TWENTY-SIX
ELEANOR WROTHAM WAS sitting on the sturdy green sofa when Mordecai entered the parlor. She rose to her feet.
Mordecai closed the door and examined her. She looked particularly haughty, and perhaps a little wary. My fault. He’d made a bad misstep this afternoon. He wasn’t sure how to retrieve his footing, or if it was even possible. He took a deep breath. “Nell . . .”
The door opened behind him and two serving-men entered bearing dinner.
Mordecai swallowed the words he’d been about to utter—I’m sorry I shouted at you—and stood silently while the food was placed on the table. Thank God none of the dishes was roasted pork. He didn’t think he could eat pork tonight. In fact, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to eat it again. His memory gave him an image of a half-charred body and the smells that had accompanied it: scorched hair, burned clothing, roasted flesh. Mordecai shook his head sharply, banishing the memory, and crossed to the table. He held Eleanor’s chair out for her. She silently sat.
Mordecai took his own seat and unfolded his napkin.
“Will there be anything else, sir?” one of the serving-men asked.
“No, thank you.”
The servants left.
Mordecai took a deep breath and prepared to launch into his apology, but Eleanor said, “Did you find the boy’s mother?”
“Uh . . . yes. I did.”
“Was she in danger?”
“Yes.” He poured her some wine, and then himself. “The house next door was burning.”
“You got her out?”
“Yes.”
He looked at her face and saw that she wanted more than a mere Yes.
“It was an attic room,” Mordecai told her. “The boy’s mother is lame. She couldn’t get down the stairs without his help.”
Eleanor’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “She shouldn’t be in an attic.”
Mordecai shrugged. “She’d rather live in an attic in a respectable neighborhood than a ground floor room in the West Quarter—and I can’t say I blame her.”
“Is the attic still livable?”
Mordecai shook his head. “She’ll need new lodgings. As will a great many people.”
“You rescued her just in time.”
“Yes.” He looked down at his plate, and then back at Eleanor—and saw again that she wanted more than just a Yes.
“There were four flights of stairs,” Mordecai told her. He’d charged up them, the boy, Jemmy, scampering urgently ahead, and when they’d burst into the hot, cramped, smoky room at the top they’d found the boy’s mother on the floor, half-hysterical with terror. “It was all right on the way up, smoke but no flames, but on the way back down . . .” He’d been less than a minute in the attic, just long enough to scoop the woman up and throw her over his shoulder—but in those few seconds fire had taken hold of the house. “I told Jemmy to run down the stairs and not stop until he was outside. I followed as fast as I could.” The smoke had been hot, thick, choking, making him cough, searing his throat, making his eyes water, and he’d heard timbers popping and cracking in the walls. “The last flight of stairs was on fire, but there was no other way out that I knew of, so I went down them.”
Eleanor was staring at him, her face pale and shocked beneath the chestnut wig.
“We were unharmed,” Mordecai assured her. “The fire stopped just as I reached it. God only knows why, but it did.” The flames had lunged at him—and then quenched, and he’d thundered down the smoky staircase and plunged out into the street, coughing and wheezing, his eyes streaming, and there had been no fire. Heat and smoke, but no flames. No flames anywhere.
Eleanor was still staring at him, aghast.
“We were unharmed,” Mordecai said again, firmly.
“The boy?”
“He got down the stairs before they caught alight.”
Eleanor swallowed, and then said, “If the fire hadn’t stopped—”
“I think we’d have survived,” Mordecai told her. “I think we’d have made it to the street. I was running so fast by that time the flames couldn’t have stopped us.” But they would have been burned. Perhaps badly.
His memory supplied him with images of the bodies he’d seen that afternoon. But for the grace of God . . .
Mordecai managed not to grimace. He smiled instead and gestured at the dishes, even though his own appetite was unenthusiastic. “Please eat.”
There was a long pause, while Eleanor looked at him, then she transferred her gaze to the table. After another long pause, she served herself a small portion of peas.
“More than that,” Mordecai told her dryly.
Her gaze lifted to him again and she didn’t look haughty at all; she looked as if she was on the brink of tears.
“Nell . . .” Mordecai pushed back his chair hastily, walked around the table, pulled her from her seat, and hugged her. Eleanor hugged him back and inhaled a sobbing breath. She was tense, trembling.
