CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

COOMBE REGIS TO TIVERTON was only fifty miles, but they were fifty waterlogged miles. Twice the road was flooded and they had to backtrack and find another route. By nightfall they were still twelve miles short of their destination. “I’m sorry, Nell,” Black said, when they reached Broadclyst. “We can’t go any further tonight.”

Nell didn’t argue. She knew that trying to reach Tiverton in the dark, on unfamiliar and possibly flooded roads, was far too dangerous.

She climbed down from the carriage, her half-boots splashing in inch-deep water. A footman held an umbrella over her head but even so droplets of rain misted her spectacles. The footman’s face was an indistinct blur in the darkness, but she knew who he was: Walter.

Nell looked at him in his dripping greatcoat and then glanced up at Phelps, a dim shape on the box seat. “Mr. Phelps, Walter . . . I’m sorry you’re so wet.”

“We’ve been rained on before, ma’am,” the coachman said cheerfully. “Didn’t harm us then, shan’t harm us now.”

Nell expected the inn to be overflowing with stranded travelers, but it was almost empty. The innkeeper greeted them with delight. Yes, he had bedchambers for sir and madam, yes, he had bedchambers for their valet and maid, and yes, there was space for a footman and coachman, too. He offered them hot food and hot punch and a private parlor. Black accepted all three. “Hot punch for my coachman and footman as well,” he said, shaking rain from his coat. “See that their clothes are dried, will you?”

Nell wiped the rain from the spectacles and perched them back on her nose. Anticipation fizzed in her blood. Twelve miles to Tiverton.

The punch came before the food. It was tart and sweet at the same time. Nell tasted lemon, smelled spices. She didn’t know what the alcohol was, but it was potent, warming her mouth, warming her chest. She sipped, savoring the heady flavor. Twelve miles. The words were drumbeat in her blood. Twelve miles to Tiverton.

“We must send an express to Lizzie,” she said. “Tell her we’ve found Felicity.”

“I’ll send one first thing tomorrow,” Black promised.

Nell swallowed another mouthful of hot, spicy punch. “I want Lizzie to be Felicity’s godmother, even if she is a . . . a . . .” She tried to find a polite word for it, but there really wasn’t one. “Prostitute.”

Black nodded, as if he approved of her decision.

“I wish I could give her my portion.” If Lizzie had eighty pounds in interest a year, she wouldn’t have to be a prostitute.

“No need,” Black said. “I’ve asked my man of business to set up an annuity for her.”

Nell stared at him. “You have?”

He nodded again.

Nell didn’t need to ask why: Black was helping Lizzie because Lizzie had helped Sophia.

Tears rose in her eyes. She put down her glass and hugged him tightly. “Thank you.”

Black’s arms came around her. “Lizzie may decide to remain with Mr. Wheatley. She seems very fond of him.”

“At least it’ll be her choice. She won’t have to stay if she doesn’t want to. She won’t have to sell herself.”

“No. She won’t.”

Nell blinked away her tears and drew back and looked at him. “You’re the best man in the world, Mordecai.”

He blushed a rosy pink.

NEXT TO ARRIVE was the food: thick slices of fried ham and golden-yolked eggs. The innkeeper offered them more punch. Black chose ale. After a moment’s hesitation, Nell did, too.

She ate heartily. The ham was salty, the ale bitter, and everything was purely delicious. A rustic meal, but a perfect one. Eagerness and alcohol hummed in her veins. Twelve miles.

Nell glanced across the table at Black. Such a striking face, with its formidable nose and slanting cheekbones. Such a strong, beautiful, masculine face.

Mordecai Black was many things. He was a rake. A bastard. A man who could kill. But the most important thing about him wasn’t his face, or his birth, or his reputation; it was his heart. Black might be one of the most scandalous men in the ton, but he was also one of its kindest.

I love you, Mordecai.

Nell looked down at her plate. Black had asked her to marry him every day until the fire, and not once since.

Had he changed his mind? Was it the magic? Or did propriety hold him silent? Did he feel he couldn’t renew his offer because of Sophia’s death?

The only way to find out was to ask, but Nell was afraid to.

It took courage to propose marriage—she’d realized that in London—but she hadn’t realized quite how much courage. Hadn’t realized that one could be so afraid of rejection that one’s heart raced and one’s palms sweated and one felt quite sick with dread.

Some things became easier with practice, but Nell doubted that rejection was one of them—and Mordecai Black had been rejected many times in his life. By his mother. By Cécile. By me.

Nine times he’d asked her to marry him. And nine times she had refused.

My poor Mordecai. I’m sorry I hurt you.

Black finished his meal and leaned back in his chair, sipping his ale. He didn’t look like a man who was unhappy; he looked relaxed, contented, a little sleepy.

He smiled across the table at her. “Can’t finish it all?”

“No.” Nell laid her cutlery on her plate, and pushed it to one side. Her heart was beating absurdly fast and her palms were quite damp and a knot was tying itself tightly in her stomach. “Mordecai?”

He lifted his eyebrows.

Nell brushed the coppery ringlets back from her forehead, pushed the spectacles up her nose, and took a deep breath. “Mordecai . . . will you please marry me?”

She saw shock cross his face, saw him blink. He straightened in the chair, put down his tankard, and reached across the table to take hold of her hands. “Nell,” he said gently. “Now isn’t the time to be making important decisions. Your grief is too fresh.”

“Sophia has nothing to do with this,” Nell told him. “I knew I wanted to marry you before I learned of her death.”

Black frowned, as if he didn’t believe her.

“I knew the day of the fire.”

