CHAPTER FOUR

NELL HURRIED OUT to the street. The hackney that had brought them was gone. She looked left and right, searching for another one, her mind racing ahead. Exeter. How soon could she get there? “Where’s the nearest hackney stand?”

“Around the corner,” Mr. Black said.

Nell set off for the corner. Her father would have rebuked her for her unladylike haste; Mr. Black merely lengthened his stride, keeping pace with her.

“Do you know where the stagecoaches to Exeter depart from?” Nell asked him.

“From here.”

Nell stopped.

Mr. Black took hold of her elbow. “You are not going to Exeter by stagecoach.”

“I can’t afford a post-chaise.” The admission should have embarrassed her, but Nell was past caring what people thought of her. She tried to tug her elbow free.

Mr. Black tightened his grip. “I can afford a post-chaise.” And then he asked, “When did you last eat?”

Nell couldn’t remember, and she certainly didn’t care. She stamped her foot. “Let go of me! I need to put my name on the waybill.”

“I can get you to Exeter faster than a stagecoach,” Black said. “When did you last eat?”

Nell stared at him. Emotions warred in her breast: gratitude for his help in Seven Dials, annoyance at his highhandedness now, and hope that he’d help her get to Exeter. A hackney rattled into view.

Mr. Black hailed it, and of course the jarvey saw him and of course the carriage stopped. Black wasn’t a man people could easily overlook, not merely because of his towering height and striking looks, but because of the indefinable aura of danger that clung to him. He stood out in ballrooms and dining rooms and assembly rooms, he stood out at the opera and in Vauxhall Gardens, he stood out riding in Hyde Park, and he most certainly stood out in Holborn. Nell didn’t think she’d ever seen Mordecai Black in a situation where he didn’t stand out, a fact that Roger had deeply resented.

Black handed her into the hackney. “Where are you staying?”

“The Earnoch, off Piccadilly.”

Black spoke to the jarvey and climbed in after her. The door swung shut and she was alone with him. Alone with Mordecai Black.

Awareness of him swept through her, the same unsettling mix of attraction and fear that had plagued her Season. Her pulse fluttered and her skin tightened and her breath came a little shorter. Don’t be silly, Nell told herself tartly. You don’t want him and he most certainly doesn’t want you.

She took a deep, steadying breath and turned her attention to Sophia. How long would it take to reach Exeter? Dare she accept Mr. Black’s assistance to get there? Should she accept it?

Nell gripped her reticule tightly and wrestled with her conscience. She ought not allow Black to pay for a post-chaise to Exeter. She could never repay him, therefore it would be wrong of her—and quite apart from that it would be grossly improper. She was an unmarried lady; he was Mordecai Black. Scandal clung to him. Any association with him would tarnish her.

But she was already tarnished. Scandal clung to her, too, and what did her reputation matter anyway? What mattered was finding Sophia as soon as possible, and if Mr. Black could help her, she would accept anything he offered. Even if it was improper of her to do so, and even if it put her in his debt.

Nell stole a glance at him and felt the familiar response: the fluttering pulse, the shiver. I want him. I fear him. Foolish, conflicting emotions. Emotions she ought to have mastered a year ago.

There was no denying that Mordecai Black had a memorable face—the dangerous angles of cheekbone and jaw, the eyes so dark they were almost black, the Dereham nose. That nose had overpowered the late earl’s face, but it didn’t overpower Black’s face. It was in keeping with the rest of him: striking, strong. An assertive nose with a high and prominent bridge. The sort of nose a Roman emperor would have had. The nose stopped Black being pretty, as Roger was. It stopped him being classically handsome, despite his chiseled cheekbones. But it didn’t stop him being beautiful, because Mordecai Black was beautiful, in a way that was purely and aggressively masculine. He had a face that drew the eye. A face women looked at twice. A face that made other men’s faces appear soft and feminine by contrast.

Roger had resented that, too.

Nell looked down at her hands gripping the reticule. Mordecai Black’s face was irrelevant. What mattered was his character. Can I trust this man?

The hackney halted. Nell looked up, surprised. Had they reached Piccadilly already? She peered out the window. The street wasn’t one she recognized. She glanced at Mr. Black.

“We’re eating here,” he said.

“But—”

“We need to talk. We need to eat.”

Nell peered out the window again. The neighborhood didn’t look particularly genteel. “Here?”

