The Vixen (Wicked Wallflowers Book 2)

by Christi Caldwell

  She studied his lips as they moved, hearing those words and slowly attempting to make sense of them past her muddled thoughts. “M-my dance ones. My lessons, that is,” she elucidated. Her instructor had been five inches shorter than she’d been and hopelessly in love with the head guard at the Devil’s Den. She’d never felt safer with another man . . .

  Until Connor.

  Ophelia stumbled, and Connor righted her. “It appears my own inadequacies are having a dangerous effect upon your own talents,” he murmured. The hint of mint that clung to his breath caressed her face.

  “Hardly.” Unrecognizable. Did that breathy utterance belong to her?

  “You enjoyed dancing?” he asked with a deserved incredulity.

  There’d never been a thing fanciful about her, and yet . . . “There was something so thrilling in it,” she said softly. A smile pulled at her lips. “After I’d mastered my lessons and my instructor, Monsieur La Frange, had gone, I would on occasion lock my chamber doors and waltz myself about my rooms.” She’d forgotten about that detail until now. She glanced up, braced for his mockery.

  Instead, he stared back with a tenderness that caused her heart to quicken. “Sometimes,” she confided, when she’d shared no parts of herself with even her siblings, “I would pretend if I twirled fast enough, I might . . . disappear.” From the dank apartments she’d called home, from the streets of St. Giles, from Diggory’s gang. From all of it.

  Feeling his piercing eyes on her face, she cleared her throat. “Yes, well, they were my favorite because those lessons were the closest I could get to scaling buildings and weaving between constables.” Because of it, she’d felt less inadequate than she had for her failings where words and numbers had been concerned.

  The orchestra concluded their playing, and as Connor and Ophelia stopped, the couples around them politely clapped.

  They remained frozen as they were, hands upon each other.

  She didn’t care.

  Didn’t care because there’d never been a thing proper about her and never had, and never would she make apologies for it.

  Didn’t care because his touch burned through her gown and didn’t inspire the fear and horror that had followed her these past thirteen years.

  His gaze dipped to her mouth, and reflexively she wetted her lips. He is going to kiss me here, with a room watching on, and help me for the whore another insisted I was, I want this man to do it.

  Connor’s thick black lashes swept low, proving little shield for the heat within the grey depths of his eyes.

  His expression grew shuttered.

  Puzzling her brow, Ophelia followed his stare, and the intimate moment shared was broken.

  Lord Landon strode purposefully through the crowd, his gaze trained on Ophelia.

  “Bloody hell,” she muttered. He was unrelenting.

  “Determined suitor?” Did she imagine the steely thread to that query?

  “Wastrel indebted to my family’s club,” she clarified. How easily Landon had shifted his attentions. But then, did it truly matter which Killoran he wed? Their fortune was all the same, and his purpose single-minded.

  “Make your escape now,” Connor whispered. “I’ll meet you shortly.”

  “Where . . . ?”

  “Go,” he urged. “Unless you care to take the next set with Landon.”

  Needing no further urging, she rushed off.

  With the same steps that had saved her as a girl, she wound her way through the throng of guests, hiding behind pillars, ducking behind servants, until she managed to sneak from the hall.

  The din of the crowded ballroom emerged muffled behind her as she crept through the Duke of Somerset’s corridors. Footsteps sounded down the hall. “Miss Killoran.”

  She stiffened and briefly contemplated the path forward before reluctantly turning to face the owner of that voice.

  The Duchess of Argyll sailed over with great, graceful gliding steps. The smile on her perfectly bow-shaped lips dimpled both plump cheeks. She reached Ophelia slightly breathless, a mark of her privileged lifestyle. “I do hope you do not mind me following after you. I have desperately been seeking a word with you since we first met.”

  “You’re desperately seeking a word with me?” she said gruffly. She may not have been born to the same world as this regal creature before her, but she knew enough that polite meetings didn’t happen in empty corridors, away from Society’s eyes.

