LITMIR.BIZ

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leave off the man. He’s not as rough as he lets on.” Matthew flung off whatever mud he could from his hands and jogged his way back down the street until he reached the cart. “We got him,” he called out to Coleman, who was bent over the cart, waiting for the verdict.

      Coleman huffed out a breath. “Good.”

      Heading toward the back of the cart, Matthew leaned against the uneven planks of wood. Neither barefooted girl was crying anymore—thank God—but both were still tucked against the barrels they’d been removed from, huddling against each other.

      Coleman gestured toward the two. “You should probably take over. They don’t seem to like me. Or my stories.”

      Hopefully the man hadn’t been sharing the wrong sort of stories. Swiping his muddied hands against his linen shirt, Matthew held out both hands toward them and gently urged, “All of us are here to help. My name is Matthew and this gent beside you is Edward. Now. I want you both to be brave and ignore the mud and the scary eye patch. Can you be brave enough to trust me? Just this once?”

      They stared, still clinging to each other.

      Matthew lowered his hands and smiled in an effort to win them over. “Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it. Do you want me to act like a monkey? One-eyed monkeys are my forte, you know. Just ask anyone.” He scratched his head with his fingers and softly offered, “Ooh, ooh, eee, eee, aah, aah.”

      Coleman leaned down toward them. “I can do a better monkey than he can. Watch this.” Coleman swung his long, muscled arms in the air and garbled toward them.

      The girls darted away from Coleman. Their dark braids swayed as they scrambled toward Matthew in clinging unison, as if deciding that Matthew was a better choice than Coleman.

      Matthew bit back a smile. Good old Coleman. He could always depend on the man to scare anyone into cooperation. Matthew held out both hands. “There’s no need to be frightened. He’s merely being silly. Now come. Give me your hands.”

      The girls paused before him, each slowly taking his outstretched hands, though they still clung to each other. Those small, cold fingers trembled against his own.

      Matthew gently tightened his hold on them, trying to transmit warmth and support. He leaned toward them and whispered, “Thank you for being so brave. I know how hard that was. Are you ready to go back to Sister Catherine? She’s been very worried.”

      To his astonishment, both girls flung themselves at his throat, bumping their heads against his shoulders. They sobbed against him.

      Matthew gathered them, sadly unsurprised as to how little they weighed, and draped each girl around a hip, ensuring his pistols were out of the way.

      The thudding of a single horse’s hooves echoed in the distance. The girls tightened their hold against him as he turned toward the sound.

      The lamppost beyond resembled a golden halo eerily floating in the bleak distance. The steady beating of hooves against the trembling ground drew closer as the silhouette of a man in full military attire with a sword at his side, pushed his horse toward them.

      Marshal Royce. The bastard. Now he arrived.

      Matthew glanced at each girl and chided, “This here man was supposed to assist, but the mayor wouldn’t let him out of the house in time to play. The mayor is his mother, you see. And neither do enough for this city. Make sure you remember that when women are finally given the right to vote.”

      The horse whinnied as it came to a stop beside them. “I heard that,” Royce snapped from above, his rugged face shadowed. “Why don’t you also tell these girls how I always look the other way when you’re doing something illegal?”

      Matthew glared up at him. “Why don’t you offer up your horse so I can take them back?”

      Royce wagged gloved hands and commanded, “I’ve had a long night that included almost getting my throat slit. Why the hell do you think I’m late? Hand them up. I’ll return them myself.”

      Their arms tightened around Matthew and sobs escaped them.

      Matthew stepped back, adjusting his hold on them. “You know, Royce, I don’t know if you care enough to even notice, but these girls have been through enough and don’t need to hear about throat slitting. So tone down that voice and get off the horse. I’m taking them back. All right?”

      Royce hesitated, then blew out a breath. With the swing of a long, booted leg, he jumped down and off the horse with a thud. Digging into his pocket, he held out a five-dollar bank note. “Take it to pay your bills,” he grudgingly offered. “I heard you up and stole another shipment of pistols. Just know the next time you do something like that on my watch, I’ll ensure you and your Forty Thieves end up in Sing Sing Prison. And believe me, men don’t sing sing there.”

      The bastard was fortunate Matthew was holding two girls. “I don’t need your money. Give it to the orphanage. They need locks on their goddamn doors.”

      “You won’t take money from me and yet you have no qualms stealing.” Royce shook his head from side to side, lowering the money he held. “Your pride is going to hang you one of these days.”

      “Yes, well, it hasn’t yet.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      All that you hear, believe not.

      —The Truth Teller, a New York Newspaper for Gentlemen

      July 22, 1830

      Manhattan Square, late evening

      “BRING HER OUT!” a man yelled in a riled American tone that drifted from beneath the floorboards of her music room. “Bring that woman out before I damn well dig her out!”

      Bernadette Marie let out an exasperated groan and dashed her hands against the ivory keys of the piano she’d been playing. She really needed to lay out more rules for these American men. Not even the hour was sacred anymore.

      Heaving out a breath, she gathered her full skirts from around her slippered feet, abandoning her Clementi piano, and hurried out of the candlelit music room. Rounding a corner, past countless gilded paintings and marble sculptures, she veered toward and down the sweeping set of stairs that led to the dimly lit entrance hall below.

      She paused midway down.

      Hook-nosed, beady-eyed, old Mr. Astor glanced up at her from the entrance hall. “Ah!” He tugged on his evening coat and strode around the sputtering butler. “There she is.”

      Mr. Astor was not the man she had expected to see, given the late hour, but the endearing, quirky huff of a man had long earned her trust. He was one of the few to have welcomed her into the upper American circle, which had been most hesitant about accepting her due to the fact that she was British. He had also become the ever-guiding father she’d never had. Of sorts.

      She hurried down the remaining stairs. “Mr. Astor.” She alighted to a halt on the bottom stair and smiled. “What a pleasant surprise. Emerson, you may go.”

      Her butler, whom she had dragged all the way over from London—much to the poor man’s dismay—hesitated as if wishing to point out that the hour was anything but respectable.

      Mr. Astor snapped out his hat to the man. “Take it and go, you Philadelphia lawyer. I’m not here to kick up her skirts.”

      Bernadette cringed. The mannerisms of New Yorkers, even ones as privileged as Mr. Astor, was something she hadn’t quite gotten used to. She had watched in unending astonishment all but two weeks ago as, after a meal, the man had wiped his greased hands on a woman’s dress at a dinner party. Prankster that he was, he thought it was funny. And it was, in a son-of-a-butcher sort of way. But the woman whose gown was ruined didn’t care for his humor at all, even though he had offered to buy her four new gowns.

      Not that Bernadette was complaining about the company she was keeping these days. No, no, no. He and all of New York were refreshingly,

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