“If we dine in Mayfair, someone’s bound to see us. Here, we’ll be anonymous.” Black climbed down from the hackney and held out an imperative hand to her.

Nell dubiously descended. The hackney had drawn up outside a public house patronized by working men. Not down-at-heels laborers, not pale clerks who spent their days scribbling in ledgers, but men somewhere in between. Men who would have made her nervous if she wasn’t in Black’s company. “Have you ever been here before?” she whispered as they entered.

“No, but the jarvey says the pies are the best this side of the Thames.”

The coffee room smelled strongly of ale and sweat, but beneath those smells was the tantalizing aroma of roasted meat. Nell’s stomach clenched painfully, reminding her that she hadn’t yet eaten today.

Black spoke to a serving-man, who led them out into a corridor and up a flight of stairs. “Where are we going?” Nell asked.

“I asked for a private room.”

Everything she’d ever heard about him came flooding back: Mordecai Black was a womanizer, a libertine, a dangerous rake. Nell felt a moment of pure fear. She halted on the stairs. Black was going to help her, but he was going to take payment in flesh.

“What?” Black said, glancing back at her. She saw his blank incomprehension—and then his sudden understanding. His face tightened, the muscles flinching as if she’d slapped him, and then he became utterly expressionless. “We can eat in the coffee room if you prefer.” His voice was stiff, wooden, offended.

Nell flushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t . . . I mean . . .”

What did she mean? That she hadn’t just thought he was about to force himself on her?

She had thought it, and he knew she’d thought it.

Her flush grew hotter. “I’m sorry,” Nell said again, and she was sorry—and more than that, she was ashamed of herself. Mordecai Black had shown her nothing but kindness—and in return she’d treated him as if he were the vilest of men. “A private room would be nice. Thank you.”

Black stared down at her, thin-lipped, taut-faced, offended, and for a moment she thought he was about to rescind his offer of help, that he’d walk out of the tavern and leave her—and then he gave a stiff nod and followed the serving-man to the top of the stairs.

Nell trailed behind him, along a corridor, into a small room furnished with a dining table and six chairs. The servant left with promises of food. Black went to stand near the window. Nell clutched her reticule and watched him. She’d offended him deeply. She saw it in the way he held himself, as if his ribcage was made of iron, not bone. The muscles at the hinge of his jaw were tight, the sinews standing out. He stood only a few yards from her, and yet it felt as if a gulf a mile wide lay between them.

“I’m sorry,” Nell said again. “I wasn’t thinking. I just . . .” I’m tired and I’m worried and I’m afraid. “I’m sorry.”

Black’s mouth compressed. He was huge, a giant of a man, made of strong bones and hard muscle, tougher than any of the men downstairs, a man no one could possibly hurt—and yet she had hurt him, without even meaning to.

How do I make this right?

Nell moistened her lips, and took a deep breath. “When I first came to London my father pointed you out. He told me to stay as far from you as I could, that you were dangerous, that you’d ruin a woman as soon as look at her.”

Black’s jaw clenched even tighter. He turned his head from her and looked out the window.

“But my aunt, Lady Dalrymple, said that was nonsense, that you’d never ruined anyone and I shouldn’t believe half of what was said about you. She said that while she’d heard a great deal of gossip about your affairs, she’d never heard anything that made her think badly of your character.”

Black stood absolutely motionless for several seconds, and then turned his head and looked at her. The impact of those dark eyes made her chest tighten, made her heartbeat speed up.

Lady Dalrymple had also said that she thought Black’s lovers were to be envied, and Nell had privately agreed—but that wasn’t something she wanted to tell him. “I’m sorry,” she said again firmly, meeting his eyes. “I remembered what Father and Roger said, not what my aunt said.”

Black unclamped his jaw. After a moment he said, “What did Roger say about me?”

Nell turned away from him. She put her reticule on the table. “Oh, not a lot.” But what Roger had said was poisonous. “He’s jealous of you, you know.”

“He has no reason to be.”

Nell glanced at him. Even rumpled and unshaven, Black was magnificent. “Alongside you, he looks . . .” She searched for a word and came up with: “Effeminate.”

Black grunted. “I can hardly help that.” He crossed to the table, tossed his hat on it, and raked a hand through his hair. It was thick and disheveled and as black as a crow’s wing.