  The young widow beamed, collecting Ophelia’s hands between her own gloved palms. “I could not help noticing your . . . familiarity with Connor.” She paused, her cheeks reddening. “Mr. Steele, that is.”

  Ophelia hooded her eyes. So this was the reason.

  “Do you know each other from the streets?” the duchess asked with the same wide-eyed innocence she’d shown while putting questions to Ophelia at their last exchange.

  Was the woman Connor’s lover? Her stomach muscles clenched. Why should you care anyway? “Mayhap you should put your questions to Mr. Steele.” She made to go.

  “Please, do not!” the duchess entreated. She held up a staying hand. “It was not my intention to . . . offend you.”

  “I don’t offend,” she said bluntly.

  Dropping her arm to her side, the duchess’s smile was firmly back in place. “Splendid.” Looping her arm through Ophelia’s, she dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper and urged them farther down the hall. “I must confess, all the stilted exchanges and measured words are a bit cumbersome. It is just . . .” The woman scrunched her brow, and had she been anything other than the blatantly transparent young woman before her, Ophelia would have taken that contemplativeness as a show. The young woman brought them to a stop and turned to face her. “It is just . . .” Would she get on with it? “It seemed you and Connor . . . Mr. Steele, that is, know each other, and as he is someone very special to me, Miss Killoran”—Ophelia’s muscles tightened all the more—“then that would mean you, too, would be special.” The duchess’s cream-white cheeks fired red. “To me, that is. Not that you aren’t special.” The woman continued her ramblings and then stopped. She released Ophelia and fiddled with her flawless satin skirts. “You see . . . Connor and I have been friends for a lifetime.”

  Odd. Ophelia had known Connor when he was a boy, scared shite-less by the same demons Ophelia herself had battled when this princess was no doubt fed with a golden spoon. “I . . . see,” she said, when in actuality she saw nothing.

  “As you’re not of our station, you might not know that since we were children, it’s been expected we’ll wed.”

  Taken aback, Ophelia hurriedly masked her surprise. Connor O’Roarke wedded to this woman? A lady of the peerage? Each revelation from the duchess only deepened the riddle of what had become of Connor after a constable had hauled him off. And yet . . . “Though I’m not of your station”—she took care to use her flawless, cultured speech ingrained by a determined governess—“I can still say how odd it is that given those expectations, you now carry a different name than his, as well as the title of duchess.”

  The other woman lowered stricken eyes to the floor. “It has . . . complicated the history between us.” She raised her head. “Do you have feelings for each other?” she finally blurted, the most direct and concise bit she’d managed since cornering Ophelia.

  Ophelia opened and closed her mouth, and then a great big belly laugh burst from her lips. “You think that I . . . that Connor Steele and me . . . ?” Unable to get the words out, she dissolved into another fit. “Ya people of the ton may ’ave money and power, but ya don’t ’ave two thoughts to rub together to form a scrap of common sense.”

  The duchess cocked her head. “So you do not have any . . . feelings for Mr. Steele?” she asked. Relief flooded her eyes.

  Dusting back the signs of her amusement, Ophelia looked down the empty hall, eager to be rid of the young duchess. “You are welcome to the gentleman.”

  A relieved little smile curled the duchess’s lips. “I
am very glad to have had this . . . talk, Miss Killoran. And will be happy to call you friend.” As if registering the impropriety of their meeting, the duchess cleared her throat. “I shall leave you to your . . . uh . . . yes. Well, it was a pleasure.” With a jaunty little wave, the woman sashayed off.

  Ophelia stared after her. The ladies of the ton were as possessive as the gents they set their marital caps on, the way a pickpocket staked out a corner. Both were ruthless, but one wore a smile through it. “A pleasure, indeed,” she muttered with a wry shake of her head after the lady had gone.

  “Was that reserved for me or your most recent company?” a voice drawled over her shoulder.

  She gasped and whipped around.

  Connor lounged against a wall with a negligent ease.

