The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers Book 1)

by Christi Caldwell

  And it was then she had confirmation of what she’d always known. There could never, ever be anything more with Adair. It wouldn’t have mattered if there was no need for a nobleman for her. For a great chasm had always and would always exist between them. Her hatred for Mac Diggory burned through her like a cancer, vicious and biting. That mark of hate in itself was testament to her late sire.

  And with Adair standing there ashen-faced and silent, Cleopatra did what she’d always done—she fled.

  “Cleopatra!” His startled shout stretched across the quiet.

  Heart pumping, she flew through the decrepit club, bolting for that doorway.

  “Stop,” he called out, his voice closer. Then a loud crash, and a thunder of curses.

  Not sparing a glance, she raced out the front of the Hell and Sin, past the startled guards, and into the familiar streets of St. Giles—free.

  Chapter 20

  He’d lost her.

  After five hours of searching the streets of St. Giles with the hastily assembled search team at the Hell and Sin, Cleopatra remained gone.

  Given her ability to scale a roof and drift through shadows, she could be anywhere.

  His stomach turned over itself as his carriage rolled through the fashionable end of London, onward to Ryker and Penelope’s residence. At one time, the idea of Cleopatra Killoran out on her own would not have roused even a hint of unease. After all, the whole of London knew the ruthlessness that family was capable of.

  Everything had changed. Terror held him firm in its manaclelike grip. And all the worst possibilities of what could happen to her in the dangerous streets of St. Giles wreaked havoc on his mind. Evil men who’d force themselves upon her. Thieves who’d fight her for whatever she carried on her person. His breath rasped loudly in his ears.

  Or mayhap she simply returned to her family.

  That thought should be the reassuring one that relieved the pressure in his chest.

  So, why didn’t it? Why did it feel the instant she returned to Killoran was the last he’d ever see her? And then his life would be empty again, when he’d not realized how very lonely it was.

  “Because you handled her confession like a bloody arse,” he muttered into the carriage. Adair dragged his hands through his hair. He’d said nothing. He’d merely repeated back her words like some bloody lackwit. Shock had held him numb and kept him stupidly silent, keeping him from giving her that which she’d deserved to hear: that her blood did not define her. That the fact that Diggory had sired her did not make her lesser or evil. That in giving her life, she stood as evidence that Diggory had done at least one thing right in his horrid existence.

  But I said nothing . . .

  Restless, he ripped back the red velvet curtain just as Ryker’s residence pulled into focus. Not even waiting for it to rock to a full stop, Adair tossed the door open and leapt out. He shot his arms out to steady himself and then, sprinting past a handsomely dressed couple, took the steps two at a time.

  The butler immediately drew the door open.

  Not breaking stride, Adair continued abovestairs. He needed a bath, a shave, a change of garments. All of it had to wait. It was secondary compared to her. Everything was. First, he had to find his damned brother, who usually was in the nursery at this—

  “Adair!”

  That chipper greeting halted his retreat. Reluctantly, he paused halfway up to the main living quarters and glanced back.

  His sister-in-law Penelope gathered her skirts and hurried up to meet him. “There you are,” she said. “I’ve been . . .” She sniffed the air. “I’ve been . . .” She wrinkled her nose. “I’ve been looking for you.” Penelope pressed a hand to her nose. “You need a bath,” she blurted.

  His neck went hot. “Yes.” Running around the streets of St. Giles and through puddles filled with horse shite and the Devil knew what else, would do that to a person’s stench.

  Penelope motioned for him to continue, and he gave thanks for being spared any company. He needed coffee. Something to clear his head. His relief was short-lived. Penelope hurried to match his stride. “Wilson,” his sister-in-law said to the stone-faced footman stationed at the end of the hall.

  Nay, he was not truly a footman. He was a guard ordered there by Ryker. A man who now studiously avoided Adair’s eyes.

  “Yes, my lady?” Wilson trotted over and dropped an ugly bow.

  “See a bath is readied for Mr. Thorne.”

  The younger man rushed to do his mistress’s bidding.

