Forever a Lady

by Delilah Marvelle

  “Impressive,” a man hollered out. “I didn’t realize you played.”

  She jerked away from the piano, midnote, and froze.

  Matthew loomed in the doorway of the candlelit parlor.

  How did he get in? Her pulse thundered in disbelief, realizing that one of his large hands fisted a wool sack, whilst the other clutched the collar of her burly footman, John, whom she had secretly tasked to follow him.

  Oh, dear. She scrambled up from the piano seat, turning toward them, and paused. Matthew’s chiseled face, leather patch and the length of his muscled frame was well spattered with mud, whilst that rain-soaked chestnut-colored hair clung to his forehead like tar.

  He shoved her footman, who was equally muddied, forward and into the room. “This is yours, I believe,” he rumbled out.

  He didn’t look like a man who had won a battle.

  He looked like a man ready to start one.

  Bernadette cringed. “I can explain.”

  “No need.” He headed toward her, boots thudding against the floorboards with a rigid determination that she could not only see but feel. He paused before her and leaned down and in so close, the faded leather patch of his eye blurred against his face. “You have the nerve of Satan sending someone to spy on me.”

  It would seem men who were out doing wrong didn’t like being spied on. She stepped back and blinked rapidly, halted by that muddy sack, which had been visibly torn, beneath his arm. Expensive red velvet peered out from beneath the wool like a blood wound.

  She eyed him. “Have you robbed someone?”

  “I don’t have to answer that.”

  Which meant he had. Oh, God.

  He reached out a hand and directed her toward the open doors. “Walk. We’re taking this elsewhere.”

  The footman quickly rounded them. “Don’t touch her!”

  Matthew shifted toward her, looking even more agitated. “Tell him to leave, Bernadette. Tell him to leave, before I fist him up to Ireland.”

  Sensing that he really would fist poor John up into Ireland, she insisted, “Leave, John. You needn’t worry. Mr. Milton is an acquaintance of mine.”

  Matthew shifted closer, lowering his chin. “We’re long past that and you know it.”

  The footman hesitated.

  Bernadette gestured frantically toward the entrance of the parlor before anything more was said or done. “Go wash up, John. Please. I will be more than fine.”

  Though the footman still hesitated, he eventually nodded and quietly left the room, adjusting his scuffed livery.

  Matthew took her arm, flinging half-hanging straw from his coat onto her gown, and hurried them into the corridor. “Let’s talk in the privacy of your room upstairs, luv. I don’t want your servants listening in on our conversation.”

  Her heart pounded as his grip tightened around her arm. He didn’t say another word.

  The sweeping stairs and the long corridor leading to all the suites whizzed by, finally ending when they paused at the closed door leading to her bedchamber. He had remembered its location.

  He released her and leaned toward her, the scent of fresh mud drifting toward her. “Do you honestly think I deserved being followed by one of your servants like that? It made me feel utterly worthless and I can assure you, I already feel worthless enough without having it pointed out.”

  She shifted toward him, her throat tightening in shame. “Forgive me. I just...I needed to know more about you.”

  His chest rose and fell against his great coat and his unlaced linen shirt. “You could have just asked.”

  Her stomach knotted. “I’m not used to getting straightforward answers out of men.”

  “I’m not like other men. If you ask me a question, there isn’t a goddamn thing I won’t answer. And that’s a fact. Because you see, my mouth has always been connected to a thing called integrity.”

  “What a lovely, lovely sentiment. One I intend to test.” She glanced toward the sack he held and pointed. “Did you steal that?”

  He swung away and punched the air twice, still clutching the sack. He jerked back to the door and turned the knob, kicking the door open with a muddy boot. “Get in. We have to talk.”

  “What about my answer?”

