Forever a Lady

by Delilah Marvelle

  “Milton,” his friend called out. “Instead of playing Casanova with the card, give the woman’s generous offer a day and the hour you intend to call.”

  The Pirate King tucked the card into his boot and recaptured her gaze. “This Thursday. I’m thinking midnight.”

  Bernadette quirked a brow. “Is that what you’re thinking?”

  “Midnight is my version of noon,” he added, still holding her gaze.

  He was clearly interested only in linen ripping. And who was she to deny over six feet of brawn? “Midnight it is.”

  His mouth quirked. “I’ll see you then.” Rounding his stolen stallion, he glanced back at her one last time, then he and his friend galloped off down the path.

  Georgia tsked. “You have no self-control. None whatsoever.”

  Bernadette smirked. “Coming from you, Miss Tormey, I will take that to be a compliment.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  M. Falret, a doctor of medicine, has prepared from the official records of the police, a curious memoir on the suicides in Paris, from 1794 to 1822. Of those, some were attributed to:

  Crossed in love: Number of men, 97. Women, 157.

  Calumny and loss of reputation: Number of men, 97. Women, 28.

  Gaming: Number of men, 141. Women, 14.

  Reverse of fortune: Number of men, 283. Women, 39.

  Let the numbers speak for themselves.

  —The Truth Teller, a New York Newspaper for Gentlemen

  Limmer’s, 12:54 a.m.

  THE GLOW FROM THE SINGLE cracked lantern set on the floor beside him illuminated the unevenly nailed wooden planks that lined the slanted ceiling. Stripping his leather patch from his eye and tossing it, Matthew fell onto the sunken straw tick on the floor. Rolling onto his back and stretching out, he held up the expensive ivory card that had been given to him that afternoon. Disregarding the address, he stared at her name: Lady Burton.

  Holy day. Holy, holy day. The way those dark eyes had held his, the way those lips had curved around her words every time she spoke, and the way that sultry voice had dripped with elegance and refinement about punched the last of his rational senses out. Something about her awoke an awareness he’d thought long dead and whispered of endless possibilities he wanted to roll around in.

  Though he couldn’t help but wonder about the association she had with Lord Arsehole. That heated argument on the riding path, which had resulted in her getting cropped, hinted at far more than he cared to admit.

  Skimming his thumb across that printed name, he drew the card closer. Was it conceivable for a woman like her to want a man like him? And could a woman like her, who appeared to have everything, give a man like him, who had nothing...everything he wanted?

  The door to his small room opened. There was a pause.

  He didn’t have to look up from the card to know who it was. “What do you want? I’m trying to sleep here.”

  “Sure you are.” Coleman snickered. “Shall I leave you two alone?” he said, looking pointedly at the card.

  Matthew sat up on the straw mattress, molding the card against his palm. “A touch jealous, are we?”

  “Hardly. Women are a waste of breath, man. They’re only good for one thing. And I wish I could say it was fucking.”

  Ah, yes. The man, who’d been married at sixteen to a woman crazier than him, thought he knew it all.

  Matthew pointed the card at him. “Ey. Just because you’re bitter doesn’t mean I have to be. The difference between you and me is that I’ve been patiently waiting for the right one to come along. And this—” He held up the card, wagging it. “This here is about as right as they come. Not only did she agree to meet me at midnight—in her home—which means she damn well wants what I want, did you see the way she looked at me when she gave me this card? We’re talking more than a night here.”

  Rolling his eyes, Coleman leaned against the frame of the door. “She gave you the card because she felt obligated after what you did. She’s an aristo, Milton. Not exactly your kind of people.”

  Matthew flicked a finger against the card. “Why do you always ruin everything for me?”

  “Because I think you may have taken too many knocks to the head. You seem to think women are moldable to your vision of...whatever the hell you’re looking for, but I’m telling you right now, Milton, you can’t mold a woman. Women mold you. And when you least expect it, they crush you until your very clay squeezes through their conniving little fingers.”

