Instant download Dirty daddies 2020 anniversary anthology 1st edition laylah roberts maggie ryan all
Dirty Daddies 2020 Anniversary
Anthology 1st Edition Laylah Roberts
Maggie Ryan Allie Belle M A Innes
Pepper North Allysa Hart Aubrey Cara
Nicolina Martin Rayanna Jamison
Allysa Hart Delta James J M Dabney Rj
Gray Golden Angel Stella Moore Eden
Bradley Brianna Hale Emily Tilton And More
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Table of Contents
Epilogue - Ashley
Epilogue As Told By Brittney
Second Epilogue - As Told By Brittney
Epilogue - Fiona
Description
Also by Alexis Angel
Dirty Lil’ Angels
A Note From Alexis
Another Word From Alexis
Magnus
The New York Daily Journal
Penny About the Author
A Note From The Author
Client 5: A Bad Boy Nex Door Dark Romance
Arsen
Ashley
Goodbye From Arsen
Scandalous: A Secret Baby Dark Romance
Lance
New York Daily Journal
Jocelyn
Michael
A Goodbye From Lance
Another Goodbye From Alexis
Another Note From The Author
Man Chaser: A Secret Baby Dark Romance
Ethan
Brittney
Fiona Vs. Football Player
Fiona
Danny
Magnificent Mess: Penny and Magnus
Becca Vs. Biker
Becca
DIRTY DADDY
A SECRET BABY BAD BOY ROMANCE
ALEXIS ANGEL
NAUGHTY ANGEL PUBLISHING
CONTENTS
Description
Also by Alexis Angel
Dirty Lil’ Angels
A Note From Alexis
Another Word From Alexis
1. Magnus
2. The New York Daily Journal
3. Penny
4. Magnus
5. Penny
6. Magnus
7. Penny
8. Magnus
9. Penny
10. The New York Daily Journal
11. Magnus
12. Penny
13. Penny
14. The New York Daily Journal
15. Magnus
16. Penny
17. Penny
18. Magnus
19. Penny
20. Magnus
21. Penny
22. Magnus
23. Penny
24. The New York Daily Journal
25. Magnus
26. Penny
27. Penny
28. Penny
29. The New York Daily Journal
30. Penny
31. Magnus
32. Penny
33. Magnus
34. Penny
35. The New York Daily Journal
36. Penny
About the Author
A Note From The Author
Client 5: A Bad Boy Nex Door Dark Romance
37. Arsen
38. Ashley
39. Ashley
40. Arsen
41. Ashley
42. Arsen
43. Ashley
44. Arsen
45. Ashley
46. Arsen
47. Ashley
48. Arsen
49. Ashley
50. Arsen
51. Ashley
52. Arsen
53. Ashley
54. Arsen
55. Ashley
56. Arsen
57. Ashley
58. Arsen
59. Ashley
60. Arsen
61. Ashley
62. Arsen
63. Ashley
64. Epilogue - Ashley
65. Goodbye From Arsen
A Note From The Author
Scandalous: A Secret Baby Dark Romance
66. Lance
67. New York Daily Journal
68. Jocelyn
69. Lance
70. Jocelyn
71. Jocelyn
72. Lance
73. Jocelyn
74. Lance
75. Jocelyn
76. Lance
77. Lance
78. Jocelyn
79. Lance
80. Jocelyn
81. New York Daily Journal
82. Lance
83. Jocelyn
84. New York Daily Journal
85. Lance
86. Jocelyn
87. Lance
88. New York Daily Journal
89. Jocelyn
90. Jocelyn
91. Lance
92. New York Daily Journal
93. Jocelyn
94. Lance
95. Jocelyn
96. Lance
97. Jocelyn
98. Lance
99. New York Daily Journal
100. Jocelyn
101. Lance
102. Michael
103. Jocelyn
104. New York Daily Journal
105. Jocelyn
A Goodbye From Lance
Another Goodbye From Alexis
Another Note From The Author Man Chaser: A Secret Baby Dark Romance
106. Ethan
107. Brittney
108. Ethan
109. Brittney
110. Ethan
111. Brittney
112. Ethan
113. Brittney
114. Ethan
115. Brittney
116. Brittney
117. Ethan
118. Brittney
119. Ethan
120. Brittney
121. Ethan
122. Brittney
123. Ethan
124. Brittney
125. Brittney
126. Ethan 127. Brittney
128. Ethan
129. Brittney
130. Ethan
131. Brittney
132. Ethan 133. Brittney
134. Ethan
135. Brittney
136. Brittney
137. Epilogue As Told By Brittney
138. Second Epilogue - As Told By Brittney
Another Note From The Author
Fiona Vs. Football Player
139. Fiona
140. Danny
141. Fiona
142. Danny
143. Fiona
144. Danny
145. Fiona
146. Danny
147. Fiona
148. Danny
149. Fiona
150. Fiona
151. Fiona
152. Danny
153. Fiona
154. Danny
155. Fiona
156. Danny
157. Fiona
158. Epilogue - Fiona
Another Note From The Author
159. Magnificent Mess: Penny and Magnus
Another Note From The Author Becca Vs. Biker
160. Becca
Also by Alexis Angel
Dirty Daddy
A Secret Baby Bad Boy Romance
By Alexis Angel
Copyright 2017 by Alexis Angel All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental. This work is intended for adults only.
Join Alexis’ Naughty Angel’s Newsletter and receive a bonus chapter from this book!
DESCRIPTION
It’s Time To F*ck Your Dirty Daddy…
No man can match me. No woman has tamed me. My billion-dollar empire makes me the most powerful man in the city. And I have a body to match. 8-pack abs. The face of a prince. The physique of a god. Money. Fame. Power. And the 12 inches that dangle between my legs, hardening as you walk by.
Face it. You want me. You know you can’t resist. And if you can walk afterwards, then we’ll do it all again till you can’t.
Touch me. Tempt me.
Tease me. Please me.
Nothing will be too much in this forbidden land of taboo delight. Because baby, no matter how wrong it seems, with Daddy, it’ll always feel right.
**COME join AlexisAngel in this full-length standalone romance. No cliffhanger but it's going to be a scorcher with scenes so hot that yourladypartswillneedacoldshower.HEA?Youknowit,babe.**
ThisbookisdedicatedtoKiraBlakely
ALSO BY ALEXIS ANGEL
Wicked Lil’ Brat
Man Chaser
Red & Blue
Scandalous
Client 5
Jailbait
Python 12 Inches
D.I.L.F.
