Two elderly matrons waiting at the counter were watching them with unconcealed interest. Black dropped his hand at the same moment Isabella took a discreet step back.
“I will drive you home,” he announced.
“Oh, no, I’ve brought a footman with me. He’s…” Isabella peered through the gold-foil lettering on the window, grateful to see that the young man was still flirting with the shopgirl. “He’s right over there.”
Black followed the direction of her hand. “He seems rather inept in his duty of watching out for you, Miss Fairmont. No, I will see you returned safely home.”
“Ah, good day, Miss Fairmont,” Mr. Jacobson’s son, George, called from behind the counter. “What brings you here today?”
“Good day to you, Mr. Jacobson,” she returned, even as she stole a glance at Lord Black. Who, she was startled to discover, was watching her intently from behind the rims of his spectacles, which he’d put back on.
She really rather liked him in those, she mused, despite the fact it was no longer sunny.
Wiping his hands on his apron, George asked, “Another sleeping tonic, by chance?”
“Yes. Please.”
“A tincture of laudanum and bergamot, alongside a dose of the valerian herb?”
“That’s right.”
Black’s expression was as dark as his name and he was watching her with unrelenting curiosity.
“That is a very dangerous concoction, Isabella,” he whispered into her ear. “Very dangerous.”
“I’m aware of that, but I’m very careful to measure it out exactly as Mr. Jacobson prescribes.”
He turned her face to his, his fingers resting beneath her chin. “Do you know how many lives Death has claimed after taking tonics like this? Thousands, Isabella.”
She shivered. “I know what I am doing. I suffered almost daily for nearly a year with these headaches, and…dreams,” she whispered before hurrying on. “I’m quite able to follow a prescription, my lord. I’m not a child. And furthermore it is the only thing that has helped.”
“Here ye are, Miss Fairmont. Two spoonfuls at bedtime ought to do the trick. And if you find you’re not resting well, take one during the daytime.”
Reaching into her reticule, Isabella pulled out some coins and set them on the counter. “Thank you, Mr. Jacobson.”
He nodded and came around the counter, holding open the door to her. “Good day, Miss Fairmont.”
Sweeping out onto the sidewalk, Black moved in to stand beside her. The sidewalk was bustling, and she was bumped from behind by a steely body. The bottle of medicine fell from her grasp, only to be caught in the palm of a black-gloved hand.
Black.
Straightening, he held out his hand where the bottle of medicine was cradled in his palm. “I should have let the bottle smash onto the street, but then you would only have gone back inside and ordered another one. Wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, I am afraid I would. I am desperate after all. I’ve had this headache since last night, ever since I returned from the maze—” She stopped, embarrassed to have mentioned what happened between them. She didn’t finish her thought, and instead shoved the bottle into her reticule.
He watched from behind his spectacles, and Isabella felt his eyes burning through her clothes and skin until they pierced the very soul of her. Was he also recalling what had transpired between them? Had he been as affected as she?
Ridiculous, she chided. She mustn’t let her thoughts stray into that dangerous territory. Passion was for novels. Not her life. What was it about this man that made her forget her own mantra?
Taking a step back, she prepared to part from him, but he reached for her elbow and held her. “My carriage is just around the corner. Allow me to see you safely home. You, there, boy,” Black called as the newspaper boy who had sold her a copy of the Times ran past them. The lad stopped, his cheeks bright red, his blue eyes gleaming.
“Did ye hear, me lord, that Herr Von Schraeder is dead! Dead!” the boy cried. “I’ve got to be the first to make it back to the offices. A whole pound if I’s the first to break a news story, and it’s no secret that the sham magician was not liked. What if it were murder?” the lad crowed with enthusiasm. “I bet they’d pay me more than a pound if he were done in.”
Black pulled him back by his collar. “I’ll give you a fiver if you would be so kind as to cross the street and give this to that man in the blue-and-white livery.”
“The man talking with Sally?” the boy inquired.
