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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.”
He thought he owed her. After he’d rescued her.
Her throat tightened. Even worse, he was staying at Limmer’s. ’Twas a cheap hotel for the sporting crowd, known for being incredibly dirty and hosting all things dangerous. Even whores didn’t like going in there, as they usually didn’t come back out. She couldn’t let a man like this, who had just rescued whatever was left of her face, stay there. “Might I offer you better lodgings, sir? Given what you did for me?”
He lifted a dark brow. “Define better.”
She would have invited him to stay at her leased house off Piccadilly, seeing Georgia was residing with Mrs. Astor over on Park Lane, but she didn’t want the man thinking her invitation was permanent. “I recommend the St. James Royal Hotel. ’Tis premier and the best London has to offer. I will ensure your room and board is paid for. Gladly.”
He stared at her, his jaw tight. After a long moment, he set his broad shoulders. “Let me think on it.”
By God, she admired that pride. He wore it so well.
Glancing over at her understudy, he clicked his tongue. “Georgia, Georgia. We never seem to be able to get rid of each other, do we? Much to our own dismay.” He scanned the length of Georgia’s Vienna blue riding gown, lowering his chin in a way that caused that windblown hair to fall across his forehead. He snorted. “You look like Niblo’s Garden on a stick.”
Georgia regally set her chin. “And proud of it. Don’t you wish you looked this good.”
“Ah, you look all right, I suppose.”
“All right?” Georgia circled a gloved finger over her face and gown. “It took me ten months to look like this. And look. No freckles. They’re there, but they’re cleverly hidden. The toiletries these days are unbelievable.”
He swiped his jaw. “A waste of ten months, I say.” Dropping his hand to his thigh, he huffed out a breath. “Since we’re catching up on gossip, I’m sure you’d like to know that your John Andrew Malloy not only went out West, but married. Thanks to you, we’re now damn well known as the Thirty-Nine Thieves.”
Georgia’s eyes widened. “John married Agnes Meehan?”
“Isn’t that what I said?”
Georgia let out a laugh. “Well, good for him. And Agnes.”
“Good for him, yes. Not so good for Agnes. He’s not exactly what I call the marrying sort.” The Pirate King huffed out another breath. “So. Where are you staying? Coleman and I need to get ourselves out of Town. They bloody stone you like crows out here. Expensive as hell.”
Georgia snorted. “It doesn’t help that you went and bought yourself horses.”
The Pirate King and his menacingly quiet friend paused. They eyed each other, to which the Pirate King adjusted his great coat and drawled, “We didn’t exactly buy them.”
Bernadette blinked.
Georgia gasped. “You stole them?”
He pointed at her. “Ey. A hackney costs a shilling just to roll halfway down the goddamn street. I’m not paying that. And we didn’t steal the horses. We’re borrowing them for a few days and will give them both back once we’re done.”
Georgia glared. “’Tis no different than stealing, Matthew, to which I say you and Coleman get yourselves jobs as sweepers, because I’m not giving either of you spit.”
Matthew. Bernadette almost uttered his name aloud in adoration and reverence. Despite that “borrowed” horse, he seemed so...genuine. And divine. So breathtakingly divine.
Without thinking, she hurriedly dug into her reticule slung on her wrist and pulled out a Bristol calling card, holding it out to him. “I would be honored to provide you with the money and lodgings you need. ’Tis the least I can do after your noble rescue. Call on me. I insist.”
Slowly drawing his horse closer to her own until they were side by side, he leaned over. Slipping the card from her gloved fingers, he held her gaze for a long moment. “Thank you, luv.”
That gruff, yet equally gentle voice made her want to throw her arms around him and never let go.
He wordlessly fingered the card she’d given him, still heatedly holding her gaze. He molded and remolded the card against the curve of that large hand, as if trying to feel her.
Bernadette drew in a breath, wishing that card was her.
“Milton,” his friend called out. “Instead of playing Casanova with the card, give the woman’s generous offer a day and the hour you intend to call.”
The Pirate King tucked the card into his boot and recaptured her gaze. “This Thursday. I’m thinking midnight.”
Bernadette quirked a brow. “Is that what you’re thinking?”
“Midnight is my version of noon,” he added, still holding her gaze.
He was clearly interested only in linen ripping. And who was she to deny over six feet of brawn? “Midnight it is.”
His mouth quirked. “I’ll see you then.” Rounding his stolen stallion, he glanced back at her one last time, then he and his friend galloped off down the path.
Georgia tsked. “You have no self-control. None whatsoever.”
Bernadette smirked. “Coming from you, Miss Tormey, I will take that to be a compliment.”
CHAPTER FOUR
M. Falret, a doctor of medicine, has prepared from the official records of the police, a curious memoir on the suicides in Paris, from 1794 to 1822. Of those, some were attributed to:
Crossed in love: Number of men, 97. Women, 157.
Calumny and loss of reputation: Number of men, 97. Women, 28.