Co-Writing As Abby Angel
Men of the House
Woman of the House
Co-Writing As Dark Angel
The Virgin Market
DIRTY LIL’ ANGELS
Hi ladies!
If you’re like me, once you finish, you’re not going to want the story to end!
To receive exclusive sneak peeks, (before anyone else!), bonus content not seen anywhere else, giveaways, and tons more swag, visit me and my Naughty Angels on Facebook at Dirty Lil’ Angels.
We’ll make it worth your while… :)
Kisses! Alexis
A NOTE FROM ALEXIS
Well hello there, ladies!
Let me first begin by introducing myself. My name is Alexis Angel. I write steamy contemporary romance. Steamy is another word, I guess, for dirty. And dirty is another word for fun! In fact, the dirtier the better because at heart I’m just a bad girl looking to have some fun.
Having fun is why I do this. And, I’m just having fun in the next few hundred pages, doing what I do with a wink and a nod. It’s supposed to bring out some emotions and give you a chance to forget about your cares for a little bit. That’s all I’m looking to do.
Some people want realism in their books. I say reality is too depressing. So you might see certain things as over the top or ridiculous in terms of never being realistically possible. Yeah, I agree. You’re coming into the world of Alexis by turning the page. Into a world where you have twin stepbrother quarterbacks with 12 inch …uhmm…appendages… that fall in love with their stepsister, where you have dragons who shift into billionaire BDSM rock stars, and so on. Anyways, I think reality should take a second place to fun.
So I just wanted to say that, in case you know, you were hoping for like super real. The men and women in the pages below represent the best, and worst, of all of us as a collective whole. This is all about leaving your cares for the world behind, as we hold
hands, and just for a little while go on a journey that makes us smile. And hopefully a lil’ wetter than before.
Kisses!
Alexis xoxox
ANOTHER WORD FROM ALEXIS
Hey babes!
Amazon has a problem with Page Flip. If you’re hitting the end of this book, and it asks you to go back to the first page, then PLEASE DON’T. If you’re reading on Kindle Unlimited, none of the pages will get counted as a read.
Even if it’s asking you to go to the beginning and review, please close the book at the page you end at after the story - there is a bonus book after this - and then review if you need to.
The Page Flip issue seriously kills page reads for me, so I’m thanking you in advance!
Love!
Alexis xoxoxox
MAGNUS
Oh baby," Mandy moans lewdly as the sound of my thighs slapping against her ass fills the air.
It’s a fucking great sound. If you were here, you’d be touching yourself at the sight of us.
You’d want to join in once you saw my gorgeous fucking body fucking her. You wouldn’t mind sharing. You wouldn’t care. You’d lick my cock with whoever else just to get at my cock.
Pretty arrogant and confident right off the bat, aren’t I?
Pleasure to meet you. I’m Magnus Davion.
But let’s get back to Mandy and the ungodly things I’m doing to her.
I can hear the lewd sucking sounds as my cock plunges in and out of her pussy. I can smell her fucking juices as her scent permeates the air.
Her wetness is smeared across her thighs. Her pussy is spasming around my thick cock and I grunt in pleasure at the feelings that are going through me. "Don't you dare stop fucking me, baby," she adds one last command as she turns her head back to me to look at my monster pole piercing her.
But wait, who the fuck does this bitch think she is, giving me fucking orders? I'm Magnus fucking Davion, the 15th richest man in the whole fucking world, if you read Forbes Magazine. I just bought
a fucking NFL team—the New York Nailers—from the previous owner, Apollo Kane.
That’s right. If he sounds familiar to you it’s because he’s fucking famous now. Alexis Angel wrote his whole story and how he owns Blush Magazine, or whatever the fuck.
But he had to get out of the football franchise.
And I didn't mind paying $3 billion dollars for it. That kind of money is literally fucking nothing to me.
So I certainly don’t take fucking orders from anybody—but in this case, I can let it slide.
You're just getting acquainted with me, aren't you? You must think all I do all day is talk about how wealthy I am and shit. That's actually not true. I don't spend my day only bragging about how much money I have. I also spend it talking about how fucking good I look, and how much you're probably wanting to fuck me.
Oh, you think I already did that, don't you? But you have no idea, darlin’.
I’m literally a god amongst men.
That's right. You heard me fucking right. I stand taller than all the men you will ever fucking meet. No one of this world really compares to me.
I'm fucking wealthy. I'm the fucking founder and CEO of Davion Development, one of the most ruthless real estate firms in New York City.
We’re not like some private equity firm or investment bank either. Hell fucking no.
We build things. Buildings. Bridges. Dams. We get our hands dirty.
We take over abandoned places and we create gleaming skyscrapers that inspire the fucking imagination.
I'm 6' 4", built like a Greek God—with a massive chiseled chest and a rock hard 8-pack of abs. My skin is tanned to a perfect bronze and flawless. My face is chiseled and rugged. My hair is just right. My nose is royal in its cut. My chin is even fucking aristocratic looking. But aside from the handsome looks that you see on the
outside, there is one very fucking large reason that you want me to fuck you.
"Oh my god, baby, I'm about to cum!" Mandy screams as I slam into her. She closes her eyes and contorts her face as it's wracked with lust. I feel her entire body shake and quiver. Her pussy clamps down around my cock. It's intense. I feel her go slightly limp as her muscles lose all voluntary control and pleasure seizes her body.
That's why. The cause of her orgasm. The rod that's pistoning into her box.
My 12-inch, thick, throbbing, pole of a cock. It swings between my legs and one taste of it and you'll be fucking begging me for more. You'll do whatever I fucking ask for another lick. Another taste. Another fuck.
My cock will make you worship it. It'll make you fucking beg and plead. And it'll make you cum like you've never, ever, fucking cum before.
"Oh my fucking god!" Mandy screams and her body writhes like that of a woman possessed. I look down past Mandy.
I may have forgotten to tell you where I am. I'm in the team skybox room of Nailers Arena. Today is the first day of the regular season and it's the Nailers' first game at their refurbished stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The crowd is waiting for kick-off and I was gazing at the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows in the skybox when Mandy Marsten, the head cheerleader for the Nailers, came to see me.