“No.” But jealousy wasn’t a rational emotion—which was why she’d forgiven it in Roger. It had been the only fault she’d seen in him. How blind I was. How eager to marry and escape Father. Nell grimaced. She stripped off her gloves and undid her bonnet and laid them on the table.

The serving-man returned and set two places. “Somethin’ to drink, sir? Ma’am? Pot o’ tea?”

“Ale,” Black said. “A tankard.”

Nell hesitated. She wanted something cool, something thirst-quenching. “Do you have lemonade?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Water, then,” Nell said.

“She’ll have a half-pint of ale,” Black said, and when the servant had gone, he said, “I wouldn’t trust the water here. Ale’s safer.”

“But we’re eating here.”

“The food will be cooked and the ale fermented; the water . . .” He shrugged. “It could come straight from the Thames for all we know.”

Nell pulled out a chair and sat, annoyed by Black’s highhandedness. He was just like her father, telling her what to do. God save me from overbearing men.

And then she remembered Seven Dials. Mordecai Black was under no obligation to help her—and yet he had. And he was offering to help her get to Exeter.

He might be overbearing, but he was also a good man. A better man than Roger.

Nell sighed, and rubbed at the frown on her brow. She looked at her gloves lying limp and wrinkled on the table. All of me looks like that. Bedraggled and slightly grubby after more than a hundred miles in a stagecoach. And she’d thought Black had asked for a private room because he wanted to bed her? She snorted under her breath. Vanity, Nell. Vanity.

Black pulled out the chair opposite her and sat. He looked as tired and sweaty as she was, as if he had spent the last twenty-four hours on the road, too. Nell looked at his weary, stubbled face and felt a pang of guilt. “I can find my own way to Exeter, Mr. Black. You’ve helped me more than enough.” More than I deserve.

“I have no intention of allowing you to travel to Exeter on the common stage,” Black said.

Allowing? Nell’s guilt evaporated. “Why not?”

“Respectable young ladies do not travel alone by stagecoach.”

“Governesses do it all the time,” Nell said, an edge in her voice. “And I could easily be a governess.”

“But you’re not.”

“None of the other passengers would know that. If I tell them I’m a governess, they’ll think I’m a governess.”

“You’re not a governess, and you’re not traveling by stagecoach.”

Nell drew breath to tell him that she was an adult and could do as she pleased—and the serving-man entered, bearing a laden tray. On it were three pies, each as large as a dinner plate, and two tankards, one large, one small.

“Pies ’n ale,” the man said cheerfully, thumping the tray down.

Nell abandoned her annoyance. Her mouth watered. She was suddenly ravenous.

The jarvey had been correct; the pies were quite possibly the best this side of the Thames. The pastry was light, flaky, golden, buttery, and the meat was tender and flavorsome. It was impossible to eat slowly, impossible to be ladylike, to take dainty mouthfuls, to lay down her fork while she chewed. All Nell could do was eat one hasty, delicious mouthful after another.

She had eaten half a pie before she was able to lift her eyes from her food and glance across at Black.

Her pulse gave its familiar, treacherous little flutter. Nell ignored it. She laid down her knife and fork, reached for the half-pint of ale, and took a cautious sip. The ale was slightly bitter. Not a pleasant taste, but adequately thirst-quenching. She took a larger sip. A tiny bubble of laughter rose in her throat. How vastly improper this was: to be in a tavern, to be alone with Mordecai Black, to be drinking ale. And then she thought of Sophia, and the laughter quenched. She put down the tankard. “How long will it take to get to Exeter?”

Black looked up from his pie. “It’s nearly two hundred miles. Less than three days, if we travel fast.”

“We?”

“We.” He returned his attention to his plate.

How was it possible to be annoyed and relieved at the same time? “There is no need for you to come with me to Exeter,” Nell said.

Black glanced at her again. “Do you know anyone there?”

“No.”

“Then I’m coming.”

That statement put her hackles up. Father had used to speak to her like that, as if she was incapable of making her own decisions. “There is no reason at all for you to accompany me.”

Black put down his knife and fork. “Do you truly think I’d allow you to go to Exeter alone? With very little money and no acquaintances there? Exeter has slums, too. Places just as bad as the Dials.”

“I’m sure the godly woman lives somewhere safe.”

“Almost certainly,” Black said. “But is your sister with her?”