Mordecai cupped one hand over the back of her head, the horsehair wig coarse beneath his palm. “Today has been a terrible day,” he told her in a low voice. “People have lost their homes. People have died. But you and I have been lucky. We’re safe, Nell. We’re safe and unharmed. So if those tears are for me, wipe them away.” He hugged her more tightly, holding her close. She inhaled another sobbing breath.
“We can’t do anything for the people who died,” Mordecai said quietly. “But we can help those who survived. There’ll be a collection and you can be certain I’ll give generously.” He already had, emptying his pockets, giving young Jemmy and his mother money for new lodgings. “Life will go on, Nell. It always does.”
“I know,” she whispered. Her arms tightened around him. “I’m glad you weren’t hurt.”
“So am I. And I’m glad you weren’t hurt. Or Walter or Bessie or Phelps. Or Jemmy and his mother. Or any of the people who could have been burned today but weren’t. It’s been a terrible day, but it could have been far worse. We have a lot to be thankful for, Nell. All of Exeter does.”
“I know,” she whispered again.
Mordecai stroked the nape of her neck comfortingly and released her. “Now, I need you to eat. All right?”
She nodded, and gave a wobbly smile, and Mordecai bent and kissed her cheek. “Sit down,” he said gently. “Eat.”
DESSERT WAS A gooseberry tart. Mordecai enjoyed the combination of sweetness and tartness. He had two pieces. When he was finishing the second one, Eleanor said, “Did Walter tell you that I went to see the fire?”
Mordecai almost choked on his last bite of tart. “No,” he said, putting down his fork. “He did not tell me that.”
“I went because . . . because I heard . . . because someone said the fire was out, and I wanted to see if it was true.” She flushed, and didn’t quite meet his eyes, and if she’d been anyone else he’d have thought her lying, but Eleanor Wrotham wasn’t the sort of woman who would lie.
“It was out,” she said, slightly defiantly. “So I told Phelps to put the carriage away and sent Walter to look for you.” Now she met his eyes, and the defiance fell away. “I broke my word to you. I’m sorry. I know you’ll be disappointed and . . . and angry.”
Mordecai carefully placed his plate to one side, trying to decide how to respond. Anger wasn’t the foremost of his emotions. Nor was disappointment. What he felt most was horror. He saw the burning stairwell in his mind’s eye, saw the bodies he’d pulled from the blackened rubble.
Eleanor sat silently, watching him. She looked haughty and contrite and slightly wary, her posture tense, her shoulders braced, her hands clasped tightly together.
She thinks I might yell at her again.
Mordecai inhaled a slow breath and released it. “I’m not angry,” he said. “Or disappointed. But I do wish you’d left town—even if events proved it unnecessary.”
She bit her lip, and then said, “I was afraid for you.”
“Then you must understand that I was afraid for you.”
“I do,” she said. “But I’m as much an adult as you are, Mordecai, and if you can decide that you’re going to help an urchin, then so can I.”
“It was more dangerous for you than for me.”
“The neighborhood was a perfectly respectable—”
“It had nothing to do with respectability,” Mordecai said. “You’re smaller than me. You’re not as strong. People were being knocked over in that crowd, trampled on, and you could have been one of them. And there was a fire. You were wearing a muslin dress and a straw bonnet, for Christ’s sake. You’d have gone up like a bloody candle!” He caught himself, took a steadying breath, spoke more moderately: “I beg your pardon. But you must see that it was much more dangerous for you than for me.”
Eleanor looked as if she didn’t quite believe him.
“We’re both adults,” Mordecai told her. “We’re both capable of making our own decisions. But what’s safe for me and what’s safe for you are two completely different things.”
Her lips pursed. She pushed her spectacles up her nose. She still looked as if she didn’t fully believe him.
Mordecai decided to push his point home. He moved everything—plates, glasses, serving dishes, candelabrum—to one end of the table and folded the tablecloth back, baring a square of polished wood three foot by three foot. “Imagine this is England.”
Eleanor’s eyebrows lifted. She gave a short nod.
Mordecai took his linen napkin and spread it out, almost filling the square of cleared tabletop. “You and I inhabit different Englands,” he said. “This is the England I live in—” He tapped the napkin. “Inside its borders, I’m safe. Outside them, I’m not.” He ran a finger along the narrow strip of exposed wood. “These are places it would be dangerous for me to go. Back alleys in Whitechapel and opium dens down by the docks. Places where I might be beaten or robbed—or have my throat cut.”
