TWENTY-NINE

SHE HAD LOST her wig and spectacles and the new bonnet. Her navy blue spencer was ruined, the seams joining the arms to the bodice torn open. Nell stared at the damage blankly—and then realized what had caused it: wielding the chair leg. Her sprigged muslin gown was torn, too, across the knee.

There was a lump at the back of her head, but no blood. That lump, and the growing bruise on her throat where Fitch had half-throttled her, were her only injuries—but Mordecai Black hadn’t been so lucky. “Quickly, Bessie—help me to change.”

“Are you certain you don’t wish to lie down, ma’am?”

“Mr. Black was hurt far worse than I.”

Nell hastily changed into her sole remaining gown. Her throat ached and her head ached, but those things were unimportant. The injuries that mattered were the ones Black had sustained.

Memory gave her images: Black with blood dripping off his chin. Black needing Phelps’s help to stand. Black’s legs giving way in the corridor outside his bedchamber.

She turned towards the door.

“Your hair, ma’am. We’d best cover it. Mr. Black wouldn’t like you to be seen like that.”

“But how?” One wig was burned, the other was in Billy English’s den.

“Your shawl, ma’am.”

Nell suffered to sit still for two minutes while Bessie fashioned the shawl into a turban. She kneaded her hands together, remembering the blows Black had taken to the head, remembering the blood.

Mordecai Black was so large and strong that she’d thought him invincible. But he wasn’t invincible. He was a man made of flesh and bone, and he could be hurt, and he could die.

She leapt up from the chair as soon as Bessie was finished, hurried down the corridor to Black’s bedchamber, and rapped on the door. The seconds it took Walter to open it were the longest of her life. “How is he?” she asked the footman urgently.

“Come see for yourself, ma’am.”

Nell pushed past him and hurried to the bed. Black lay there, dressed in a nightshirt, the sheets pulled up to his chest. Someone had washed his face.

He looked dead, a corpse laid out for burial, perfectly still, eyes closed, skin bloodless, hands resting limply at his sides.

The impression of death was so strong that Nell reached out to touch his wrist. His skin was warm. His pulse beat steadily.

She inhaled a sharp breath, and managed not to burst into tears. “Have you sent for a doctor?”

“Nothing a doctor can do for him,” Phelps said. “That cut don’t need stitching, and if his head’s broken it’s nothing a doctor can mend.”

There was a cut on Black’s brow, almost at the hairline. Nell examined it closely. The coachman was correct: it didn’t need stitches. “That’s what was bleeding?”

Phelps nodded. “Ain’t nothing we can do now but wait, ma’am. Rest is what he needs.”

“How much rest?”

“Don’t know, ma’am. A day, two days, a week, a month. Depends how hard he was hit.”

“Quite hard,” Nell said. “And more than once.”

Phelps grimaced, but said nothing.

“What happened, ma’am?” Walter asked.

“Billy English,” Nell said.

“Shall I send for the parish constable?” Walter asked.

“He’s dead. English, I mean. Mr. Black killed him.”

Phelps gave a satisfied grunt.

Nell thought about the silversmith, smiling so affably as he invited them to their doom, and she thought about the damps, where Billy English buried his dead. “But there are things the constable needs to know.” She released Black’s wrist reluctantly. “I’ll write a note. You can take it to the constable, Walter.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Nell crossed to the door and opened it, and looked back at Black, lying still and pale in the bed. Live, Mordecai.

NELL DECIDED TO write her letter anonymously—partly because she didn’t want to hang for witchcraft, and partly because Mordecai Black had killed two men today. Those deaths had been justified, but she didn’t want him accused of murder.

She thought hard before committing ink to paper. Had she and Black left anything in English’s den that might identify them?

The spectacles and bonnet were unexceptional items; no one could trace her through them. The wig was more unusual. Had the perruquier’s label been stitched into the welt?

She couldn’t remember.

Black’s hat must be in that room, too. He’d been wearing it when they arrived and not when they left. Could he be identified by it?

Nell almost decided not to write the letter—and then she realized she was worrying needlessly: if her wig and Mordecai Black’s hat brought a constable to their doorstep, they could simply claim the items had been stolen. English was a known criminal, after all.

Nell laid out a fresh sheet of paper and uncapped the inkpot. I wish to draw your attention to a murderer’s den in Exeter. Go to Latham’s on the corner of High Street and Gandy. The proprietor is in league with a criminal by the name of Billy English. The door at the back of his shop will lead you to English’s den.

English and his men are murderers. By his own admission English has killed people and buried them in a place he calls the damps.

Nell described everything she’d seen in as much detail as she could: the long corridor, the stairs descending, the room at the bottom. She hesitated, uncertain whether to tell the constable that English was dead or not. After careful consideration, she decided to let the constable discover that for himself.

She described the men she’d seen—Billy English, Fitch, Sykes, the silversmith. She didn’t mention the urchin, Joe.

When the letter was written, Nell gave it to Walter. “Impress your urgency upon the constable, but don’t say who you are or who employs you. I don’t wish Mr. Black to be involved in this. He doesn’t deserve to be called a murderer.”

Walter’s jaw firmed. “I shan’t tell him anything, ma’am. You can trust me on that!”

Nell went back to Black’s bedchamber. Nothing had altered. He still looked like a man laid out for burial, but when she touched his wrist she found his pulse beating steadily.

She wanted to stay at his bedside, but her head ached and her body shook with exhaustion. “I need to lie down, Phelps. Will you please stay with him?”

“You can be certain of it, ma’am.”

Nell crawled into her own bed and fell asleep almost instantly. When she woke, it was late evening.

She ate a little soup sitting up in bed, then draped her shawl around her head and shoulders and went to Mordecai Black’s room. Like hers, it was lit by candles.

“Has there been any change?”

“No, ma’am.”

Nell touched Black’s wrist and was reassured to feel his pulse. “Should we try waking him? Perhaps sal volatile?”

“Best to let him sleep, ma’am. His head’ll heal of its own accord and there’s nothing we can do to hurry it along.”

Nell stared down at Black’s face. How could a face be both strong and vulnerable at the same time?

“Don’t be too worrit. He’s not the first man to get hit in the head and he won’t be the last. Rest is what he needs. He’ll wake in his own good time.”

“Do you think he’ll be all right?”

“Most likely. Strong as an ox, Mr. Black. Mind, he mightn’t remember everythin’ that happened today.”

Nell stared down at Black—and found herself hoping that he did forget what had happened. “Will you stay with him until he wakes?”

“I’ll be here all night, ma’am.”

Nell glanced at him. Phelps’s tone hadn’t been that of a servant doing his duty; he sounded as if he cared about Mordecai Black. “Have you been with him long?”

“Since he were eight years old,” Phelps said. “It was me as taught him to ride, and to handle the ribbons.”

Nell nodded, and looked back down at Black. She touched his wrist again, felt the warmth of his skin, the steady beat of his pulse. Get better, Mordecai. And forget what happened today.