"Admiring the view?" she asked me, walking in. We hadn't talked much before, but I can fucking tell when someone's giving me the eye and she has been eye-fucking me all fucking week. But so do a lot of women, so I just go with the flow.
"Maybe I was looking in the wrong direction," I said, walking toward her.
In hindsight it seems unreal because I had just walked up to her and reached over and pulled her close. Before I knew it, the few clothes that she had on were off, and on the ground. She was sucking my cock like a fucking pro in five minutes and bending over
the table looking out at the crowd through those same floor-toceiling windows in ten.
I gotta say though, if we had to pick any place to have sex, this would be it. This room, with its fucking plush leather couches and mahogany wood trimmings screams to have people fuck in it.
All the better when it's game day and you have 150,000 screaming fans who don't know you're about to bust a fucking nut high above their heads.
I can feel myself getting close to my own fucking orgasm. It's going to be fucking intense. Already I see Mandy begin to blink a couple of times as she comes out of the pleasure-coma that I put her into. Her chest is heaving and she's winded, with fucking sweat dripping down her back. It's a fucking beautiful sight.
But like all good things, shit has to get in the fucking way. Something has to come and fuck it all up.
I look up to see the roving camera pan the crowd. Normally, it wouldn't make too much of a difference but the fucking camera that's displaying on the Jumbotron is slowly panning over the crowd, and people are cheering when they see their faces—until it pans over to the skybox and they see that I'm fucking Mandy doggie style, straight on the Jumbotron.
That's fucking right. Its got me right there, on a 33 foot by 110 foot screen. My head is bobbing and Mandy’s face is grimacing.
At first, people don't know what to fucking make of it. I mean, this has got to be the largest porno viewing in the history of the fucking world.
But after numerous sex tapes, countless scandals, Presidents who marry their stepmothers, and a host of other situations, the sexual mores of Americans have changed. They're not scandalized by my fucking the shit out of Mandy.
They're appreciative.
At least, that's what the cheers are telling me! Literally, people are standing up and cheering me on!
Okay, you got me. I was worried for a fucking second. I was worried that people were going to start to do the same old bullshit and call me a bad role model.
But wait, I forgot. I'm Magnus fucking Davion. I can do any fucking thing I want.
With a roar, I push against the glass door that leads out to the terrace. Part of the renovation took some of the floor-to-ceiling glass wall and made it into a door and added a small terrace.
The door swings open and the tint from the glass goes away on the Jumbotron. The camera zooms in and I'm larger than life looking down on the stadium at 150,000 fans who are screaming and swooning.
I raise my heavily tattooed arm and point out at the stadium.
The crowd goes fucking wild.
Mandy opens her eyes and looks out the window. The first thing she sees is herself bent over a table except now her face is 30 feet by 110 feet.
"Oh God," she moans, "Everyone can see us!"
She whimpers and the thought of being so public makes her body spasm and convulse and I know another orgasm has just ripped through her.
I don't fucking blame her. I'm about to cum myself.
But something seems incomplete as thoughts of cum race through my head.
I figure it out.
Why cum into a condom when I'm in front of this many fucking people?
That's right. I need something dramatic.
I pull out of Mandy.
Already the crowd is beginning to chant, as if they realize what is about to happen.
"Cum on her! Cum on her! Cum on her!"
Little fucking grandmothers with foam fingers are pointing at me, telling me to do my fucking job as a man.
Mandy knows what's going on, and as if in a trance, she slides down to her knees and faces my cock. She does not put her back to the crowd and they can still see her as she pulls the condom from my cock and flings it off the terrace onto the fans below.
If this isn't like being a fucking god, I don't know what is. Mandy wraps her lips around my tip and sucks.
I groan.
"Cum on her! Cum on her!" the crowd continues to chant.
I see Mandy staring at me as she removes her mouth and begins to stroke my shaft.
Those slutty eyes are the last things I see as my mind goes blank and a seizure of pleasure grips my balls, and electricity jolts through my body.
Arcs of white, hot, thick cum race out of my cock and onto her face.
A thick rope splashes her on the chin. Another hits her neck. Her beautiful, slutty eyes are staring at me and milking me as two shots cover her forehead. Cum starts to drip down her. She opens her mouth and a shot of ropey, thick cum goes in. Another few shots hit her tits and cover her with semen.
The crowd goes wild, cheering me on as I finish spraying the cheerleader before me with my cum.
She begins to scoop it off her tits with one finger and bring it to her lips. I groan as I see her take one long swab of cum on her index finger and bring it to her lips.
My cock twitches again.
The Jumbotron captures it.
The crowd starts to chant my name. I wave and take Mandy’s hand and lift her to her feet. We both bow.
The crowd goes fucking wild; the roar is deafening.
Welcome to my life.
Want to keep reading?
I guarantee you, if you do, you'll be following me into something that makes this seem like a boring walk in the park.
But you won't know till you come find out.
THE NEW YORK DAILY JOURNAL
It’s Time for Us To Come Together!
GOSSIP CENTRAL ON PAGE EIGHT. From theDeskofVickyDurner- Allthe gossipyouneverevenknewyouneededtoknow!
GOOD MORNING GOTHAM!
Hope you enjoy a nice spraying of cum on your face with that coffee and toast! Because that's exactly what we got yesterday with Magnus Davion at the New York Nailers arena.
In case you just spit out your coffee reading the above line, fear not, brave denizen of New York City. You did read that correctly.
Billionaire real estate mogul Magnus Davion was so happy with his recent purchase of the New York Nailers that he went ahead and began to celebrate by having sex in the skybox of the stadium— during a home game.
I know that in the Tri-State region we try to give billionaires their due. After all, they've managed to accrue all this money so it's only natural that we give them an opportunity to enjoy it. But honestly, if you're going to be enjoying it by sticking your giant rod into the
head cheerleader of the team that you bought in the skybox of the stadium where there is a game going on, maybe think about closing the blinds?
Because it didn't take long for the cameras to find Magnus. And when this showman found himself on the JumboTron, did he shy away?
Of course not.
He doubled down.
And sprayed the cheerleader in the face with his love gun. To the cheers of over 50,000 fans.
I'm sorry, but I thought I was going to stadiums to watch football games. I didn't realize I was going to Nailers Arena to watch the live re-enactment of Debbie Does Dallas.
