Page 47 of Mercy Fletcher Meets Her Match
“No, thank you,” Thomas said. “Unfortunately our time is limited. Another half an hour or so, and we’ll have to be getting back to our—er, little ones.” His lips puckered as if he could not bring himself to say the names she had offered him.
“Ah,” the barkeep said. “At that age, then, are they? Can’t be away from mummy for too long?”
“Quite so.” Thomas fished into his pocket and retrieved a coin, sliding it across the countertop. “Regarding that bloke I once made mention of—”
“Slipped me mind,” the barkeep said, snatching the coin off the counter with such alacrity that Mercy suspected that ithadn’t so much as slipped his mind as it had been deliberately withheld until proper payment had been offered. “’E were in some hours ago. Said ‘e’d come into some money and bought the whole tavern a round o’ me best. Seemed to be on ‘is way out of town.”
Thomas stiffened beside her. “Did he happen to mention why?”
“’E were wiv some toffs. Welsh, I think, by accent,” the barkeep replied. “Said they were headed northwest. Didn’t say why, nor where. Weren’t my business to ask, so long as ‘e was a properly payin’ customer.”
“And he did pay?” Mercy blurted out. “With coin, or—”
“Banknote,” the barkeep replied. “Weren’t cheap, ye know, a whole round. ‘Course, it weren’t worth a fiver, which is what ‘e gave me. Told me to keep the change, if ye can believe it,” he added, as he flipped the coin Thomas had offered into the air and caught it in his palm as it fell.
Thomas dug once more into his pocket, retrieved another coin. The gold sovereign glinted in the candlelight as he held it up. “This, if you tell me at which bank it was drawn upon,” he said.
With a grin, the barkeep snatched it straight from Thomas’ fingers, tucking it away into his own pocket. “Bank of England,” he said. “And what’s more—yer bloke said ‘e’d be back fer another round in a week’s time.”
Chapter Seventeen
Thomas should have been pleased. They had learned something, the two of them. More than he had expected, even if it had not yet delivered Fordham to him. To all accounts the man had not yet left the country. He’d said he’d be back in a week. That was an entire week’s rest from his thus far fruitless hunt, a week in which he would not have to scurry about the city in search of a man who had become as good as a ghost. A week to gather all of his evidence, to compile every one of his documents, to tally accounts and amounts.
A week, and then—it would all be over. He ought to have been pleased. And perhaps he would be, later. Much later.
The only thing that mattered at present was the feel of Mercy’s hand in his own, the way she stayed so close to his side as they walked the streets waiting to chance upon an unengaged hack. He resented each step as one closer to their destination, one less second they would spend alone together, and the only consolation was that they would soon be hidden away from the prying eyes of the city within a darkened carriage.
I was never going to marry, she had said.Was. Had she begun to reconsider that notion? He hoped the seed had at least been planted. And if not—well, then he would give her something to consider until it had begun to germinate.
There, as they rounded a corner, came the whicker of a horsein the distance. The murky grey shape of a hack formed in the darkness that pooled between street lamps. He urged Mercy onward, his hand at the small of her back. The driver dozed in his seat, huddled into the folds of his cloak. Thomas cleared his throat to gain the man’s attention and waved Mercy into the carriage as he communicated the address.
Moments later he stepped into the carriage himself and slid straight onto the seat beside her. His thigh brushed hers as he closed up the carriage behind him, plunging the interior into darkness.
Mercy gave a little hum of agitation, awkwardly shifting in her seat as the carriage lurched into motion. “How long is the journey back?” she asked, her voice softened, muted, as if the darkness itself had swallowed it up.
“This time of night? Fifteen minutes or so,” he said. The night had not yet deepened enough for those events scheduled for this evening to begin letting out, congesting the streets with the traffic of carriages waiting to deliver people back to their homes from an evening’s entertainment.
“Is that long enough for a lecture? You do tend to go on, Thomas.” Another restless little shift, as if she had sensed the tension strung between them. “I promised myself I would listen this time. I shouldn’t like to find my mind wandering away.”
“Long enough for the sort of lecture I had in mind. Come closer,” he said, and patted his thigh. In the brief flickers of light that intruded between the drawn curtains, a quizzical, nearly incredulous expression flitted across her face, drawing her brows down into a frown as her gaze fell upon his hand there upon his thigh.
“What, like a child?” she asked. “I am a few years too old for that, I think.”
“No, Mercy. Not like a child.” He reached across the scant space between them, found her hand fisted in the skirt of herdress, fingernails curled into the fabric like claws. “This makes twice now you’ve gone out the window,” he said. That he knew of, at least.
“I had it well enough it hand,” she said instantly, defensive.
“Yes. Right up until you fell.” One by one he extricated her fingers from the fabric. “Do you know what I felt, when that bit of wood snapped in your hand? When you fell?”
“I couldn’t begin to speculate.”
“Sheer terror,” he said. “That thistime you would certainly break your neck, and there would be nothing I could do for it.” That all of the light would have gone out of the world with her. That she would leave him, alone, abandoned, to be consumed once more by the darkness from which she had all too recently plucked him. That she would, too suddenly, be so very far beyond his reach. That there would be no more dancing, no more billiards, no more quiet conversation, no moreMercyto poke and prod at him, to laugh at him, to tease him, to plague him, to menace him, to—to make his miserable life one worth living.
Of their own accord, her fingers curled around his. Almost apologetically, as if she had sensed that he needed—viscerally, desperately—the comfort of them threaded through his own. And he brought them to his mouth, those long, elegant fingers, so warm and vital. Turned her hand in his to place his lips upon the inside of her wrist, where her pulse beat strong and steady.
“I’m sorry,” she said, a hint of breathlessness within her voice. “I suppose I don’t always…stop to consider the potential consequences of my actions.”
Thomas managed a rough facsimile of a laugh. “Mercy,” he said, “you don’t evenpauseto consider them most times.” And he—he was just going to have to accustom himself to it. To be the one to rein her in when necessary. Before she got in over her head. “I can’t stop you,” he said. “You’re relentless when you’vegot an idea in your head.” Stubborn. Determined. Traits which had once annoyed him, and which he had since grown to admire.