  “Both,” she muttered, even as her heart did a little leap at the sight of him. Attired in a double-breasted black jacket and matching midnight trousers, there was a devastatingly handsome appeal to Connor O’Roarke. Her belly fluttered.

  And here, all these years she’d believed herself incapable of feeling anything but fear where a man was concerned.

  “Is that the manner of people you’ve been keeping company with since you climbed out of the gutters?” she asked, jerking her chin in the direction of her recent visitor. Her words came as more a reminder for her than a question for him.

  “Amongst them.”

  How vague and veiled. Two words that revealed everything and nothing, all at the same time.

  “Should you be here? Not sure it’s safe with your lady if we’re caught talking.”

  Connor grinned wryly. “My lady? I don’t have any lady.”

  He hadn’t gathered the duchess had designs upon him? Or was it that he did not care?

  Either way, Ophelia released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Then, wot would ya call her?” Ophelia bit down on the tip of her tongue. Where in blazes had that question come from? And why did his answer matter so much?

  Connor stuffed his hands in his pockets, contemplating her query and the path the Duchess of Argyll had strode a short while ago. “A friend,” he finally said.

  Ophelia snorted. “Men and women can’t be friends.”

  He bristled. “Of course they can.” As he and his young widow were.

  “No, they can’t.” The Duchess of Argyll was proof enough. She bit her lip to keep from mentioning the lady’s barely concealed interest.

  “You speak as someone who knows.”

  She shrugged. “Because I do. My brother appointed a friend as his right hand within the club.”

  Connor eyed her like she’d sprung another limb. “And?”

  “And the servants or prostitutes at the club strike a friendship with the guards or other servants, and . . . it isn’t possible.” Were men truly so obtuse? But then, hadn’t her brother, Broderick, proven equally thick on the matter of men and women? She sighed, trying to make him see reason. “It always becomes . . . complicated. Someone ultimately confuses friendship, and everything becomes jumbled, and . . .” She gave her head a decisive shake. “It just doesn’t work.”

  “What does that mean for us, then?”

  She started. “What?” she blurted.

  “Well, we aren’t lovers.”

  She sputtered, heat burning up her cheeks. “C-certainly not.” Only, the unfamiliar stirring low in her belly made her question whether it would be so horrifying to know more than Connor O’Roarke’s kiss.

  “And you’ve already pointed out numerous times that you’ve no intention of helping me in my investigation.”

  “For a nobleman? No.” He’d been taken in by a kindly gent. The actions of that one nobleman didn’t erase the countless horrors Ophelia and her kin had known at the hands of other lords.

  “Very well,” he murmured, drifting closer. “What does that make us?”

  Her mind came to a jarring halt. She stood there attempting to make sense of his question and to come up with a suitable answer. What was Connor to her? He was certainly someone she felt comfortable around. A person whose presence she enjoyed. But friends? She scoffed. They would never be anything more than childhood nemeses. As it was, his desire for respectability and his appreciation for the peerage made anything else between them not only unlikely—but also madness. Unlike his fancy duchess. “The duchess didn’t talk about ya like ya were just friends,” she said instead, deliberately reminding herself that Connor had, and always would have, an undeserved appreciation for people Ophelia despised.

  Even in the darkened corridors, she detected the flush on his high cheekbones. Drifting closer, Ophelia studied him, awaiting his reply, and still when it came, it knocked her off balance.

  “I’d intended to make the lady my wife.”

  She missed a step.

  That somber pronouncement killed her jesting. “Oh,” she blurted. For what did one truly say to that revelation? An intimate part of one’s life when those pieces were never freely handed out. And yet . . . Connor had. She studied the same empty hall a moment. “That woman?” Cheerful as the summer sun, with words tripping off too fast from her tongue, she couldn’t be more different from Ophelia and the other women born to St. Giles.

  But then, mayhap that was the appeal of her.

  Why did that leave her oddly bereft?

  “She was a friend when I escaped St. Giles.” There it was again: friendship. “And then . . . I’d hoped there would be even more.” He grimaced. “Expected it.” More.

