CHAPTER SIX

NELL’S FACE STIFFENED. Responses leapt to her tongue: a cold and haughty I beg your pardon? A tart That’s none of your business. But Black didn’t strike her as a man who asked irrelevant questions.

The silence lengthened, and lengthened some more, and then Nell made herself reply in a tone that was neither cold nor tart, but merely neutral. “I didn’t have many choices, Mr. Black. As you noted earlier, my portion is exceedingly small. Only three men offered for me, and I judged Roger to be the best of them.”

“Three?” Black’s eyes narrowed slightly. After a moment he said, “Roundhay?”

Nell nodded.

“Old enough to be your father.”

Nell nodded again.

Black’s eyes narrowed further, but he wasn’t looking at her, he was looking through her. He seemed to be making a mental calculation, his eyelids twitching slightly as he thought. “Hislop,” he said finally.

Nell nodded a third time.

“Very wealthy,” Black said. “Good-looking. Extremely respectable.”

“Domineering,” Nell said.

Black’s eyebrows lifted slightly, and then he gave a nod of agreement. “A man of decided opinion.” He paused, and amended this statement: “Decided and narrow opinion.”

Nell nodded again.

“I can see that given those choices, you’d choose Roger.” Black leaned back in his chair. “But did it never occur to you that more than just those three men offered for you?”

“Of course not. Father would have told me.”

“Would he?”

“Of course!” Nell said, and then, uncertainly, “Why wouldn’t he?”

Because he liked to control your life, a little voice said in her head. Nell chewed on her lower lip. “Are you saying that other men offered for me?”

Black nodded.

“Who?”

“Colonel Brownlow and Reginald MacPherson most certainly, and at a guess . . . George Montescue and Sir Walter Prentiss.”

Nell frowned at him. “But why did Father not tell me? They’re perfectly respectable men!”

Black shrugged. “You knew your father better than I did.”

Nell turned the names over in her head. Anger built in her chest, and alongside the anger was a stab of regret. She’d liked both Montescue and MacPherson. “Father didn’t like soldiers. Or Scotsmen. Or Whigs.”

Black opened one hand, a there’s your answer gesture.

It was her father she was angry with, not Mordecai Black, but he was in the room and therefore she scowled at him. “What has this to do with going to Exeter?”

Black gave a faint, ironic smile. “I offered for you, too.”

Nell sat back with a jerk, almost a recoil. The anger snuffed out; astonishment took its place. “Me?” Her voice squeaked on the word. She stared at him in shock, in disbelief—and then shook her head decisively. “No, you didn’t.”

Black said nothing, he just watched her.

“You didn’t!” The anger came boiling back. How dare he play with her like this? “You didn’t even know I existed! You never look at débutantes.”

Black’s eyebrows lifted. “Who told you that?”

“My aunt, Lady Dalrymple. She said your mistresses are always older women. Diamonds of the first water.” And mistress was a word she shouldn’t utter in a man’s presence, or indeed, anyone’s presence, but she was too angry to care. “They’re always beautiful and sophisticated and wealthy and experienced.”

“Your aunt is correct,” Black said. “But the qualities one looks for in a mistress are quite different from those one looks for in a wife.”

Nell suddenly found it difficult to breathe. The room seemed to not have enough air, and it was nothing to do with the summer heat; it was purely because of Mordecai Black, sitting opposite, watching her.

The skin-tingling, chest-tightening awareness of him flared again. It became even harder to breathe.

Mordecai Black wants to marry me?

She stared at him, hulking and unshaven and impossibly beautiful, and for a moment she felt an intense yearning to accept his offer. Common sense came to her rescue. Nell swallowed, and found her voice. “I could not marry a . . . a philanderer, Mr. Black.”

“You’re making an assumption, Miss Wrotham. An understandable one, I grant you—but incorrect nonetheless.” He held her gaze for a moment. “You assume that if I were to marry I’d continue to take lovers.”