Is this really the kind of environment we want our kids to grow up in?
Do we really want the next generation of New Yorker men to aspire to one day shoot their ejaculate onto a woman's face in front of 50,000 cheering fans?
Because that's exactly what we're doing by rewarding such gross and boorish behavior from Magnus Davion.
How exactly are we rewarding it you ask, my fellow Gothamites?
Consider our tax dollars that we pay to the city of New York. Those tax dollars are being used to procure services from real estate developers.
Think of the Equinox Tower, one of the most iconic and celebrated building projects in the world. Once it's built in three years, it'll be the tallest building in the world.
And right now, the City of New York, which is the landlord for the site, is considering a host of developers to carry this project forward. The chief contender?
Yep. You guessed it.
Davion Development.
It's time for us to put a stop to this.
It's time for us to draw a line in the sand and say that we're done with the filth washing up into our homes. We're done rewarding bad behavior.
I call on all New Yorkers today to join me in telling the city and the state to pull all contracts and refuse to do business with any business entity that's controlled by Magnus Davion.
Start sending him a message that it's not okay to be so focused on yourself that you don't care about anything else.
That it's not okay to be the baddest boy on the block.
That it's time to join the human race.
Let's bring our voices together, New York. And let's be heard.
Until then, keep your ears to the ground, New York. I'll be listening!
PENNY
Monday morning. Most people hate it, but not me.
I think there’s something exhilarating about the start of a new week. New challenges, new opportunities … you’re probably rolling your eyes at me right now. I know, I know—I’m one of those people lucky enough to have a job that they love. What can I say? I fell in love with words when I was young, and that love kept on growing and growing until I became a reporter.
Ever heard of Gossip Central? Of course you have; I bet you don’t miss a single column. Well, I’m the gal (or, well, one of the gals) behind the keyboard. I know the byline under each column says a certain Vicky Durner wrote the piece, but that’s just part of the show. It’s a pen name, you see? A nom-de-plumif you want to be fancy about it. Because I, Penny Wright, am the one cranking out these columns. Okay, I’m not the only one working under the name Vicky Durner, but I sure as hell am the most prolific.
I’m only twenty-one and, now fresh out of Yale, I want to prove to the world how good I really am. That’s why I work so hard, and that’s why I’m this cheery on a Monday morning.
I know the name GossipCentralmight have you rolling your eyes again, but don’t get too hung up on the name: there’s serious journalism in these pieces. Gossip is fun (I’m not above a good afternoon of it), but I also care about this city where I grew up, and I hope that shows in what I write.
Another random document with no related content on Scribd:
David RoBards had his personal seasons; his feast days and fast days in his own soul. Everybody treated him with respect as a man of unblemished life in a home of unsullied reputation.
Then Patty met him with a doleful word:
“We’ve got to give an At Home right away. Don’t stand staring! We’ve gone out dozens of times and accepted no end of hospitality. We simply must pay our debts.”
“I’d like to,” said RoBards. “You and Immy have run up so many bills at so many shops that I am almost afraid to walk the streets or open my mail.”
This always enfuriated Patty and it angered her now:
“Since you owe so much you can owe a little more. But we owe something to Immy. We must give a ball, and it must be a crack.”
“An orgy, you mean, if it’s to be like some of the others we’ve gone to. Is that the most honest way to present a daughter to the world?”
“You’re getting old, Mist’ RoBards!” Patty snapped. “Orgies was the name poor old Papa used to call the dances you and I went to in our day.”
The upshot of it was that Patty won. The choicest personages in town received an Alhambra-watered envelope containing a notice that Mr. and Mrs. RoBards would be at home in St. John’s Park that evening week. Patty sent cards also to a number of young men whom RoBards considered far beneath his notice; but they were asked everywhere because they could and would dance the tight polka, the redowa, the waltz, the German; they could and would play backgammon and graces, write acrostics, sit in tableaux, get up serenades, riding parties, sleighing parties—anything to keep females from perishing of boredom. They all dressed correctly and alike, parted their hair straight down the back, posed as lost souls and murmured spicy hints of the terrific damnations they had known in Paris. Some of them lived in twenty-shilling-a-week boarding houses and curled each other’s hair.
But they could and would dance instead of standing about like wooden Indians. Some critics said that the dancing in the American homes was faster and more furious than anything abroad, except at the masked balls in Paris where the girls were grisettes.
Some of the beaux won an added prestige by their cynicism. They spoke with contempt of the sex they squired. In fact, everybody said that the new generation lacked the reverence for women that had been shown in the better days. Some blamed the rapidly increasing wealth of the country with its resultant laxity of morals; some blamed the sensational novelists for their exposures of feminine frailties.
Mr. Thackeray, an English lecturer and novelist, whose “Vanity Fair” had been a ruthless picture of British wickedness in high circles, came in for no little rebuke.
In an article on the subject RoBards found him blamed for the attitude of “unfledged college boys who respect nothing in the shape of woman, and exult in his authority to throw overboard the slight remains of the traditionary reverence which inconveniently bridles their passions, and restrains their egotisms.”
It was into such an atmosphere that the young girl Immy and the lad Keith must emerge from childhood. In such a dangerous world they must live their life. RoBards shuddered at the menace.
CHAPTER XXXIV
PATTY had a linen cover stretched tight over the parlor carpet. She got in an appalling amount of supper material; oyster soup in gallons, dinde aux truffes by the pound, ice cream in gallons, jellies, custards, cakes, preserves; punch by the keg, and champagne bottles by the regiment.
Everybody came. St. John’s Park was a-roar with carriages and bawling coachmen and footmen, some of them in livery. Tactless people set Patty’s teeth on edge by saying that it was well worth while coming “downtown” to see her; and Immy such a lady! She’d be making Patty a grandmother any of these days!
For a time RoBards enjoyed the thrill, the dressed-up old women and old men and the young people all hilarious and beautiful with youth.
He had his acid tastes, too, for many of the people congratulated him on the reported successes of his old crony, Captain Chalender. He was reputed to be a millionaire at least, and one of the best loved men in California—and coming home soon, it was rumored. And was that true?
“So I’ve heard,” RoBards must murmur a dozen times, wondering how far away Chalender would have to go to be really absent from his home.
The house throbbed with dance music, the clamor and susurrus of scandal along the wall line of matrons, the laughter; the eddies the dancers made; young men in black and pink girls in vast skirts like huge many-petaled roses twirled round and round.
