Wicked and the Wallflower: Bareknuckle Bastards Book 1

by Sarah MacLean

  Whit nodded. “He’s left. The watch reported this morning, he rode out from the Mayfair house at dawn.”

  Devil nodded. “He’ll be back. He’ll want to punish us.”

  Whit lifted the lantern to look at Devil’s face. “Christ, he knocked you good.”

  Felicity scowled. “Never has a man needed punishment more than that one.”

  He looked at her, then to Whit. “He received it today.”

  Whit grunted, seeming to understand whatever that meant. Felicity did not, however, and her temper flared. “He knocked you over the head and locked you in an ice hold where you could have died. Whatever you did to him is not comparable.”

  “That’s spoken like someone who’s never been desperate for the woman he loves.”

  She did not hesitate. “Well, I’ve been desperate to get to the man I love, so I think I have an idea.”

  The brothers watched her for a long moment, and then Whit said, “I like her.”

  Devil grinned, then winced at the movement. “As do I.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re bleeding from the head. There isn’t time for liking me.”

  “There will always be time for liking you, Felicity Faircloth.”

  With Whit’s help, they moved Devil up into the warehouse, and then out into the courtyard, now bright with sun.

  Felicity was already calling for John. “We need a hack! Or something—Devil needs a surgeon, immediately. And a decent one, not some lumbering fool with a bloodletting box.” Instead of moving to help, however, John rocked back on his heels, a wide smile on his face.

  Felicity’s brow furrowed in confusion. “John, please.” And then she turned to follow the direction of his gaze, to find Devil standing perfectly still, ten paces behind her.

  She flew to his side, her skirts billowing around them both. “What is it?” she said, running her hands over his arms, his shoulders. “Are you hurt somewhere else? Is it your head? Can you stand?”

  He grasped her hands in one of his and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “Stop, love. You’ll make the boys think me soft.”

  Whit grunted. “The boys already think you soft when it comes to her.”

  “Only because they don’t think I’m worthy of her.”

  “They know you’re not worthy of her.”

  Felicity shook her head. “What is wrong with you both? He needs a doctor!”

  “I need you, first,” he said.

  “What?” He was mad.

  “You came back for me.”

  “Of course I did. I love you, you imbecile.”

  Whit coughed a laugh, and Devil pressed another kiss to her fingers. “Well, we’re going to have to work on you questioning my intelligence a bit.”

  “I don’t question your intelligence,” she said. “I think you’re brilliant. Except for when you think to suggest that I don’t know my own mind.”

  “I love you, Felicity Faircloth.”

  She smiled. “When we are married, do you intend to call me by both of my names?”

  “Only if you ask me very nicely.” He leaned in close. “I think I’ve loved you since the moment I found you on that balcony, having picked the lock and found your way from the light to the darkness.”

  “To freedom,” she said, softly.

  “That night, in your bedchamber, I jested about rescuing the princess from her tower—”

  “You did that,” she interrupted.

  He shook his head. “No, love. You rescued me. You rescued me from a world without color. Without light. A world without you.” He brushed a thumb over her cheek. “Beautiful, perfect Felicity. You rescued me. I wanted you from the start. It was only a matter of time before everything—everything—was second to me wanting you. To me keeping you safe. To me loving you.” Tears filled her eyes as he continued. “And all I wanted was your happiness. Mine was nothing compared to yours.”

  “But my happiness is tied to yours. Don’t you see?”

  He nodded. “I can’t give you Mayfair, Felicity. We’ll never be welcome there. You’ll always have gone slumming, no matter how rich we are.” He paused, lost in thought, and then said, “But I’ll give you everything else. The wide world. You have only to ask.” His beautiful eyes glittered in the sunlight. “You rescued me from the past. You gave me a present. And now . . . I wish you to promise me the future.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, unable to keep the tears from spilling over. “Yes.”

  He stole her lips in a wicked kiss that left them both breathless, and Whit grumbled, “Find a bed, will you?”

