The Lady's Guard (Sinful Brides Book 3)

by Christi Caldwell

  Focus on the reason for your being here. Or, in this case, the person accounting for her visit. “I . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  Several inches past six feet, dark, silent, and assessing, Ryker Black was the manner of man who filled a person with unease.

  And he was her brother.

  Whether he wished it or not.

  How did one go about greeting a man who shared one’s blood and yet wanted nothing to do with you? She nibbled at her lower lip. No doubt such an exchange required formality. “M-Mr. Black,” she said quietly, stumbling over that name. She hurried to pull her now bloodstained jacket back on.

  His eyes revealed nothing. Instead, he fixed that inscrutable stare on Mr. Marksman and then lifted a single dark eyebrow.

  “Don’t be an arse,” Mr. Marksman growled, shattering the silence. “It ain’t how it looks.”

  Widening her eyes, Diana looked between the two men studying each other. Granted, she’d been kneeling at Mr. Marksman’s feet, with her jacket wrapped about his leg, but really, how did it look?

  “It looked damning,” Mr. Dabney said, with a bored amusement. “And we should have all learned with”—he jerked his chin at Diana’s brother—“Black’s circumstances what happens to those caught in an ‘It isn’t how it looks’ moment.”

  Mr. Marksman moved quickly around her. Diana gasped and hurriedly stepped into his path, blocking his forward movement. “There was nothing damning,” she said frantically. “I’m certain it appeared damning because . . .” She was destined to exist in a perpetual state of blushing. “Well, because.” She settled for that vagueness. “However, I merely sought to help Mr. Marksman.” Whether he wished it or not. Which he’d decidedly not. “Given I . . .” Ryker’s steely eyes encouraged her to continue. “Given I . . .” Diana gestured to Mr. Marksman’s bloodstained breeches and then let her arm drop to her side. “Stabbed him.” That admission came, dragged from her, and her insides twisted.

  She’s just like her mother.

  Silence thundered around the room, thick and tense. If Ryker Black had despised her before, he’d now be more inclined to hurl her from the club into the streets without a backward glance, and he’d certainly not be offering any assistance with the needs that had driven her here.

  “She stabbed you.” Mr. Black looked beyond her shoulder to the man who stood at her back. What happened to a young lady who stabbed the head guard at a wicked gaming hell? Her heart thudded loudly in her ears, and she braced for his fury.

  Mr. Dabney emitted a snorting laugh. “She stabbed you.”

  Diana should be fixed on the crucial business that had brought her here, and yet . . . “It was not his fault,” she said defensively. No person, man or woman, regardless of station, cared to have their capabilities questioned. “I surprised him.”

  Another pall of silence rang.

  Mr. Dabney and Mr. Black dissolved into harsh laughter, until both men wiped moisture from their eyes.

  “Go to ’ell,” Mr. Marksman barked, and the vocal amusement from the pair at the front of the room only doubled.

  Some of the fear left her. She didn’t wish for the surly guard to be the source of their amusement, but she also didn’t wish to be hurled into the streets for injuring one of their own.

  Abruptly, Mr. Black’s amusement faded. “Out,” he ordered. “And Niall, see your leg is tended to. I’ll not have you kicking your toes up because you were stabbed with a—” Ryker Black turned to Diana expectantly.

  Her skin pricked with the glare Mr. Marksman leveled on her. “Fish knife,” she supplied.

  Another bark of laughter left Mr. Dabney. He dropped a quick bow in Diana’s direction and then swiftly exited. Without so much as looking at her, Mr. Marksman strolled from the room and then closed the door hard behind him.

  Diana’s heart pounded. She’d gone from being surrounded by one scowling and two laughing strangers to a brother who’d never acknowledged her.

  But surely he’d not wish me dead?

  “My lady,” he said in a brusque, businesslike tone so very similar to the one her father used when speaking to his man-of-affairs. Mr. Black motioned her to the chair opposite his desk. As he took a spot behind that broad piece of furniture, she hastily claimed the seat he’d motioned to.

