CHAPTER EIGHT

NELL WENT TO bed with her thoughts a jumbled confusion of Seven Dials and Mrs. Harris, the nightmarish journey from Bath, the urgency of Sophia’s letter, Roger and Great Aunt Wrotham and her father, all mixed together. And Mordecai Black. Mordecai Black throwing a stool at the brothel watchman. Mordecai Black asking her to marry him.

She’d thought it would be impossible to sleep, but it wasn’t. She woke to a chambermaid’s knock on her door. Yesterday’s exhaustion was gone. The confusing jumble in her head had distilled to two crystal clear questions: Why on earth did Mordecai Black want to marry her? And—far more importantly—where was Sophia?

Nell dressed with the chambermaid’s help, ate a hasty breakfast, packed her valise, and hurried downstairs. Five o’clock found her standing outside the Earnoch Hotel in the gray light of dawn. The heat trapped between the tall London buildings had eased only slightly overnight.

A coach-and-four drew up with a clatter of wheels and hooves. Not a hired post-chaise with yellow paintwork and two postilions, but a private traveling carriage. A servant sat beside the coachman on the box. When the coach halted, he leapt down, lowered the steps, and opened the door with a flourish. The flourish told her he was a footman, despite the lack of livery.

Black stepped down from the carriage. Gone was yesterday’s grime. He was clean-shaven and perfectly turned out. “Is that all the luggage you have?”

“Yes.”

The footman sprang to take the valise. Nell climbed up into the carriage, Black followed, the door swung shut. She settled herself on a seat of soft squabs upholstered with velvet.

Two hundred miles alone with Mordecai Black.

Awareness of him prickled over her skin. This wasn’t the familiar pulse-fluttering combination of fear and attraction; this was something close to panic. Her stays seemed to lace themselves tighter. It was suddenly extremely difficult to breathe.

Nell busied herself arranging her skirts, smoothing the wrinkles from the muslin, pulling composure around her like armor.

“I took the liberty of bringing a maid for you,” Black said. “This is Bessie. Bessie, Mrs. Trussell-Quimby.”

Nell glanced up. There on the backward-facing seat was a maid. Young, bashful, and painfully neat. The maid ducked her head. “Ma’am,” she said shyly.

A maid. Two hundred miles with Mordecai Black and a maid.

Nell’s panic fell away. Breathing became easy again. “Good morning, Bessie.” She smiled at Black with gratitude. “Thank you.”

He nodded.

The carriage swayed slightly as the footman climbed aboard, and then they were off.

 

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BLACK HAD BEEN quite serious about the wig and spectacles, Nell discovered. The first time they halted to change the horses, he requested a private room and sent her and the maid upstairs to alter her appearance. Bessie produced two auburn wigs and a pair of spectacles. “Which wig would you like to wear, ma’am?”

Neither, Nell thought. “The chignon, please.”

She put on the spectacles while Bessie removed the wig from its box. A small mirror hung above the mantelpiece. Nell crossed to it and looked at herself. The spectacles weren’t much of a disguise; anyone who knew her would recognize her instantly.

“If you’ll sit for a moment, ma’am?”

Nell removed the spectacles and obediently sat.

Bessie positioned the wig carefully, anchoring it with hairpins, then she stepped back. “All done, ma’am.”

Nell stood and looked in the mirror again.

It was astonishing what a difference the wig made. That warm, autumnal auburn made her look quite unlike herself. Nell put on the spectacles again. Now she looked like another person entirely.

Nell stared herself in the mirror, unsettled. She had the same face she’d always had—eyes, nose, mouth, chin—and yet she was no longer Eleanor Wrotham.

How could a wig and spectacles make so much difference?

They hurried downstairs again. Black scrutinized her for a long moment, and then gave a curt nod. “Good.”

The coach-and-four maintained a breakneck pace for most of the day. They passed through Frimley, through Basingstoke, through Andover, and came into Salisbury as daylight was fading from the sky. The coach drew up in the courtyard of an inn. Black handed her down from the carriage. He had lost his immaculateness. His clothes were wrinkled and stubble shadowed his jaw.

Nell felt stiff, weary, hot, and slightly headachy. Ostlers and porters bustled around them, unloading the luggage, leading the horses away.

“Would you like to dine now?” Black asked.

She wanted to remove the wig, but even more than that, she wanted fresh air and to stretch her legs. “What I should most like is to take a walk.”

Black turned to the innkeeper, attentive at his elbow. “Two of your best rooms, one for Mrs. Trussell-Quimby, one for myself. Rooms for our servants. A private parlor. Hot water in our bedchambers in an hour, and dinner fifteen minutes after that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Walter?”

The footman snapped to attention. “Sir?”