Gaming: Number of men, 141. Women, 14.
Reverse of fortune: Number of men, 283. Women, 39.
Let the numbers speak for themselves.
—The Truth Teller, a New York Newspaper for Gentlemen
Limmer’s, 12:54 a.m.
THE GLOW FROM THE SINGLE cracked lantern set on the floor beside him illuminated the unevenly nailed wooden planks that lined the slanted ceiling. Stripping his leather patch from his eye and tossing it, Matthew fell onto the sunken straw tick on the floor. Rolling onto his back and stretching out, he held up the expensive ivory card that had been given to him that afternoon. Disregarding the address, he stared at her name: Lady Burton.
Holy day. Holy, holy day. The way those dark eyes had held his, the way those lips had curved around her words every time she spoke, and the way that sultry voice had dripped with elegance and refinement about punched the last of his rational senses out. Something about her awoke an awareness he’d thought long dead and whispered of endless possibilities he wanted to roll around in.
Though he couldn’t help but wonder about the association she had with Lord Arsehole. That heated argument on the riding path, which had resulted in her getting cropped, hinted at far more than he cared to admit.
Skimming his thumb across that printed name, he drew the card closer. Was it conceivable for a woman like her to want a man like him? And could a woman like her, who appeared to have everything, give a man like him, who had nothing...everything he wanted?
The door to his small room opened. There was a pause.
He didn’t have to look up from the card to know who it was. “What do you want? I’m trying to sleep here.”
“Sure you are.” Coleman snickered. “Shall I leave you two alone?” he said, looking pointedly at the card.
Matthew sat up on the straw mattress, molding the card against his palm. “A touch jealous, are we?”
“Hardly. Women are a waste of breath, man. They’re only good for one thing. And I wish I could say it was fucking.”
Ah, yes. The man, who’d been married at sixteen to a woman crazier than him, thought he knew it all.
Matthew pointed the card at him. “Ey. Just because you’re bitter doesn’t mean I have to be. The difference between you and me is that I’ve been patiently waiting for the right one to come along. And this—” He held up the card, wagging it. “This here is about as right as they come. Not only did she agree to meet me at midnight—in her home—which means she damn well wants what I want, did you see the way she looked at me when she gave me this card? We’re talking more than a night here.”
Rolling his eyes, Coleman leaned against the frame of the door. “She gave you the card because she felt obligated after what you did. She’s an aristo, Milton. Not exactly your kind of people.”
Matthew flicked a finger against the card. “Why do you always ruin everything for me?”
“Because I think you may have taken too many knocks to the head. You seem to think women are moldable to your vision of...whatever the hell you’re looking for, but I’m telling you right now, Milton, you can’t mold a woman. Women mold you. And when you least expect it, they crush you until your very clay squeezes through their conniving little fingers.”
“I pity your cynicism. You know that?” Matthew paused and glanced toward Coleman, noting that the man was not only fully dressed in his great coat, but that his black silvering hair was pulled back into a neat queue. Which the man rarely did. “Where the hell are you going?”
Coleman adjusted the riding coat on his muscled frame and eyed him. “Aside from taking back the horses we ‘borrowed,’ I’m off to double our money. We need to get you back to New York. And as for me...” He cleared his throat theatrically in the way he always did before announcing something Matthew didn’t like. “I’m heading to Venice.”
Matthew stared. “What do you mean you’re heading to Venice? What about New York?”
“What about New York?”
His eyes widened. “The swipe is over and you and I share responsibilities.”
“Milton.” A wry smile touched those lips. “I’m honored knowing you still want me around, really, but the Forty Thieves was your vision for a better life, not mine. There’s nothing left for me in New York. Not to say I won’t miss you. You’re the closest thing I have to a brother. But you have your life and I have mine.” Lowering his gaze, he sighed. “How much money do you have? I need at least five pounds to make the cards worthwhile.”
Matthew glared, feeling as if he’d been walloped in the chest by a man who had clearly moved on from their friendship. “You’re not gambling what little we have. If you plan on ditching me and the boys, that’s your damn right, but you’re not sinking me while you’re at it. Instead of gambling, I suggest you go put yourself in a few matches. London is big on boxing. As for me, I’m soliciting labor over at the docks come morning.”
Coleman leveled him with a mocking stare. “The docks? Since when do you prance about soliciting honest work?”
Matthew pointed, trying not to feel too insulted. “I’m not playing with the law here, Coleman. Unlike in New York, I’ve got no marshals here to protect my arse, and these Brits are crazy. They’ll hang you for anything. Especially if you’re unlucky and Irish. And as you damn well know, I’m both. Now, off with you.” Matthew settled back onto the mattress, snatching up his card. “I’d like to be alone with my card, if you please. I have a feeling it’ll give me a lot more respect than you just did.”
“Christ. Don’t make me tear that bloody thing in half and shove it up your ass.”