  “Diana,” she corrected swiftly. Why could he not say something? Manage a smile? Anything, other than the unreadable lines of his face. When still he said nothing, she continued. “Please, if you’ll call me Diana,” she finished lamely.

  “Diana,” he said solemnly.

  She clasped her fingers on her lap. Surely that admission on his part was an encouraging sign? Mayhap he’d not turn her away, after all.

  He leaned back, and the folds of his aged leather chair groaned, shattering the quiet. Most would pepper her with questions as to her presence here—at this hour, no less. Ryker, however, simply sat in wait.

  “I would not have come, if there had been another option,” she forced herself to say when he remained silent.

  “A note is safer than wandering the streets of St. Giles in the dead of night,” her brother said dryly.

  “Yes,” she concurred. She’d briefly entertained sending a note, but had swiftly discarded the idea of putting such sordid details to paper. Not with the risk of it being intercepted. “Under most circumstances.” In this, Helena could not have helped. Bound for the country, she’d already helped Diana the only way she could have: by introducing Diana to her seafaring relatives, who represented a dream of freedom.

  But not even proud, spirited Helena could help her in this. Their father, doting as he’d been toward his daughters and wife, did not see a woman in the same light he did a gentleman. Then, that was the way of their society.

  Oi don’t have a problem with women.

  Well, it would seem with the exception of Mr. Niall Marksman. Thrusting aside thoughts of the rugged, scowling guard, she returned to her request. “I have no place asking you for any favors given my . . . given my . . .” At the emotionless glitter in his eyes, she dropped her focus to her clenched hands, white from the tight grip that had drained the blood from them. She knew not the details of her father’s relationship with Ryker Black’s mother, but had gleaned enough at keyholes and from servants to know he’d loved the woman. And Diana’s mother had robbed him of that happiness. A vise squeezed at her heart.

  “What do you require, Diana?”

  The gentleness in that query brought her head flying up. Ryker would never be a warm or tender brother, but in this instance, there was a quiet encouragement that erased all the terror and tension that had weighted her since she’d boarded the hack.

  “I’m looking for protection,” she said softly and then drew in a deep breath.

  His expression grew shuttered. “Protection.”

  Diana hesitated. When she’d spoken to their father, he’d merely patted her hand and waved off her fears. “Someone is trying to kill me,” she said, studying Ryker closely for his reaction.

  He went still.

  Did he think her as mad as her mother? Her rib cage tightened around her lungs, squeezing hard. Her gaze wavered, and she looked to the gold-framed portrait behind him, a floral country landscape at odds with this ruthless world. She forced her eyes back to his. “I know it is silly to think anyone would wish me dead, and yet . . .” Despite the first and final time she’d raised that concern to her father, she knew it with an irrational understanding deep in her gut.

  “And yet?” he prodded, in a commanding, perfunctory manner.

  Diana lifted her palms up. “I believe it to be true.”

  Ryker steepled his fingertips together and drummed them. “What does your father believe?” Your father. The man who’d sired them. How odd to speak of him as a stranger, but then, isn’t that what the Duke of Wilkinson was to Ryker? A boy snatched from the arms of his mother and turned over to a street thug in a merciless act orchestrated by Diana’s mother. How could he feel anything but, at best, remo
ved, and at worst, hatred for the duke?

  She spoke in halting tones. “My father said no one could possibly wish me harm.” If one wanted to be truly precise, he’d patted her on the head and laughed in his usual jolly fashion, in the first real amusement she’d seen from him since his wife had been carted off to Bedlam.

  Ryker stopped that distracting tap of his fingertips. “You are of a differing opinion.”

  She’d told him, and even though he questioned her still, he hadn’t laughed, or patted her on the head, or sent her on her merry, innocent way. “Oh, yes,” she said with a matter-of-factness that raised a frown. “There was a broken axle on the hackney I hired in the winter.”

  “You rented a hackney?” His eyebrows melded into a line. “For what purpose?”

  She cursed her loose tongue. Diana required his assistance, but she’d not share her visit to Bedlam with him. “To travel,” she said with a deliberate vagueness.

  He frowned, but did not press her for details.

