Forever a Lady

by Delilah Marvelle

  Dunmore shifted his jaw. He half nodded, shifted sideways and, still holding Matthew’s gaze, lifted his linen shirt. He winced against the peeling, but clearly determined to offer proof, his gaze never left Matthew’s.

  Matthew’s eyes widened at seeing black-crusted blood, puss and freshly broken scabs welting with new blood streaking the flesh of Dunmore’s back. Jesus. He’d heard of what went on in Sing Sing from others back in those now far gone days of the Five Points, but he didn’t realize the street tales of deliberate torture by the guards were true.

  He stared, a part of him needing to know what the hell really went on behind these walls. “How many days of lashings have you endured since being incarcerated?”

  Dunmore lowered his shirt and stared at his hands, but offered nothing else.

  “I know you’re not allowed to speak, but show me fingers. How many days of lashings have you endured thus far? I want to know.”

  Dunmore hesitated. He slowly held up ten fingers, then closed them and held up ten more fingers, and then closed them and held up seven more.

  Matthew drew in a ragged breath. The man had been lashed twenty-seven times since coming into prison. That, out of sixty-two already served days, with six more months to go.

  Shite. Yes, the bastard deserved punishment. But this? This wasn’t punishment. This was torture. The man’s clothes were sticking to his goddamn wounds, which were bleeding into the linen he slept on. What was he going to tell Bernadette when he wrote to her about the visit? That he had said and done nothing whilst the man bled? She’d never forgive him. Hell, he’d never forgive himself. He was more than this.

  Matthew rose to his booted feet and called out, “Warden Wiltse? Might you come in?”

  The warden’s hefty frame appeared in the doorway and stooped to enter. The older man gripped the leather cat-o’-nine-tails and whipped the stone wall with it, a resounding crack echoing within the small, narrow room. “Is there a problem, Dunmore? Are you not answering this gent’s questions with the nod and the shake I told you to?”

  Dunmore closed his eyes, digging his swollen fingers into his head but said nothing.

  “He’s answering my questions. That isn’t the problem.” Matthew strode toward the warden and gestured toward Dunmore. “Why the devil is he being lashed like this? And why aren’t his wounds being tended to?”

  The warden widened his stance, those gray eyes as flat as his expression. “Orders.”

  “Orders? From who?” Matthew demanded. “The state?”

  “Every prisoner has a set punishment they serve, Mr. Milton. That is why they call it a prison.”

  Matthew shifted toward him. “So you mean to tell me every prisoner is being whipped daily like this? And then forced to bleed into their clothes like this?”

  The warden eyed him. “We don’t whip them daily. Only once or twice a week.”

  “Only? And how long are these men being lashed for?”

  “I hire men who can’t count for a reason.”

  Matthew’s eyes widened. “What? And you instate this sort of punishment on every last man here?”

  “We have to.”

  “Including those men who might have only stolen bread to feed their goddamn family?”

  “Criminals are criminals, Mr. Milton. This is how we keep everyone and everything in order. This is how we ensure there is no sense of self. They’re here because they all had too much sense of self.”

  Dearest God. This could have been his life, seeing as he had done so much stealing himself. And knowing it punched him straight to the soul. For he considered himself a good man. “I see. So Dunmore and the rest of these men aren’t being punished for the crimes they committed but because they have a sense of self that needs to be obliterated. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  The warden raveled the ends of the tasseled cat around his calloused hand. “I’m only here to oversee these men and these walls. If you have a problem with the way things are being done, Mr. Milton, I suggest you take it to the state.”

  Matthew leaned toward the older gent and bit out, “I’ll do better than that, Warden. I’ll print this and let the public take it to the state. Because punishment is one thing. Torture is quite another.”

  “I’d like to see what becomes of that. If you must know, no prisoner to date has been allowed a single visit from the outside world. Him being nobility gives him privileges all the other prisoners here don’t have.”

  Matthew whipped a finger toward Dunmore. “You call that receiving privileges? Dearest God, I would hate to see what all the other men look like.”

  Warden Wiltse grunted. “You’ve got five minutes. I suggest you make use of it. Because no one is going to be seeing him again until he’s done with solitary confinement in six months. Orders.” With that, he stooped through the door and stepped outside again.

  Matthew swung back toward Dunmore, his pulse thundering. Christ. Despite this being the same man who had cropped his Bernadette in the face, had almost seen her raped and who had hired no-gooders to brutally beat Ronan before dumping him over on Kill Hill, this reciprocated form of brutality only made them all animals. Even worse, knowing that hundreds of other men who had done far, far less than Lord Arsehole here were suffering equally alongside him was unspeakable. It was no better than the injustice on the streets of the Five Points. However, Matthew’s new path in life would ensure everybody knew of this particular injustice.

  Matthew quickly strode back to him. “I want you to listen to me, Dunmore.”

  Dunmore stared up at him, his features tight.

  “You deserve to rot for all the shite you pulled, but in the name of Bernadette, who I know would agree with me, if you truly are repentant, you deserve a second chance. Which is why I’m going to personally ensure we get your back tended to, and that these lashings cease.”