“That’s the man.” Black handed the boy his calling card. “Tell him that I have Miss Fairmont and I will be bringing her home. She’s not well. Be quick about it,” Black demanded as he slipped the boy a five-pound note. “And see that the task is done before you go screaming in the streets of Von Schraeder’s murder.”
“Right away, my lord.” The boy grinned, then ran as fast as his thin little legs would carry him.
“This way, Miss Fairmont,” Black commanded, as he took her arm and walked with her around the corner of the apothecary to his waiting carriage.
“What did that lad mean that Von Schraeder was dead?” she asked. When he stopped beside her, Isabella was forced to glance over her shoulder. Black was staring at something, but what?
“My lord?” It appeared to her that he was staring at the Adelphi Theatre and his complexion had grown quite ashen. “Black, is something amiss?”
Shaking his head, she saw his gaze rove over the theater before he tore it away and looked down upon her. “Nothing at all, Miss Fairmont. Shall we?”
Reaching for the carriage door, he opened it, then motioned her forward. Inside, it was dark, the upholstery a luxurious black velvet that lent the carriage a rich, relaxing air.
“Lord Black,” she insisted, but he put a finger to her lips, silencing her. “This really isn’t necessary.”
“Shh,” he murmured. “You mustn’t tax yourself.”
“I’m neither a child nor an invalid,” she chastised. “I merely have a headache.”
“A devil of one if you’ve resorted to valerian and opium.”
There was nothing to do but accept his hand as he helped her up the iron steps. His hand felt large and warm in hers—strong—and Isabella closed her eyes, allowing herself a brief moment of sensation to absorb his touch and the feel of his hand engulfing hers. She’d never felt her hand pressed strongly in another’s. The experience was at once comforting and arousing, making her wonder where else on her person his hands would feel as wonderful.
“Isabella? Are you unwell?”
“No,” she gasped, realizing she was standing on the steps holding Black’s hand. “No, I…my hem was caught, that is all.”
Ninny, she scolded herself as she sat upon the empty bench. What must he think of her? Did he think her a silly child? She was certainly acting like one.
Black shouldered his way into the carriage and took the opposite bench. His long legs stretched out, his thighs outlined in his trousers, his shoulders taking up most of the space on his bench. Dropping her gaze to her lap, she flatly refused to look at him, sprawled out in masculine lassitude.
With a rap of his walking stick on the ceiling of the carriage, the coach lurched forward, and soon they were making slow but steady progress back up the Strand and toward Grosvenor Square.
She felt nervous and fidgety. The silence was almost unbearable, yet she did not know how to begin the conversation. She could hardly remark upon the weather, for it was gray and dreary, the autumnal sky heavy with the promise of a storm. Nor could she mention anything about last evening, when she had been most unladylike to sit in the dark, all alone, with him.
However the silence affected her, it had the opposite effect on his lordship. He was a man who was at ease with silence—and solitude. Black did not feel the need to fill the quiet with useless chatter. She did not have to be well acquainted with the earl to know this about him.
He wore the quiet like a shroud—unmoving, sound
less, becoming one with it as it blanketed the luxurious interior of the coach. It unnerved her the quiet that hovered between them. Not because she feared it, but because it felt too intimate. She could hear his slow, steady breaths, could hear her own. There was a sensuality to it, the resonance of air whispering past their lips. Without words, they were alone with their thoughts, the images in their minds. The picture in Isabella’s mind was that of her hand in Black’s, and how it would feel to experience the brush of his thumb inside her palm. The pleasure of awaiting his kiss as he lowered his mouth to hers.
No, the quiet was far too intimate, and her thoughts much too reckless.
His leg moved, his booted foot brushed against the hem of her day gown, and she swallowed—averting her gaze, allowing it to roam the carriage—anywhere, as long as it was not lingering on him, or the imagery her mind wished her to acknowledge.
