. I wanted to be as tough as him when I grew up, so I called myself Mordecai.”
“Oh,” Nell said, and then, “I’m surprised your father allowed you to keep such an unusual name.”
“We had a few arguments over it, but even he could see I’m not a Bamber Pew.”
No. The man seated across the table from her was definitely not a Bamber Pew.
“Father said that if I could spell Mordecai Black, I could keep the name. A tactic to make me learn my letters.” Black grinned wryly. “It worked.”
“Oh,” Nell said again. “Pew? That’s not a surname I’ve heard before.”
“It’s Welsh. Mother was Welsh.”
Which explained his coloring, that black hair, those dark eyes.
They ate in silence for several minutes. Nell thought about Mordecai Black’s childhood. If Black was a remarkable man, how more remarkable might he have been if he’d been loved from birth?
Or perhaps he’d have been less remarkable? Perhaps a childhood of wealth, privilege, and indulgence would have turned him into a man like Roger?
“I’ve been thinking about tomorrow,” Black said.
Nell glanced up at him.
“There are several avenues we can pursue. It’s possible that Lizzie and your sister somehow found enough money to pay for a doctor to attend the birth.”
Nell nodded doubtfully.
“There’s Billy English, who may know where Lizzie is.”
Nell nodded again, even more doubtfully.
“And there are the newspapers. I’ll insert advertisements in the Flying Post and the Gazette, offer a reward.”
Nell’s pulse quickened. “That could work.”
“I’ll do it first thing in the morning,” Black said. “And then I’ll look for Billy English.”
“I’d rather you didn’t. He’s meant to be dangerous.”
“I’ll take Phelps and Walter with me.”
Nell chewed on her lower lip. If anything happened to Black . . . “I’d rather you didn’t,” she said again.
“We’ll be quite safe,” Black said. “Cricklepit Street isn’t the West Quarter.”
“Then may I come with you?”
Black shook his head. “English is a criminal and I don’t want you anywhere near him.”
I don’t want you anywhere near him either.
Nell stared at him helplessly, and wished she could tell him about Baletongue. I’ll know where Sophia is the day after tomorrow. There’s no need for you to find Billy English.
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ll take my pistols with me.”
“You have pistols?”
Black nodded. “Upstairs.”
“All right,” Nell said reluctantly. “But please be careful.”
“I will.” Black’s smile seemed overly confident to Nell, but he was huge and he was dangerous, perhaps every bit as dangerous as Billy English, and he’d have Phelps and Walter with him. And he’d have pistols.
“I’ll visit the doctors while you look for Billy English.”
Black lost his smile.
“I’ll be careful,” Nell told him. “I’ll take Bessie and I’ll go by hackney.”
Black didn’t say anything. He sat, gripping his knife and fork. He wanted to forbid her, she could see it on his face. His cheeks were tauter than usual, his lips thinner, and there was a sharp little crease between his eyebrows.
“Doctors are expensive,” Nell reminded him. “The neighborhoods they live in will be safe.”
“I know,” Black said. “I know. But—”
“Remember: I shall have Bessie in my charge, and even if you don’t trust me to keep myself safe, at least trust that I’ll keep her safe. It would be grossly wrong of me to expose her to any danger.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” Black said. “It’s just . . .” He blew out a breath and put down his cutlery. “You’ve lived a very sheltered life. Danger doesn’t always look obvious. You may not recognize it when you see it.”
“Bessie will. She hasn’t lived a sheltered life.”
Black pressed his lips together. The crease between his brows was sharper. Nell saw the conflict on his face.
“I promise I’ll be careful. I won’t take any risks. I won’t venture into unsafe neighborhoods—and if I’m at all uncertain, I shall depend on the jarvey’s judgment. You have my word.”
Black stared at her for a long moment, lips tightly compressed, and then he blew out a breath. “All right, but for God’s sake be careful!”
“I will,” Nell said.
The sharp little crease still sat on Black’s brow.
“You may select the jarvey, if you wish.”
Some of Black’s tension eased. “Thank you,” he said. “I will.” He gave a nod. After a moment, he picked up his cutlery again. After another moment, he resumed eating. He was still frowning. He wasn’t completely happy about her visiting Exeter’s doctors without him, but then she wasn’t completely happy about him searching for Billy English.
We have both compromised.
Nell frowned at this thought, and picked up her own cutlery.
Compromise.
Black had said they would compromise rather than argue if they married, and she hadn’t believed him.
FOR THE REST of the meal they discussed the advertisement, deciding on the wording, resolving on a reward of ten pounds. Black refused to let her foot the reward. This time he didn’t compromise.
“For heaven’s sake, Nell,” he said finally, an edge of exasperation in his voice. “You have eighty pounds in interest a year, I have eight thousand.”
At this point in the conversation, the servants came to remove the covers. Nell sat silently, and thought about the reward—that it was an excellent idea, that ten pounds would bring even the most reluctant of informers forward—and that it was unnecessary, because by the time the advertisements ran she’d know where Sophia was. Once again, she wished she could tell Black about Baletongue.
The servants departed, leaving her and Black seated across from each other at the empty table.
Nell stopped thinking about missing sisters and advertisements and Faerie godmothers. She was suddenly aware of the sofa. It seemed to loom huge in the room. Memory of last night’s kisses flooded back. Her throat was abruptly dry. She swallowed and glanced at the sofa—and then at Black.
He was leaning back in his chair, loose-limbed and relaxed, watching her.
I won’t be your wife, but I’ll be your mistress. Did those words ring as loudly in his ears as they did in hers? Could he taste the memory of her in his mouth, the way she could taste the memory of him?
Black’s gaze rested on her face. He was waiting for her to decide what happened next.
She could continue arguing with him about the reward. She could bid him goodnight. Or she could kiss him on the sofa.
Nell knew which of those three things she wanted to do.
Black waited, saying nothing. He wasn’t going to push her in any direction, she realized. This was her choice.