Delilah Marvelle - Forever a Lady

Turning, he grabbed up his wool great coat from the chair stacked with his father’s old newspapers.

He paused, leaned down and touched a heavy hand to those papers. “Morning, Da,” he whispered.

He drew in a ragged breath and let it out, fighting the sting in his eyes he could never get past, knowing this was all that remained of his father. This. An old stack of papers that personified his father’s life. Though at least that life had amounted to something.

Matthew patted that stack one last time.

Draping on his great coat and buttoning it into place, he swung away, opened the door leading out of his tenement and slammed it behind himself. After bolting the door, he trudged down the narrow stairwell and out into the skin-biting, snow-ridden streets of Mulberry.

Matthew paused, glimpsing his negro friend heading toward him. Apparently, knuckles were about to get bloody. Smock only ever called on his tenement when there was a problem.

Matthew briskly made his way through the snow that unevenly crusted the pavement, his worn leather boots crunching against the ice layering it. The bright glint of the sun did nothing to warm the frigid air that peered over slanted rooftops. He squinted to block out the glare in his eye and stalked toward his friend. “Don’t tell me one of our own is dead.”

Smock veered toward him, large boots also crunching against the snow. He puffed out dark cheeks before entirely deflating them. “Worse.”

“Worse?” Matthew jerked to a halt, scanning that unshaven, sweat-beaded black face. It was winter. Why was he sweating? “Have you been running? What the hell is going on?”

Smock lingered, his expression wary. He scrubbed his thick, wiry hair. “Coleman called a meetin’ an’ put Kerner in command.”

Matthew’s eyes widened. “What? Why? He can’t do that.”

“He already done did.”

“But I own half the group!”

Smock shrugged. “He’s leavin’ an’ yer goin’ with him. To London, says he. What? Dat not true?”

“London? I’d rather swallow my own shite than go to—” He paused, thinking of his father’s widow, Georgia. Last time he’d seen or heard from his “stepmother,” was all but seven months ago, when the woman had ditched the Five Points in the hopes of creating a new life for herself in the name of some Brit. He only hoped to God her life hadn’t sunken into mud. “Is this about Georgia? Shouldn’t she be in London about now? Is that not working out?”

Smock threw up both hands. “Don’t know. Don’t care. All I know is—” He tapped a long finger to his temple. “Coleman’s not himself.”

“Where is he?”

“Don’t know.”

Bloody hell.

* * *

UNLATCHING THE DOOR COLEMAN never locked, Matthew stepped inside. The acrid smell of leather and metal wafted through the air. Matthew scanned the vast, high-ceilinged storage room that Coleman leased from an iron monger. Bags of sand nailed against dented, dingy walls lined one side and a straw mattress laid on crates with a dilapidated leather trunk full of clothes lined the other. Like him, Coleman had always been a man of little means, but sometimes, he sensed Coleman purposefully tortured himself into living like this a bit too much.

Matthew wrinkled his nose and muttered aloud, “Don’t you ever air this place out, man?” Kicking aside wooden crates that cluttered the dirty planks of the floor, he jogged across the echoing expanse of the room, holding his pistols against his leather belts to keep them from jumping out.

Unlatching the back door, he shoved it open. Afternoon sunlight spilled in, illuminating the uneven wood floor, as a cold breeze whirled in from the alley with a dancing twirl of snow. Adjusting his great coat about his frame, he slowly strode toward the center of the room with a sense of pride. He had primed his first pistol here.

Shouts and the skidding of boots crunching against ice-hardened snow caused him to jerk toward the open door. A lanky youth dressed in a billowy coat and an oversized wool cap sprinted into and across the room, darting past Matthew so fast he barely made out a blurred face.

Was that— “Ronan?” he echoed.

“Can’t talk! Two men. I owe you!” The youth dove headfirst into a stack of large, empty crates and out of sight.

Matthew’s brows shot up as two thugs in stained wool trousers and yellowing linen shirts burst in from the alley. One gripped a piece of timber embedded with nails and the other a brick.

“Show him up, Milton,” the man with the brick yelled. “That runt owes us money.”

How was it everyone knew his name even when he didn’t know theirs? Matthew widened his stance. “With this attitude of brick and timber, gents, the way I see it, the boy owes you nothing.”

The oaf with the timber glanced at his burly companion. The two advanced in stalk-unison, their unshaven faces hardening as thick knuckles gripped makeshift weapons.

Matthew crossed his forearms over his midsection and gripped the rosewood handles of his pistols. Whipping out both from his belts, he pointed a muzzle at each head. “He’ll give you the money by the end of the day.”

They scrambled back. They raised their hands above those oily heads, those weapons going up with them.

Matthew advanced, cocking both pistols with the flick of his thumbs. “Given you both know who I am, it means you also know that my jurisdiction runs between here and Little Water. So get the hell out of my ward. Now.”

The men sprinted through the open door and out of sight.

He released the springs on the pistols and shoved them back into his leather belt. With the heel of his worn boot, he slammed the alley door shut. Turning, he strode over to the pile of crates. “I feel like all I’m ever good for is giving you money and getting you out of trouble, Ronan. It’s been that way ever since I first saw you shuffling along in those oversized boots.”

Several wood crates were frantically pushed out of the way by two bare hands. They clattered to the floor as Ronan crawled out. Still on fours, the youth peered up from beyond a lopsided cap, strands of unevenly sheared brown hair pasted to his brow. “If it had been one man, I would have taken care of it.”

Taking a knee, Matthew smirked. “Thank goodness there were two. So. How much do you owe those cafflers? I’ll pay it. As always.”

Ronan hesitated, then blurted, “Two dollars.”

He choked. “Two! What, did they introduce you to God?”

Ronan winced. “It was for this girl over on Anthony Street. She said it was free. It wasn’t my fault!”

“You’re fourteen, you—” Matthew flicked that cheek hard with the tip of his finger and rigidly pointed at him before jumping onto booted feet. “What the hell were you doing over at Squeeze Gut Alley? You could have been killed.”

Ronan scrambled up, adjusting his brown coat. “She was worth it. She not only knew what she was doing, but had tits the size of jugs.”

Matthew stared him down. “They could have been the size of Ireland and it still wouldn’t have been worth two dollars or your life. Did you at least sheathe yourself?”

Ronan blinked. “What do you mean?”

Matthew groaned. “You need a father.”

“What? You offering? Do I get to live with you, too?”

Matthew snorted, knowing the boy would move in with him. “I need a wife first.”

“Go find one then. I ain’t going anywhere.”

Knowing his days of having a family were fading fast, given he’d be thirty in less than a year, Matthew grouched, “Not to disappoint you or myself, but all the good women in these parts are either dead or taken.”

Ronan snickered. “Ain’t that the truth. And the dead ones are the lucky ones, I say. So. I got a message from Coleman. You want it?”