“I leave you in charge here.” Black gave Nell his arm. “Have you been to Salisbury before?”

“No.”

“There’s some very fine architecture.”

Yesterday, walking with her hand on Mordecai Black’s arm would have made her heart beat wildly, but Nell had spent a full day in his company and her pulse gave only the faintest flutter before settling down. She was becoming inured to Black’s striking looks and magnetic presence.

They walked for an hour, and Black was correct: Salisbury was a handsome city. Nell passed through St. Ann’s gate and the High Street gate, viewed the cathedral with its towering spire, and saw the ornate Poultry Cross. The evening was sultry, the air thick and humid. Walking didn’t make her feel any cooler, but it rid her of the stiffness and the headache.

Back at the inn, Nell removed the wig and spectacles, washed her face, and changed her gown for dinner.

“Which wig would you like wear, ma’am?”

Neither. “The braided bun. Can you please brush out my hair first?”

“Of course, ma’am.”

Nell sat at the dressing table. “Have you been with Mr. Black long?” she asked, as the girl unpinned her hair.

“Two days, ma’am.”

“Two days?” Nell said, startled.

“Yes, ma’am.” Bessie reached for Nell’s brush.

“Oh,” Nell said. “Well . . . I’m sure you’ll be happy in his service.”

“He’s a good master, he is. None better.”

Nell sat silently while Bessie brushed her hair, wrestling with curiosity. “In what way is he good?” she asked, when Bessie laid the hairbrush aside.

“He don’t touch the maids, and he don’t let anyone else touch us neither. Not the menservants, not his guests, no one.”

“Oh,” Nell said again.

Nell’s hair hung down to her waist, nut-brown and straight. Bessie tied it back into a low ponytail, wound it around Nell’s head, and set to work pinning it in place.

Nell watched in the mirror. Questions hovered on her tongue. “Did you know Mr. Black was a good master before you entered his service?” she finally asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“How?”

“When the old lord died, Mr. Black let it be known that he’d find places for as many of us maids as wanted to leave.” Bessie removed the wig with the braided bun from its box.

“The old lord? You mean . . . Lord Dereham?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Nell blinked. “You were in Lord Dereham’s household before this?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bessie said again. “Mr. Black don’t have to take us in, he’s got no obligation, but he always does.”

“Always?” Nell said. “How many maids have gone to him?”

“Dozens.” Bessie carefully placed the wig on Nell’s head. “Most of them went as soon as the old lord died—they knew how it would be—but I stayed. I didn’t think he’d notice someone as homely as me. But in the end he did.” Bessie’s lips tightened in the mirror.

The bedchamber was warm, the day’s heat lingering despite the open window, but Nell didn’t feel hot; she felt cold. “You mean . . . this man who noticed you, he touches the maids?”

“He does a lot more than that, ma’am.”

Nell felt even colder. Bessie wasn’t talking about unwanted caresses; she was talking about rape.

She sat numbly while Bessie fastened the wig with hairpins. Thoughts spun in her head. One of Roger’s menservants was preying on the maids? Raping them? And then her numbness turned to outrage. “But why doesn’t someone tell Roger? He’d put a stop to it!”

“Roger?” Bessie slid the last hairpin into place.

“The new Lord Dereham. He’d turn the man off at once!”

Bessie stared at her blankly in the mirror, and then said, “But it’s the new Lord Dereham I’m talking of, ma’am.”

“What?”

“It’s Lord Dereham as is after us.”

Nell shook her head, rejecting the words. “No! Not Roger!” She twisted in the chair to look the girl in the face. “He wouldn’t!”

Bessie’s lips tightened. She said nothing. The truth was clear to read on her face.

“Oh, my God,” Nell said. She pressed her hand to her abdomen. She felt ill. “Roger raped you?”

“He tried,” Bessie said. “But I hit him on the nose.”

“I hope you made him bleed,” Nell said savagely.

Bessie gave a sudden grin. “Blood everywhere. All over his clothes.”

“Well done,” Nell said, and wished she could hit Roger, too. Or better yet, skewer him with a sword. She turned back to the dressing table. Her face stared at her from the mirror, pale and shocked beneath the auburn wig.

Roger was a rapist?

 

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SHE PUT ON the spectacles and joined Mordecai Black in the private parlor. Serving-men bustled around, placing dishes to best advantage, pouring wine into crystal glasses. Black pulled out a chair for her. Nell sat, and stared at her table setting. Roger raped his maidservants?

The serving-men departed. Silence fell. After a moment, Mr. Black said, “Miss Wrotham?”

Nell blinked, and realized that he was waiting for her to start. She served herself at random and then looked at the food on her plate. She hadn’t the faintest desire to eat.

