Wicked and the Wallflower: Bareknuckle Bastards Book 1

by Sarah MacLean

Her gaze flickered to where his arm moved, lazily scrubbing up his chest. He slowed his pace when she swallowed, a faint flush creeping up her neck. She drank, her eyes going wide and slightly watery as a little hack sounded at the back of her throat—a cough she clearly refused to release. After she recovered, she met his eyes, narrowing her own on him. “I know what you are doing.”

  “And what is that?”

  “You are trying to scare me away from this place. And you should have thought about that before summoning me here.”

  “I didn’t summon you,” he said. “I left you my direction so that you could get me a message, if necessary.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  He blinked. “Why?”

  “Why would I need to get a message to you?” The question set him back. Before he was required to fabricate an answer, she continued. “Forgive me if you are not exactly the type of man I would ask for assistance.”

  He didn’t like that. “What does that mean?”

  “Only that a man who climbs into one’s bedchamber uninvited isn’t the kind of man who assists one into a carriage or takes the empty slot on one’s dance card at a ball.”

  “Why not?”

  She cut him a look. “You don’t seem the dancing sort.”

  “You’d be surprised by what sort I can be, Felicity Faircloth.”

  She smirked. “You’re currently bathing in front of me.”

  “You didn’t have to come in.”

  “You didn’t have to invite me.”

  If he’d known what a difficult female she was, he would never have allowed this plan to go through.

  Lie.

  She sat back on the high bed then, letting her pink-slippered feet dangle, her hands settling to the counterpane. “You needn’t worry, anyway,” she said. “You are not the first man I have seen in a state of undress.”

  His brows shot up. He could have sworn she was a virgin. But she knew how to pick a lock, so perhaps there was more to Lady Felicity Faircloth than he imagined. Excitement warred with something else—something far more dangerous. Something that won out. “Who?”

  She drank again, more careful this time, and the liquor did not burn as much. Or she was better at hiding it. “I don’t see why that is any of your business.”

  “If you want me to turn you into a flame, love, I must know all the ways you’ve sparked before.”

  “I told you. I’ve never sparked before.”

  He didn’t believe it. The woman was all spark—constantly threatening to flare.

  “That’s why I agreed to your offer, you see. I fear I shall never spark. I’m squarely on the shelf, now.”

  She didn’t look on the shelf.

  “And I was not blessed with porcelain beauty.”

  “There is nothing unattractive about you,” he said.

  “Please, sir,” she said dryly, “you shall fill my head with your pretty compliments.”

  He didn’t like how this girl could make him feel things he had not felt in decades. Things like chagrin. “Well, there isn’t.”

  “Oh. Well, thank you.”

  He changed the subject, suddenly feeling like a proper ass. “So, the extent of your witnessing men in a state of undress ends at who, your father in his casual, country attire?”

  She smiled. “You are showing your lack of knowledge of the aristocracy, Devil. My father’s casual country attire includes a cravat and coat, always.” She shook her head. “No. As a matter of fact, it was the Duke of Haven.”

  He resisted the urge to stand. He knew Haven. The duke frequented The Singing Sparrow—a tavern two streets away owned by an American and a legendary songstress. But Haven was wild for his wife, and that wasn’t gossip—Devil had witnessed it.

  “I assume this is the duke who tossed you over for his wife?”

  She nodded. “So it wasn’t a state of undress that mattered,” she said. “I was one of his bachelorettes.”

  She said it as though it would explain everything. “What does that mean?”

  Her brow furrowed. “You don’t know about Haven’s search for a new duchess?”

  “I know Haven has a duchess. Whom he loves beyond reason.”

  “She demanded a divorce,” Felicity said. “Do you not read the papers?”

  “I cannot articulate how little I care for the marital strife of the aristocracy.”

  She stilled at that. “You’re serious.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “You really don’t care what happened? It was in all the gossip pages. I was quite famous for a bit.”

  “I don’t read the gossip pages.”

  One mahogany brow rose. “No, I don’t imagine that you do, what with how very busy and important you are.”

  Devil had the distinct impression she was teasing him. “My interest extends to how it is relevant to you, Felicity Faircloth, and barely that far.”

  She cut him a look at the last. “Last summer, the Duchess of Haven demanded a divorce. There was a competition to become the second duchess. It was all foolish, of course, because Haven absolutely loved her beyond reason. Which he told me. While in his dressing gown and nothing else.”

  “He was unable to dress before telling you that?”

  She smiled, soft and romantic. “I shan’t allow you to make it sound ridiculous. I’ve never seen anyone so undone by love.”

  Devil’s gaze narrowed. “And so we get to the heart of the impossible things you wish for.”

  She paused, myriad emotions passing over her face. Embarrassment. Guilt. Sorrow. “Don’t you wish for such a thing?”

  “I told you, my lady, passion is a dangerous play.” He paused. “So, Haven kept his duchess and what happened to the rest of you?”

  “One of us left mid-competition to marry another. One of us became a companion to an aging aunt and is on the Continent, looking for a husband. The final two—Lady Lilith and I—we remain unmarried. It’s not as though we were diamonds of the first water to begin with.”

  “No?”