Lovers. What a dangerously sensual word, a word that was a thousand times more erotic than mistress. Nell felt herself blush. Her awareness of him intensified sharply, almost making her shiver. She lifted her chin and tried to take refuge in haughtiness, but it was difficult to be haughty when one’s cheeks were hot and every hair on one’s body seemed to be standing on end. “You wouldn’t?” Her voice, which she’d intended to sound cool and disbelieving, came out sounding uncertain.

“The foundation of a strong marriage is fidelity.”

Fidelity. It was an absurd word to come from Mordecai Black’s mouth—and yet he spoke it as if he meant it.

Nell lowered her chin. She stared at him, and listened to her heart beating loudly in her ears. Mordecai Black believed in the sanctity of marriage? “But you’ve had affairs with married women!”

“No,” Black said. “I had the appearance of an affair with a married woman. Once.”

Nell frowned at him.

“Wolverhampton was parading his mistresses quite publicly. His wife decided to show him that what was sauce for the gander was sauce for the goose.” Black smiled suddenly, and it was a dangerous smile, sharp-edged. “Wolverhampton didn’t like it at all.”

“You pretended to have an affair with a married woman in order to punish her husband?” There was censure in Nell’s voice.

“That’s one way of looking at it,” Black said. “Mary’s view was different. She was trying to save her marriage.”

Nell wrinkled her brow. “By pretending to have an affair?”

“She loved Wolverhampton. She wanted him back.”

Nell turned this answer over in her mind. “Did he give up his mistresses?”

“He did. And then he took Mary off to America. She saw it as a new beginning. Personally, I think he’ll be back to his old tricks by now.” Black shrugged. “The world is divided into two types of people: those who stray, and those who don’t. Wolverhampton’s a strayer; Mary’s not. It’s not a foundation for a happy marriage.”

Nell pondered this statement.

“And in case you’re wondering, Miss Wrotham, I don’t stray.”

The sound of her heartbeat became even louder. Her throat was tight, her mouth dry, her skin prickling. “You have affairs,” she whispered.

“Not nearly as many as Society credits me with,” Black said. He paused, and then said, “Five, in case you’re wondering. Five in eleven years. And I was faithful to each of them. And when I have a wife, I shall be faithful to her.”

Nell heard the truth in his words. Mordecai Black meant exactly what he said. She sat back in her chair, shaken.

Black watched her for several seconds, and then said, “Will you marry me, Miss Wrotham?”

For a few seconds Nell found it literally impossible to breathe. She felt light-headed with disbelief. Mordecai Black was asking her to marry him? Mordecai Black was promising to be faithful to her?

Part of her wanted to marry him, the part that was intensely aware of his striking good looks—the cheekbones, that autocratic nose, the soft lower lip, the powerful body. And he’s kind, a voice whispered in her ear. But another part of her—the sane part—told her that Black’s nature was as imperious as his nose and she couldn’t marry him.

Nell inhaled a shaky breath and shook her head. “I’m sorry.” She felt a pang of regret as she uttered the words.

Black looked at her for a long moment, his face expressionless. “May I ask why not?”

It was an impertinent question, a question a gentleman wouldn’t ask—but Mordecai Black was no ordinary gentleman. In fact, some people would argue he wasn’t a gentleman at all.

Nell eyed him.

Black’s posture was casual, leaning back in his chair—and yet . . . she thought he wasn’t as nonchalant as he appeared.

Nell had never wondered what it must feel like for a man to propose marriage. She’d only ever thought about it from her own point of view: the awkwardness of turning down an offer one didn’t want, the relief of accepting one that one did. Suddenly she found herself wondering what it felt like from the man’s viewpoint.

It would take courage, she realized. Courage and hope and a dream of the future.

Mordecai Black had just asked her to share the rest of her life with him—and she had refused. Rejected him. For all his apparent indifference, that nonchalant pose, he must feel humiliated and angry. Did he think she didn’t believe his statement of fidelity? Did he think his illegitimacy disgusted her?

“My decision has nothing to do with your reputation,” Nell told him firmly. “Or your birth.”

His eyebrows lifted faintly, as if he didn’t believe her. “What, then?”

Nell clasped her hands together, fingers interlinked, thumbs neatly alongside one another, and ordered her thoughts. “Mr. Black, I have spent my entire life being told what to do. My father was a dictatorial man, and if you will forgive me for saying so, so are you.”