It amazed RoBards to see how popular Immy was. She was wrangled over by throngs of men. Her color was higher than her liquid rouge explained; her eyes were bright, and she spoke with an aristocratic lilt her father had never heard her use.
Keith was as tall and as handsome as any young blade there, and his father could hardly believe that the boy could be so gallant, so gay, so successful with so many adoring girls.
It was good to see so much joy in the home he had made for the children whose sorrows had been so many and so real. But as the evening grew old and the crowd thickened, his cheerfulness flagged. Perhaps he was merely fatigued with the outgo of welcome, sickened by having to say and hear the same things so many times.
But he saw the picnic becoming a revel. The dancers, whether waltzing or polking, seemed to increase in audacity, in blind or shameless abandonment to thoughts and moods that belonged to solitude if anywhere.
As he wandered about he surprised couples stealing embraces or kisses slily, or whispering guiltily, laughing with more than mischief. Sometimes it was Immy that he encountered; sometimes Keith. What could he say or do? Nothing but pretend to be sightless and guileless.
When the supper hour was reached, the rush was incredible. Men made a joke of the crassest behavior, and a chivalric pretense that they were fighting for refreshment to carry to their fainting ladies. But it was neither humorous nor knightly to spill oyster soup over a lace dress, to tilt ice cream down a broadcloth back, or to grind fallen custard into the expensive carpet.
It was not pretty to empty the dregs of somebody’s else champagne into the oyster tureen or under the table, and while refilling the glass let the wine froth all over the table cover.
Many of the squires forgot their dames and drank themselves into states of truculence, or, worse, of odious nausea. RoBards had to convey two young gentlemen of better family than breeding up to the hatroom to sleep off their liquor; and he had to ask some of the soberer youth to help him run one sudden fiend out to the sidewalk and into a carriage.
While RoBards was spreading one of his young guests out on a bed upstairs, another knocked over the cutglass punch-bowl and
cracked it irretrievably, together with a dozen engraved straw-stem glasses Patty’s father had left to her.
When the German began at about midnight some of the men dared to carry champagne bottles with them and set them down by their chairs for reference during the pauses in the figures.
Hosts and hostesses were supposed to ignore the misconduct of their guests, but it made RoBards’ blood run cold to see Immy go from the arms of a decent respectful sober youth into the arms and the liquorous embrace of a drunken faun whom she had to support.
He ventured to whisper a protest to her once. But she answered:
“Papa! don’t be ridiculous! A girl can’t discriminate. I can’t hurt a poor boy’s feelings just because he can’t carry his liquor as well as the rest. Besides, I’m the hostess.”
Her father cast his eyes up in helplessness at such a creed.
But even Immy and Patty could not ignore the ill fortune of Barbara Salem, whose partner was so tipsy that he reeled her into a handsome buhl escritoire and broke the glass door with Barbara’s head, then fell with her to the floor and gaped while the blood from her slashed brow ran through her hair and over her white shoulders and her white dress and soaked through the linen cover into the carpet beneath.
Old Mr. and Mrs. Salem were aghast at the family calamity, while the young man wept himself almost sober with remorse. Keith’s coat was stained with red as he carried Barbara upstairs to a bedroom to wait for the doctor
In the ladies’ dressing-room, which Keith had to invade, two young women had already fainted; both from tight stays, they said. One of them was half undressed and unlacing her corsets with more wisdom than her heavy eyes indicated.
Immy put Keith out and ministered to the casualties.
But the dance went on. Some old prudes were shocked, but the rest said, “A party is a party, and accidents will happen.”
Dear old Mrs. Piccard said to Patty:
“You’re lucky in having only two carpets ruined, my dear. I had three destroyed at my last reception. But it’s nothing to what went on in the good old days, if the truth were told. My father was with General Washington, you know. And really——! Papa was with the army that night when General Washington himself danced with General Greene’s wife for three hours without sitting down. Those were the heroic days, my dear! And drinking! Our young men are comparatively abstemious.”
Finally the more merciful guests began to go home, leaving the dregs behind. Young men who would doze and make mistakes at the counting houses the next day, lingered as if it were the last night of earth.
There was torture for RoBards in Immy’s zest, in the look of her eyes as she stared up into the unspeakable gaze of some notorious rake; and in the welding of her sacred body to his in a matrimonial embrace as they waltzed round and round giddily. Yet how much bitterer a wound it was to see her transfer herself for the next dance to another man and pour up into his fatuous eyes the same look of helpless passion!
The performance repeated in a third man’s bosom was confusion. RoBards had either to turn on his heel or commit murder. And he really could not murder all the young men whom Immy maddened. Indeed, he was not sufficiently satisfied with his first murder to repeat the experiment.
Yet Immy kept her head through it all; flirted, plotted, showed the ideal Arabian hospitality in her dances. But no one made a fool of her.
Keith, however, was overwhelmed. It was his first experience with unlimited champagne, and he had thought it his duty to force it on his guests and join them in every glass. It was disgraceful to leave a heeltap. When he could no longer stand up or dance, he had to be carried upstairs, moaning, “It’s a shame to deshert guesh.”
A boy and drunk! And weeping, not for being drunk but for not being the last man drunk!
The world was ready for the Deluge! The American nation was rotten to the core and would crumble at the first test.
This dance at the RoBards home was typical, rather more respectable than many. All over town dances were held in dance halls where the middle classes went through the same gyrations with less grace, and in the vile dens of the Five Points where all were swine.
Patty was too tired to speak or listen when the last guest was gone. She could hardly keep awake long enough to get out of her gown.
She sighed: “I’m old! I’m ready to admit it. I’m glad I’m old. I’m never going to try to pretend again! I don’t want ever to be so tired again. If anybody wakes me to-morrow I’ll commit murder. In God’s name, will you never get those stay-laces untied?”
RoBards drew out a knife and slashed them and they snapped like violin strings, releasing the crowded flesh.
Patty groaned with delight and peeling off her bodice stepped out of the petticoats and kicked them across the floor. She spent a while voluptuously rubbing her galled sides; then lifted her nightgown and let it cascade about her, and fell into bed like a young tree coming down.
