Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The clock someone had placed in Eliza’s room ticked loudly enough to echo relentlessly in her skull. When she finally rolled over to glare at it, the hands pointed to just after two o’clock in the morning.
Of course it was.
An ache had begun behind her eyes earlier in the evening, small at first, but now building in waves. She hadn’t had a headache in years.
Today everything she’d tried to forget had resurfaced. The fire and the suspicions she had regarding her family’s deaths. It was all once again clear in her mind, and she could not stop thinking about it or the two missing girls.
And then there was Mungo and the moment he’d touched his lips to hers. The warmth of it still lingered, an imprint that refused to fade. She pressed her fingers lightly to her mouth, as if doing so might erase it. It didn’t.
She didn’t want to need anyone ever again. Never wanted the closeness she’d had with her family because it hurt too much after they were gone.
Eliza pressed her fingers to that place in her forehead that throbbed.
Her headaches had started after her family died.
The doctor had told her uncle it was simply tension, a girl too prone to reading and fits of sadness.
Her uncle, practical to the point of cruelty, had then forbidden her from opening a book after the evening meal.
Which had, of course, made her hungry for words.
She’d hidden candles under her bedframe, shoved novels between her mattress and the floorboards, risked his displeasure a hundred times just to slip into another world and forget the deep wrenching sorrow of loss.
After their return home that evening, Mr. Calder Fraser had gone to stay with the Hellion household, as this one was already bursting with people. She doubted the man could rest knowing his daughter was out there somewhere, lost, frightened, or worse.
Bramstone Nightingale had cautioned the Fraser brothers not to walk around London blindly searching for Fenella, but Eliza wondered if they had ignored him. Desperate men could not be expected to listen to reason.
Eliza pushed back the covers, shivering as her feet touched the cool floorboards. She pulled on her dressing gown and knotted the sash. She slid her feet into slippers and then eased open the door quietly.
The hallway lay in darkness. The lamps were extinguished, and the embers in the hearths had long since died. Cold wrapped around her as she made her way toward the stairs, her eyes adjusting slowly.
A floorboard groaned beneath her foot, but no one stirred. Considering how many people slept inside these walls, such silence was remarkable.
Chester, she knew, would be curled at the foot of someone’s bed, and no one would push him off.
Her fingers tightened around the banister as she descended the final steps. The air on the lower level was even colder. Eliza wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing her hands along her sleeves in a futile attempt to chase away the chill.
She crossed quietly into the kitchen. The room smelled faintly of the bread Bud had baked before retiring for the night.
She’d make tea. If that didn’t make her tired, she could sit at the small table and watch the mists roll in with the new day.
The windows had no curtains, and the glass gleamed faintly with condensation.
Eliza moved to the stove, knelt, and opened the grate to stir the dull-red embers until they brightened. She added wood, then set the kettle on top to warm.
The soft click of the outside door closing had Eliza’s heart pounding. She watched as a tall, dark shape entered through the side door. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound emerged. The figure stepped forward, the faint orange glow from the stove revealing familiar features.
Mungo, and not as she had ever seen him.
Desperation, fear, and raw sadness were etched in every line of his face. His shoulders, normally so broad and straight, were stooped, and his big hands were fisted at his sides. He looked like a man that fate had punched repeatedly, and he was still standing only out of sheer stubbornness.
“Why are you awake?” His voice was a deep, ragged rasp.
“Have you been looking for your niece?” she asked instead, ignoring his question entirely.
“I have.”
“With your brother?”
He nodded. “We separated and asked anyone we could find. Neither of us heard any word.”
“Do your voices help you navigate your way around London?”
“My brother has a large mouth.”
“I believe you have lived with these people for many years?” Eliza persisted.
“I have,” he said.
“So why have you kept this from them when surely you know your voices would not have shocked them, considering what they are?”
Eliza busied herself finding mugs. What she actually wanted to do was wrap her arms around him and say everything would be all right. But she didn’t know that. So tea was the safer option.
Behind her, she heard the scrape of a chair and a deep sigh as he sat in it.
“Many people have voices inside their heads.” His tone told Eliza he had no wish to discuss the matter further.
“Did your voices lead you to me that afternoon?” The silence after these words was heavy in the kitchen.