  “Axles break.” With that casual reminder, he proved more like their father than different.

  “Twice?”

  That effectively silenced him, and Diana proceeded to tick off on her fingers. “I’ve discovered my chamber doors opened, with my window thrown wide. On three occasions.” The remembered terror of ducking her head inside the wind-chilled room sent ice racing along her spine. “My saddle broken.” When he continued scrutinizing her with that piercing assessment, she rested her palms on her lap. “And sometimes you just know.”

  All earlier calm had been replaced, and Ryker sat opposite her with a tense alertness. “You’ve told your father all of that and he still hasn’t provided you a guard?”

  Ladies had powerful footmen assigned them. Not surly guards who’d cut off a person’s airflow. She gave her head a slight shake and hedged her words. “The last I spoke to my father of it”—the first broken axle—“he . . .” She thought of the vague, empty shadow of a man who occasionally exited his chambers. “He had nothing to say on it.”

  Given her family’s history of madness, the last thing Diana could afford to do was go about seeing monsters in the shadows and have anyone believe her sane. Particularly the man who’d sent his wife off to Bedlam and then descended into his own state of lunacy.

  “When did the attempts begin?”

  That was it. The pressure in her chest eased. There were no doubts or further questions. Just this calm acceptance of her words as fact. For the first time in the past two months, the fear receded. “Just after Helena’s ball,” she stumbled. All of Society had been abuzz when Ryker had been caught in a compromising position with Lady Penelope. Diana, however, had been forced to learn anything and everything about her sister-in-law and Ryker in the scandal sheets. Diana hadn’t even received an invitation to his wedding—of which there had, curiously, been two to the same lady.

  Something flickered in her brother’s eyes and then was gone. His expression grew shuttered once more. “Tell me what you require.”

  He will help. Relief washed over her. Even if he despised the connection between them, he’d aid her anyway. “Will you speak to my father?” The man had stopped seeing her long ago. “You can make him listen.”

  Ryker nodded once. “It is done.”

  She cocked her head. That was it? She’d toiled over coordinating this meeting and slipping off in the dead of night, fearing she’d ultimately be met with derision, only to have him so readily believe and pledge his assistance? Diana searched his face. “Why should you believe me on nothing more than what I’ve told you?”

  “Sometimes you just know,” he said, tossing her words back at her. The ghost of a smile hovered on his lips and then faded. His features fell into their usual somber mask. “I survived the streets of St. Giles by trusting the very intuition you speak of, Diana.” He cast a look over her shoulder in the direction of the ticking longcase clock. “You should not be here. Ever.” He punctuated that reminder. “If you need me, send a note. Ya aren’t to come here,” he said, slipping into Cockney. “I’m seeing you home now.” He shoved to his feet. “Tomorrow I’ll come and speak with the duke.”

  Diana hopped to her feet. As she allowed her brother to escort her from his office and the Hell and Sin, for the first time since her mother had been carted off to Bedlam and her father became a deadened shell of a man, she felt . . . not so very much alone, after all.

  Chapter 4

  The four proprietors at the Hell and Sin were never collectively called away from their responsibilities unless there was trouble.

  As Niall stood in Ryker’s office with Adair and Calum, the heavy tension filling the room portended only one thing—trouble.

  Ryker stood at the front of his desk, hands clasped at his back. There could be no doubt that the trouble was directly connected to the breeches-wearing lady Niall had discovered prancing around the alley an hour earlier.

  Ryker opened his mouth to speak when the door opened. As one, they immediately faced the door.

  Niall relaxed.

  Penelope stood in the doorway in a nightshift and wrapper. Burying a yawn behind her fingertips, she looked around and then, uninvited, strolled inside. “Well,” she prodded after she’d closed the door.

  The harsh set to Ryker’s features relaxed. “You should be—”

  Penny planted her hands on her hips. “If you’re going to say sleeping, asleep, or any other variation, I’d substitute it with ‘here,’ Ryker.” There was a faint accusatory edge there. “You were gone.” Husband and wife engaged in some silent dialogue.