Eleanor frowned.
Mordecai pushed the napkin aside and pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket. Unfolded, it was a much smaller square than the napkin. “This is your England. Because you’re a woman, there are a lot more cliffs for you to fall off and a lot more swamps—metaphorically—so the part you can move around in safely is smaller.” He traced the edge of the handkerchief with a fingertip. “I don’t define those borders; society does.” He met her eyes. “You agree?”
Eleanor hesitated, and gave a reluctant nod.
Mordecai reached for the cutlery, selected the three cleanest pieces, and laid them in a small triangle in the middle of the handkerchief. “This is the part of England that your father let you inhabit. It’s very restricted. Call it a cage, if you wish.” He glanced at her. “Agreed?”
She grimaced, and nodded again.
Mordecai cleared away the cutlery. “The England you can safely inhabit is smaller than the one I can, but it’s not a cage I’ve built for you. I don’t want to put any cages around you.” He leaned forward and held her gaze. “Go anywhere inside your England that you wish—but know that if you try to step outside it, I’m going to haul you back, because I don’t want you to fall off a cliff and break your neck.”
She met his eyes and said nothing.
“What happened this afternoon was a cliff. A neck-breakingly high cliff—and I don’t just mean the fire. I mean the street, the crowd, the panic. If you’d come with me—if we’d become separated—you could easily have been knocked down and trampled. And if you had made it as far as that attic, I don’t know you’d have got out alive.” He could imagine it: the hot smoky staircase, the flames licking upward, her gown catching alight. A shudder ran through him. “It was a cliff, Nell—a really high cliff, and you could have broken your neck.”
Her gaze fell. She was silent for a long moment. “But it was a cliff for you, too, wasn’t it?”
Mordecai considered this question. “The streets weren’t a cliff. Not at all. The attic . . . yes, but it was a smaller cliff for me than it would have been for you, because I’m stronger, because my clothes don’t burn as easily.”
Her gaze lifted. “You can pull me back from cliffs, but I can’t pull you?”
Mordecai hesitated, and then said, “Yes, of course you can.”
“You didn’t let me today.”
“No,” he admitted. “I’m sorry, Nell. If you ever think I’m getting near a cliff, tell me, and we’ll talk about it.”
“We didn’t talk today.”
“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” Mordecai said. “It will never happen again.”
One corner of her mouth lifted up in a small, wry smile. “If you think I’m about to break my neck, you have my permission yell at me.”
Mordecai said cautiously, “You’re not angry at me?”
She shook her head.
Mordecai reached his hand out across the table. “I’m sorry I yelled,” he said again, quietly.
“I know.” Eleanor took his hand. Her fingers were warm and slender. “I forgive you.”
Mordecai’s throat constricted. I haven’t ruined everything. “And I forgive you for risking your neck, but Nell . . .” He tightened his grip on her hand. “Please don’t ever do anything like that again. I beg you.”
She looked at him soberly, and then nodded. “No cliffs, either of us.”
“No cliffs.”
Mordecai released her hand. They’d just made a vow together—that neither of them would jump off any cliffs, metaphorical or otherwise—and he wanted to ask her to make another one with him. Marry me, Nell. But he knew the time wasn’t right. You didn’t propose to a woman the same day that you’d yelled at her, even if you’d been trying to save her life and even if she’d forgiven you.
Mordecai refolded the handkerchief and put it in his pocket. “We’ll look for Sophia first thing in the morning.”
“Thank you,” Eleanor said. “But I can’t come with you. I haven’t any shoes.”
“No shoes?”
“The soles burned through. I must wait for Bessie to buy me a new pair before I can leave the inn.”
“Burned through?” Mordecai said, his pulse giving a leap of alarm. “What do you mean, burned through?”
Eleanor hesitated, and then said, “The cobblestones were hot and my soles were thin, that’s all. My feet are unhurt.”
At that moment the serving-men returned to clear the covers. If they wondered why the tablecloth was turned back and all the dishes pushed to one end, they made no comment. Mordecai held his tongue, and by the time the men had finished, he’d rethought the wisdom of giving voice to his alarm. Let it rest, he told himself. Eleanor had promised not to leap off any more cliffs. But even so, the soles of her shoes had burned through.
With effort he wrenched his thoughts away from that terrifying piece of information. He pushed back his chair and stood. “The sofa?”
