Forever a Lady. Delilah Marvelle

      Why did she always stupidly cling to the hope that he could be the father she wanted him to be? “I am five and thirty, Papa. My life is practically half over. I have given it to you, I have given it to William and I

      have given it to society. I do not intend to give up any more. I intend to frolic with whomever I please, whenever I please, and travel until my slippers fall off, regardless of what you and everyone else may think. Men do it all the time and no one even blinks. So let them all blink.”

      He swiped a veined hand over his face, snatched up his cane from beside the chair and heaved himself up. “I ask that you not call on me again unless you either respectably remarry or decide to live with me. I have nothing more to say.” With that, he stalked out, leaving her to linger alone in the library.

      An unexpected tear traced its way down her cheek. Annoyed with herself for even caring what he thought, she swiped it away and set her chin. She had done everything to make him happy at the cost of her own happiness and was finished with that and him.

      She had spent twelve years of her life serving and bedding a scrawny, withered man who had grunted into her and knew nothing of her pleasure, let alone her happiness. Though she supposed she’d been fortunate, considering. For at least old William had treated her with an adoring, kind regard and devotion rarely found in aristocratic marriages. He had even left her his entire estate, despite her inability to sire a child for him. It was a gesture of the love he’d had for her. She regretted knowing that the old man had died without having ever once earned the one thing he’d wanted most—her heart. Sadly, her heart had yet to genuinely beat with love for a man. And at five and thirty, she wondered if it ever could.

      But who was she to complain? Love was overrated anyway. As was holding on to one’s reputation. Neither allowed a woman a breath of freedom. And rakish though it was, she was very much looking forward to midnight and whatever salacious adventure it would bring in the guise of the Pirate King.

      CHAPTER SIX

      An edition of the works of Lord Byron has recently been published in England, expurgated, and omitting Don Juan, deeming all of the passages offensive to decency and good morals. Who are the British to decide what decency and good morals are?

      —The Truth Teller, a New York Newspaper for Gentlemen

      Piccadilly Square, midnight

      EVERYTHING IN HER home smelled like fresh-cut flowers, tea leaves and fobbing cinnamon. It was a damn good thing he’d bathed, scrubbed and shaved for the woman before coming over or he would have bloody wilted everything.

      Silence drummed as Matthew awkwardly lingered in a lavish, pale green imperial drawing room decorated with overdone wall hangings, marble statuettes and a variety of gilded clocks scattered upon the mantelpiece of a grand hearth.

      Matthew scanned the impressive length of the room and angled his way past countless upholstered chairs and pedestal tables. He paused before a white moonstone velvet settee. The woman had more furniture than he had toothpicks. He couldn’t even remember what it was like to own furniture just to own it.

      He adjusted the patch over his eye, ensuring it was straight. Glancing down at his great coat, which was spattered and streaked with crusting mud from riding about in last week’s mud and rain, he cringed. He wasn’t going to be making much of an impression. Certainly not the sort she’d made on him.

      God. Why was he letting himself face her again at the cost of his own pride as a man? Oh, yes, he knew why. Because of Coleman. That son of a bitch had gambled away and lost everything, and now it was up to Matthew to clean up the mess.

      The clicking of heels echoed down the candlelit corridor, drifting toward him through the open double doors.

      Setting his calloused hands behind his back, he widened his stance and watched that entryway. His pulse thundered.

      Within moments, a curvaceous, dark-haired woman appeared. The same one he’d wanted to seize and mold against himself when he first laid eyes on her in the park. Who knew British women had the ability to rile an Irishman into a full salute with but a glance.

      It was felonious.

      He tried not to linger on that exquisite appearance. Those black curls, which bore delicate wisps of silver that hinted she was a tad above his own age, were gathered and pinned around an elegant pale face. The only flaw on her face was a welt of a line on her jaw from the crop he’d been unable to save her from.

      Since he’d last seen her, her riding bonnet had been stripped and replaced with a gathering of pretty, pale blue satin ribbons that had been woven into her hair, matching the shade of her azure evening gown. That delectable gown clung to her body and full breasts in a way that made him want to bite his hand to keep from biting her.