She was a sinful creature to be thinking such thoughts! She had been given the opportunity that many of her sort never had. She’d been gifted with the chance to live as a lady, and here she was, thinking base, depraved thoughts and succumbing to the lure of pleasure just like her reckless parents.
She must put an end to this. Unable to withstand the silence—and her own wayward thoughts—Isabella said the first thing that came to mind.
“I received your note this morning.” He glanced at her sharply, but said nothing. It was a dim-witted thing to have said. She should never have opened up this conversation, but it was done, and she was committed now. “Thomas Moore’s poem is one of my favorites. I can recite it from memory.”
“Can you?”
“The last verse of Moore’s poem is, in my opinion, the best. ‘So soon may I follow when friendships decay, from love’s shining circle the gems drop away. When true hearts lie withered and fond ones are flown, Oh! Who would inhabit this bleak world alone?’”
Slowly he turned to look at her. “You’re a romantic.”
Isabella felt her cheeks flame scarlet. “Yes. But what woman is not, my lord? I think you’re a romantic as well.”
“And what makes you say that?”
“You removed the thorns from the rose you picked for me.”
He inclined his head, then averted his gaze on the window, fixing on the scenery that was passing slowly by. He declined further comment, and it made Isabella wonder if he had grown uncomfortable with the familiarity of their conversation. For certain, his quiet contemplation unnerved her. They were back to silence, and the intimacy was a living breathing thing—a pulsation—that throbbed with each of their breaths, their heartbeats.
Isabella could hardly stand it. But Black appeared to be unaware of the rippling current that simmered between them.
Hands trembling, Isabella could stand the torture no longer. She would keep up a one-sided conversation because talking was the only thing that kept her thoughts away from the image of Black holding her hand…kissing her.
“Mr. Knighton came by this morning.”
“Did he? Did you not inform him that etiquette states that calls are not made till the afternoon?”
“He couldn’t wait to tell me that you had offered to sponsor him as a Mason. It has been his fondest wish for some time. But you knew that, didn’t you?”
Again he inclined his head, but refused to answer. Damn the man. She was unsettled, at a disadvantage, and she didn’t like it. She felt herself growing reckless, the calm she had striven for having long abandoned her.
“You seem to know a great deal about me—a rather disconcerting amount, some would say.”
His gaze continued to stay focused on the window. He didn’t blink, didn’t move, but his voice in the silence was like a velvet caress that Isabella felt along her spine. “I would not have you disconcerted, Isabella.”
That was it? All he would say? Indeed, she was very disturbed by the fact he knew so much about her—and the man who was courting her. But Black…his inexplicable knowledge of her past made her nervous. Nerves were not a healthy thing for those who possessed an active imagination. All sorts of notions could run rampant through one’s head. Isabella couldn’t allow herself to even think of the possible ways Black had discovered so much about her.
It really was rather unfair. His lordship seemed to know her rather well, and yet she, and everyone else in London, knew basically nothing of him. He shielded his privacy well, and no one got beyond the cool indifference, or the iron gates that protected his realm.
What was he hiding? she wondered. Who was he really? Was he playing some sort of dark game with her? He seemed the type of man—worldly and intelligent—who could easily become jaded and bored by his life of privilege. Maybe it was a case of ennui, and he was amusing himself by toying with her?
These thoughts again made her quite agitated. How in the world had the earl learned so much about her—she, a penniless, fatherless urchin from the crumbling Yorkshire coast? How was forefront, but why quietly whispered in the back of her mind. Why would a man like Black, powerful, wealthy, sophisticated, wish to know about someone like her?
The only way to ease her questing thoughts was to have answers. Although she doubted the earl would grant them. He seemed content to sit quietly, staring out the window, keeping his own counsel while blanketing himself in his cloak of mystery.
“How is it you knew where to find me today?” she demanded. “And about Herr Von Schraeder? And why did you go to the docks to find Mr. Knighton this morning? Why could you not wait to see him at the museum or at a ball to offer your sponsorship of him? What was so urgent that it needed to be done then, at the crack of dawn?”