  “Wilson?” Adair called out, staying his movements. He wanted to settle his rage somewhere, and he had found a perfect target in the man who’d callously insulted Cleopatra.

  “Yes, Mr. Thorne?”

  “You insulted Miss Killoran.” How was Adair’s voice this even? How, when panic choked his senses at her absence?

  Wilson swallowed loudly. “S-sir?”

  “If you so much as utter her name incorrectly, you’ll not find employment in a single hell in the whole of London,” he said on a steely whisper. “Are we clear?”

  An uncharacteristically silent Penelope alternated a wide-eyed stare between them.

  The younger man gave a jerky nod. “W-we are, Mr. Thorne.”

  “Now get out.”

  Snapping back into movement, Wilson rushed off.

  Adair found an unholy delight in the other man’s unease. Wilson still didn’t know that when the Hell and Sin was rebuilt, he answered only to Adair.

  You don’t know what it is you want. You don’t know if you want to be a seedy hell or a fancy club in the posh ends of London.

  Cleopatra’s words floated forward, renewing his panic. Politeness be damned, he lengthened his stride, heading toward the nursery.

  “You are visiting the nursery,” his sister-in-law panted, her smaller legs keeping up. “Quite devoted of you. A wonderful uncle . . .”

  He’d hand it to Ryker’s wife. The lady was tenacious.

  “But before you do,” Penelope said, staying him as he reached for the handle of the nursery door, “it is about Cleopatra.”

  His heart knocked to a painful stop in his chest.

  A gasp ripped from Penelope’s lips as he took her by the shoulders.

  “What is it? Do you know where she is? Has Killoran sent word?” For the first time, he gave thanks for her ruthless brother’s quest for a connection to the nobility. The bounder wouldn’t quit until she was paired up with a fancy nob.

  “Have I seen her?” Penelope repeated back. “She’s in the White Parlor.”

  He immediately snatched his hands from his sister-in-law. “What?” he rasped, relief filling him. “You’ve seen her?” Relief and annoyance blended together, and he gnashed his teeth. All this time he’d been gripped with fear for her safety, and she’d come . . . here. It had been the last place he’d thought to look for her. “You’re certain you’ve seen her . . . today,” he elucidated.

  “Seen her? Of course, I’ve seen her. We had breakfast together and . . .”

  While she prattled on, relief weighted his eyes shut.

  “. . . but I’m not altogether certain about Lord Landon.”

  That brought Adair snapping back to. “What?”

  His sister scrunched her brow. “Are you certain you’re all right?” she countered, pressing the back of her hand to his head. “I assumed you were perspiring, but mayhap you’re not feeling well?”

  Since he’d blurted out his love for Cleopatra Killoran, it certainly felt that way. It left a man unsure of which way was up, down, sideways, or in between. “I’m fine,” he said, ducking away from her hand.

  “Yes, well. I was seeking you out because . . .” Penelope paused and stole a glance about. Adair bit the inside of his cheek to keep from demanding she spit out whatever she intended to say about Cleopatra. “She has a suitor.”

  Except that.

  He’d rather she not blurt that out. He opened his mouth, attempting to form words.

  A suitor?r />
  “I know what you are thinking,” Penelope whispered.

  No, I’ll wager what is left of my soul that you have no bloody idea.

  “It’s incredibly early for a fashionable visit. Quite unfashionable, really.”

  “Penelope,” he said impatiently.

  “Oh, yes. Right. Right.” His sister-in-law wrung her hands together. “It is Lord Landon.”

  The expert dancer who’d given Cleopatra her first waltz. A bloody rogue whose smile only hinted at the wicked deeds Adair, as the proprietor of the Hell and Sin, very well knew the man was responsible for. “What about Lord Landon?” he snapped.

  “He is . . . the suitor.”

  The suitor. They were two words that hinted at a distinction of something more . . . between Cleopatra and . . . another man that wasn’t Adair. And it didn’t matter if it was Lord Landon or the Lord God himself, the seething white-hot jealousy would fill him all the same. A memory trickled in of that elegant bastard as he’d put his hand upon Cleopatra’s waist, entirely too damned low, as he’d twirled her about—

  He growled.