  Felicity pulled away, a blush high on her cheeks, and said, “Just as soon as we find a doctor.” She moved to leave the yard, to head for the street.

  “Wait,” Devil said. “I could swear that you insisted we marry down there, in the darkness, while you were saving my life.”

  She smirked. “Well, you were quite cold and are suffering from a head wound, so I wouldn’t be so certain that you heard what you think you heard.”

  “I’m certain, love.”

  “Women do not typically propose to men. Certainly not women like me. Certainly not men like you.”

  “Women like you?”

  “Wallflower spinsters. Forlorn Felicitys.”

  “Lady Lockpick, did you or did you not ask me to marry you?”

  “I believe it was less asking and more telling.”

  “Do it again.”

  Her blush turned to flame. “No.”

  He pressed a kiss to her temple. “Please?”

  “No.” She pulled away from him and kept walking.

  “So traditional,” he scoffed. And then, after a moment, he called after her. “Felicity?”

  She turned back to find him on his knees in the brightly lit courtyard. She took a step toward him, already reaching for him, thinking for a moment that he had fallen again.

  He clasped her outstretched hand and pulled her closer, until her skirts were billowing around him. She froze, staring down into the face of the man she loved as he said, “I haven’t much. I was born with nothing, was given nothing. I haven’t a name worthy of you, nor a past I’m proud of. But I vow here, in this place that I have built, that used to mean everything and now means nothing without you, that I will spend the rest of my life loving you. And I will do all that I can to give you the world.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want the world.”

  “What, then?”

  “You,” she said, simply. “I want you.”

  He smiled, the most beautiful smile she’d ever seen. “You’ve had me since that first night, love. Now tell me what else you want.”

  She blushed.

  Her heart pounded when he removed the band from his ring finger, immediately transferring it to her thumb, following the kiss of warm silver with his own kiss, to the metal and then to her knuckles. There would be a wedding, no doubt, but this moment, here, in this place, felt like ceremony, blessed by sunlight and air.

  And when the husband of her heart rose to his feet—towering over her with broad, beautiful shoulders, his hands coming to her cheeks, cupping her jaw, tilting her face up to his—Felicity gave him the kind of kiss a queen of Covent Garden gave her king.

  When it was over, he turned to the rooftops, and Felicity’s gaze followed his to the rooftops around the warehouse yard, where dozens of men stood at scattered intervals, rifles at their sides, grins on their faces, watching.

  She blushed, and the blush turned to flame as he called out, as strong as ever, “My lady.”

  He kissed her, long and slow and deep, until the men assembled pounded their feet and shouted their congratulations down into the yard, creating a magnificent, cacophonous echo reverberating around the buildings, so thunderous that the tremors in her toes sent wild pleasure through her—pleasure that turned to fire when he pulled her close and whispered at her ear. “Your world awaits, my love.”

  Epilogue

  Three months later

  Felicity cam
e to Devil’s side in the courtyard of the Bareknuckle Bastards’ Covent Garden warehouse as the final steel wagon left the drive, Whit at the reins.

  Devil’s arm pulled her tight to him as the September wind blew, sending her skirts billowing around them, and they stood, King and Queen of Covent Garden, until the clatter of the horses’ hooves faded into the night. When it was gone, replaced by the voices of the watch on the rooftops above and the men who had spent the night working to get the shipment out for delivery, she tilted her face up to his and smiled. “Another day done.”

  He turned to face her, his hands cupping her cheeks, holding her still as he kissed her, long and deep, until they were both gasping for air. “It’s late, wife,” he said. “You should be abed.”

  “I prefer my bed with you in it,” she teased, loving the little growl he gave at the words. “Call me wife again.”

  He leaned down and pressed his lips to the soft skin of her neck. “Wife . . .” He scraped his teeth at the place where her neck met her shoulder. “Wife . . .” Nipped at the curve there. “Wife.”

  She shivered, her arms coming up around his neck. “I don’t think I shall ever tire of it, husband.”