CHAPTER XXXV
THE rest of the family might sleep its fill on the morrow, but RoBards had to go to court. Getting himself out of bed was like tearing his own meat from his bones. He could hardly flog his body and mind to the task. If it had not been for the new shower bath the Croton River brought to his rescue, he could never have achieved it.
The house looked positively obscene in the morning light, with the wreckage of the festival, and no music or laughter to redeem it. Cuff and Teen were sullen with sleepiness and the prospect of extra toil. They emphasized the fact that the dining-room carpet was too sticky and messy for endurance. RoBards’ breakfast was served on the drawing-room table.
He went to court to try a case for a strange old female miser whose counsel he had been for many years. They called her the shrewdest business man in town and she laughed at the fact that she was not considered fit to vote, though the Revolutionary War had been fought because of the crime of “taxation without representation.”
“Now that they’ve thrown away the property qualifications, every Tom, Dick, and Harry can vote as often as he’s a mind to. But I can’t. Every thieving politician can load taxes on my property to get money to steal. But I have no say. My husband was a drunkard and a fool and a libertine, and I brought him all the property he ever had. He used it as an excuse for voting and I couldn’t even go to court in my own protection for the law says, ‘Husband and wife are one and the husband is the one.’
“The minute he died, I became a human being again, thank God. But I have to have a man for a lawyer and men to judge my cases. The lamb has to have a wolf for a lawyer and plead before a bench of wolves. But I will say, you’re as honest a wolf as ever I knew.”
If anything could have destroyed RoBards’ faith in exclusively white, male suffrage it would have been old Mrs. Roswell. But nothing could shake that tradition, and he accounted her an exception that proved the rule.
While he dealt with her professionally as if she were one of the shrewd old merchants of New York, he treated her personally with all the courtesy he displayed for more gentle females, and she was woman enough to love that.
Miser that she was, she made him take higher fees than he ordinarily charged, and they saved him again and again from despair in the face of the increasing expense of his home.
In her desperate eagerness to fight off retirement from the ranks of youth, Patty relied more and more on the dressmakers and hatmakers. She developed a passion for jewelry and she spent great sums at the Daguerrean galleries.
She would sit in frozen poses for six minutes at a time, trying to obtain a plate that would flatter her sufficiently. But her beauty was in her expression and especially in its fleetness, and the miracle of Daguerre was helpless. The mist that clothed Niagara in a veil of grace was not itself when winter made it ice. And Patty’s soul, so sweet and captivating as it flitted about her eyes and lips, became another soul when it must shackle itself and die.
Only a few colors were advantageous in the new process and those were the least happy in Patty’s rainbow. Yet she dressed and fixed her smiles and endured the agony of feeling a compelled laughter curdle into an inane smirk. And she would weep with hatred of her counterfeit presentment when it came home from Brady’s or Insley’s or Gurney’s.
Immy fared little better there for all her youth. And her costliness increased appallingly, for she must keep pace with the daughters of wealth. When she went shabby it reflected on her father’s love or his success, and Patty could stifle his fiercest protest by simply murmuring:
“Hasn’t the poor child suffered enough without having to be denied the common necessities of a well-bred girl?”
This stung RoBards into prodigies of extravagance, and Immy’s wildest recklessness took on the pathos of a frightened child fleeing from vultures of grief.
He could not even protest when he saw that she was taking up the disgusting vice of “dipping.” Snuff-taking had lost its vogue among the beaux, and only the elders preferred it to smoking tobacco.
But now the women and girls were going mad over it. In the pockets of their skirts they carried great horn snuff-boxes filled with the strongest Scottish weed. Stealing away from the sight of men, they would spread a handkerchief over their laps, open the boxes, and dipping the odious mixture on a little hickory mop, fill their pretty mouths with it and rub it on their teeth. They seemed to take some stimulus from the stuff, and the secrecy of it added a final tang.
All the men were arrayed against it, but their wrath gave it the further charm of defiant wickedness.
What was getting into the women? They would not obey anybody. Since Eve had mocked God and had desired only the one forbidden fruit, they seemed determined to enjoy only what was fatal.
And the books they read! RoBards came home one evening to find Immy in tears and Patty storming about her like a fury. When he intervened Patty said:
“Would you see what I caught this child devouring! Sitting with the gas blinding her and her eyes popping over this terrible story by somebody named Hawthorne. The title alone is enough to make a decent girl run from it. The Scarlet Letter. Do you know what the letter was and what it stood for?”
RoBards shook his head. He did not read light, popular fiction. The affidavits he handled were fiction enough for him.
Patty drew him into another room and whispered the plot of the story. RoBards gathered that it had to do with a Puritan minister who had a secret affair with the wife of an absent citizen, and with the
child that resulted in the mother’s very proper appearance in the pillory.
“They ought to put the author there and sew a letter on his lapel.” Patty raged. “No wonder the people of Salem put him out of office and drove him out of town.”
There had been an article in the Church Review about the book. Patty fetched it and read a few lines to RoBards:
“Is the French era actually begun in our literature? We wonder what he would be at: whether he is making fun of all religion. Shelley himself never imagined a more dissolute conversation than that in which the polluted minister comforts himself with the thought that the revenge of the injured husband is worse than his own sin in instigating it.... The lady’s frailty is philosophized into a natural and easy result of the Scriptural law of marriage.”
That his daughter should read of such things sent a cold thrill into RoBards’ heart. He forgot that she had no innocence to destroy. Jud Lasher had wrecked that. Ernest Chirnside had rejected her for its lack. And he himself had watched her dance.
But the printed word had a peculiar damnation. He knew that wickedness was rife everywhere about him. He knew that Immy knew it, for the gossip was everywhere like the atmosphere. The newspapers blazoned it. The courthouses solemnized it.
Yet to print it in a story seemed infamous. And Patty added:
“I found her crying over it! Crying her heart out over that woman and her brat! What can we do to save that child?”
“Ah, what can we do,” RoBards groaned, “to save ourselves?”
There was something in his look that checked Patty’s ire, made her blench, shiver, and walk away. Perhaps she was thinking of—of what RoBards dared not remember
That night RoBards was wakened from sleep by a bewildering dream of someone sobbing. He woke and heard sobs. They had invaded his slumber and coerced the dream.
He sat up and looked about. Patty undressed and freezing had glanced into the purloined romance; and it had fastened on her. She was weeping over Hester Prynne and her child Pearl, and Dimmesdale, the wretched partner in their expiation.