  “That was my fear,” Penelope said, misunderstanding the reason for his fury. “I don’t tend to accept rumors at mere face value, given my own family’s experience with them. But I thought you would have firsthand evidence of whether or not the rumors about the gentleman are, in fact, true.”

  They were true. The titled lord was in debt, frequented the wicked hells in London, and tossed down the few coins he did have to grow his fortunes. Such a detail had only been viewed as beneficial for how it could increase Adair’s own coffers. Now he saw how it made Landon a match for Killoran’s intentions.

  “Adair?” his sister-in-law asked haltingly.

  He gave his head a shake to clear the haze. “What are you telling me this for?” he asked curtly.

  Penelope’s mouth fell agape. “I . . .” She frowned. “I simply thought after all the time you’ve spent looking after the young woman that you should have an interest to see that she doesn’t end up with a rake. I also thought you should perhaps be the guard stationed outside the room.”

  Had Ryker’s wife hefted a blade from her boot and tossed it at his chest, she could not have cut him more. “Is that wot Oi am? A damned guard to oversee Cleopatra Killoran. ’ave someone else do it.”

  “Adair?” his sister-in-law called after him.

  Ignoring her, knowing he was a bastard for unleashing his temper unfairly on her, he sought out his rooms. He slammed the door hard behind him and then turned the lock with a satisfying click. He shucked his wrinkled and sweaty garments and took a step inside the steaming bath that had been readied. The heat stung his flesh, and he hissed out through his teeth but welcomed the pain because pain posed a distraction from every bloody revelation made by Ryker’s wife.

  Except . . . what if she did desire a man like Landon? Adair froze, one leg partially in the bath. He dragged his hands over his face as he confronted the depth with which she’d come to matter to him. And selfish bastard that he was, born to only care about his own needs and desires, Adair hated the idea of some fancy lord winning her heart—or any man.

  A month ago, the only detail of this day that would have commanded his focus and vitriol was the truth of Cleopatra’s identity.

  I simply thought after all the time you’ve spent looking after the young woman that you should have an interest to see that she doesn’t end up with a rake.

  End up with a rake . . . which conjured images of Cleopatra at the end of a church altar with another bloody man who wasn’t Adair . . .

  Cursing roundly, he slid under the surface of the water, dunking his head. The water muffled his hearing, blotting out sound.

  And the bloody rub of it was, despite his wish to forget about Cleopatra—and damn Penelope’s request of him to hell—he wanted to be outside that parlor. Needed to be there.

  Adair broke the surface and gasped for breath. He shoved his long, sopping strands obscuring his vision back behind his ears. Fucking Mayfair. Goddamned Ryker for insisting I watch over her. It was a task that had become a study in self-torture. He hurried to scrub the scent of the London streets from his skin . . . before he took up a post outside the White Parlor where Cleopatra even now was courted by that damned rake, Lord Landon.

  Given Broderick’s expectations for her, and the need to spare her sisters from sacrificing themselves for the good of the family, Cleopatra should be elated at Lord Landon’s visit.

  She should be.

  And yet, he’d been here in Penelope’s parlor for the better part of thirty minutes, and she couldn’t manage to drum up a jot of eagerness . . . not even the feigned, pretend sort.

  To do so would require her to set aside a lifetime of loathing for people such as the marquess. She might need a fancy toff for a husband, but it didn’t mean it erased a history of hatred. As the flash of horror in Adair’s eyes had stood testament to.

  But then . . . you also hated Adair Thorne and his family. Now you’ve fallen in love with him, come to call his sister-in-law friend, and learned to respect Adair’s siblings.

  “You’re far quieter than I recall you at the club,” Lord Landon murmured. “In fact, I’d always taken you as one to speak freely.” He stretched his long legs out before him and hooked them at the ankles. It was a lazy, languid pose that would have shocked a lady. If he sought to elicit a reaction, he’d have to do far better than that.

  “Oi speak freely,” she said, deliberately adopting her familiar Cockney, “that is, when Oi ’ave something to say and the person merits talking to.” Why do you want to horrify him? Because you don’t truly want to marry him . . . or anyone. Other than Adair Thorne. Her heart spasmed violently.

