Delilah Marvelle - Forever a Lady

Barely weeks into their torrid affair, everything grew complicated. Dunmore kept saying “I love you” and wanted her to say it, too. She couldn’t. Though she’d grown to admire him, her attachment to him was, for the most part, purely physical. She felt very guilty about it, until she caught the bastard riffling through her financial ledgers early one morning, when he thought she was asleep.

In complete disbelief, she had quietly retreated without him knowing it and had him investigated before deciding on what to do. What she discovered had made her heave. After scolding herself for being so stupid, she ended their association with a polite letter—for she hated confrontations as they were pointless—and dashed herself and all of her money over to New Orleans on a hunt for some American liberation. She promised herself from there on out that she would no longer form any attachments. She could not trust them.

“Bernadette.” He said her name as if he’d break.

She tried to keep her voice steady. “Dunmore.”

Still holding her gaze, he said in an equally civil tone, “Why did you leave? That letter never explained anything.”

She set her chin. “I ask that you please refrain, given that we are in public.”

“The public be damned, Bernadette,” he bit out. “This has been weighing on me for well over a year and I haven’t been able to bloody move on because of it and you. What the hell did I do? Can you at least answer me that? What?”

How dare he pretend like he cared and that she was the villain in this? “Aside from you paging through my financial ledgers?”

He stared. “What do you mean? I never—”

“I know what I saw, Dunmore. I’m not interested in listening to lies.”

Glancing over at Georgia, who was awkwardly observing them, Dunmore drew his horse closer and said in a ragged tone, “Whatever you saw, my intentions were that of a gentleman.”

She stared him down. “A gentleman. Ah. A gentleman who hid debts from me. Rather extensive ones, actually.”

His features tightened. “I didn’t want you thinking that I was after your money.”

“How very considerate of a man who also sired two children with a sixteen-year-old servant girl whom you no doubt still frisk every Saturday evening.”

His eyes widened. “Who the devil told you?”

“I had you investigated.”

His face flushed. “You had me investigated?”

“It was obvious the truth wasn’t going to come out of your mouth.”

Losing all polite measure, he boomed, “How dare you bloody investigate me!”

“How dare you lie to me and how dare you impose upon a young girl who wouldn’t know right from wrong? I only need one reason to toss a man. You gave me five.”

His chest rose and fell more and more steadily. “Even if I had done everything right, you would have still found a way to give me the toss. Because your one true wish in this, Bernadette, was never to love me. Isn’t that true? Even though you licked and swallowed my seed in unending pleasure.”

Her throat tightened in disbelief. “This conversation is over. I suggest you, your lies and your lack of funds leave.” She quickly steered her horse to move past.

His tone hardened to repulsive. “Don’t you bloody turn away from me.” He rounded her horse and came onto her side with his stallion, the quick thud of hooves kicking up dirt from the path.

Her eyes widened as a riding crop snapped toward her face. She jerked back in her saddle as a lash of leather fire seared her jaw. A gasp escaped her lips as she staggered in an effort to remain upright. Dunmore had never once raised his voice to her let alone—

“Lady Burton!” With the whip of reins, Georgia veered her horse across the path, back toward them.

The thundering of hooves neared as another quick crop swung at her, stinging her shoulder. Bernadette grabbed the reins and pushed her horse forward to dodge another blow as the tip of the crop seared her arm again and again, stinging straight through the material of her gown. “Cease, you—”

She wincingly popped up a hand when another horse veered in.

A blurring male face and a long muscled arm seized Dunmore’s uplifted wrist from behind. With the quick hook of another muscled arm that jumped around Dunmore’s throat, Dunmore was yanked back until he was teetering half off the saddle.

Her heart pounded in between heaving breaths.

The Pirate King adjusted, and jerked Dunmore’s throat from behind into a vicious choke hold that sent Dunmore’s top hat tumbling aside and his pocket watch swinging spastically out of his vest. Their horses battled for position against each other as the Pirate King ruthlessly held Dunmore between both saddles.

Digging his chin into the side of Dunmore’s mussed head from behind, the Pirate King tightened a bulk-muscled arm around that throat and seethed out between clenched teeth, “Is this how you Brits treat your women? Is it?”

Wide-eyed, Dunmore tried jerking free, gloved hands chaotically digging. He tried swinging the crop in his hand, but couldn’t extend it. “Unhand me,” Dunmore gagged, still in a choke hold. “I’m a peer of the...realm!”

“Whilst I’m king of your goddamn realm and throat right now.” His voice hardened ruthlessly. “And it’s time you fecking bow before royalty.” Yanking the crop from Dunmore’s hand, he viciously swung Dunmore right off the horse. Dunmore flew, head down, with a squelched thud that penetrated the ground.

By God, the man and all of that muscle was worthy of a swoon and more.

With a snap of the crop he’d confiscated, he hit the flank of Dunmore’s horse, sending the horse darting, neighing and galloping down the path with a plume of dust. Leaning over the side of his saddle, he down-whipped the crop at Dunmore’s head, eliciting a thwack. “Don’t ever go near this woman again or you’re dead. Dead. Because I’ll gladly hang knowing the world has one less arsehole in it. You tell the watch that when you send them after me. Now if I were you, Brit, I’d catch up to your horse before I send you bleeding down Salt River.”

Lord Dunmore scrambled up, his chest heaving. He glanced toward Bernadette.

The Pirate King yanked out a pistol from the leather belt at his waist and pointed it down at Dunmore’s head. “How fast can you run? Show me. Before I go click.”

Dunmore turned and sprinted, his morning coat flapping and his leather boots thudding down the path until he and his crop were gone.

Silence drifted across the surrounding park and the path, which fortunately was clear of other riders and witnesses. The Pirate King, his devil friend and Georgia all turned their eyes and their horses toward her.

Bernadette swallowed, her jaw still pulsing from the stinging heat of Dunmore’s crop. It was humiliating. Not only to have been cropped in front of them but to have her entire history with Dunmore laid out like a sermon on Sunday.

The Pirate King shoved his pistol back into his leather belt and slowly brought his horse beside hers, his features tightening. He leaned in, the smell of leather, metal and gunpowder lacing the air. “It left a mark.”

Lovely. As if her age didn’t mark her up enough.

He searched her face, his brows coming together against that leather patch. “Are you all right, miss?”

Miss? Did he really think she was that young? Even with those annoying wispy grays peering out at her temples? Bless him. “Yes, I am. Thank you.”

He half nodded and pulled away his horse, still intently holding her gaze with that coal-black eye. “If you have any more problems with that bastard, I’m staying over at Limmer’s. Come find me and I’ll take care of it. My only regret is that I didn’t interfere sooner. And for that, I owe you.”