  Theirs was a closeness Niall hadn’t known with a single soul. Not with his siblings from the streets. Not even with the woman who’d given him life. Uncomfortable with that intimacy, Niall averted his gaze.

  Ryker released a sigh. “Lady Diana arrived earlier this evening.”

  Surprise stamped Penelope’s features. “Your sister?” she asked, coming forward.

  When she stopped before him, Ryker captured her hand in his and raised it to his lips.

  A blush stained her cheeks. “Do not try to distract me, Ryker Black.”

  The once ruthlessly hard gaming-hell owner grinned. “I wouldn’t dare.” He indicated the chair beside him. His wife ignored it, proving herself the same stubborn creature who’d run to aid Niall in Lambeth Street.

  When everyone again fell silent, Penelope shifted her gaze between them and then at last settled her probing stare on Ryker. “Well?” she demanded, arching a dark eyebrow.

  From the corner of his eye, Niall detected Calum’s and Adair’s matching grins, and if he were one of those fellows capable of amusement, watching Ryker Black be challenged by this slip of a lady would certainly be grounds for it. Of late, however, life had given Niall little reason to smile and every reason to be silent and guarded.

  “Diggory’s men are at work,” Ryker said, his gravelly tones conveying the severity of that admission.

  How easily Ryker now handed information over to his wife. The rules of keeping all nobility out had been shattered the day he’d wed Lady Penelope. Niall would never let a person in the way Ryker had.

  Penelope cocked her head. “But Killoran assured us that he’d rein in all of his men.”

  “They were once loyal to Diggory,” Adair quietly reminded her.

  It had been a good day when that sod had drawn his last breath. However, it had unleashed a war within the streets that even Diggory’s heir apparent, and owner of the Devil’s Den, could not quash. In the underbelly of London, you didn’t end a man without revenge being handed out. Niall would have paid that price if Penelope hadn’t intervened.

  Penelope whipped her gaze to Ryker.

  He gave a slight nod. “He’s infiltrated the Duke of Wilkinson’s Mayfair residence.”

  That is what had brought Lady Diana here, then? Niall scratched at his brow. Why would the fancy miss, and not the bloody duke, brave the streets of London to come here?

  Ryker proceeded to conv
ey his exchange with Diana.

  After he’d concluded, Adair marched over to the sideboard and helped himself to a glass of brandy. “When did it begin?” he asked, turning back to face them.

  Ryker twined his fingers with Penelope’s and raised her knuckles to his lips in a tender exchange. “Shortly after Helena’s ball.” The chance meeting that had seen Ryker wed to a societal lady.

  Niall shifted back and forth. Feelings were something he didn’t deal in. He’d been born an unwanted child to a whore in the street and used as a fighter to grow a ruthless gang leader’s empire. Since his marriage, Ryker had gone soft in many ways, but surely he didn’t believe Lady Diana Verney had become the focus of Diggory’s henchmen?

  Calum rolled his shoulders. “And you believe they’ve turned their sights on her, as a means of exacting revenge,” he said, vocalizing Niall’s unspoken thoughts.

  Ryker shook his head slightly. “I don’t know,” he confessed, releasing his wife’s hand.

  Adair cursed and then tossed back his drink. He set the glass down on the sideboard. “Given Killoran’s inability to bring all of Diggory’s men to heel, it’s no surprise.”

  Niall scoffed. “Killoran, nor Diggory when he was living, would have bothered with Wilkinson’s daughter.” The whole of London well knew Ryker Black despised the Verneys.

  Penelope folded her arms and met his gaze squarely. “Because Lady Diana is only Ryker’s half sister?” she challenged.

  “No, because he’s no dealings with the girl or her father,” he shot back. He’d not be lectured on familial loyalty. Not even by Ryker’s wife, who’d saved his own miserable arse.

  Ryker’s mouth tightened. “Enough,” he bit out tersely.

  “We’re discussing Diggory’s attempts on the girl’s life,” Calum interjected, bringing them back to the reason for the meeting. “Do you believe they’re after the lady?”

  Ryker rolled his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he said with the same blunt honesty he’d shown since he and Niall had tussled in the streets as boys from warring gangs.