Page 122 of Rules for a Bastard Lord
“You cannot find what I need without me.” She looked at his eyes, trying to measure what he wanted. She didn’t think he knew. “Do you want to save his life? Or at least give him a chance?”
His gaze was resolute. “Yes.”
“Then take me to find mold.”
“What?”
“Mold. A certain kind. In Hull I got it from Mr. Periwinkle’s pigpen, but the witch-woman said it was stronger from somewhere else.”
“Where?”
She winced as she spoke. “The side of the shit house.”
He laughed, the sound tight and bitter. Then he sobered. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
He rubbed his jaw and looked out the window, his face almost gaunt in the moonlight. “How much?”
“A great deal.” She grabbed her satchel, feeling the weight of the only thing she’d brought that she’d never used. Her tools for making possets. “Take me,” she said.
He sighed. “Even on death’s door, Jeremy is still making me stink. And now it’s infected you.”
“We don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, we do.”
*
Bram couldn’t believehe was doing this, but the thought of killing Jeremy put too much weight on his soul. He had to find a solution, and if Bluebell had one, then he would crawl through shite up to his neck to get it.
But he’d be damned if he allowed her to sully herself so.
He took her to the filthiest part of the Thames, crawled along the muck and stones while she held the lantern, and scraped where she pointed. By the time it was done, he reeked enough that even the footpads kept away. He didn’t want to imagine her doing this back in Hull, but when she didn’t even flinch at his smell, he knew she had endured this and much worse.
“Why didn’t you run away?” he asked as they trudged away from the river. “Surely there were better places to live than Hull?”
“Better how? I had a home with my mother. I had work that fed us, and people who cared for me. Not everyone, obviously, but it was a good life, even if it was hard.” Then she looked at him. “Why haven’t you settled in a village somewhere? No one needs to know you’re a bastard. You could be a younger son of a nobody vicar.”
He could hear Eleanor’s voice in her words, categorizing people by their social status. He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t fault her for it. It was how the world worked. “And what would I do as a younger son of a nobody vicar? I have a life in London. Work that pays my bills—”
“And people to protect?”
He nodded. “I pretend that I am doing good.”
“You are.”
“Sometimes, yes. Other times, I’m not so sure.” He thought of Dicky and Jeremy. Had he truly done anything good there?
She entwined her fingers with his. He didn’t want her to touch him, given the filth that coated him everywhere, but somehow they were walking hand in hand. And he would not release her.
“Where are we going?” she asked as he directed her down a narrow alleyway.
“It’s a shop I know. Odd people with odd ideas. They won’t question what you’re doing. Actually, they’ll probably question everything but they won’t stop you.”
She straightened at that, her eyes growing luminous in the moonlight. “Witch women?”
He chuckled at the hope in her voice. “We don’t have those in London!” he said with mock insult. “We have women and men who have not studied in the normal sort of medical school.”
