The Lord's Scandalous Bride by Emily Tilton

Author:Emily Tilton [Tilton, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Stormy Night Publications
Published: 2015-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

From his club he walked to Brown’s, where Mr. and Mrs. Loomis had taken up a residence that would, thankfully for Nele’s dwindling pocketbook, now, it appeared, be brief. The first available passage to New York, aboard the White Star Oceanic, would depart Liverpool two days hence.

“And how might one reach San Francisco from New York?” Nele asked. Neither his tutor nor Nele himself had considered the Americas a fit subject for study, nor did one learn at Harrow or Oxford about such outlandish places, except as disloyal colonists. Ten years before, of course, while Nele finished at university, there had been a great deal of fuss about the American Civil War and the price of cotton, but as Nele’s clothes were all chosen by his mother he had paid very little attention.

Now he cursed himself inwardly for that—as it seemed to him now—abominable lack of interest. Would not the land of liberty be a much better place for him and Susan than the sceptered isle, after all? And the minuscule amount he knew about San Francisco seemed to confirm it: gold, and guns, and railroads, and brothels—many, many brothels. And now this Captain Allen, who his father thought would welcome him and Susan.

For of course Susan need not be the fallen girl, there. Even if word should somehow reach San Francisco that she had spent two sordid years, who in California would know what it meant to fall into the power of Lord Granby or to become a maid at Hobberly? Indeed, who knew whether Californians might not enjoy the company of such a well-bred lady who had about her an exciting whiff of scandal?

“The railroad is the quickest way, sir, and they say it gives a marvelous view of the country. Quite safe.”

Nele looked at the clerk sharply. The need to say quite safe must of course come from the strong possibility that the railroad actually had its dangers.

“Safe from what?” he asked.

“The red Indians, sir,” the clerk replied with wide eyes, as if astonished that Nele would not have understood that immediately. “And the bandits, but the bandits don’t scalp the passengers. But the red Indians, as I hear, are under control.”

Shaking his head as if it might help him work his mind around to grasping the notion that he and Susan would soon arrive in a land of red Indians and bandits, Nele ascended the stairs to the room where Susan—Mrs. Loomis, again—awaited him. They had had to leave their things in Great Jorkin, because Nele had not felt able to warrant he would not murder his brother if he should have to return to the room through whose door Robert had burst. Nor could Susan go to the shops in London for fear of being recognized, since in her brief days with Sir David she had frequented them as Susan Grant.

Robert, he had heard at his club, had made it known that Nele’s debts would not be paid, and that while he did not ask

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