“Miss Wrotham . . . are you quite well?”

“I beg your pardon. I’m a little distracted.” She managed a smile, and picked up her knife and fork.

“You’re naturally worried about your sister.” There was a note in Black’s voice that her ears recognized as compassion.

Nell gazed across the table at him. Mordecai Black knew about Roger.

How did he know? What did he know?

“Miss Wrotham, if you don’t mind me asking . . . how did you come to receive your sister’s letter?”

Nell’s thoughts changed track with the abruptness of a carriage overturning. “What?”

“You said she sent it four months ago,” Black prompted.

“Yes.” She looked down at her plate again, and laid down the knife and fork. “My father opened all my mail—I knew that—but what I hadn’t realized was that he destroyed the ones he didn’t want me to read.” She glanced up. Black had laid down his cutlery, too.

“That particular letter arrived the day Father died. In fact, it may have precipitated his death. Hitchcock—his valet—says that Father had a seizure while going through the mail. Hitchcock found the letter on the floor afterwards.”

“He kept it? The valet?”

Nell nodded. “Hitchcock was very loyal to Father. He knew Father would have burned the letter, but he also felt that, as a servant, it wasn’t his place to take such a step himself.”

“He should have taken it to you immediately.”

“He knew Father wouldn’t have wished it.”

Black uttered a contemptuous snort. “He sounds like a fool.”

“A ditherer. It took him four months to decide what he ought to do.”

“He brought the letter to you?”

Nell nodded.

“It must have been a great shock.” Again, she heard compassion in his voice.

“Yes.” Nell picked up her knife and fork, cut a piece of chicken, and put the cutlery down again with a sharp clatter. “When I went to live with my Great Aunt Wrotham she opened my mail, too—she said Father had asked her to do it—and since I was living on her charity, I felt I had no right to argue with her. I wish I had! She burned letters from Sophia. She admitted it, not three days ago!” Rage vibrated in her voice. “Insufferable! Unforgivable!”

Mr. Black met her gaze steadily, and said nothing.

“When I told her Sophia was pregnant, she said it was nothing less than Sophia deserved, and she hoped the baby died.”

A muscle twitched in Mr. Black’s jaw.

“I slapped her,” Nell said. “And I know that’s unforgivable, too, but I was so angry.” She looked down at her food. Her rage congealed; shame took its place. “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

“It sounds to me as if your great aunt deserved it.”

Nell glanced up at him.

“Miss Wrotham, why didn’t you go to live with the Dalrymples when your father died?”

“Oh . . .” Nell sighed. “They did ask me to, but I felt that I couldn’t. Not after what happened with Hubert.”

Black’s brow wrinkled slightly in incomprehension. “Hubert?”

“Hubert Cathcart. Georgiana’s fiancé. The one who went missing up in Scotland.”

“Wasn’t that years ago?”

“Four years,” Nell said. “He’s dead. Everyone knows that—even Georgiana.” She sighed again. Poor Hubert. Poor Georgiana.

“I fail to see why Cathcart’s disappearance should prevent you from living with the Dalrymples.”

“Because I’m ruined, and Georgiana’s still not married and I don’t want to damage her chances of making a good match.”

“You are not ruined,” Black said forcefully.

Nell smiled wryly. “Thank you, Mr. Black, but in the eyes of the polite world, I am ruined. No respectable man would wish to marry me.” And then she remembered his proposal.

She’d thought the day’s travels had inured her to Black; they hadn’t. Awareness of him rushed suddenly through her. Her pulse did its familiar, foolish, agitated, little dance. Heat bloomed in her cheeks.

Nell fixed her eyes on her plate, mortified with herself for blushing, mortified that Mordecai Black must be able to see it.

There was a few seconds’ pause, and then Black said dryly, “Yes, but we both know I’m not entirely respectable.”

No, he wasn’t entirely respectable, but he was kind and good. Whereas Roger, who was respectable, was neither.

The mortifying warmth faded from her cheeks. Nell stared down at her plate and thought about what Bessie had told her, then she looked up and met Black’s eyes. This time her pulse almost stayed steady. “Bessie told me that Roger forces himself upon his maids.”

Surprise crossed Black’s face. “She told you that?”

“Is it true?”

Black hesitated, and then said, “Yes.”

“But he’s such a gentleman.”

“Quite a number of gentlemen practice droit de seigneur.”

Nell frowned at him.

“It happens more than you might realize. Female servants are in a vulnerable position.”

“But . . . Roger.”

“Count yourself lucky you didn’t marry him.” Black picked up his fork, pointed imperatively at her plate, and said, “Eat.”

“How long have you known about Roger?”

“Eat, and I’ll tell you.”