  “I pity your cynicism. You know that?” Matthew paused and glanced toward Coleman, noting that the man was not only fully dressed in his great coat, but that his black silvering hair was pulled back into a neat queue. Which the man rarely did. “Where the hell are you going?”

  Coleman adjusted the riding coat on his muscled frame and eyed him. “Aside from taking back the horses we ‘borrowed,’ I’m off to double our money. We need to get you back to New York. And as for me...” He cleared his throat theatrically in the way he always did before announcing something Matthew didn’t like. “I’m heading to Venice.”

  Matthew stared. “What do you mean you’re heading to Venice? What about New York?”

  “What about New York?”

  His eyes widened. “The swipe is over and you and I share responsibilities.”

  “Milton.” A wry smile touched those lips. “I’m honored knowing you still want me around, really, but the Forty Thieves was your vision for a better life, not mine. There’s nothing left for me in New York. Not to say I won’t miss you. You’re the closest thing I have to a brother. But you have your life and I have mine.” Lowering his gaze, he sighed. “How much money do you have? I need at least five pounds to make the cards worthwhile.”

  Matthew glared, feeling as if he’d been walloped in the chest by a man who had clearly moved on from their friendship. “You’re not gambling what little we have. If you plan on ditching me and the boys, that’s your damn right, but you’re not sinking me while you’re at it. Instead of gambling, I suggest you go put yourself in a few matches. London is big on boxing. As for me, I’m soliciting labor over at the docks come morning.”

  Coleman leveled him with a mocking stare. “The docks? Since when do you prance about soliciting honest work?”

  Matthew pointed, trying not to feel too insulted. “I’m not playing with the law here, Coleman. Unlike in New York, I’ve got no marshals here to protect my arse, and these Brits are crazy. They’ll hang you for anything. Especially if you’re unlucky and Irish. And as you damn well know, I’m both. Now, off with you.” Matthew settled back onto the mattress, snatching up his card. “I’d like to be alone with my card, if you please. I have a feeling it’ll give me a lot more respect than you just did.”

  “Christ. Don’t make me tear that bloody thing in half and shove it up your ass.”

  Matthew swiped up the pistol from the floor beside him with his other hand and pointed it at Coleman with a mocking tilt of his wrist. “Get the hell out of my room. I’m not paying four shillings a night to have you in here.”

  “We need twenty pounds each, Milton, if we’re ever going to get out of Town. Twenty. My boxing will only bring in a few pounds per match, unless I start dealing with aristos. And as good as I am, I can only take so many hits a week. As for you working over at the docks? You’ll only bring in about two pounds a week. At best. Count that on your fingers, man. You may have time on your hands, but I’m not staying in this piss of a city beyond two weeks.” He paused. “How much do you think you could get out of this aristo, given what you did for her? If you slather on that charm I know you’re good for?”

  Matthew sighed and set the pistol back onto the floor. “I don’t know. This whole idea of me calling on her for money merely for doing something ingrained in me feels dirty.”

  “No one does dirty better than you, Milton.”

  Matthew rolled his eyes. “I’m not that dirty and you know it.” He tapped the card against his chin before glancing down at it. “I sti
ll can’t get over the way she looked at me. I’m telling you. There was something there. I could see it and feel it. It was as if she and I were meant for bigger things.”

  “Bigger things?” Coleman snapped, angling toward him. “What the devil is wrong with you? We’re not talking about some tea dealer’s daughter here. We’re talking nobility. Do you know what that is, Milton? It’s better known as the trinity. Meaning, there’s them, there’s the King and then there’s God. Notice that I didn’t mention you at all. Why? Because you don’t exist. And you never will. They don’t touch people like us. Not unless it’s to their benefit.”

  “Stop saying ‘people like us.’ You yourself are of nobility, for God’s sake. You’re—” Matthew scrubbed his head in exasperation, knowing it. To think that the same man he’d been training with and aspiring to be more like since he was twenty had been an aristo in hiding all along. It was something the stupid bastard didn’t have the decency to tell him until they up and boarded the ship over to Liverpool. A part of him felt betrayed, though he understood Coleman hadn’t been given much of a choice but to abandon who and what he was.