  “You’ll get it. In there.” Gently grabbing her arm, he dragged her into the room, shutting the door behind them. Heaving out a breath, he crossed over to her dressing table and set the small wool sack on it, knocking over bottles of rose water, talc and rouge. “Sorry.” He rearranged the bottles with hands that were much larger than all the items he was handling. “What is all this? Cosmetics? Shite. You actually use all of this?”

  It was obvious that he was stonewalling.

  Whisking toward him, she paused before the mirrored dressing table he lingered by and took up the sack. Placing it back into his hands, she swiped at her own hands, removing the grit clinging to them. “I suggest you take this back, Matthew. I may have many indecent flaws myself, but I am not about to condone this.”

  He stared. “I hate to disappoint you, but I can’t take it back.”

  “Why not?”

  He still stared. “I only came to deliver your footman. But given that you asked, I’ll be gracious enough to say that I didn’t even want you knowing about this.”

  Why did she have a feeling she didn’t want to know, either? “For heaven’s sake, what did you do?”

  He huffed out a breath. Widening his stance, he dug his hand into the wool sack and yanked out a stained, red velvet bundle from its belly. He tossed aside the torn wool that had been cradling it and held the bundle up. “I saw the bastard who cropped you, just off Regent Street on my way back from working at the docks today. So I followed pretty boy home, waited until he took off for some arsy-varsy event and cleaned out his vault. The only trouble I had was having to tackle your footman to ensure I didn’t get caught.”

  She gasped. “You robbed Lord Dunmore?!”

  “Yes. Didn’t I just say that?”

  Her eyes widened. “But why? Why would you—”

  “Because my personal take on justice has a tendency to warp my rational perception from time to time. I robbed him because he deserved it after what he did to you. I don’t expect you to understand, given you chose to violate my goddamn pride by having me followed around as if I were a threat to all of England. You’re fortunate, Bernadette, that your footman told me who the devil he was, or I could have slit his throat thinking he wanted me dead.”

  She eyed the bundled material in his hands. A golden threaded shield with the name DUNMORE was stitched into its velvet front. Oh, God.

  “You have to give it back.”

  “And hang? For that pig? Christ, no.” He stared her down for a long, pulsing moment. “Who is Dunmore to you anyway?”

  She inwardly cringed. “No one.”

  “No one?” He continued to stare. “That pretty mouth of yours is lying. Aside from that shouting match you and he exchanged and the crop you took to the face, would you care to explain why he also has a portrait of you hanging on the wall in his study?”

  Her cheeks flamed. Dunmore still had the portrait she’d commissioned for him? Even after all this time? That stupid, stupid fool. “I had the portrait commissioned for him.”

  “That was incredibly nice of you. Why?”

  “We were lovers.”

  “Lovers.” His voice darkened. “For how long? Are you telling me you let him do the sort of things to you that I did to you? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  She edged closer. He was jealous. The Pirate King was jealous. “And what if I told you yes? What of it?”

  He hissed out a breath, shifting away. “Forget I asked.”

  “I will. What is it that you actually stole from Dunmore anyway? I want to see it.”

  He sighed and slowly and grudgingly unraveled the velvet material, cupping it in the crook of his arm to reveal what was hidden within. “This is what my need to avenge you, coupled with a need for mone
y, resulted in. All right? This.”

  Her eyes widened. A dozen gold pendants of different shapes and sizes shimmered in the candlelight against the velvet, an array of red, green, white and yellow stones winking with glistening pride.

  She knew what they were. They belonged to Dunmore’s late mother. Dunmore had offered them to her one night, and of course, she had refused. And it appeared despite Dunmore’s piling debts, which he’d hidden from her throughout their involvement, his inability to part with his mother’s jewels, even to this day, meant that there was still a sliver of the glorious man she’d once known. Damn him.

  Bernadette glanced up. “You have to give it back. They belonged to his mother. ’Tis all he has left of her.”

  He continued to observe her, the lines on his face still harsh. “I didn’t realize he meant so much to you.”

  “Matthew.” She angled toward him. “This has nothing to do with him. It has to do with what is right. These have to go back to Dunmore. I won’t see you hanged for this.”