  Dunmore blinked rapidly and glanced toward the open door. Edging toward Matthew, he rasped low enough so the warden wouldn’t hear, “I never sought to have her raped or that boy hurt. That was not what I agreed to when I paid those men. I stated that repeatedly to the court and it is as true as the blood sticking to my shirt. You tell her that.” Leaning back against the unevenly stuffed mattress, Dunmore winced. He carefully grasped the leather-bound bible beside him and dragged it onto his lap. A trembling hand drifted to the page of Psalms he was reading.

  Matthew drew in a calming breath before letting it out. It would seem this lost soul was trying to find peace in a world that held none. “I’m not saying this makes us friends, Dunmore, but consider Sing Sing front-page news. My newspaper debuts in fourteen days and this is worth a debut. People have a right to know what the hell is going on behind these state walls. We, the people, pay taxes to protect the rights of our people. We don’t pay taxes to whip the skin off them.”

  Dunmore glanced up and slowly rose, closing the bible. Though pain twisted his face into pausing, Dunmore reached out and tapped the tip of his finger against the bible, then Matthew’s forehead and then Matthew’s chest before whispering, “My father once said, rare do these three ever come together. And that is why you are free and I am not.”

  Nineteen days later

  ALL OF NEW YORK CITY WAS in an uproar. Not that it ever took much to rile New York, since as a whole, it was overly opinionated, but as all uproars went, there was always at least one definitive source behind it. And Matthew was damn well proud to say that this time The Truth Teller was that source.

  Due to the ramping escalation of blistering opinions, The Truth Teller had sold out every last printed copy in all but five days, which for a weekly newspaper that was in its debut and first printing, was rather impressive.

  No one truly cared about the prisoners, per se, or the fact that they were dying, but the good people of New York City did care about how much it was costing the state every year to implement ineffective punishment: a grand total of $53,571 and a whole penny. People wanted to know what the hell was going on and took to protesting
all across the city with placards bearing the dollar amount the state was paying.

  As a result, Sing Sing Prison’s daily routines quickly came under such close scrutiny by enough state officials Matthew was well assured that the remaining months Dunmore had left in prison would be, at least, tolerable. It was still a prison, after all.

  Of course, Sing Sing wasn’t the only thing to come under close scrutiny. The mayor, who had never once bothered to respond to any of Matthew’s eighteen dozen letters, which he’d written throughout the years whilst in Five Points, had sent Matthew his very first correspondence. It was unprecedented.

  And it read:

  Dear Mr. Milton,

  I realize the purpose of a newspaper is to convey news, but do try to remember that you have a responsibility to ensure that all of the state representatives are not assassinated in the process. I ask that you call upon me and the entire council at once so that we may all privately discuss the particulars in how to best avoid any and all riots that may ensue in what I still consider to be a respectable city, despite its ineffective spending of funds.

  Sincerely,

  Lord Mayor

  Matthew refolded the letter and with the flick of his wrist, tossed it onto his desk with a well-satisfied smirk. His father had once told him that a good paper could be more effective in knocking people over than the plague. Bless the man for being right. And if he continued to sell papers the way he had with the first printing, not only would his ten-thousand-dollar debt to Bernadette be paid in full, but the woman would be his in...oh, eight more months or less. Not bad for a man with only one seeing eye to guide him through life. Not bad at all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Few have the patience of God, and those that miraculously do harbor that patience, find it does not last very long, given that they themselves are not God.

  —The Truth Teller, a New York Newspaper for Gentlemen

  Six months later

  Manhattan Square, early afternoon

  “DAMN YOU, MATTHEW,” Bernadette muttered, glancing about her empty parlor. “Damn you, damn you, damn you.” She paused and then added another, “Damn you. I cancelled my trip to Port Royal for this?”

  They were the only words she had left.

  To date, barely six months after being in weekly print, The Truth Teller had turned into the bestselling newspaper in all of New York City, selling out from hands and stands and the print shop itself barely hours after each paper was freshly printed and dried every Saturday. It wasn’t all that surprising. After all, its controversial debut covering Sing Sing Prison ensured it was now being read by far, far more than just the Irish. Everyone wanted to read it, if only to get their hands on the Five Points page alone, which printed real-life stories about the sixth ward, all written by Matthew himself. It read like a dagger-sweeping adventure out of a book. Only...better.

  Apparently, the mayor, who at first had been explosively wary, had soon bowed into giving the newspaper accolades along with some sort of prestigious award Bernadette had never even heard of. In fact, the mayor had grown such an adoring fondness for Matthew that, in no time, the two had become the best of friends. According to New York gossip, Matthew and the Lord Mayor met every Friday evening over cigars and brandy.

  She hadn’t realized Matthew smoked. But then again, there were a lot of things she’d never realized about the man who had also legally acquired guardianship of a boy by the name of Ronan Sullivan, whom he’d pulled out of the Five Points. It was as endearing as it was frustrating not to have been part of it.

