Forever a Lady. Delilah Marvelle
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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?
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