  He lifted his head and met her eyes, his own dark in the moonlight. “Not even when you remember that you married into the darkness?”

  The wedding, performed by special license days after Felicity had rescued Devil from the ice hold, had been perfect . . . and the opposite of everything Felicity had once imagined. Instead of a staid affair at St. Paul’s Cathedral, attended by half the contents of Burke’s Peerage, it had been a lively, cacophonous celebration at a different St. Paul’s—a stone’s throw from the Covent Garden market.

  To Felicity’s parents’ chagrin, it had been performed by the rookery’s vicar—a man who knew his ale and drank it well—to a congregation packed to the gills with the Bastards’ men and their families. Arthur had been there, of course, and Pru, along with a collection of tarnished aristocrats who had taken Felicity, Devil, and the whole of the Faircloth family under their collective wing—after all, the Duchess of Haven had pointed out at the wedding breakfast that morning—scandals must stick together.

  Only Grace had been missing from the celebration; she remained in hiding while the Bastards worked to find Ewan, who had disappeared after leaving London months earlier. A package had been delivered before the ceremony from Madame Hebert, however, and inside, Felicity had discovered a pair of perfectly tailored buckskin breeches, a beautiful white shirt, a pink and silver waist-coat that would rival any frock in Mayfair, and a tailored topcoat, black on the outside, with pink satin lining. Along with the clothes, a pair of tall, leather boots, fitted over the knee.

  A proper ensemble, fit for a Covent Garden queen.

  And with it, a message.

  Welcome, sister.

  That evening, there had been a riotous celebration in the Garden, where Lady Felicity Faircloth, now Mrs. Felicity Culm, had received her third name—the one she treasured the most of all: The Bastard’s Bride.

  It had been the perfect wedding day, Felicity thought, made better by night, when her new husband had found her in a crush of laughing well-wishers, taken her hand, and led her to the roof of his Covent Garden offices to watch hundreds of paper lanterns released into the sky from the rooftops all around them.

  After she’d gasped her delight and thrown herself into his arms, he’d given her the kiss she demanded and knocked his walking stick twice upon a tin chimney nearby, dismissing the elves who had helped him before delivering his new wife to a bed of silk and fur beneath the starlit sky.

  Felicity shivered with the memory of that night, and Devil pulled her closer. “Are you cold, my love?”

  “No.” She smiled. “Just full of memories.”

  He smiled into her hair. “Good ones?”

  “The very best,” she said, looking up at him through her lashes. “Though it occurs that it is September, and soon, we shan’t be able to use the rooftops.”

  One black brow rose in keen understanding of what she was saying. Of what she was wanting. “I think you underestimate my power, Felicity Faircloth.”

  She smiled. “Felicity Culm, if you please. And I wouldn’t dream of underestimating you, Devil . . . indeed, I cannot imagine the weather ever denying your wishes.”

  He nodded and leaned close, letting his voice go low and dark. “Winter on the rooftops shall be even better than summer.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Shall it?”

  “I’m going to spread you out beneath the snow and see how hot I can make you burn, my beautiful flame.”

  She went hot as the sun. “I don’t suppose I could lure you to a rooftop now to practice, could I, my handsome moth?”

  He straightened. “No.”

  “No?”

  “No. I’ve something to show you.” He took her hand in his, leading her away from the warehouse and back toward the bright lights of Drury Lane. They stopped at the Singing Sparrow, full of their men, drinking and celebrating a night’s hard work. Holding the door for her, Devil followed Felicity inside, with a nod to the proprietor, toward a place on the floor that had been cleared for dancing—a quartet of strings and pipes were nearby, and Devil pulled her into his arms as the musicians began to dance.

  She laughed up at him when he spun her in a surprising circle. “You wished to show me this tavern?”

  He shook his head. “There was a time when you told me that you didn’t think I was the kind of man who danced.”

  She remembered. “And are you?”

  “I never was before—dancing seemed like the kind of thing that people did when they were happy.”