  Though she had tried to glimpse Matthew and his young ward over at a high-society charity event that had been written up in all the papers, she found herself physically escorted out of the event by Matthew’s own entourage. The three men had politely explained to her that Mr. Milton did not wish to be seen by her until after he owned the newspaper. Something Matthew had repeatedly asked her to respect throughout their months of written correspondence.

  It was annoying that he was keeping her to that promise. Worse yet, women, both young and old and every age in between, all across Broadway and well beyond every well-to-do square, dithered on and on about Mr. Matthew Joseph Milton as if he were some newly discovered Egyptian ruins in need of excavation.

  Yes, well, she had found him first.

  Only, the man seemed to have forgotten that.

  Through it all, throughout all eight torturous and utterly ridiculous months of bowing to all of his wishes, she still hadn’t seen him. Not. Once. He had refused every visit she’d made at the print shop. He’d also refused every visit she’d made to his new Italian row house just off Broadway.

  Though they’d corresponded through lengthy weekly letters throughout these eight months, his letters were always one-sided and he answered only the questions that he wanted to. In fact, she knew more about his ward than Matthew himself.

  Ronan loved playing whist, especially if there was money involved. He immensely enjoyed eating cross buns dipped in wine, preferred playing the violin as opposed to reading and was astoundingly proficient with mathematics. The biggest problem Matthew had with the boy was Ronan’s fondness for...as Matthew put it...the lifting of skirts. Something Matthew tried to choke out of Ronan at every turn by keeping the boy as respectably busy as possible.

  After the first few months of feeling as if she would die from the anguish of not meeting this Ronan or seeing Matthew, she had lost all patience and scribed the following letter:

  My dearest Matthew,

  It has been far too long. Though I consider myself to be capable of patience, I desperately need assurance in this and us. I would like to call upon you, if even for the briefest of moments. Five glorious minutes in your presence is all I ask. Although, I will even settle for three. I humbly leave that for you to decide.

  Yours,

  Bernadette Marie

  In response, Matthew wrote the following letter:

  Patience.

  Ever yours,

  Matthew

  Nothing else had been written on the page. Nothing at all. Which signaled rather blatantly that he had denied her request. So she swallowed her pride as a woman and gave him that patience by continuing to write and hoped he deserved it.

  When he’d astounded her by paying off his entire debt of ten thousand all but a week ago to her bookkeeper—which meant he was making that and more—she thought it would finally bring the man to her door. Only, it didn’t. She hadn’t received a single correspondence from him. Not even a note saying thank you for the loan.

  She’d broken four strings on her poor Clementi piano because of it.

  Gritting her teeth, Bernadette rolled up the latest printing of The Truth Teller and started thwacking her writing desk with it, hoping to God that Matthew could feel his newspaper being mangled.

  The butler hurried into the parlor and jerked to a halt.

  Bernadette paused and awkwardly set aside the newspaper on her writing desk, patting it into place as it unrolled itself.

  Emerson held up a small red velvet box with a dainty white satin bow and cleared his throat. “I hope this brings a measure of cheer, my lady. The servant who delivered it requested you open it at once. It wasn’t formally announced as to who it was from, but it has a card.”

  Her heart pounded as she hurried toward him. Could it be from Matthew? It had to be. She would have grabbed that box there and then, but her stupid, stupid hands started to quake and she knew she would only have dropped it and broken whatever was inside. “Can you read the card for me? Please. Whilst I attempt to remain calm.”

  “It would be my pleasure.” Emerson brought the box to his chest and tilted his head to one side, causing his graying hair to shift over his forehead. Skimming his hand around the side of the bow, he found a small, ivory card tucked beneath.

  Oh, for heaven’s sake. Breaking it might have been better than this waiting. “Shall I take it?”

  “I have it.” Slipping it out, Emerson held it farther
away from his aging eyes and, after a squint, read in a dreary boarding-school tone, “To the ravishing Lady Burton who held the patience of God. Compliments of Mr. Milton.”

  Her breath caught. At long last. “Does it really say ravishing? Or did you add that knowing I have been waiting to hear from him?”

  Emerson sniffed, clearly not amused. “I will set this out on the table with all of your other correspondences. As you always have me do.” He turned and made his way back out of the parlor.

  Heart pounding, she gathered her skirts and hurried after him, feeling as if the box were Matthew himself. “Emerson, please. I was being silly. Give it here.”

  Emerson turned back, dutifully holding out the red velvet box. “Of course.”

  Bernadette hesitated. Even though the man now held the box out, for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to take it, let alone open it. A part of her dreaded that this was goodbye and not the hello she had been achingly waiting for. She pressed her hands against her cheeks, digging her fingers into them, unable to open it.

  Waiting with that box still held out, Emerson stared.

  Knowing she ought to take it, she let out a calming breath and retrieved the surprisingly light, small box from his hands.

  She paused, admiring the beautiful white satin bow tied perfectly and beautifully around the red velvet. It was so pretty. It appeared a lot of thought had gone into it. Which had to be a good sign.

  She brought it up to her ear and gently shook it, wondering what was inside. Something shifted within, but it didn’t sound like jewelry. She shook it again. It didn’t sound like much of anything.