Forever and a Day

by Delilah Marvelle

  Curse him for honing in on the details.

  He leaned in. “Don’t deny that you are blatantly flirting with me in the same manner I am blatantly flirting with you.”

  Her eyes widened. She stepped back. “If I were flirtin’, you’d know it, because I’d be draggin’ you straight home instead of takin’ up coffee. I’m not one to play games, sir. I either do somethin’ or I don’t.”

  “Then do something.” His jaw tightened, his expression stilling. “I’m not married. An afternoon of conversation is all I ask.” He met her gaze. “For now.”

  The smooth but predatory way he said it caused her to instinctively step back. Regardless of the fact that she was no longer married, it was obvious the sanctity of matrimony meant nothing to him. “And what shall I tell my husband, sir, should he ask how I spent my afternoon?”

  His eyes clung to hers as if methodically gauging her reaction. “If you are indeed married, I will not only desist, but run. I am not interested in creating a mess for you or myself. I was merely looking to get to know a woman who genuinely piqued my interest. Is that wrong?”

  Georgia could feel her palms growing moist. Tempted though she was to experience one spine-tingling adventure of ripping off all the clothes of a most provocative stranger, she knew it wouldn’t end well if Matthew and the boys were to ever find out. They’d probably hunt him down and kill him. After they robbed him of everything he was worth, that is. It’d be a mess either way.

  She glanced around, ensuring she didn’t see anyone she recognized. “Unlike you, sir, I’m lookin’ to marry. Not dance. A woman of little means, such as myself, needs a dependable relationship better known as forever and a day. Not your version of a day and a night. I think that about says it all. Good day.” Without meeting his gaze, she swept past.

  He wordlessly angled away, allowing her passage.

  Georgia quickened her step and scolded herself for having encouraged him in the first place. Fifteen decades on the rosary praying for her Jezebel soul ought to readmit her into heaven. Although fifteen decades wouldn’t even begin to include Matthew’s sins from this week alone that she had yet to pray for. That man required a set of his own damn beads. Not that he believed in God or anything else for that matter. All he believed in was money, money, money.

  She paused on the pavement and instinctively tightened her hold on her reticule, allowing others to weave past. For some reason, she had this niggling feeling that she was being followed by the Brit she thought she’d left behind.

  Pinching her lips together, she swiveled on her heel and froze upon glimpsing him four strides away, despite her having already forged well over a block. Her reticule slid from her calico-sleeved elbow down to her wrist, mirroring her disbelief that the man was following her like a dog she’d unknowingly fed scraps to. “Are you following me?”

  Gray eyes heatedly captured hers as he came to a halt. “Instead of coffee, how about you and I go for a walk and get to know each other that way?” He smiled, ceremoniously announcing that he was capable of being respectable and that it was now up to her to decide as to how they should proceed.

  Georgia dragged in a much-needed breath, her heart frantically pounding. Did he actually think she was going to change her mind based off that smoldering need blazing in those gunmetal eyes? She didn’t even have time for a tryst. Not with all the laundry she had yet to do.

  A quick movement shadowed the corner of her eye as a youth darted in and yanked back her wrist with the violent tug of her own reticule. The glint of a blade whizzed past.

  Her eyes widened as she jerked around, realizing that the strings on her reticule had been slit by a passing thief. “Ey!” Georgia pounced for it, trying to reclaim what was hers, but the lanky youth skid out of reach, shoving past people, and dashed out of sight.

  Her heart popped realizing she’d just been robbed by a ten-year-old. Hiking up her skirts above her ankle boots, she sprinted after the damn whoreson, shoving herself through those around her. “You’d best run!” she shouted after the boy, trying to keep up. “Because I’m about to shuck you like an oyster!”

  “I’ll anchor him,” the Brit called out from behind.

  His broad frame sped past her, and dodged left, then right, then left again, disappearing into the bustle of Broadway.

  Having lost sight of him and the boy, Georgia paused to frantically ask others if they had seen a youth being chased by a gent in a dove-gray hat. She was repeatedly pointed onward and downward. So onward and downward she went.