Nell inhaled to retort Yes, of course, and then paused.

Black’s expression softened fractionally. She saw sympathy in his dark eyes. “Lizzie and your sister left London four months ago,” he said, and his voice was almost gentle. “They could be anywhere now. Quite likely with the godly woman, but perhaps not. Perhaps somewhere as bad as the Dials.”

Nell’s gaze dropped to her plate.

“You must see that I can’t let you go alone; it wouldn’t be safe.”

Nell glanced across at him. An aggressively masculine face, but also a kind face. Unexpectedly kind. Stinging tears welled in her eyes. She looked hastily back at her plate and blinked fiercely.

“I’m coming with you,” Black said, and the autocratic note was back in his voice. “The problem is how to do so without damaging your reputation.”

“My reputation is of no matter. I was ruined the day Sophia ran away.”

“Nonsense.”

“Of course I’m ruined!” Nell said tartly. The urge to cry receded. She was able to look him in the face again. “Why else did Roger choose not to marry me?”

“Because he’s a fool,” Black said. “Your sister is ruined; you are not.”

“I’m ruined by association.”

“Did you run off with a soldier? No? Then you’re not ruined.” Black picked up his knife and fork again. “But if it becomes known that you’ve traveled to Exeter in my company, you will be ruined.”

He spoke as if the decision had been made: he was coming to Exeter and she had no say in the matter. Nell bit her lip, and felt annoyance and relief. The relief won easily. Going to Exeter with Mordecai Black would be wrong in so many ways. It was wrong to inconvenience him so vastly, wrong to fall into his debt, wrong to be in his company at all—but it would also be much, much safer. A task that had been daunting suddenly seemed doable. With Black’s help, she would find Sophia without having to wait for her Faerie wish. “If we tell no one, then no one will know of it.”

“People notice me,” Black said. “And if you’re with me, they’ll notice you, too.”

And they’d think she was his latest paramour.

Awareness of him surged through her again, stronger than ever. She was aware of Mordecai Black’s size and the way he loomed on the other side of the table, aware of his overwhelming masculinity and the indefinable hint of danger that he carried with him, aware of his untidiness—the stubble, the loose neckcloth, the rumpled clothes—and most of all, aware of his sheer physical beauty.

Her awareness of him was disturbingly visceral. It made her lungs tighten and her stomach tie itself in a knot and her pulse beat even faster, and it pushed aside everything else—hunger, worry, annoyance, relief, guilt, gratitude. And if her lungs were tight and her heart beating fast, her vision was suddenly much sharper. Details leapt to her eye: the taut planes of his cheeks beneath the dark stubble, the softness of his lower lip, the surprisingly long eyelashes.

Black’s loose neckcloth gave her a glimpse of his throat—and that glimpse made Nell’s own throat constrict. She jerked her gaze down to his plate . . . and found herself staring at his hands. Large, strong, shapely hands. She noted the grain of his skin, the shapes of bone and tendon and sinew, the long fingers, the clean nails. A little shiver ran up her spine.

Nell dragged her attention back to her own plate. For heaven’s sake, she told herself sternly. What on earth are you doing? Swooning over a good-looking man as if you’re a foolish schoolgirl?

She gave herself a sharp mental shake, picked up her cutlery, and embarked on the second half of her pie. This time she ate slowly, turning Black’s words over in her mind. It was astonishing how much value he placed on preserving her reputation, given his reputation. But almost everything he’d said and done today had been surprising. Her aunt, Lady Dalrymple, had been correct: the gossip about Black was hot air and farradiddles.

Although he was dangerous. He’d lived up to that much of his reputation. Nell had a brief flash of memory: Black hurling a stool, the brothel watchman pitching to the floor. A moment of violence that was over before she’d even realized it had started.

“Would you like some of this last pie?” Black asked.

Nell shook her head. She finished what was on her plate, then sat sipping her ale, wondering how much to tell him. By the time she’d decided, he’d finished the final pie. She took a deep breath. “Mr. Black.”

He glanced at her over the rim of his tankard.

“I appreciate your concern for my reputation, but I must tell you it’s unwarranted. I don’t intend to return to Society. Once I find my sister, we shall live quite anonymously. The polite world will never see us again.”

Black frowned, and lowered his tankard.

“You see . . . I haven’t told you it all.”