“So many questions,” he murmured, trying to make light, but Isabella saw the intense scrutiny in his eyes as he slowly slid his gaze to her face. “And for one not feeling well.”
“My head pounds even more, my lord, wondering about the answers.”
“Quid pro quo, Isabella?” he asked, his eyes flashing beneath long onyx lashes. “Do you wish to play? It is not a game for one, but two. It is hardly fair that you get to ask all the questions, and I am not allowed the same luxury.”
She met his stare, willing, for now, to play by his rules. “How did you know about Von Schraeder?”
“He was an old man, and reported to be ill. Minutes before you arrived at the apothecary I witnessed him in his traveling cart. He appeared weak and frail, and not long for the mortal realm. He was clutching his chest, as one does when suffering a heart seizure.” He looked her over—slowly, methodically, and she did not doubt that one thing escaped his notice. She could never hide anything from him—she knew that, deep in her belly. Black was a man that let nothing slip by him. “Tell me about your headaches, Isabella.”
“There’s nothing to tell. I started having them when I was twelve. They grew worse last year. Mr. Knighton.” She asked, her fingers curling in agitation, “Why did you look for him on the docks?”
“It’s no secret Knighton’s been anxiously awaiting the boat’s arrival. I knew he wouldn’t wait patiently at the museum for it to be delivered.”
“So you waited for him on the docks?”
“I did.”
“But why?”
He smiled and pressed forward, capturing her cheek in his palm. “It’s not your turn.” His grin turned wolfish, and she trembled. Good Lord, he was mesmerizing in his masculinity. There was something about him that made her feel very safe and protected, and…womanly. For so long she had relied on her own wits to get her through, it was rather novel to feel like a damsel in distress being saved by a knight in shining armor.
“I wonder,” he asked, “do you dream of things with your headaches?”
Gasping, Isabella pulled away, but he followed her to her bench, and forced her to look at him. He stared at her—deeply—and Isabella was shocked by the sensation of having him so close, his full attention upon her. It went straight to her belly, to the tips of her breasts.
His gloved finger brushed the apple of her cheeks and he moved closer, h
olding her gaze. “Tell me.”
“That, sir, is none of your concern.” Struggling, she was able to put a small amount of distance between them. It was not enough to restore her composure. “How did you know where to find me?” she demanded.
“I followed you. Now, tell me, do you dream of things, see things when you have the headaches?”
“Yes,” she whispered, hating to admit it. But something in his gaze compelled her to the truth. It drew her in, wrapped her securely in its hold. Whatever passed between them, Isabella knew—bone deep—soul deep—that Black would never tell another person. Her secrets would be safe with him. But was she?
“And that’s the reason for the medicine, so that you’ll sleep so deeply you won’t dream?”
She nodded, held his stare, and braved the question that was burning in her mind. The one she could not suppress. The one question she needed to hear—yet feared—to have answered. “Why did you follow me?”
He traced her cheeks with his fingertips; the soft kidskin leather gliding along her flesh felt decadent and wicked. When his leather-covered thumb brushed her bottom lip, parting her lips with a gentle but seductive sweep she inhaled sharply, let her lashes flicker and absorbed the erotic swipe of his finger against her mouth. “Can you not guess why?”
She shook her head, intoxicated by the scent of leather and man, and the pressure of his thumb as he pressed on her lip, parting them farther until the pad of his thumb swept across the damp tissue inside her lip.
“I wanted you to myself. Even if only for a few minutes.”
She swallowed hard, and shivered as his free hand came up, only to wrap gently around her throat, while his thumb brushed over her bounding pulse. Did he know how dangerous and seductive the leather felt against her? Did he know that behind her closed lashes she imagined how the black leather must look against her pale skin—darkness and light—sin and purity. Could he tell that she was even now imagining him pulling his gloves from his hands and putting his skin against hers—his mouth to her throat?
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