Matthew swiped up the pistol from the floor beside him with his other hand and pointed it at Coleman with a mocking tilt of his wrist. “Get the hell out of my room. I’m not paying four shillings a night to have you in here.”
“We need twenty pounds each, Milton, if we’re ever going to get out of Town. Twenty. My boxing will only bring in a few pounds per match, unless I start dealing with aristos. And as good as I am, I can only take so many hits a week. As for you working over at the docks? You’ll only bring in about two pounds a week. At best. Count that on your fingers, man. You may have time on your hands, but I’m not staying in this piss of a city beyond two weeks.” He paused. “How much do you think you could get out of this aristo, given what you did for her? If you slather on that charm I know you’re good for?”
Matthew sighed and set the pistol back onto the floor. “I don’t know. This whole idea of me calling on her for money merely for doing something ingrained in me feels dirty.”
“No one does dirty better than you, Milton.”
Matthew rolled his eyes. “I’m not that dirty and you know it.” He tapped the card against his chin before glancing down at it. “I still can’t get over the way she looked at me. I’m telling you. There was something there. I could see it and feel it. It was as if she and I were meant for bigger things.”
“Bigger things?” Coleman snapped, angling toward him. “What the devil is wrong with you? We’re not talking about some tea dealer’s daughter here. We’re talking nobility. Do you know what that is, Milton? It’s better known as the trinity. Meaning, there’s them, there’s the King and then there’s God. Notice that I didn’t mention you at all. Why? Because you don’t exist. And you never will. They don’t touch people like us. Not unless it’s to their benefit.”
“Stop saying ‘people like us.’ You yourself are of nobility, for God’s sake. You’re—” Matthew scrubbed his head in exasperation, knowing it. To think that the same man he’d been training with and aspiring to be more like since he was twenty had been an aristo in hiding all along. It was something the stupid bastard didn’t have the decency to tell him until they up and boarded the ship over to Liverpool. A part of him felt betrayed, though he understood Coleman hadn’t been given much of a choice but to abandon who and what he was.
Matthew dropped his hand from his head. “You came here to straighten your mess of a life out and move on. That’s what you said. Only, you’re not doing shite. You’re up and drinking and playing cards like some fecking sharp with money you don’t have, making a bigger mess of not only your life, but mine. Why the hell aren’t you facing the reality you came to face? I know why I came here. Because it was better than being dead and it was your goddamn idea. And whilst the swipe is over, I’m not leaving until I hold you to your reality. Call on your parents, and that uncle and nephew of yours who dug you up through the papers back in New York. Because seething on and on about a past you can’t change isn’t helpful to anyone. Especially yourself.”
Coleman’s features tightened as his blue eyes cooled to rigid ice. “I’ll see them when I’m ready to see them. And I’m not fucking ready. Isn’t that obvious?” Coleman stepped out and slammed the door, rattling the lantern.
Matthew sighed and hoped the man didn’t do anything stupid. Holding up the card again, Matthew stared at the name Lady Burton and hoped he himself didn’t do anything stupid.
CHAPTER FIVE
All information printed pertaining to the struggles
of others are not necessarily true.
—The Truth Teller, a New York Newspaper for Gentlemen
St. James’s Square, Thursday afternoon
THE FOOTMAN GRACIOUSLY gestured toward the open doors of her father’s library. “’Tis a joy to have you back in London, my lady.”
“Thank you, Stevens.” At least someone was happy regarding her return to London. Bernadette clasped her bare hands together and entered the cavernous library lined with all those endless books she used to gather from the shelves as a girl and stack up all around her. Not to read, mind you, but to build a full deck of a ship she would then climb on top of and teeter to sail across the expanse of the...library. The room still looked the same. It even smelled the same: mildew laced with cedar and dust.
Her chest tightened. It had been years.
Scanning the brightly lit room, she found her father and drifted toward where he sat, her verdant skirts rustling against the movements of her feet.
Lord Westrop’s head was propped and resting against the side of his leather wing-tipped chair, that snowy white hair combed back with tonic. His eyes were closed and his usually rigid features were endearingly soft as the center of his Turkish robe rose and fell with each breath he took.
Bernadette paused before him, quietly observing him. It was the most peaceful she had ever seen him. “Papa?”
He opened his eyes and looked up at her. His astounded features gave way to him sitting up. “Bernadette.”
“How are you, Papa?” She lowered herself to his booted feet and gathered his hands that had begun to show their age. She could see the veins.
He grabbed hold of her hands and smiled, shaking them in his. “You came back for me. You came back. I knew you would.”
He seemed so happy to see her. Imagine that. He still knew how to exhibit happiness. She’d forgotten how good of a man he was capable of being when the burden of losing everyone—a wife, two brothers and three sisters—didn’t eat at him.
She smiled as best she could. “I’m not staying long. New York is my home now. You know that.”
His hands stilled against hers as he searched her face with dark eyes. “Why do you always wish to make me suffer? You know I have no one but you.”