Nell hesitated, and picked up her own fork. The piece of chicken still sat on the tines. She ate it—and discovered that she was hungry. Ravenously hungry.

After she’d consumed two mouthfuls Black began to speak. “Father’s seat was in Derbyshire. I stayed there often with him. Roger used to visit, as his heir. One summer he made the mistake of accosting one of the maids. She screamed, a footman came running, there was a bit of a brawl.”

“When was this?”

“Five or six years ago.”

So he’d known—Mordecai Black had known that Roger forced himself on maidservants when she’d accepted Roger’s offer.

“Roger insisted that the maid and footman be dismissed. Father kicked him out instead.” Black grinned, showing a flash of white teeth. “And then he altered his will. Before then, everything had been split equally between Roger and me. Afterwards, it all came to me—except for what was entailed.”

“Your father must have felt very strongly about it.”

“Yes.” Black’s brief flash of humor vanished. His eyebrows drew together. “Whatever you may have heard about my mother, she entered their liaison willingly.”

Nell shook her head. “I know nothing about your mother.”

Black grunted, and looked down at his plate. “She was a governess in Father’s household.”

“Oh.” Nell bit her lip. Dare she ask him about his mother?

“When Father died there was some consternation among his servants, so I told them I’d employ anyone who didn’t wish to enter Roger’s service. There were rather more than I’d anticipated.”

“How many?” Nell asked.

“Upwards of fifty,” Black said. “And not just maidservants. The footman, for example—the one who stopped Roger—several housekeepers, a couple of butlers.”

“However did you employ them all?”

“With difficulty,” Black said. “In the end I bought another estate. The problem is, they keep coming. Bessie’s the second girl this month.”

Nell looked down at her plate. Her appetite had waned. She laid down her knife and fork. “I almost married him.”

Black said nothing.

“Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Miss Wrotham, what Roger does is no more or less than what many respectable men do. It doesn’t mean he’d be a bad husband. He behaves to his wife one way, his mistresses another, and his maidservants another.”

“Roger has a mistress?”

Black ignored this question. He looked at her plate and the abandoned cutlery. “Eat,” he said.

“Roger has a mistress?”

“Eat.”

Nell sighed, and picked up her knife and fork again. She cut herself another piece of chicken, and ate it. “Roger has a mistress?”

“He has several.”

Nell put down her cutlery. She couldn’t equate the words Roger and mistresses. “Several? Are you certain?”

Black looked pointedly at her plate, and didn’t reply.

Nell ate three more mouthfuls, and then said, “Who are they?”

“The usual. Actresses. Opera dancers.”

Nell frowned, and ate some green peas, and then said hesitantly, “Does he have a lot of mistresses?”

Black shrugged. “Roger likes variety.”

“But . . . how many?”

Black eyed her over a forkful of meat. “Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

Black chewed, and swallowed, and thought for several moments. “Maybe half a dozen mistresses a year.”

Nell’s eyebrows rose. “Six different women a year?”

“Oh, more than that. He frequents . . . er, other places.”

“You mean brothels?”

Black glanced at her and said nothing.

“How many women a year?” Nell asked.

Black laid down his cutlery. “Miss Wrotham, this subject is hardly—”

“I nearly married him,” Nell said fiercely. “I thought he was a decent man. How many?”

Black hesitated.

“Please?”

Black let out his breath in a sigh. “I don’t know. At a guess . . . he’s at the brothels two or three times a week.”

Nell digested this statement. Two or three times a week. “And he has mistresses?”

Black nodded.

“And he preys on his maidservants.”

Black grimaced fleetingly, and nodded again.

“But . . . but that’s scores of women every year!”

Black shrugged and picked up his cutlery.

Nell watched him eat. Black had told her how many mistresses he’d had. Five. Five in eleven years. His words rang in her ears: I was faithful to each of them. And when I have a wife, I shall be faithful to her.

“Why don’t people talk about Roger’s affairs instead of yours?” Nell burst out. “He’s had dozens of mistresses and you’ve only had five!”

Black glanced up from his food. “Roger’s liaisons are with women of a lower class.”

“They don’t count?”

“Not to most people.”

“Well, they should count!”

Black shrugged, and then pointed at her plate with his fork. “Eat.”

“You may have better morals than Roger, but he has better manners,” Nell told him tartly.

Black shrugged again. “Roger and I are very different.”

Nell gave a choke of laughter. “That’s an understatement.”

He grinned briefly, and Nell’s breath caught in her throat. God, he was beautiful. Those dark eyes, that autocratic nose, the structure of his bones.

“Eat,” Black said again, and his tone was every bit as autocratic as his nose.

Which was why she couldn’t marry him.