They sat on the sofa, but neither of them was in the mood for caresses and kisses. Mordecai put his arm around her and they were simply quiet together. Mordecai felt weary. Weary in his body, weary in his mind. The events of the day were almost too great for comprehension. The fire, the heat, the smoke, the fear. The moment when he’d stared down that flaming stairwell and made the decision to keep running—and the moment when the fire had snuffed itself out.
He didn’t understand it. No one did. It had been a miracle, pure and simple, and he’d witnessed it, and he still felt wonder and disbelief and sheer, utter, heart-stopping relief.
After the miracle had come the search for bodies. Grim work. Work that had made his soul ache. And now that the day was over, all he wanted to do was to hold Eleanor Wrotham and know that they were both alive.
Mordecai stroked her cheek with a fingertip. “Tired?”
She nodded silently. He thought she felt the same way he did: weary, subdued.
Mordecai released her and stood, drawing her to her feet. “We could both do with a good night’s sleep.”
He escorted Eleanor upstairs to the bedchambers, but when they reached her door he found himself reluctant to bid her goodnight. He didn’t want to sleep alone tonight; he wanted to sleep with Eleanor Wrotham safely in his arms.
He thought that perhaps she felt the same way, for she made no move to open her door.
Mordecai took her hand. “Nell . . .”
Eleanor didn’t say anything. She didn’t look haughty, but sad and almost fragile.
Mordecai hugged her, right there in the corridor, where anyone might see them, and she made no move to pull away, but rested her head on his chest. “Nell, if you don’t wish to be alone tonight, just tell me. We don’t need to do anything, we can just be together. If you would like?”
She nodded against his chest.
“Are you certain?”
Eleanor nodded again.
Mordecai felt his heart lift. He released her, and cupped her face in his hands and gazed down at her. I love you, Nell. “Your room or mine?”
“Mine.”
WALTER WAS WAITING in Mordecai’s room, in his rôle of temporary valet. Mordecai sent him to bed. “I shan’t need you tonight. Go and rest.” And then, as the footman turned to go: “You did well this afternoon, Walter. Extremely well.”
Walter colored faintly. “Thank you, sir.”
Mordecai nodded—not a nod of dismissal, employer to servant, but a nod of acknowledgment, man to man.
Walter’s cheeks became even pinker. “Goodnight, sir.”
“Goodnight, Walter.”
Mordecai stripped slowly and donned his nightshirt. When half an hour had passed he let himself out of his room and walked quietly down to Eleanor Wrotham’s door. He listened for a moment, heard no murmur of voices, and tapped softly.
Eleanor opened the door. She was wearing her nightgown. Her hair was in a simple plait, and she was barefoot and solemn and more beautiful than she’d ever been before. Mordecai’s heart clenched in his chest. “You’re certain?” he asked.
She nodded silently.
Mordecai stepped inside and closed the door. “We’ll just rest, nothing more. You’re tired, and so am I.” He took her hand and led her across to the bed. “In you get.”
Eleanor climbed in, and he did, too, and he pulled the covers up and drew her close. His whole body gave a silent sigh of contentment. The last of the day’s tensions unraveled. “Some nights it’s better not to be alone,” he said, and laid a light kiss on her brow.
“I know,” she whispered, tilting her face to him.
Mordecai kissed her gently and she kissed him back, and there was no heat in it at all, just comfort and tenderness, their mouths moving slowly together.
Time crept past while they kissed, and Mordecai’s mood gradually changed. When he’d climbed into Eleanor’s bed all he’d wanted was companionship and rest, but as the minutes slid by he found himself craving more. Not orgasm, but connection. Connection at its deepest and most profound. Eleanor felt it, too, he thought. She pressed close, not with urgency, but with need. The need to be together.
Finally he broke the kiss and whispered, “Nell?”
She understood the question. “Yes,” she said.
Sex had many moods, and tonight it was gentle and slow. Mordecai peeled off his nightshirt, peeled off her nightgown, and made love to her. It was tender and quiet and perfect, and when she climaxed with a soft gasp Mordecai felt it deep inside himself, in his soul. He withdrew, then, and held her. Held her while she curled into him, naked and warm and trusting. Held her while she fell asleep. And even though he hadn’t come to completion himself, he felt more complete than he’d ever been in his life.
He’d looked down that flaming gullet today and thought he was going to die, but he hadn’t. Instead, he had this: Eleanor Wrotham, asleep in his arms.