When RoBards drowsily asked what had made her cry, she sat on the edge of his bed and read to him. Whether it were the contagion of her grief or the skill of the author, he felt himself driven almost to tears. He flung a blanket about Patty’s quivering shoulders and clung to her, wondering at this mystery of the world: that lovers long dead in obscurity, and lovers who had never lived at all, should be made to walk so vividly through the landscapes of imagination that thousands of strangers should weep for them.
Or was it for their woes that one wept? Or for one’s own in the masquerade of other names and scenes?
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE tenderest moods of devotion and shared sorrows alternated with wrangles so bitter that murder seemed to hang in the air. Money was the root of most of the quarreling.
When RoBards was about ready to give up and sink like a brokenbacked camel under the incessant rain of last straws, there came a wind out of heaven and lifted the bills like petals swept from a peach tree.
Old Mrs. Roswell was found dead in her bed one morning. RoBards grieved for the poor old skinflint, and wondered how he would get along without her fees.
Then her last will was turned up and in it she bequeathed to him ten thousand dollars in gold and a parcel of land which she had bought in when it was sold for taxes. It lay out beyond the Reservoir on Murray’s Hill, an abandoned farm.
But he had hopes that it would one day prove of value, for there was talk of grading Fifth Avenue from Thirty-fourth Street out to Forty-fifth. And the World’s Fair which had been opened on July 4, 1852, in the magnificent Crystal Palace built next the Reservoir, taught the public that Forty-second Street was not quite the North Pole. And though it was a failure it had revealed the charm of this region. There was, indeed, a movement on foot to create a great park out there to be called Central Park. That would involve the purchase of the land by the city. The “Forty Thieves,” as the aldermen were called, would pay enough for it to leave themselves a tidy sum.
But RoBards was to learn that windfalls from heaven bring no permanent rescue. Patty was incensed at the thought of devoting any of that unforeseen ten thousand dollars to the payment of bills for worn-out dresses and extravagances of the past.
She had given a ball for Immy on her nineteenth birthday in the desperate hope that the girl would capture a husband before she began to fade, but though there were lovers enough, none of them seemed to account her a sufficiently attractive match.
And this was emphasized as a further proof of RoBards’ failure as a father. All the summer of 1853 Patty complained of the smallness of the house at Tuliptree. The children required separate rooms. They had guests and there was no place to put them. When Immy had two visitors, and one of his college friends came out to spend a week with Keith, the two boys had to clear a room in the hayloft. They made a lark of it, but it humiliated Patty, and she swore she would never go back to the place until RoBards added a wing to it.
To add a wing would mean the opening of the foundation and the demolition of the chimney, and the thought terrified RoBards. He had grown so used to the presence of Jud Lasher there that only some unexpected proposal of this sort wakened him to the eternal danger of a revelation all the more horrible for its delay.
Patty found so many places for the spending of his ten thousand that she could decide on none.
But the politicians smelled his money and he was visited by an affable ward-heeler with a suggestion that he accept a nomination for a judgeship in the Superior Court.
Though RoBards was revolted at the thought of receiving the ermine from hands soiled with such dirty money, his heart longed for the dignity of a judgeship, and he knew that he could never attain the bench without the consent of the politicians. Once aloft he could purify the means by the purity of his decisions.
So he gave his consent and promised to contribute the necessary funds for the campaign. And that fall he won the election. On January first he was to mount the throne.
Patty made all manner of fun of her politician, but she took pride in his victory and thenceforth began to call him “Judge.” It was a change from the ancient “Mister RoBards,” a little less distant, a little more respectful.
But RoBards noted that Immy seemed indifferent to his success or his failure. She pretended enthusiasm over his election, but her smile died almost before it was born. She was distraught, petulant, swift to anger and prompt to tears. She wept at nothing.
She took no delight even in gayety. She refused to go to dances. She denied herself to callers.
Even when snow came and brought what foreigners called “the American pastime known as sleighing,” and the bells thrilled the muffled streets with fairy jubilation, she kept the house.
But the mere hint of calling in a doctor threw her into spasms of protest.
One evening when the winter night overlapped the afternoon there came a tempest of sleet and snow and RoBards had to call a hack to take him home from the office. He was lashed as with a cat-o’-nine tails when he ran from the curb to his door.
And when he entered the hall in a flurry of sleet, Patty said to him:
“We’ve got to go up to Tuliptree at once—to-morrow.”
“Why? what for? for how long?”
“I don’t know for how long, but we must lose no time in getting Immy out of town.”
CHAPTER XXXVII
ANOTHER exodus. But they were scapegoats now, fleeing into the wilderness with a mystic burden of guilt, anonymous guilt; for Immy would not speak.
Complete was the contrast between that first flight from the cholera and this fleeing where no man pursued, but all men waited.
Then David and Patty RoBards were part of a stampede, striving to save their romance from the plague. Then they were bride and groom; now they carried with them a daughter, unforeseen then, but older to-day than her mother was when she married RoBards. But Immy’s bridegroom was where?—was who?
In that other journey to Tuliptree Farm the streets were smothered with dust and the waterless city stifled under a rainless sky.
Now water was everywhere. The fountains were still, but the pipes underground were thick as veins and arteries. Water in the form of snow lay on the ground, on the roofs, on the shoulders of the men, on their eyelashes, on the women’s veils and in their hair and the feathers of their hats. It lay in long ridges on the backs of the horses plunging, slipping, falling. It plastered the panes of the lamp-posts and the telegraph-posts that had grown up in a new forest all over town; it lay along the wires that strung spider webs from wall and chimney and tree.
The banners that hung from all the shops and stretched across the street were illegible. The busses and the hacks were moving dunes of white.
There was a fog of snow. Everybody walked mincingly, except the children, who rejoiced to slide on their brass-toed boots or on the sleds that ran like great, prong-horned beetles among the legs of the anxious wayfarers.
The RoBards trio was glad of the snow, for it gave concealment. Immy was silent, morose, and with reason enough. If ever a soul had the right to cry out against the unfairness, the malice of heaven, it was Immy. She could have used the bitter words of Job:
“He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked.... He will laugh at the trial of the innocent.”
She did not feel innocent. She felt worse than wicked; she felt a fool. But other people had been fools and vicious fools and no one learned of it. She had been wicked and foolish before without punishment; with reward rather, laughter, rapture, escape. Now for a flash of insane weakness this sudden, awful, eternal penalty.