  Lord Landon only grinned. Laying his arms along the sides of his chair, he tapped a distracted beat. “You don’t like me very much, do you?” he asked with a bluntness she could appreciate.

  Cleopatra lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “I don’t know you.”

  He scoffed. “Come. I’d wager you know how much I’m in debt for, my drink preferences, the hours I keep, the wom—”

  Apparently, for all his rakishness, he’d retained enough of society’s expected decorum that he’d let that go unfinished. She shot an eyebrow up. “The women you bed?”

  Crimson color splashed upon the marquess’s cheeks, and he immediately jerked upright in his chair. Fancy toffs. The rogues, rakes, and scoundrels thought they were so much more dangerous than they were, failing to realize they could never reach the shade of darkness fitting a person born to the streets.

  “You’re right,” she at last said. “I know those details about you. However, that doesn’t mean I know anything about you.” Not truly. At one time, she’d have believed the size of his purse and the vices he was slave to were all that defined him—or any person. Until Adair.

  “And is that important to you?” He clasped his hands at his flat stomach. “Knowing . . . a suitor.”

  With tousled golden curls, unmarred cheeks, and sapphire eyes, he’d a beauty that any lady would be enthralled by. How much more Cleopatra preferred Adair’s scarred features. “Is that what you are?” she asked instead, with a candidness that earned another grin. Only this smile he donned dimpled his cheek and met his eyes, showing hints of a man, and not an affected rake.

  “That is what I am.” Lord Landon inclined his head. “I’m in need of a bride.”

  “Because you’re in deep to my brother.” Adair would never be a man to sell himself for a fortune. Unlike you . . . The truth of that slammed into her. She sat here in blatant condemnation of the marquess for his willingness to do something Cleopatra herself intended.

  He abandoned his casual pose. “Because I inherited a bankrupt marquessate.”

  Another nob would likely have sputtered and quit the room at her insolence. Lord Landon’s speaking to her on an equal level raised her opinion of him mightily.

  “The gaming tables did not prove the way to r
everse your fortune.”

  His mouth tightened. “They did not. Though I’m generally luckier than I’ve been this past year.”

  Cleopatra dropped her elbows upon her knees and leaned closer. “Lord Landon, do you forget I’ve lived in a gaming hell? One that you frequent nearly nightly.”

  “Indeed, not.” He either failed to note, hear, or care about her sarcastic statement more than anything. “It is, in fact, why I’m here.”

  “To court me.” She forced herself to say those three words as a reminder that there was no certainty or permanency to a mere courtship.

  “To marry you.” He grinned. “Or rather, to ask you to marry me.”

  Through her smudged lenses, Cleopatra blinked once. Twice. And then a third time. Surely she’d misheard him. For Cleopatra knew next to nothing about the ways of Polite Society—at least where propriety and decorum were concerned—but she knew enough to know they certainly didn’t go about offering marriage after just two meetings.

  A twinkle danced in his blue eyes. “I see I’ve shocked you.” His tone hinted at an inordinate delight in that fact.

  And for the first time in her existence on this earth, she was remarkably without a cheeky retort. He wanted to . . . marry her. Her toes curled into the soles of her slippers. Nay, not her. He didn’t even know her. Mayhap he was merely a bored nobleman, making light of an interloper to the haute ton. “You want to marry me?” she asked warily, studying him closely for hint of teasing.

  “I need a bride,” he said frankly. He paused. “A wealthy one. And you, by rumors and whispers, are in search of a titled husband.”

  Her brother’s intentions had been that transparent, then. Not for the first time since the plan had been cooked up and Cleopatra thrust into an unfamiliar world, she felt a dangerously building resentment for her brother.

  The marquess removed his gloves and beat them together. Why . . . why . . . he has the look of a bored gent? “Are the rumors . . . true?” he ventured.

  She met that next bold query with silence.

  He sighed. “You disapprove of rumors,” he went on, stuffing the immaculate white gloves inside his sapphire jacket.