  “You believed she was going to marry you,” she finished for him, her heart tugging with regret for him.

  “She promised to marry me. We’d spoken of it.” He flashed a wry smile. “Then along came her duke, and a street rat with no title and few funds was no match for a viscount’s daughter.”

  Something vicious slithered around inside, a sentiment nasty and vicious and wholly foreign.

  Jealousy.

  She scoffed. Of course you aren’t jealous. This is Connor O’Roarke. Her childhood nemesis . . . Who you also secretly admired for accomplishing what few outside Black’s gang had managed. “That was your first mistake.” How could he have forgotten? “Never trust a nob,” she said softly, this time without her previous levity.

  Connor waved his hand. “Bethany wasn’t . . . isn’t like the lords we once feared.” Bethany. His use of that woman’s name deepened the level of intimacy between Connor . . . and his duchess. “She gives her time to foundling hospitals.” As Cleo had pointed out. “She organizes events to raise awareness of the plight of the poor.”

  In short, a virtual paragon.

  At his defense of a woman who’d proven unfaithful to him, when loyalty was the most valuable currency those in St. Giles had to offer, that stinging, insidious poison continued to spread. “She thought herself too good to wed you? Chose another?” She gave her head a shake. “Doesn’t seem like she’s the angel you make her out to be.”

  The look he gave her was faintly pitying. “The world doesn’t exist in absolutes of black and white, Ophelia.”

  He’d pity her? When it was Connor who had the wrong of it. “Yes, yes it can. And does.” She held up one palm. “People are good”—she held the other up—“or they’re bad. They aren’t like your angelic duchess. As such, I would say you’re better off than being trapped with a wife who”—she ticked off on her fingers—“one, couldn’t have the courage to choose you over her father’s wishes, and two, lied to you, making you believe she would.”

  “And yet, with your brother’s intentions to land a noble connection, are you any different from Bethany?”

  “What?” He was comparing her actions to that of a fancy lady of the ton? It was both preposterous and insulting. It was—

  He lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug. “Your families both determined the course you should follow, and you’re both readily going along with their wishes.”

  She sputtered. “I-it is not at all the same.” For it wasn’t. It—

  He w
inged an eyebrow. “Isn’t it?”

  Ophelia wanted to spit all the reasons he was wrong back in his face. She wanted to protest that he knew nothing of it. Remind him that she would never be anything like Lady Bethany or any lady, for that matter.

  But God help her . . . she couldn’t get the words out.

  It is true.

  In the end she was saved from forming a response in the unlikeliest way.

  Connor held up a hand.

  Then it met her ears, faint and distant: footfalls and an occasional giggle.

  Connor grabbed her by the hand and pulled her into a room, then closed the door behind them.

  She squinted, attempting to adjust her eyes to the unlit space.

  Heavy gold frames hung throughout the room, with the only furniture a handful of King Louis XIV chairs scattered about the center. She tilted her head back, taking in the sweeping ceiling with a mural done in powder-blue and pale-pink shades.

  The Duke of Somerset’s portrait room.

  The tread of footsteps grew increasingly close, and shoulder to shoulder beside Connor, there was a thrilling danger to being alone here with him, one doorway between them and the world and discovery. It was the same thrill that had gripped her as she’d picked a wealthy lord’s pockets. Only this was an electrifying charge made more potent by the heat pouring from Connor’s muscled frame, threatening to burn her.

  At last, those steps continued on, and there was only the hum of silence.

  “I would say this is a good deal more conducive to our arrangement than the ballroom,” he whispered close to her ear. His breath stirred the sensitive flesh of her nape.

  Her lashes fluttered closed. “O-our arrangement?”

  Then she recalled the three questions.

  The promise she’d made him if he danced with her.

  “Of course, your three questions.” What accounted for the disappointment that stabbed at her breast?

  “How do you find the children you employ at the Devil’s Den?” he asked, coming forward, a predator hunting its prey.

  Unnerved for the first time since he’d entered, she backed up, continuing her retreat. “H-how do we find them?”