Too many. She had once dreamed of sweeping, heart-pounding adventures, true love meant to make one sigh and unadulterated passion that no music from her piano could ever evoke. All of that had drowned rather quick, however, when her father married her off at eighteen to an old man whose idea of love, passion and adventure was a carriage ride through Hyde Park and a pat on the hand.
She’d been trying to make up for it ever since.
Sensing that the man wasn’t about to relent, Bernadette sighed. She did have unfinished business in London with her father after she’d packed up old William’s estate and sailed into the night without a word to anyone. She supposed she owed her father one last visit. Bastard. “So be it. I will take on this girl as it means so much to you. But I am not staying in London beyond a month. Is that understood?”
His face brightened as he scrambled up onto booted feet. He grabbed her hands in both of his and shook them. “’Tis a pleasure doing business with you, dear, as always.”
“Yes, yes, and you are most welcome. In truth, this idea of introducing an American into London society would be rather gratifying. Those self-righteous bastards, who dare act like gods thinking their blood is pure, deserve to have their blood tainted.”
“I knew you were the woman to oversee this.” He tapped at her hands one last time before releasing them. “Though I will say, my dear, after London, I highly recommend you settle down before you set fire to those skirts. You’ve broken enough hearts. You ought to remarry.”
Bernadette almost snorted. “I prefer to say yes to life and no to the altar.”
He tsked. “Don’t be taking off to Madrid and riding bulls next. You can do that after we get this girl into London.” He paused. “My hat.” Glancing about, he bellowed, “Where the hell is my hat, Emerson? You aren’t pissing in it, are you? Bring it out already. Now!”
Bernadette blinked. Maybe time in London would be a good thing. Because sometimes, just sometimes, and rare though it was, she did miss the, uh...culture.
Seven months later
New York City—the Five Points
LINGERING BEFORE THE LOPSIDED, cracked mirror hanging on the barren wall of his tenement, Matthew affixed the leather patch over his left eye. It was annoyingly fitting that the only image he ever saw of himself every morning after shaving and dressing was splintered in half.
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