  Dragging in breaths, she tried to keep up with the pace of her own booted feet as the jogging facade of Broadway shops tapered into pristine Italian row houses. If she didn’t get that damn reticule back, she’d have to dig money out of her box to make the rent. Again.

  Shouts and a gathering crowd of men on the upcoming dirt road made her jerk to a halt and snap her gaze toward a pluming dust that was settling. An overturned dove-gray top hat lay oddly displaced outside the crowd in the middle of the street.

  She sucked in a breath, scanning the men who were yelling at women to stand back. What—?

  The driver of an omnibus, who had already brought his horses to a full halt, untied the calling rope from his ankled boot, hopped down from his box seat and hurried into the crowd as passengers within the omni craned and gaped through the small windows.

  “Oh, God.” Her stomach clenched as she scrambled forward.

  The Brit had been struck by the omni and was lying motionless there on the street corner of Howard and Broadway.

  LIGHT EDGED IN THROUGH the waving darkness and pulsed against his eyelids. Slowly opening his eyes, he squinted against the glaring brightness of the sun that pierced through a cloudless sky. Taking in several jagged breaths, he drifted, unable to lift his head from the dirt-pounded street that dug into his shaven cheek and throbbing temple.

  Several booted feet and countless hovering faces blocked his skewed view of painted placards posted on buildings and a blue sky that rose beyond a street he did not recognize. Shouts boomed all around him and the dust-ridden, heat-laced air made it difficult for him to breathe.

  A bearded man with a cap slung low against his brow leaned over him. “Good to see you stayed below the clouds, sir. Are you able to get up?”

  Why were there so many people gathered around him? What was going on? He rolled onto his back, wincing against the searing, razorlike sensations coiling throughout the length of his body. He staggered to sit up, only to sway and stumble back against the dirt road beneath him. The scuffed imprint of a booted foot that had been pressed deeply into the dirt beside him drew his gaze.

  One day it happened that, going to my boat, I saw the print of a man’s naked foot on the shore, very evident on the sand, as the toes, heels and every part of it.

  He winced, pushing the odd, misplaced voice out of his head. His vision blurred as the acrid taste of blood coated his mouth and tongue. Something trickled down the side of his face, its wet warmth dribbling toward his earlobe. He swiped the moisture away with a trembling hand and glanced toward it. The fingertips of his brown leather glove were smeared with blood.

  “Hoist him up,” a female voice insisted from within the blur of surrounding faces. There was a pause. “Oh, saints preserve us.” She sounded more panicked. “We need to get him over to the hospital.”

  He swallowed and glanced up toward that lilting female voice that appeared concerned for him. Was he in some strange part of Ireland? Despite trying to find that voice, there only seemed to be an endless blur of male faces floating around him.

  Hands slid beneath his morning coat and trouser-clad thighs. A group of men jerked him upward with a unified grunt.

  Pain whizzed straight up to his clenched teeth and skull. He gasped, twisting against their pinching grasps. “Gentlemen,” he seethed out between ragged breaths. “Whilst your concern is appreciated, I hardly think a full procession is necessary.”

  “Such posh manners for one who is dying,
” one of the men carrying him hooted playfully. “One can only wonder what’ll come out of his mouth when he’s dead.”

  A quick hand reached out and knocked the cap off the man’s head. “Less tongue, more muscle. Move!”

  “Ey!” the man yelled back, stumbling against him and all the others carrying him. “Keep them mammet little hands to yourself, woman. I was only having a bit of fun.”

  “You think it fun watchin’ a man bleed? Keep movin’ him, you lout. Lest I make you bleed.” The freckled face of a young woman with the brightest set of green eyes he’d ever seen suddenly peered in from between all of the broad shoulders carrying him. Her rusty arched brows came together as she trotted alongside him, trying to hold his gaze through moving limbs. A loose, soft-looking strand of strawberry-red hair swayed against the wind, having tumbled out of her frayed blue bonnet.

  “Where are you stayin’?” She shoved the loose strand of hair back into her bonnet with a bare hand, trying to keep up with the men carrying him. “Close? Far?”

