Delilah Marvelle - Forever a Lady

Georgia, who had grown unusually quiet, and perhaps a little too eager to follow Bernadette’s orders, yanked the rim of her riding hat as far down as it would go, until all of her strawberry-red hair and nose disappeared. She then frantically gathered the white trailing veil of her riding habit, pulling it up and over her face, burying herself farther in it.

Bernadette veered her own horse closer. What was she doing? Preparing for an ambush? “The veil never goes over your face. ’Tis meant for decorative purposes only.”

“Not today it isn’t.” Georgia lowered her voice. “I know those two. They’re from New York. And of all things, they’re from my part of town.”

“Are they?” Heavens, he was a landlocked pirate. Even good old Captain Lafitte from New Orleans wouldn’t have been able to hold up his fists against a New York Five Pointer. Why did that intrigue her? It would seem her taste in men was fading quickly into the pits of all things unknown. “Might I ask who the man with the patch is? He looks rough enough to be fun.”

Georgia glanced at her through her drawn hat and veil. “He’s the last person you want to ever involve yourself with. He’s a thief.”

Bernadette tossed out a laugh, pleased to know she was being reprimanded. “All men are. Now, quiet. Here they come.” As she eased her horse to a mere walk, to demonstrate she was not in any way ruffled, Georgia altogether brought her horse to full trot and passed.

Slowing his horse with the tug of a wrist on the reins, the man’s dark brows came together, that patch shifting against his cheekbone as he glanced toward Georgia, who rudely barreled past, veil flying.

He paused and eyed Bernadette, as if expecting her to barrel by next. When she didn’t—for she wasn’t about to be that rude—he curtly inclined his head in greeting. The stiff set of those broad shoulders hinted that he didn’t expect her to acknowledge him at all.

That alone deserved acknowledgment.

Bernadette politely inclined her head toward him, her pulse annoyingly trotting along with the feet of her horse.

A low whistle escaped his teeth. “Apparently, I’ve been living in the wrong city all my life.” That husky, mellow American baritone astonished her enough to stare. As he rode past, he coolly held her gaze and drawled, “Ladies.”

And onward he rode, without a backward glance.

Though he said “Ladies” as if also to include Georgia, who had just passed, Bernadette knew those words, that tone and mock farewell had all been directed at her. It was as if he were pointing out that she needn’t worry. That he wasn’t interested in anything she had to offer, even though his patched great coat and worn leather boots were worth far less than half a silk stocking.

Bernadette tightened her hold on the reins until it stung. Churlish though it was, it made her want the man. He didn’t even try to flirt.

Unless he didn’t find her attractive. Oh, gad.

She glanced after him over her shoulder. He casually rode on with his devil friend as if their paths had never crossed.

Bernadette paused, her gaze sweeping back to Georgia, noticing the redhead was well beyond the path. Kicking her boot into the side of her horse, Bernadette pushed into a gallop. Upon reaching Georgia, she called out, “Miss Tormey.”

Georgia eased her horse and flopped her veil back and away from her flushed face. Readjusting her hat, she choked out, “That was disgusting. I felt like I was being groped by my own brother.”

Bernadette aligned her horse beside hers and slowly grinned. “Speak for yourself. I rather enjoyed that.” There was something deliciously provocative about a man who knew how to control himself around a woman.

They rode on in unified silence, Bernadette’s grin fading.

Perhaps it was kismet that their paths had crossed. After all, what were the chances that her understudy knew this landlocked pirate and that he was right here in London all the way from New York? Though he wasn’t the sort of man she usually associated with, something about him made her want to— “Might I ask a question?”

Georgia glanced toward her. “Of course.”

“The man with the patch. Who is he to you? And is he as gruff as he appears?”

Georgia’s jade-green eyes widened beneath the rim of her riding hat. “You aren’t actually smitten, are you? And with but a glance?”

Bernadette set her chin, ready to defend herself. “And what if I am? I spent twelve years married to a man forty-three years my senior who, whilst everything kind, was anything but attractive. It was like bedding my grandfather in the name of England. He couldn’t even—” She blinked rapidly, realizing she was digressing, and poor William didn’t deserve it or that. It wasn’t his fault he had been old and had money her father had wanted at the price of her youth. “If I haven’t earned a right to a man of my choice by now, Miss Tormey, I might as well be dead.” And she meant it.

Georgia sighed. “He’s had a rough life, and whilst I chastise him all the time, no, he isn’t as gruff as he appears. I’m not about to go into detail about who he is to me out of respect for Robinson, but he is more or less family. He lost sight in his one eye after a fight on the street and then lost his da to apoplexy a few years later. And mind you, that was after he’d already lost everything. And I do mean everything. He lost his fiancée because he had no money, lost his home and the business he was set to inherit. Everything.”

Bernadette’s chest unexpectedly tightened. That was where that mocking indifference came from. When a man lost everything, it was either mock or die. She understood that motto all too well. She herself was guilty of it.

She glanced back toward the direction of where the Pirate King still rode on the path and paused. He and his friend had already fully turned their horses around and were leisurely making their way back toward them.

Her heart pounded and her cheeks flushed as the Pirate King leaned forward in his saddle to intently observe her.

Was he watching her?

“Bernadette?” a man called out from somewhere before her on the path. “Is that you?”

Startled that a man was using her birth name, Bernadette snapped her head and gaze past Georgia over to a lone gentleman riding toward them at a half-gallop.

His top hat was angled forward in a most unbecoming fashion. He slowed, dashing amber eyes intently holding her gaze in astonishment. “By God. I didn’t realize you were in Town.”

Dread seized her. It was Lord Dunmore. Her former neighbor. A man who had gallantly come to her rescue many, many times when she’d been maliciously deluged by suitors after inheriting her husband’s heart-stopping million-pound estate.

For weeks, Dunmore had called on her every afternoon, save Sunday, to ask if she needed to be escorted anywhere. He was all things dashing and everything her decrepit old husband had never been.

Then one afternoon, whilst he was discussing something with her—she forgot exactly what—out of stupid, stupid infatuation, she grabbed the man by the lapels of his coat and kissed him. She wanted to know what it would be like to kiss a man her own age, after enduring twelve years of old William’s sloppy and slurpy kisses. She didn’t think, not for a single moment, that Dunmore would let it go beyond that one kiss.

Only...he’d astounded her by not only tonguing the breath out of her, but then shoving her against the wall and jerking up her skirts. In a lust-ridden blur she just couldn’t say no to, she let him pound her into the wall. It was the first climax she’d ever had at the hands of a man and it earned him a Bernadette-approved medal.

From there on out, it turned into a flurry of unstoppable physicality that ended her respectable name. And she didn’t care. She was finally living life and had already ended traditional mourning for William. What more did society want?