  She shook her head. “We weren’t even diamonds of the second water. And now, our mothers’ desperation to get us matched has become something of a vague black mark.”

  “How vague of a black mark?”

  “The kind that makes us vaguely ruined.” Another drink. “Not that I wasn’t vaguely ruined before that.”

  It had always struck Devil that women were ruined either entirely or not at all. And she did not look ruined.

  She looked perfect.

  “Is that why your unfortunates passed you over for no apparent reason?” he asked. “Because that seems like a reason. An idiotic one, but one that the aristocracy would happily cling to in order to roast one of its own.”

  She looked to him. “What do you know of the aristocracy?”

  “I know they like to drink bourbon and play cards.” And I know there was a time when I wanted very much to be one of them, just like you do, Felicity Faircloth. He leaned back in the bath. “And I know it’s better to be first in hell than simpering in heaven.”

  Her lips flattened into a straight, disapproving line. “Either way, your end of our bargain is more than a challenge. The Duke of Marwick might not care for a wife with such a sullied reputation.”

  The Duke of Marwick had no interest in a wife, period.

  Devil did not tell her that. Neither did he tell her that her sullied reputation would be in tatters soon enough. He was suddenly uncomfortable, and he stood, water sluicing off him as he came to his full height.

  He would be lying if he said he did not enjoy the way her eyes went wide or the little squeak she made as she hopped off the bed to turn her back to him. “That was very rude,” she said to the far wall of the room.

  “I’ve never been known for my politeness,” he said.

  She gave a little snort. “What a surprise.”

  He shook his head, amused. Even now, she remained smart-mouthed. “Are you regretting your earlier bravery?”

  “N
o.” The word cracked on its high pitch. She drank again. “Keep talking.”

  It was his turn to be suspicious. “Why?”

  “So that I can be certain you are not approaching to take advantage of me.”

  “If I were going to take advantage of you, I would approach from the front, Felicity Faircloth. In full view, so you would have the joy of expecting me,” he said. “But I shall talk, with pleasure.” He moved to dress, watching her the whole time. “We are going to begin with a gown.”

  “A—a gown?”

  He pulled on his trousers. “I promised that Marwick would be slavering after you like a dog, did I not?”

  “I didn’t say I wanted that,” she said.

  He grinned at the distaste in her words as he lifted a black linen shirt and pulled it over his head, tucking it in before fastening the stays of his trousers. “No, you said you thought him the handsomest man you’d ever seen, did you not?”

  A pause. “I suppose.”

  Irritation flared, and he dismissed it. “You said you wanted him to come after you like a moth to a flame. You do know what happens to moths when they get to the flame, don’t you? You may turn around.”

  She did so, her eyes immediately finding him and tracking his clothing from shoulders to bare feet. The excitement in her gaze as she gave him her frank perusal sent a thread of awareness through him—and he shifted his weight at the sudden heaviness in his freshly pressed trousers.

  “What happens?” He blinked at the words, and she added, “To the moths.”

  “They combust.” He pulled on his waistcoat.

  Her gaze was on his fingers as he worked the buttons of the coat, and he could not resist slowing his movements, watching her watch him. Devil had always loved the female gaze upon him, and Lady Felicity Faircloth watched him with pure, unadulterated fascination, making him want to show her everything she wanted.

  “Combustion sounds better than slavering,” she said, the words breathier than before.

  “Says the woman who is doing neither.” He finished the buttons and smoothed the waistcoat over his torso. “Now. If you’ll let me finish . . .”

  “By all means, slaver away.”

  He barely resisted the huff of laughter that threatened at her smart retort. “If you want him to desire you beyond reason, you must dress the part.”

  She tilted her head. “I am sorry. I am to dress for him?”

  “Indeed. Preferably something with skin.” He waved a hand at her high-necked shell pink gown. “That won’t work.” It was a lie. The gown worked quite well, as far as Devil’s body was concerned.

  She put her hand to her throat. “I like this gown.”

  “It’s pink.”

  “I like pink.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “What’s wrong with pink?”

  “Nothing, if you are a mewling babe.”

  She pressed her lips into a thin line. “A different gown will do what, exactly?”

  “Ensure he shan’t be able to keep his hands off of you.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I was unaware that men were so entirely susceptible to women’s clothing that it rendered them unable to control their hands.”

  He hesitated, not liking the direction of her words. “Well, some men.”

  “Not you,” she said.

  “I’m more than able to control my urges.”

  “Even if I were to wear . . . what was it you suggested? Something with skin?”

  And like that, he was thinking of her skin. “Of course.”

  “And is this a particularly male affliction?”

  He cleared his throat. “Some might argue that it is a human affliction.”

  “Interesting,” she replied, “because it could be said that you were just moments ago wearing something with skin, and my hands somehow, remarkably, remained quite far from your person.” She grinned. “I slavered not at all.”

  The words were like a flag to a bull, and he wanted, immediately, to rise to the challenge and tempt Felicity Faircloth to slavering. But that way lay danger, because he was already far too intrigued by the lady, and that had to stop before it started.

  “I shall have a dress sent round for you. Wear it to the Bourne ball. Three days hence.”