  Gritting his teeth, he tried to focus, but couldn’t.

  “Are you from around here?” she insisted, still bustling alongside him. “Or are you visitin’ from abroad? You mentioned a hotel. Which hotel are you stayin’ at?”

  “Hotel?” he echoed up at her, his throat tightening. “When did I mention a hotel?”

  She squinted down at him, searching his face. “Never you mind that. We need to contact your family. Give me a name and address, and after we deliver you to the hospital, I’ll run myself over to them at once.”

  Family? He blinked, glancing up at the swaying, hazy blue sky above as he was guided up toward a hackney. Countless names and faces flipped through his mind’s eye like the pages of an endless book whipping past. There were so many names. Strada. Ludovicus. Casparus. Bruyère. Horace. Sloane. Lovelace. Shakespeare. Fielding. Pilkington. La Croix. They couldn’t all be related to him. Or…could they?

  I was called Robinson Kreutznaer, which not being easily pronounced in the English tongue, we are commonly known by the name of Crusoe.

  Wait. Crusoe. Yes. It was a name he remembered very well. Robinson Crusoe of York. Was that not him? It had to be, and yet he couldn’t remember if it was or it wasn’t. Oh, God. What was happening to him? Why couldn’t he remember what was what?

  He winced, realizing that he was now being tucked against the leather seat of an enclosed hackney. The firm hands that had been pushing him to sit upright against the seat left his body one by one as all the men turned away and jumped down and out of the hackney, leaving him alone against the seat.

  Everything swayed as he slumped against the weight of his heavy limbs. He panicked, unable to control his own body, and fought to remain upright by using his gloved hands against the sides of the hackney.

  The woman with the green eyes shoved her way past the others and frantically climbed up into the hackney, slamming the door behind her. “I’m takin’ you in myself. I’ll not leave your side. I promise.”

  The vehicle rolled forward as she landed beside him on the seat with a bounce. She leaned toward him. “Come.” Her arms slid around him as she dragged him gently toward herself. She guided his shoulder and head down onto her lap, scooting across the seat to better accommodate his size.

  He collapsed against the warmth of her lap, thankful he didn’t have to hold himself up anymore. Wrapping a trembling hand around her knee, he buried it into the folds of her gown, taking comfort that he wasn’t alone. The scent of lye and soap drifted up from the softness of her gown, which grazed his cheek and throbbing temple. He could die here and know eternal peace.

  Her hand rubbed his shoulder. “I want you to talk. That way, I’ll know you’re doin’ all right. So go on. Talk.”

  He swallowed, wanting to thank her for her compassion and for giving him a breath of hope even though he sensed there was none. Was death nothing more than a long sleep? His hand slowly and heavily slid inch by inch from her knee as he felt his entire world tip.

  “Sir?” She leaned down toward him and shook him. “Sir?”

  A snowy, rippling haze overtook the last of his vision, and though he fought to stay awake in those heavenly arms, everything faded and he along with it.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The height of cleverness is to be able to conceal it.

  —François de La Rochefoucauld,

  Maximes Morales (1678)

  Nine days later, early evening

  New York Hospital

  GEORGIA LET OUT AN EXASPERATED breath and adjusted her bonnet, setting both ankled boots up onto the wicker chair opposite the one she’d been sitting in for the past ten minutes. She leaned forward and shook the bundled length of her brown calico gown to allow cooler air to relieve the heat of the room that would not dissipate.

  Falling back into the wicker chair again, she glanced impatiently toward the surgeon who appeared to be far more invested in his desk than in her. “How much longer, sir? I’ve yet to cross back into town before they cease all rides and I really have no desire to walk over fifteen blocks in the dark.”

  Dr. Carter casually reached out and gripped the porcelain cup beside him. Lifting the rim to his mustached lip, he took a long swallow of murky coffee, before setting it back onto the saucer beside him with a clink. He leaned over the sizable ledger on his desk and scribed something. “His condition remains the same, Miss Milton. As such, you may go.”