To her father and mother speech was impossible, thought almost forbidden. If they had been taking Immy’s dead body up to a Westchester burial, they could hardly have felt more benumbed. Only, if she had been dead, the problem of her future would have been God’s. Now it was theirs.
The gamble of it was that they could not foreknow the result of this journey; whether it would mean one more life, or one death, or two.
In any case, RoBards must hasten back to his legal duties as soon as he had placed Immy on the farm. Patty must stay and share the jail sentence with her for—how long, who could tell?
At the railroad station they met friends, but satisfied them with a word about the charm of the country in the winter. The train ploughed bravely through snow that made a white tunnel of the whole distance. The black smoke writhing in the vortex of writhing white seemed to RoBards to express something of his own thoughts.
Travelers by rail usually expected death. Not long since, a train on the Baltimore and Ohio had turned four somersaults in a hundredfoot fall with frightful loss of life, and at Norwalk, Connecticut, a while ago, forty-four people had been slaughtered and a hundred and thirty mangled. But RoBards felt that such a solution of his own riddles would be almost welcome.
Suddenly Patty leaned close to him and brought him down to realities. She muttered:
“You must get the Albesons off the farm, somehow.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. You’re a lawyer. Think up something. They must not stay there. They must not suspect. They know too much as it is.”
“All right,” he sighed. He realized the shrewdness of her wisdom, but the problem she posed dazed him.
The rest of the way he beat his thought on an anvil, turning and twisting it and hammering till his brain seemed to turn red in his skull.
What simpler thing than to ask them to leave his farm? But they were such simple souls that they would be as hard to manage as sheep. And they must be sent away for a long time. He and Patty and Immy must manage without a servant. But no sacrifice was too great.
The train ran all the way to Kensico now. Here they encountered trouble in finding someone to drive them over the unbroken roads, but at length they bribed a man to undertake the voyage.
The horses picked their way with insect-like motions, and went so slowly that the bells snapped and clinked instead of jingling. The runners of the sleigh mumbled and left long grooves in the white.
The rain of flakes upon the eyelids had the effect of a spell; it was like this new thing everybody was talking about, “hypnotism,” a mere disguise for the worn-out fraud of mesmerism.
Surging along in a state betwixt sleep and waking, RoBards’ mind fell into a sing-song of babble.
Every man has in him at least one poem and RoBards, like most of his profession, had a love of exalted words. He lacked the magniloquence of Webster (whose recent death had swathed most of New York’s buildings in black); but he could not resist even in a foreclosure proceeding or the most sordid criminal case an occasional flight into the realm betwixt prose and poesy.
And now he lulled himself with an inchoate apostrophe to the snow:
“O Snow! O down from what vast swan-breast torn? from what vast swan-breast torn, to flutter, to flutter through the air and—and— What swan, then, was it? is it? that died, that dies in silence, in grief more like a song than—than silence: a song that has—that knows— that finds no words, no tune, no melody, no tune; but only feeling, ecstatic anguish, despair that faints, that droops, that swoons, and lies as meek, as white, as white, as still as marble. O Snow, thou quell’st—O Snow that quells the world, the countless sorrows of the world, the plaints, the hungers, shames, to one calm mood, one White. O Peace! O flawless Peace! This snow must be the drifting plumage from the torn wide wings, the aching breast of heaven’s own dove, the Holy Ghost.”
He was as lost in his shredded rhythms as in the snow; as muffled in himself as in the heavy robe and his greatcoat, and his thick cap. He had not yet thought of a way to exile the Albesons. He had surrendered himself as utterly to the weather as the hills themselves. The road was gone, the walls rubbed out, the trees were but white mushrooms. Everything was smoothed and rounded and numbed. Immy and her mother were snowed under and never spoke. Even the driver made no sound except an occasional chirrup or a lazy, “Git ap there!”
Then they were suddenly at Tuliptree. The snow had blurred the landmarks, and the driver had to wade thigh-deep to reach the gate, and excavate a space to swing it open.
The Albesons had neither seen nor heard them come, and the pounding on the door and the stamping of feet gave them their first warning.
They were so glad of the end of their solitude, and put to such a scurry to open bedrooms and provide fires and supper, that they had little time for questions beyond, “Haow air ye all, anyway?” “Haow’ve ye ben?” “Haow’s all the rest of the folks?” “Did ye ever see sich snow?”
Mrs. Albeson embraced Immy with a reminiscent pity, and praised her for putting on flesh and not looking like the picked chicken most the girls looked like nowadays.
This gave RoBards his first idea and he spoke briskly:
“She’s not so well as she looks. Too much gayety in the city. Doctor says she’s got to have complete rest and quiet. Mrs. RoBards and I are pretty well worn out, too; so we decided just to cut and run. Besides, I didn’t like to leave the farm alone all winter.”
“Alone all winter?” Albeson echoed. “Ain’t we here?”
“That’s what I came up to see you about. I have a client who lent a big sum of money on a Georgia plantation, slaves and crops and all. He’s afraid he’s been swindled—afraid the land’s no good—wants an honest opinion from somebody that knows soil when he sees it. So I’m sending you. And I’m sending your wife along to keep you out of mischief.”
“But Georgia! Gosh, that’s a million miles, ain’t it?”
“It’s nothing. You get the railroad part of the way. And it’s like summer down there.”
The farmer and his wife and Patty and Immy all stared at RoBards, and he felt as if he were staring at himself.
The odd thing about it was that the inspiration had come to him while he was on his feet talking. He thought best on his feet talking. That was his native gift and his legal practice had developed it.
While he had sat in the train and in the sleigh and cudgeled his wits, nothing happened. Yet all the while there was indeed a client of his anxious about a remote investment; he only remembered him when he began to talk. The gigantic swindle known as the Pine Barren speculation had sold to innocent dupes in the North thousands of acres of land that was worthless, and hundreds of thousands of acres that did not even exist. The result was pitiful hardship for hard-working, easy-believing immigrants and a bad name for legitimate Georgian transactions.
The Albesons were more afraid of this expedition into the unknown than if they had been asked to join the vain expedition Mr. Grinnell, the merchant, had recently sponsored to search the Arctic Zone for Sir John Franklin and his lost crew.
