“Two at the latest,” she interjected in a rush.
“—Then I will come in search of you.” Shoving one hand into his pocket, he withdrew his pocket watch, which he tucked into the cup of her palm. “Keep it on you,” he said. “I know how you tend to lose track of time.”
“Thank you,” she said, curling her fingers around it. “I will keep it safe. And—thank you.” And with a quick kiss that landed somewhere betwixt his cheek and his chin, she was off, disappearing silently out the door and into the night. A few moments later, there was the rattle of carriage wheels in the otherwise empty street outside, heading off in the direction of her destination.
She was as safe as he could make her, Thomas attempted to reassure himself. Taken directly to her destination under the watchful eye of the coachman. With her key, a bit of coin, and the spencer he’d shoved her into. Safe.
As he turned to make for the drawing room to begin what would undoubtedly be an interminable vigil, there was the soft thudof some object dropping onto the carpet running beside the stairs. Mercy’s sketchbook, he realized. She’d stashed it behind the newel post as he’d helped her to put on her spencer and had not reclaimed it before she’d gone.
He ought to have known better than to distract her on her way out the door. Ah, well, too late now. As he bent to retrieve it, a page fluttered free, drifted down onto the carpet below. Thomas pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose, bent again to retrieve the fallen page.
No. Not a page at all. A letter.
He hadn’t meant to pry, really, but there was so little printed upon the page that his eyes had already scanned the scant few words contained therein before he was aware of having done so.
The Black Swan, the letter read, followed by today’s date.No time, but then Mercy could not possibly have slipped away during the day for a meeting at a tavern, and she had had so many evening events of late that attempting to pin a proper time down would likely have proved impossible.
So she had not lied, then, about her destination, and that—that was good. He hadn’t expected she had, truly, but the confirmation eased his mind a little more. It was a relief only to know that she had not chafed at the bargain he’d offered her, given a false location at which to arrive only to slip off somewhere else once the coachman had delivered her there.
It was only the name scrawled in an elegant hand at the bottom of the letter that gave him pause.Charity.He’d expected a man’s name. But no—the other side of the paper revealed the sender to be as he’d thought.C. Nightingale.No return address.
It should have comforted him, that she had been meeting with a woman. It did not. Instead his mind drew back to some nights ago, when he had taken Mercy along with him to Cheapside. The way she had frozen where she had stood, staring at the woman who had alighted from the carriage just across the street from them.
He’d thought it had been the gown which had captured her attention. But no, it had been the woman herself.Charity. He’d known her largely from reputation, from the rumors bandied about regarding her in gentlemen’s clubs and card rooms and other such places frequented exclusively by men. He’d even seen her once or twice, on the arm of whichever gentleman happened to have most recently secured the pleasure of her company, no doubt for some astronomical sum. He’d never known hersurname, but then he’d never had to. Her given name had been identifying enough, had become something of a crude jest amongst those in the know.
Charity does not come cheaply.
What manner of business could Mercy have with a woman like that? How had she even learned of her existence? Those letters had been coming practically since they’d arrived in London, and Mercy had certainly not gone unsupervised long enough to have met her on the street, to have formed an acquaintance during the—what, twenty-four hours before that first letter had arrived?
Christ, he had to—he had to—
Let it go. He couldn’t ask; he’d promised not to pry. And she had promised to tell him herself, eventually. He shouldn’t even have read the letter, which had not been meant for his eyes. He’d simply have to trust that Mercy would honor that promise she had made to him.
With some effort, Thomas folded the letter up once more and tucked it back into the sketchbook from whence it had fallen, and replaced the sketchbook upon the banister where Mercy had left it, balanced more carefully this time behind the newel post.
Let it go, he thought, and retreated to the drawing room to take the seat he’d intended. An hour passed in silent contemplation, with only the flickering fire in the hearth and the steady tick of the clock upon the mantel for company. Soon, he thought, there would be no secrets left between them. And when in the future Mercy wished to take herself out of doors at an inappropriate hour—say, for a moonlit ride across the rolling hills of the countryside—well, then, he’d accompany her. There was always a compromise to be found, somewhere between his caution and her courage.
Half an hour later, shortly after the clock had struck one, there was the sound of a carriage rolling to a stop outside thehouse. With one hand, Thomas peeled back the heavy drape of the curtain and peered out the window into the night. And there she was, climbing once more out of the carriage, safe and well.
Thomas was out of his chair before she’d even made it to the steps. He caught her unawares with the opening of the door, and she paused, one hand still fisted within the depths of the reticule that dangled from her wrist, ostensibly in search of the key buried within.
And there, in full view of God and anyone who might’ve chanced to pass at such an hour, on the steps of her father’s stately home in Mayfair, Thomas dragged her into his arms and kissed her.
Nothing—nothing—mattered but this. That she was here and home and safe once more.
“Thomas,” she murmured beneath the frantic press of her lips, her voice slightly muffled. There was the slight bitterness of ale on her tongue, but beneath it was just sweet Mercy. “Whatever has gotten into you?”
Shehad. She had gotten into him one moment at a time, one smile, one touch, one kiss, invading his blood, his thoughts, his soul. She had slipped into him like a thief, stealing his heart one piece at a time until she had owned every last bit of it.
“You’re safe?” he asked. “You’re well?”
“Yes. Of course. I told you I would be.” But she sighed and tucked her head against his shoulder. “It’s late,” she said, and she let fall the reticule to stroke her fingers down his chest. “Shall we go to bed?”
Chapter Twenty Two
Tomorrow, Mercy thought as she watched the couples swirl about the ballroom floor in a dizzying blur of color. Tomorrow would be the beginning of the end. Tomorrow Thomas would have to resume his search for Fordham, his time and attention snatched away from her once more in the service of reclaiming that which rightfully belonged to him.
And their affair would come to an end. It would have to, before he could be brought to propose. She would have to tell him all—tonight.