The nonchalance vanished. Black’s eyebrows snapped down. He straightened in the chair. His expression was clear to read: affront.

Nell met his gaze steadily. “I cannot marry a man who will tell me what I may and may not do.”

“Dictatorial?” He pronounced the word with distaste.

“Yes.”

Outrage gathered on Black’s face. He drew breath to argue.

“In the past hour you’ve told me that I may not travel to Exeter by stagecoach. You’ve told me that you’re coming with me, whether I wish it or not. You’ve told me that I’m to drink ale, not water. You haven’t discussed these things with me. You haven’t asked for my opinion. You have told me.”

Black closed his mouth.

“I am not a child,” Nell said. “I’m an adult, and I will not marry a man who tells me what to do.”

Black didn’t reply to this statement. His mouth was tight and his cheeks were faintly flushed, but whether that tinge of color was due to anger or mortification, she couldn’t tell. She rather thought it might be both.

Nell looked away. She’d made her point, but she felt no triumph in it; instead, she felt sad. She pushed back her chair. “Thank you for your help today, but I think it best if I find my own way to Exeter.”

“Nonsense,” Black said.

The sadness evaporated. Nell’s temper sparked. “I can take care of myself.”

Black pushed his own chair back with a harsh scrape of wood on wood. “I’m coming with you.”

“You’re telling me what to do again.”

The muscles in Black’s jaw bunched. She thought he was grinding his teeth together. “Yes,” he said. “I am. Because you haven’t the faintest notion of how dangerous it might be!”

“I am not a child,” Nell said, coldly.

“No, you’re an innocent, which is just as bad!” He flung out his hands, a gesture eloquent of frustration. “What do you think would have happened if you’d gone to Seven Dials by yourself? What?”

That last word was almost a shout, and it shocked Nell into silence. Her father’s rages had been cold and quiet; Black’s loud, hot anger was utterly outside her experience.

“What if you’d found Mrs. Harris? What if she’d refused to let you leave? What would you have done then?”

Nell eyed him uncertainly.

“I’m trying to protect you, damn it. And if that means I have to tell you what to do, then I will. Whether you like it or not.”

They matched stares across the table. Black’s expression was fierce, his nostrils flared, and he looked magnificent and terrifying at the same time—but Nell discovered that she wasn’t afraid of him. She wasn’t even angry anymore. Somehow, while his rage had escalated, hers had dwindled to nothing.

“I’m coming with you,” Black repeated, his eyebrows meeting across the bridge of his nose in an intimidating scowl, but Nell wasn’t intimidated.

“All right,” she said, and then she smiled wryly at him. “You’re a good man, Mr. Black. Tyrannical, but good.”

Black lost his scowl. He went pink, and for a brief second he looked taken aback—and then he gave a stern nod. “That’s settled, then.”

“It is.” Nell reached for her bonnet. She had capitulated, and yet it didn’t feel like a defeat. It felt like a compromise. I get what I need and he gets what he wants.

And then she remembered his offer of marriage. No, Mordecai Black hadn’t got everything he wanted.

“We’ll leave at dawn tomorrow,” Black said.

“Can’t we leave today? Please? There’s still several hours’ daylight left.”

Black shook his head. “We both need a good night’s sleep.”

Nell opened her mouth to protest, and then bit the words back. Black did look weary. Weary and disheveled and quite unlike his usual immaculate self. What had he been doing to make him look so unkempt? Traveling? And then she wondered why he’d come to Roger’s house in all his dirt. His reason must have been urgent. And yet he put it aside to help me.

She felt a fresh pang of guilt. “Have you been traveling, Mr. Black?”

“Bath,” Black said, pulling on his gloves.

Nell blinked. “Bath? What a coincidence. I just came from there.”

Black gave her a sidelong, sardonic glance. “No coincidence. I was looking for you.”

“Me? Why?” And then she remembered his proposal. Heat rose in her face. Nell looked away, flustered, and pulled on her own gloves. “You do me a great honor, Mr. Black, but I think you must see that we don’t suit.”