  Matthew dropped his hand from his head. “You came here to straighten your mess of a life out and move on. That’s what you said. Only, you’re not doing shite. You’re up and drinking and playing cards like some fecking sharp with money you don’t have, making a bigger mess of not only your life, but mine. Why the hell aren’t you facing the reality you came to face? I know why I came here. Because it was better than being dead and it was your goddamn idea. And whilst the swipe is over, I’m not leaving until I hold you to your reality. Call on your parents, and that uncle and nephew of yours who dug you up through the papers back in New York. Because seething on and on about a past you can’t change isn’t helpful to anyone. Especially yourself.”

  Coleman’s features tightened as his blue eyes cooled to rigid ice. “I’ll see them when I’m ready to see them. And I’m not fucking ready. Isn’t that obvious?” Coleman stepped out and slammed the door, rattling the lantern.

  Matthew sighed and hoped the man didn’t do anything stupid. Holding up the card again, Matthew stared at the name Lady Burton and hoped he himself didn’t do anything stupid.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  All information printed pertaining to the struggles

  of others are not necessarily true.

  —The Truth Teller, a New York Newspaper for Gentlemen

  St. James’s Square, Thursday afternoon

  THE FOOTMAN GRACIOUSLY gestured toward the open doors of her father’s library. “’Tis a joy to have you back in London, my lady.”

  “Thank you, Stevens.” At least someone was happy regarding her return to London. Bernadette clasped her bare hands together and entered the cavernous library lined with all those endless books she used to gather from the shelves as a girl and stack up all around her. Not to read, mind you, but to build a full deck of a ship she would then climb on top of and teeter to sail across the expanse of the...library. The room still looked the same. It even smelled the same: mildew laced with cedar and dust.

  Her chest tightened. It had been years.

  Scanning the brightly lit room, she found her father and drifted toward where he sat, her verdant skirts rustling against the movements of her feet.

  Lord Westrop’s head was propped and resting against the side of his leather wing-tipped chair, that snowy white hair combed back with tonic. His eyes were closed and his usually rigid features were endearingly soft as the center of his Turkish robe rose and fell with each breath he took.

  Bernadette paused before him, quietly observing him. It was the most peaceful she had ever seen him. “Papa?”

  He opened his eyes and looked up at her. His astounded features gave way to him sitting up. “Bernadette.”

  “How are you, Papa?” She lowered herself to his booted feet and gathered his hands that had begun to show their age. She could see the veins.

  He grabbed hold of her hands and smiled, shaking them in his. “You came back for me. You came back. I knew you would.”

  He seemed so happy to see her. Imagine that. He still knew how to exhibit happiness. She’d forgotten how good of a man he was capable of being when the burden of losing everyone—a wife, two brothers and three sisters—didn’t eat at him.

  She smiled as best she could. “I’m not staying long. New York is my home now. You know that.”

  His hands stilled against hers as he searched her face with dark eyes. “Why do you always wish to make me suffer? You know I have no one but you.”

  A deep sadness came over her. The same one that always gripped her whilst in his presence. “I am merely living my life now, Papa. The one I never got to live. ’Tis something I have old William to thank for. He adored me more than I deserved.”

  “Damn right.” His aged features tightened. “Bloody deranged is what he turned out to be, leaving you with all that money and freedom. Look at you. Worth a million, yet living as some no-name Mrs. Shelton in New York City, cavorting with American ruffians like the Astors. I hear that you now entertain men on the hour.”

  “If it were on the hour, Papa, I wouldn’t have time to call on you at all, would I?”

  “And what of gossip?”

  She lowered her chin. “There is all sorts of gossip, Papa. And it doesn’t mean it’s true. Which rumor are you referring to?”

  “About you standing on the streets in nothing but petticoats out in New Orleans. What was that about?”

  She cringed, knowing she was forever cursed to hear of that one awful misstep during her first days of freedom. “I was robbed whilst attending a street masking ball. That was why I moved from New Orleans to New York and took on an alias. The papers, not to mention all of stupid American society, made the incident out to be so much more nefarious than it was.”

