Chapter Twelve
July 18th, 1812
Exeter, Devonshire
They reached Exeter before noon. Mordecai didn’t direct his coachman to the hotel he usually patronized; he wanted somewhere he wasn’t known, where he could keep a low profile. The inn he finally selected was a modest establishment more used to solicitors and country squires than the wealthy bastard sons of earls. “Remember: I’m plain Mr. Black from nowhere in particular,” he told his servants. “I am not related to the late Lord Dereham.”
“Yes, sir.”
After a light luncheon, he and Miss Wrotham set out to visit churches. Exeter was as oppressively hot as London had been. Mordecai’s shirt-points drooped. He sweated beneath his layers of clothing and envied the half-naked urchins begging for coins. They drew a blank at the first three chu