  “You do realize that dresses are not simply available in the dimensions of whomever you like, do you not? They are ordered. They are fabricated. They take weeks—”

  “For some.”

  “Ah yes,” she teased. “For mere mortals. I forgot that you have magic elves who make dresses for you. I assume they spin them from straw? In a single night?”

  “Did I not tell you I would win you your duke?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know how you’ve silenced his denial of our engagement, Devil, but it is impossible that he will remain silent.”

  He did not tell her there was no denial to silence. Did not tell her that she’d played directly into his hands two nights before, when he’d made it seem impossible for her to win the duke who had already decided she was a convenient mark. Did not tell her that he, too, had decided Felicity Faircloth was a convenient mark.

  Suddenly, he was not so certain she was convenient after all.

  “I told you, I have a skill for making the impossible possible,” he said. “Here is how we begin: you continue to treat your lie as truth, you wear the gown I send, and he shall be in your path. Then it will only be a matter of winning him.”

  “Oh,” she retorted, “just the simple matter of winning him. As though that’s the easy bit.”

  “It is the easy bit.” She’d won him already. And even if she hadn’t, she could win whomever she wished. Of that, Devil had no doubt. “Trust me, Felicity Faircloth. Wear the dress, win the man.”

  “I shall still need to be fitted, Devil Whatever-your-name-is. And even if I wear a magical gown, constructed by fairies and made to sweep men from their feet, I remain—how did you put it? Not unattractive?”

  He shouldn’t feel guilty about that. His purpose wasn’t to make Felicity Faircloth think she was beautiful. But he couldn’t seem to stop himself from approaching her. “Shall I elaborate?”

  She raised a brow, and he nearly laughed at how surly she looked. “I wish you wouldn’t. I don’t know how I shall resist swooning in the fiery embrace of your compliments.”

  A smile twitched. “You are not unattractive, Felicity Faircloth. You have a full, open face and eyes that reveal every one of your thoughts, and hair that I imagine falls in rich, mahogany waves when it is pulled from its severe moorings . . .” He was standing in front of her now. Her lips had fallen open just a touch—just enough for her to suck in a little breath. Just enough for him to notice. “. . . and full, soft lips that any man would want to kiss.”

  He meant to say all that, of course. To lay it on thick and begin the seduction of Lady Felicity Faircloth. To punish his brother and win the day.

  Just as he meant to be this close to her—close enough to see the freckles that dusted over her nose and cheeks. Close enough to see the little crease left by years of the dimple that lived there flashing. Close enough to smell her soap, jasmine. Close enough to see the ring of grey around her beautiful brown eyes.

  Close enough to want to kiss her.

  Close enough to see that if he did, she’d let him.

  She’s not for you.

  He pulled away at the thought, breaking the spell for both of them. “At least, any proper toff in Mayfair.”

  One emotion after another chased through her gaze—confusion, understanding, hurt—and then nothing at all. And he hated himself just a little for that. More than a little, when she cleared her throat and said, “I shall wait in the other room for you to escort me home.”

  She pushed past him and he let her go, regret coursing through him, unfamiliar and stinging almost as much as the brush of her skirts against his legs.

  He stood there for a long moment, attempting to find calm—the cool, unmoving center that had kep
t him alive for thirty years. The one that had built an empire. The one that had been shaken by the appearance of a single aristocratic woman in his private space.

  And just when he found that calm once more, he lost it. Because the discovery was punctuated with the soft snick of the door to his chambers.

  He was moving before the sound dissipated, tearing through the now empty exterior room to the door, which he nearly ripped from the hinges to get into the hallway beyond—also empty.

  She was fast, dammit.

  He went after her, down the stairs, determined to catch her. He headed through the maze of corridors to the exit, the door hanging ajar, like an unfinished sentence.

  Except it was clear that Felicity Faircloth had said all she was interested in saying.

  He ripped it open and burst through it, immediately looking right, toward Long Acre, where she would instantly find a hack to take her home. Nothing.

  But to the left, toward Seven Dials, where she would instantly find trouble, her pink skirts were already fading into the darkness. “Felicity!”

  She didn’t hesitate.

  “Fuck!” he roared, already heading back through the building.

  Goddammit, he’d miscalculated.

  Because Lady Felicity Faircloth was heading into the muck of Covent Garden, in the dead of night, and his feet were bare.

  Chapter Nine

  Felicity moved as fast as she could away from the curving Arne Street, back toward the main thoroughfare where she had been deposited by the hack earlier in the evening. Turning the corner, she pulled up short, confident that she was out of sight of Devil’s home, and finally able to catch her breath.

  Once that happened, she’d find herself another hack and return home.

  She’d be damned if she was going to allow him to escort her. She’d be just as likely to be ruined by him as she would be to be properly chaperoned by him.

  Indignant irritation flared again.

  How dare he speak to her in such a manner, discussing her hair and her eyes and her lips? How dare he nearly kiss her?

  Why hadn’t he kissed her?

  Had it been a nearly-kiss, even? Felicity had never been kissed, but that certainly seemed to be the kind of run-up to kissing that she’d heard about. Or read about in novels. Or imagined happening to her. Many times.