Delilah Marvelle - Forever a Lady

The horse whinnied as it came to a stop beside them. “I heard that,” Royce snapped from above, his rugged face shadowed. “Why don’t you also tell these girls how I always look the other way when you’re doing something illegal?”

Matthew glared up at him. “Why don’t you offer up your horse so I can take them back?”

Royce wagged gloved hands and commanded, “I’ve had a long night that included almost getting my throat slit. Why the hell do you think I’m late? Hand them up. I’ll return them myself.”

Their arms tightened around Matthew and sobs escaped them.

Matthew stepped back, adjusting his hold on them. “You know, Royce, I don’t know if you care enough to even notice, but these girls have been through enough and don’t need to hear about throat slitting. So tone down that voice and get off the horse. I’m taking them back. All right?”

Royce hesitated, then blew out a breath. With the swing of a long, booted leg, he jumped down and off the horse with a thud. Digging into his pocket, he held out a five-dollar bank note. “Take it to pay your bills,” he grudgingly offered. “I heard you up and stole another shipment of pistols. Just know the next time you do something like that on my watch, I’ll ensure you and your Forty Thieves end up in Sing Sing Prison. And believe me, men don’t sing sing there.”

The bastard was fortunate Matthew was holding two girls. “I don’t need your money. Give it to the orphanage. They need locks on their goddamn doors.”

“You won’t take money from me and yet you have no qualms stealing.” Royce shook his head from side to side, lowering the money he held. “Your pride is going to hang you one of these days.”

“Yes, well, it hasn’t yet.”

CHAPTER TWO

All that you hear, believe not.

—The Truth Teller, a New York Newspaper for Gentlemen

July 22, 1830

Manhattan Square, late evening

“BRING HER OUT!” a man yelled in a riled American tone that drifted from beneath the floorboards of her music room. “Bring that woman out before I damn well dig her out!”

Bernadette Marie let out an exasperated groan and dashed her hands against the ivory keys of the piano she’d been playing. She really needed to lay out more rules for these American men. Not even the hour was sacred anymore.

Heaving out a breath, she gathered her full skirts from around her slippered feet, abandoning her Clementi piano, and hurried out of the candlelit music room. Rounding a corner, past countless gilded paintings and marble sculptures, she veered toward and down the sweeping set of stairs that led to the dimly lit entrance hall below.

She paused midway down.

Hook-nosed, beady-eyed, old Mr. Astor glanced up at her from the entrance hall. “Ah!” He tugged on his evening coat and strode around the sputtering butler. “There she is.”

Mr. Astor was not the man she had expected to see, given the late hour, but the endearing, quirky huff of a man had long earned her trust. He was one of the few to have welcomed her into the upper American circle, which had been most hesitant about accepting her due to the fact that she was British. He had also become the ever-guiding father she’d never had. Of sorts.

She hurried down the remaining stairs. “Mr. Astor.” She alighted to a halt on the bottom stair and smiled. “What a pleasant surprise. Emerson, you may go.”

Her butler, whom she had dragged all the way over from London—much to the poor man’s dismay—hesitated as if wishing to point out that the hour was anything but respectable.

Mr. Astor snapped out his hat to the man. “Take it and go, you Philadelphia lawyer. I’m not here to kick up her skirts.”

Bernadette cringed. The mannerisms of New Yorkers, even ones as privileged as Mr. Astor, was something she hadn’t quite gotten used to. She had watched in unending astonishment all but two weeks ago as, after a meal, the man had wiped his greased hands on a woman’s dress at a dinner party. Prankster that he was, he thought it was funny. And it was, in a son-of-a-butcher sort of way. But the woman whose gown was ruined didn’t care for his humor at all, even though he had offered to buy her four new gowns.

Not that Bernadette was complaining about the company she was keeping these days. No, no, no. He and all of New York were refreshingly, gaspingly glorious in comparison to the boring, overly orchestrated life she’d left behind. “Emerson, go. You know full well Mr. Astor deserves late entry.”

Emerson sniffed, grudgingly took the hat and disappeared into the adjoining room, silently announcing that the British were by far the superior race.

If only it were true.

Mr. Astor swung toward her, patting frizzy white hair back into place with a gloved hand. Dark eyes glinted with unspoken mischief. “I’m here to collect on a debt, Lady Burton.”

Bernadette stiffened at being addressed by a name she had never hoped to hear again. ’Twas a name only a select few in New York knew of, given she now publicly went by the name of Mrs. Shelton. And coming from Mr. Astor, it was especially troubling, be he jesting or not. “Is there a reason you are addressing me as such?”

He clasped his gloved hands together, bringing them smugly against his gray silk embroidered vest. “I’m a man of business first, dear. That is how this son of a German butcher came to trade and buy every last fur from New Orleans to Canada, making me the wealthiest man in this here United States of our Americas. Because when an opportunity presents itself, a man has to set aside being nice for a small while and lunge on said opportunity. So I suggest you do the favor I’m about to ask, Your Highness.”

She rolled her eyes, sensing he knew she wasn’t about to cooperate. Their viewpoints were never the same despite their bond. “I am not the queen. Please do not address me as such.”

“Ah, but you’re related to the woman.”

“My husband was related to the woman. Not I.”

“Are you telling me I can’t depend on you for anything? What sort of friend are you? Is this how you British get on?”

Drat him. She knew it would come to this. New York, after all, hadn’t really been her original destination when she had left London with a deranged twinkle in her eye. She had actually planned on staying permanently in New Orleans to better explore the history of privateering—and its men—until she was robbed right down to her petticoats during a less-than-reputable street masking ball. She had wanted to know what it would be like to frolic with the locals and found they didn’t frolic fair at all.

If it weren’t for Mr. Astor and his grandson, who at the time were all but strangers when they had heroically come to her assistance that night on the street, she might have been robbed of a lot more than just her reticule and gown. After that night, they had all become not only good friends, but old Mr. Astor had also brilliantly proposed she abandon New Orleans and accompany him and his grandson back to New York City under an alias to stave off all the newspapers who sought to exploit her after what had become known as “The Petticoat Incident.”

It was good to be plain old Mrs. Shelton, living in New York City, entertaining good-looking men whenever she had a fancy for it, as opposed to being Lady Burton gone wild, who had made United States gossip history by being included in every American newspaper from New Orleans to Nantucket. She had no doubt whatsoever that London had also long heard of it by now. Right along with her father. Gad.

She drew in a ragged breath and let it out. “I am forever indebted to you and your grandson, Mr. Astor. You know that.”

“Then do as I say, will you? Because my grandson is actually the one who stands to benefit from this. We are talking about squeezing ourselves into British aristocracy and making those prissy, tea-sipping bastards acknowledge that money is what makes power. Not a name smeared with drips of blood.”