  A muscle flicked in his mud-streaked jaw. He set his shoulders and lowered his gaze, rewrapping the pendants. “As if you care if I hang now that you know the sort of man I really am.”

  Though his stance, words and tone were merciless, as if he didn’t give a drat what she thought, his rugged face held a regret even he could not hide. He really was mock or die.

  She leaned toward him. “I care more than you realize. I know what it’s like to be forced into making decisions that go against everything you are. But that doesn’t mean we have to keep going down that path and let it destroy everything we are.” She leaned a bit closer and grasped the velvet bundle in his arms, trying to yank it out of his grasp. “Now, give it here.”

  He tightened his hold, keeping it from moving.

  She tugged. Only, it still wouldn’t move. “Matthew.”

  He observed her, dirt crinkling the side of his jaw. “You’d make a good nun. You know that?” He pushed her hands away and strode to the side of the bed. Placing the bundle on the linen, he swiped his face with both hands. “Do you still have feelings for him?”

  Her heart pounded, realizing he was genuinely upset about her association with Dunmore. “No.”

  “Is he the reason why you refuse to remarry?”

  She sighed, sensing he wasn’t about to relent until he had all of his answers. It wasn’t as if her life was much of a secret anyway. He could more or less find it in any newspaper. “No. I was imprisoned in a marriage for almost twelve years of my life to a man forty-three years my senior. Though I had requested a courtship, for I wanted time to ease into the marriage, given I was only eighteen, I was denied and handed off two weeks after my debut. William was an old childhood friend of my father’s who had offered to pay all of our bills as we had always struggled. All he expected in turn was my hand at eighteen. So, there you have it. Locked away for that long, a lady cannot help but cringe at the thought of being in the same position again.”

  He said nothing.

  Bernadette sighed again and rounded the bed toward the jewels he had set down. “Regardless of my previous association with Dunmore, we have to give these back. ’Tis the right thing to do.”

  He lowered his chin like any dog would before an attack. “I’m not giving them back to an arsehole who cropped you and marked up your face. I’m not. Furthermore, Coleman needs the money. So we’re going to put it to better use.”

  It would seem Georgia was right about him. Whatever Matthew wanted to do, he firmly believed he had the right to do.

  She turned and leaned over the bed to grab up the velvet bundle. “We’re taking them back.”

  “I don’t think so.” Snatching her by the waist hard, he flipped her around toward himself and then shoved her backward with a flopping bounce onto the bed.

  She gasped as he climbed atop her.

  He locked her against the mattress with the bulk of his own body. “Did you miss me?”

  She froze, staring up at him.

  He lowered himself onto her like a nestling lion, pinning her against the mattress with the crushing warmth of his weight, that large frame pushing out her very breath.

  She could feel the moist dirt seeping into parts of her gown. “Get off.”

  His calloused hands grabbed her wrists and drew them up over her head with a slow drag, stretching them out. “Or what? You’ll kiss me? Ooh. I’m dithering.”

  In between hard, crushed breaths, she tossed up at him, “Ask yourself who is the better man in this? The one who rescued me that day in the park? Or the one who cropped me? If you are the better man, you will return these. Does honor mean nothing to you?”

  He held her gaze for a long moment. “Honor is the one thing I do own, Bernadette. And don’t you ever forget it.”

  She swallowed, unable to say anything more.

  A droplet of soiled water trickled from his chestnut-colored hair, past the leather patch on his cheek, off his unshaven square jaw and onto her face. She winced as it fell on her skin.

  He swiped the droplet away from her cheek with his thumb. “I won’t be able to lodge at Limmer’s after this, should Dunmore come looking for me. Which means I need a place to stay until I figure out what to do next. Can I stay with you?”

  Her pulse jolted. “You’re proving to be quite the lowlife, do you know that?”