His gaze was intent on her face. He looked as if he was trying to see inside her, trying to tell whether she spoke the truth. His own expression was inscrutable. Nell couldn’t tell whether he wished to marry her or not.

“If you would rather not have a wife who can control fire, please say so.”

His brow creased. “What?”

“Please be honest, Mordecai. If you don’t wish to marry me anymore, tell me.”

His hands tightened on hers. “Of course I still want to marry you!”

“Even if I can do magic?”

“Of course.”

“But . . . if we have any daughters, they’ll receive wishes on their twenty-third birthdays.”

“Then we shall counsel them to be very careful what they choose.” Black tightened his grip on her hands until it was almost painful. “Nell, you goose, how could you think I wouldn’t want to marry you for such a reason?”

“After Billy English—”

“I didn’t understand how things were, then. I do now.”

“You still wish to marry me?” Foolish tears welled in her eyes.

“Of course I do.” Black released her hands, pulled out his pocketbook, extracted a much-folded piece of paper, opened it, and pushed it across the table. “We can get married tomorrow. Look.”

Nell blinked back the tears, and stared. It was a marriage license. A marriage license issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury. A marriage license that looked as if it had been in Black’s pocketbook for months, dog-eared, creased. Her dazed eyes found the date: July thirteenth.

She found her name on it, and his. Mordecai Bamber Evelyn Pontus Pomeroy Pew Black.

“Bamber Evelyn Pontus Pomeroy?”

“My father’s name, exactly—so that no one could doubt I was his son.” There was a note in Black’s voice that drew her eyes to him. “My mother did it to shame him.” He grimaced faintly. “Poor Mother.”

Poor Mother? Nell bit her lip, and wondered if she dared ask, and then said, “Do you forgive her for how she treated you?”

“I pity her. She was an unhappy woman.”

“And your father? Do you forgive him for not wanting you at first?”

“Father’s easy to forgive, because he never forgave himself.” Black reached across and took her hands again. “We shall do better with our children. Starting with Felicity.”

The foolish tears welled up in her eyes. “Yes.”

He saw the tears, and tightened his grip on her hands. “When would you like to marry, love?” he said softly.

“As soon as possible,” Nell said. “Tomorrow. Once we’ve found her.”

THAT NIGHT, MORDECAI waited until his servants had retired, then went to Eleanor Wrotham’s room. He felt foolish tiptoeing down the corridor in the dark. Tompkin and Bessie both knew about his visits to Eleanor’s bed, and yet still he crept around pretending it was a secret. But tomorrow night there’d be no need to pretend; there was nothing scandalous about a husband and wife sharing the same bed.

Mordecai quietly opened her door. The room was shadowy, cozy, lit by one candle. Eleanor sat in her bed, hugging her knees, watching him.

He latched the door behind him, then crossed to her and touched her cheek lightly. She smiled up at him, a smile that lit her eyes, that lit her whole face. She didn’t say I love you, but he saw it clearly.

Mordecai stood there for a long minute, his fingers resting on her cheek, staring down at her, and neither of them spoke and yet it seemed as if they did, that they said everything that needed to be said, words of love and trust and commitment. Emotion tightened his throat. “Nell . . .” he said, and then stopped, afraid his voice might break.

He snuffed out the candle and climbed into the bed and took Eleanor in his arms. “Mordecai,” she whispered, and that whisper held everything, too.

Mordecai found her eyebrows, traced them lightly. He should have left the candle burning. “I wish I could see your face right now.”

The candle flickered alight.

Mordecai flinched—and felt Eleanor flinch in response. The candle snuffed out instantly. “I’m sorry,” she said.

He found her lips and kissed them. “Light it again, Nell.”

The room stayed dark. She was tense in his arms.

Mordecai kissed her again. “Light it, Nell.”

“You don’t mind?” she asked, and he heard an edge of anxiety in her voice.

“Of course I don’t mind,” Mordecai said firmly. “It was a little startling, is all.”

After a moment the candle lit itself again. This time he didn’t flinch.

He gazed at Eleanor. She looked back at him, a little wary, a little uncertain.

“Relax, love,” he said, and kissed her temple, kissed her cheek. My Nell. “I love your eyelids. I hope our children have them.”

He kissed those haughty eyelids, kissed that patrician nose. This woman with the face of a duchess and the soul of a kindred spirit. “Don’t wear the wig tomorrow,” he told her. Not if they were going to be married. Not if she was going to become Mrs. Black. He kissed her smooth brown hair, kissed his way down the line of her jaw, found her mouth and kissed that, too.

Mordecai made love to Eleanor slowly, reverently, watching her face in the candlelight, and she watched him and touched him and whispered back the words he whispered to her. The clocks seemed to turn back. He felt as if he was making love for the very first time in his life—not with a boy’s urgency, but with a man’s wonder. And it was a first time of sorts—the first time he made love to his wife, because even if they hadn’t signed the parish register yet, they were man and wife—and so Mordecai didn’t hold on to his self-control when she climaxed, didn’t withdraw and spill his seed into his handkerchief, but instead let the sensations roll through him, and it was profoundly wonderful: to feel Eleanor’s hot, sleek muscles contract around him and to simply let go and allow himself to climax with her.

La petite mort, Cécile had sometimes called this moment. The little death. But there was nothing little about it tonight. It consumed him utterly, went on for an eternity, and it was bliss, pure bliss. La jouissance. La joie.

Mordecai slowly floated back to reality. Every muscle in his body was trembling. His breathing was shallow and ragged. He gathered Eleanor in his arms and rolled so that they lay on their sides, legs intertwined. And he was still inside her. Still inside her.

He held her close, and his joy was so great that he didn’t know whether to laugh or weep.