“They did.”
“Then I’m grateful for them.”
He grunted.
“Where did you look for your niece this evening, Mungo?”
Neither of them commented on the fact that she’d finally started addressing him as he wished her to.
“Everywhere.”
“No word?”
“No.”
She filled the pot, brought it to the table, then returned for milk. When she took the seat opposite him, the air between them felt different. The animosity had gone. What sat between them now wasn’t tension but something softer. Eliza was under no illusion it would last.
“Drink your tea and warm up,” she said gently, nudging his mug toward him.
He wore only his shirt and waistcoat, and the scent of London clung to him. She watched his large hands cradle the mug, absorbing its warmth.
“I am fearful for her,” he said at last. “How is she suffering?”
“Is she strong and intelligent?” Eliza asked.
He nodded, finally lifting his eyes to hers.
“That is good,” Eliza said softly. “And she is not alone. She’s likely with the maid, Polly. Until you reach her, she will use her wits. Hide. Run. Survive, if she must.”
“And I should be happy with that?” His voice cracked. “Happy she has been out there away from those who love her for weeks?”
“No,” Eliza said evenly. “But some would curl into a ball and wait for rescue. She is not one of them is my belief, if she’s anything like her uncle.”
“I know what you say is true,” he whispered. “And yet thinking of Fenella anywhere near the Baddon Boys curdles my stomach.”
“You don’t know that is where she is.”
He looked at her sharply. “You’ve spoken with them before, haven’t you?”
“Members of the Black Harridan’s Boys who Detective Fletcher believed started the Baddon Boys?”
He nodded, leaning forward to study her.
“Yes, I spoke to them. One threatened me after I discovered where I could find them. I stood outside the building and shouted the word murderers until my throat was raw. Two came out. They told me if I didn’t leave, they’d kill me and anyone I cared about.
” Eliza lowered her gaze. “I planned to return the next day. But my uncle arrived and took me away.” She could still feel the rage and the wild, reckless fury that had consumed her that day.
“Was your uncle a good man?” Mungo asked quietly.
“He had no wife or children. A fourteen-year-old niece did not fit into his plans. But he provided for me as best he could.”
Coldly and without emotion. But she did not say that part aloud.
“How long were you with him?”
“One year,” she said. “Then he threw me out.”
“What?” His voice boomed before he caught himself.
“Ssh!” she hissed. “You’ll wake someone.”
“He threw you out?” His brows drew together. “Why?”
She waved a hand. She would not tell him that truth. Not tonight. Perhaps not ever.
“Tell me,” he demanded softly.
“I will not. You tell me why you left Scotland and why seeing your brother again has disturbed you so.”
His lips clamped shut instantly. The fragile peace between them snapped. His jaw worked as he swallowed several gulps of tea, and then he placed the mug down with a sharp, final thunk and stood.
“Go to bed, Miss Downing. The children will need you alert in the morning.”
“Go to bed, Mr. Mungo. The Nightingale family needs you alert to do your chores,” she retorted crisply.
He glared at her.
She glared right back.
Then, with a stomp that shook the floorboards, he left the room.
Eliza stared at the empty doorway long after he’d disappeared, her heart thudding, not with fear but with something far more complicated.
Something she did not have a name for. Eliza shouldn’t care. She hardly knew him. He was gruff, secretive, and entirely too comfortable ordering people about. But the look on his face tonight, the grief, had made her chest ache.
She stood slowly, gathering the empty mugs, and set them in the basin. The kitchen felt warmer now, the stove giving off a steady, comforting glow. The smell of coal mingled with the faint sweetness of old flour, creating a strangely familiar scent.
She moved to the window. Outside beyond Crabbett Close, London lay shrouded in a thick gray mist.
This was a city of secrets, and one of them was where missing girls were, one of whom should be home with her family.
Eliza pressed her fingertips to the cold glass. Her headache had eased, but something else now thrummed beneath her skin. A restless energy, as if the air around her buzzed with the aftermath of whatever had passed between her and Mungo.
She gathered her dressing gown closer and left the kitchen, knowing that she’d lie in her bed until the household was roused—as Mungo likely would too—and then tomorrow, they’d rise and renew their efforts to find Fenella.