  His eyes widened. “What the devil were you doing attending a street masking ball?”

  Why did she feel like she was ten years old again? “I have never been to one and I wanted to go.”

  “Wanted to go. Indeed. Well. Serves you right. If you had stayed at home and devoted yourself to being a respectable widow, it would have never happened. I think it time you accept that your days of traveling and frolicking are done, girl. Done.”

  She heaved out a breath. “I never got to travel or do much of anything. You know that. Neither you nor William ever allowed for it. As you well know, I was married barely two weeks after my debut, which wasn’t really—”

  “All I want to know is where are the grandchildren I wanted? Why won’t you remarry in an effort to give me at least one?”

  Her throat tightened as she fought to stay composed. After twelve years of trying to become a mother, allowing old William to bed her again and again in the hopes of having a child to love and cherish, she knew it was never meant to be. And in truth, she was done playing the role of a possession. “My days of matrimony are over. I have done my duty to you and to William, and to expect more or to say more is cruel.”

  Her father’s features notably softened. “I did not mean to be cruel.” He hesitated and then quickly said, “Honor your father by leaving this New York City behind. Stay here with me. I would like that. You can take your old chambers. I haven’t changed anything. I still have all of your dolls and books and those porcelain figurines you always played with. You and I can read and play chess and should we need respite from London, we can always travel to Bath. Bath is a good, respectable place. We can take in the air by walking the Town, and during the summer, eat those flavored ices you used to love so much when you were a tot. Remember? ’Twas a good life. More important, a respectable one. So it’s settled, yes? You will stay right here with your papa.”

  She slowly shook her head, dread seeping into every last inch of her. He didn’t seem to understand that she wasn’t a child anymore. “No. Though I do love you, I am my own woman now and I am asking that you respect me and my life.”

  His dark eyes flashed. “Are
you intent on stabbing me in the heart, knowing that I have no one but you?”

  Bernadette rose to her feet, sensing her time with him was done. No matter how much she gave him, he was always desperately grasping for more until nothing remained. “I am not about to submit to this guilt you keep piling upon my soul. Not when I have submitted to you all these years at the cost of my life. Do you think I ever wanted to marry William? No. But you wanted me to, so I did. And therein my obligation ends.” She swallowed, trying to remain calm. “It was good seeing you, Papa. I trust you are receiving the yearly annuity I arranged through William’s estate.”

  He grunted. “’Tis measly.”

  She half nodded. “I see. Thirty thousand a year is measly. I didn’t realize your tastes were so extravagant. If you need more, I can make it fifty thousand.”

  He grunted again. “If I needed more, I would have asked. Now, are you staying with me or not?”

  Why did she always stupidly cling to the hope that he could be the father she wanted him to be? “I am five and thirty, Papa. My life is practically half over. I have given it to you, I have given it to William and I

  have given it to society. I do not intend to give up any more. I intend to frolic with whomever I please, whenever I please, and travel until my slippers fall off, regardless of what you and everyone else may think. Men do it all the time and no one even blinks. So let them all blink.”

  He swiped a veined hand over his face, snatched up his cane from beside the chair and heaved himself up. “I ask that you not call on me again unless you either respectably remarry or decide to live with me. I have nothing more to say.” With that, he stalked out, leaving her to linger alone in the library.

  An unexpected tear traced its way down her cheek. Annoyed with herself for even caring what he thought, she swiped it away and set her chin. She had done everything to make him happy at the cost of her own happiness and was finished with that and him.

  She had spent twelve years of her life serving and bedding a scrawny, withered man who had grunted into her and knew nothing of her pleasure, let alone her happiness. Though she supposed she’d been fortunate, considering. For at least old William had treated her with an adoring, kind regard and devotion rarely found in aristocratic marriages. He had even left her his entire estate, despite her inability to sire a child for him. It was a gesture of the love he’d had for her. She regretted knowing that the old man had died without having ever once earned the one thing he’d wanted most—her heart. Sadly, her heart had yet to genuinely beat with love for a man. And at five and thirty, she wondered if it ever could.