  Her gaze flew to his. “And you weren’t.”

  “Not until you.”

  She nodded, her fingers playing over his shoulder. And then she met his eyes and said, “Show me.”

  He did, pulling her close enough to scandalize Mayfair, rocking her and lifting her and swinging her and spinning her in time to the whirling, wonderful music. She clung to him, his strong arms keeping her safe and his. He spun her again, and again, faster and faster along with the music, their assembled audience clapping in time until she threw her head back and laughed, unable to do anything else.

  And then he was lifting her into his arms and carrying her through the tavern and out into the street, where a fine autumn mist had turned the cobblestones gold in the light. He set her down as she caught her breath, kissing the last, lingering laugh from her lips. “Well, wife?”

  She shook her head. “It wasn’t like a dream.” He scowled, and she laughed again, reaching for him. “My love . . . my Devil . . . it was better. It was real.”

  He kissed her again, long and deep. And when he lifted his head, he was smiling, wide and wicked and wonderful. She matched the smile with her own, coming up on her toes to whisper in his ear. “Love me. Past, present, and future.”

  His answer came like flame. “Yes.”

  Author’s Note

  Two years ago, in London, I met a man who regaled me with the tales of his grandfather, who sold shaved lemon ice from an ice block he’d cart from the docks into Covent Garden. I wish I remembered your name, but wherever you are, I’m indebted to you, as I am to Gavin Weightman for The Frozen Water Trade, which was an invaluable resource on the history of moving ice and how it impacted the world.

  Around the same time, I became transfixed by the “Perfect Security” episode of the 99% Invisible podcast, which chronicles the invention of the unpickable Chubb Lock, and then the lock controversy of 1851, when a brash American turned up at the Great Exhibition, picked the lock, and ensured that the world would never feel safe again. Felicity Faircloth is fourteen years earlier than that American, but she picks the Chubb the same way he did, and I’m grateful to Roman Mars and his team for bringing the story to me at the perfect moment.

  Felicity’s Whispering Bench is a replica of the Charles B. Stover Bench in Central Park’s Shakespeare Garden—the perf
ect place for secret-telling.

  Covent Garden is a pretty posh place these days—very little like it was in the 1830s. I spent hours at the Museum of London poring over Charles Booth’s extraordinary anthropological survey of “Life and Labour of the People in London,” from later in the 19th century, and am so grateful to the Museum for making such a rich resource available to the public in digital format.

  As always, my books are fostered and cared for by an incomparable team, and I am immensely lucky to have the brilliant Carrie Feron on my side every step of the way, along with Carolyn Coons, Liate Stehlik, Brittani DiMare, Eleanor Mickuki, Angela Craft, Pam Jaffee, Libby Collins, and all of Avon Books. My agent, Steve Axelrod, and publicist, Kristin Dwyer, are the very best.

  The Bareknuckle Bastards would still be a whisper of an idea without Carrie Ryan, Louisa Edwards, Sophie Jordan, and Ally Carter, and they wouldn’t be on the page without my sister Chiara, and my mother, who teaches me every day how the world changes women, and how we change it right back.

  And finally, to Eric, who takes all my research in stride, including the kind that ends with me picking the lock on a safe, getting drunk on power, and considering a life of crime: If I’m ever on the lam, I hope you’ll be with me.

  Announcement to Brazen and the Beast

  Read on for a sneak peek at Whit’s story—

  Brazen and the Beast

  The Bareknuckle Bastards, Book II

  Coming 2019 from Sarah MacLean

  An Excerpt from Brazen and the Beast

  The last thing he remembered was driving the shipment. Crossing Oxford Street. A gunshot. A boy wounded. A blow to the head.

  Insistent tapping against his cheek returned him to consciousness, too soft for pain, but firm enough to be irritating. He didn’t open his eyes, years of training allowing him to feign sleep as he got his bearings. His feet were bound. His hands as well, behind his back. He resisted the urge to stiffen. To rage.

  Beast didn’t rage.