  Adjusting his grip on her wrists, he leaned in closer and narrowed his gaze, that patch against his cheekbone shifting. “You, Bernadette of all things aristocratic, who taps a finger and gets whatever the hell she wants, has no concept of what lowlife is. But I do. Have you ever seen the lifeless body of a child dumped into a pile of rubbish as if it were rubbish itself? Have you ever wrestled with savages who take pleasure in ravaging women and children alike in back alleys? Have you? I’ve met lowlife and I don’t fall into that goddamn category. Not even with this. So don’t ever call me that again.”

  Bernadette felt as if her breath were being cut off. She sensed this man had been through a lot more than even he was letting on. “Forgive me.”

  His tight, harsh features that hung over her, softened. He half nodded, loosened his grip on her wrists and pushed himself up and away.

  Seeing the velvet bundle was still beside her, Bernadette lunged for it.

  He jumped, grabbed her arms and flung them away, snatching up the bundle. Holding it high in the air, he angled toward where she lay on the bed. “Don’t make me tie you up.”

  “Oh, I’m not the one who will be in ropes by the end of this night. I’m trying to do the right thing here. Why won’t you—” She clenched her teeth and kicked toward him in riled agitation.

  He caught her slippered foot with a large hand and shoved it hard off to the side, sending it flopping against the mattress. “No one kicks me and keeps the leg. Remember that the next time you try it.” He glared. With the velvet bundle still in hand, he strode toward the closed door.

  Pushing herself off the bed, she darted toward the door and, before he could get to it, fell against it. “Those jewels are irreplaceable. They’re heirlooms!”

  He purposefully towered closer, bumping her with his body. “I think we have a problem, luv.”

  “That we most certainly do.” Jumping toward him, she grabbed at one of the pistols sticking out from his leather belt.

  He seized her wrist, rigidly keeping her from touching his pistol. “Now that I know where your allegiance lies—this shite ends and it ends now. Before you end up shooting us both.”

  Tossing the velvet bundle back toward the bed where it landed with a soft thud on the mattress, he yanked out both pistols from the leather belts slung around his waist and set them on the floor. He stepped over them and toward her.

  “It appears you don’t trust me and I don’t trust you. Which means—” Holding her gaze, he unclasped both leather straps from around his waist and held them up. “I’m tying you up. I’ll be back to untie you after I deliver the jewels, but if you scream or throw any punches, I
’ll make sure the belts never come off. You got that?”

  She gasped. “You intend to tie me up?”

  “You’ve earned it.” He grabbed her hands, pressing her hard into the door with the weight of his muscled body.

  Her eyes widened in disbelief. “How dare you— Cease this!” Though she frantically tried and tried to jerk against him, she couldn’t budge against that broad frame, which only pinned her harder against the door.

  The sound of quick, wrapping sweeps of leather against her wrists that were already tightly pressed and bound together made her realize she would not be able to pry herself out of this mess. Such was the lot of a woman for trusting a thief.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The devil he whisked his tail to punish every nation. To Scotland he gave the itch and to Ireland Emancipation.

  —The Truth Teller, a New York Newspaper for Gentlemen

  MATTHEW HATED TO do it. He really did, but the woman had given him little choice and he didn’t have time to deal with Bernadette’s sentimental fawning over an arsehole, especially considering that he had well over six miles to walk back to Limmer’s.

  When he finished tightening the leather belts around her feet, ensuring they didn’t pinch her skin, he flopped her back against the mattress he’d carried her over to. She tried to kick out another angry foot, but was too tightly bound.

  “This is not only for your own safety, but apparently my own.”

  Her hands sagged against the leather belt as she plopped them against the mattress. Her black hair had long since unraveled from its chignon, those cheeks flushed, with the redness stretching down her throat. Her dark eyes held his for a long moment, waging their never-ending battle for power.

  She lifted her head off the bed and squinted. “If you walk out that door without untying me, I will ensure you cease to breathe, you misbegotten prick.”