  She glared at him. “’Tis Mrs. Milton ’til another man comes along to change it, and I didn’t pay a whole twelve and a half cents for the omni to hear that. Last week you claimed he was fully recovered. I expected him to be gone by now. Why is he still here?”

  The tip of his quill kept scratching against the parchment. “Because, Mrs. Milton, I am still conflicted as to how I should proceed.” Wrinkling his brow, he paused and reached toward the inkwell with a poised quill. “His mental state isn’t what it should be. I haven’t disclosed his condition to anyone outside a trusted few out of fear he could be tossed into an asylum.”

  Her lips parted. “An asylum? Why would anyone—”

  “Since he regained consciousness nine days ago, Mrs. Milton, he has been unable to provide me with a name or any details pertaining to his life. I even had to reacquaint him with the most basic of care, including how he was to shave and knot his own cravat.”

  She dropped her legs from the chair and sat up, her heart pounding. “Dearest God. What do you plan to do? What can you do?”

  He shrugged. “I intend to dismiss him within the week. He doesn’t belong here any more than he does in an asylum.”

  Her eyes widened. “And what of his family, sir? We have to find a way to contact them before you let him wander off. What if he should disappear and they never hear from him again?”

  He stared at her, edging back his hand from over the inkwell. “If he hasn’t the means to remember them, I haven’t the means to find them. Do you understand? There is nothing more that I can physically do for him.”

  “There is plenty more you can physically do for him!”

  “Such as?” His tone was of pained tolerance.

  “You can contact the British Consulate about whether or not they’re missin’ a citizen.”

  “I have already done that. No one is missing.”

  Damn. “Well…isn’t there a way to bring in an artist and acquire a sketch of his face?”

  “That has already been done. I mandate profile sketches of all my patients. It allows for extended funding from the government.”

  “Good. We’ll be able to make use of it and submit his sketch to every newspaper and hotel across town. Someone is bound to know who he is, given he appears to be of the upper circles. Though I recommend no reward. That would only attract imposters.”

  Dr. Carter tossed his quill aside and leaned into the desk, scrunching his gray pin-striped waistcoat and his overcoat in the process. “This is a hospital, Mrs. Milton. Not an investigative branch of the United States governme
nt. You clearly have no understanding as to how these things work.”

  How typical that she’d be treated like some stupid, scampering rat darting through the legs of society. She managed to refrain from jumping up and smacking him for it. “Last I knew, sir, and correct me if I’m wrong, but the New York Hospital is funded by a contributin’ branch of the United States government. As such, you have an obligation to oversee the well-bein’ of every citizen that passes through these doors, be that citizen a Brit or not. Have the laws somehow changed? Is that what you’re tellin’ me?”

  He sighed. “The funding I receive from the government is very limited. It doesn’t provide for these sorts of things.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Everythin’ involvin’ our government is very limited. They only give the people just enough to prevent revolution whilst robbin’ every last one of us blind. In my opinion, these politicians ought to be boiled in their own whiskey. They don’t give a spit about anythin’ but their own agenda.”

  A tap resounded against the door of the small office.

  “Yes?” he called out, lifting his chin toward its direction. “What is it?”

  The door swung open and a balding man hurried in, bare hands adjusting a blood-spattered, yellowing apron that had been carelessly tied across his waistcoat and trousers. “Bed sixteen is shaving, despite orders that he remain in bed. He insists on yet another bath and intends to depart within the hour. What am I to do?”

  Dr. Carter blew out a breath. “There is nothing we can do. If he insists on departing, I cannot physically hold him. Send him into my office. I’ll ensure he pays the bill and will direct him to one of the local boardinghouses.”

  “Yes, Dr. Carter.” The man jogged back out.

  Bed sixteen? That was the Brit’s bed. Georgia’s wicker chair screeched against the floorboards as she jumped onto booted feet. “You intend on lettin’ him walk out into the night despite his condition? And plan on layin’ him with a bill, too?” She pointed at him, wishing she had it in her to grab his head and pound it into his own desk. “A thug is what you are. A bedeviled, government-funded thug who ought to be—”