The Vixen

by Christi Caldwell

  You. There will only ever be you. His throat worked painfully. His eyes slid closed. Desolation swept cold through him.

  “There is a woman—”

  “Don’t,” he begged, wresting his hand back, but she retained an unrelenting grip.

  “She’ll remind you how to smile and laugh . . . and”—Ophelia’s voice caught—“love.”

  He shook his head hard. “There will only be you, Ophelia. I—”

  She covered his lips with her hand. “These lines show your future, Connor.” Her eyes moved over his face before holding his gaze. “I cannot be part of it.”

  “Then the lines lie,” he rasped, yanking them back.

  Except Ophelia gripped them, imploring with her eyes to let her continue her telling. Even as each word she uttered knifed at the shards of his broken heart, he could no sooner deny her this than he could deny her anything.

  “There’ll be a babe,” she whispered achingly, tapping a finger against several indents in the skin there, inaudibly counting. “Many of them. At least f-four.”

  “Time’s up, Steele,” the guard called from outside the cell.

  No. I’m not ready. It isn’t enough time. But then, a lifetime with Ophelia still wouldn’t be enough. Connor gathered her face between his hands, tenderly stroking his fingers over the dirt-stained flesh. “I will get you out of this place. I—”

  Her rosebud lips formed a quivering smile. “You always were smug, Connor O’Roarke.”

  A half sob, half laugh lodged painfully in his chest at that echo of long ago.

  The guard called out again. Ignoring him, Connor stood and brought Ophelia up with him. Shrugging out of his jacket, he draped the too-large article over her narrow shoulders. The enormous fabric swallowed her smaller frame. As she huddled deep into it, there was a childlike innocence to her standing there. “I will get you-ou—”

  “Don’t,” she quietly cut him off. “You were always truthful and forthright. Don’t lie to me now.” Her arms hung limp at her sides, the openings of his jacket dwarfing her delicate limbs. “I was going to tell you about my parentage.”

  “At . . . the earl’s . . .” He could not even bring himself to call the Earl of Mar his father. Not in this moment. Mayhap not ever. For how did one move beyond the neatly laid trap that man had set, all to prove Ophelia’s unsuitability and to preserve a union between Connor and Bethany?

  Burrowing deep within herself, Ophelia nodded. “I was. I waited too long. I don’t want any lies between us before . . .” His heart buckled. “Before.”

  The guard again shouted. “Oi said yar toime is up.”

  “By God, shut your bloody mouth or I’ll have Wylie make your tenure here even more of a misery.”

  That effectively silenced the guard. As soon as he’d slunk off, Connor dropped his brow to Ophelia’s. “What is it?”

  The tip of her tongue darted out, trailing the seam of her lips. “I’ve solved your case.”

  “My . . .” He stilled. He’d not even thought of Maddock or the marquess’s missing boy since Ophelia had been dragged from his father’s home.

  Leaning up on tiptoe, she placed her mouth close to his ear.

  Her whisper brought his eyes weighted closed.

  No.

  Oh, God. His mind raged against the truth. He shook his head.

  Ophelia nodded. “It is true.” In hushed tones, she shared all. When she’d finished, pain bled from her eyes. “I have no right to ask you for anything.”

  “You do.” If she wished for the stars, he’d climb to the heavens and gather her a handful. “Tell me what you want, Ophelia.”

  “Look after him.” Her selflessness in even this brought his eyes briefly closed. She didn’t speak of herself or plead for her salvation. Rather, she thought of her brother. “The marquess, he’ll not allow my family anywhere near him after this.” It did not escape his notice that she took care to omit specific names and details in her telling. Her cautiousness came only to those like them who’d lived on the streets. “See that he’s cared for and safe, Connor. Please see that he’s never harmed by his f-father.” That slight tremble was the only hint of her despair.

  God, she was breathtakingly remarkable in her strength. He raised her hands to his lips and kissed them one at a time. “You have my word.”

  Ophelia’s throat moved. Then, going up on her toes, she touched her mouth to his.

  He immediately folded her in his arms, slanting his lips over hers again and again in a violent, primal meeting.

  This embrace, unlike any to have come before, was different for the faint thread of desperation to it. This prison was an acknowledgment of how tenuous their time together was.

  He broke the kiss; their breaths came hard and fast together. “I love you,” he whispered, placing his lips tenderly against her brow.

  “If ya aren’t out in one minute, Oi’ll fetch Wylie myself an’ let ya answer to ’im about why ya’re still in there.”

  “Go,” Ophelia urged, releasing his hands.

  He went cold at the loss of her, and with the information she’d revealed knocking around his mind, Connor forced his feet to move.

  Training his stare forward, he focused on Ophelia’s revelation and the details she’d offered as proof. Any other person would have likely taken that information about one’s brother and buried the secret forever.

  She, however, wanted what was right to be done. She . . .

  He slowed his step.

  She’d ultimately found a nobleman’s lost son, a young earl and future marquess. It was an act of bravery and valor deserving of a pardon.

  For the first time since she’d been carted off, a sliver of hope took root and grew.

  Resuming his walk, Connor all but sprinted through the halls of Newgate. As soon as he’d raced down the steps of the famed prison, he hurried over to the street urchin holding his reins.

  After guiding his horse through the bustling streets, Connor found himself at the Marquess of Maddock’s. As if on cue, a young boy bolted over.

  “Watch my mount.” He tossed a guinea to the child. “There will be more,” he promised.

  Hope fueling his footsteps, Connor raced to the marquess’s door front and pounded hard. The door was immediately opened; Lord Maddock’s devoted butler stared back. His eyes took in Connor’s jacketless frame. “If you’ll follow me?” As he ushered Connor through corridor after corridor, his mind whirred.

  He should be solely focused on his upcoming meeting.

  Instead, he thought of Ophelia, and the future he dreamed of became so real it was tangible.

  He wanted to take her from St. Giles. Far away from Newgate and London. He wanted them both to begin again. This was the last thread of hope he had to save her.

  The butler glanced back briefly and then urged Connor down another wide, dimly lit corridor. Portrait after portrait of images were draped in heavy black satin . . . except for one partially concealed portrait.

  Slowing his steps, Connor stopped before the blue-enameled-and-jewel-encrusted frame. A thick black sheet had been artfully hung, neatly hiding the figure or figures there.

  He drifted closer, pulled forward by the plump babe reflected on that oil canvas. With big cheeks and a wide, dimpled smile, the child radiated joy contradictory to the frosty cold that lived on in this household in his wake. Balanced between two people, the subject of the picture had one leg perched on the leg of his father; the babe’s other disappeared sadly behind that curtain.

  Connor diverted his focus to Lord Maddock’s image: one relaxed hand curved softly about his son’s waist while his left thumb had been seized by the babe. His head was slightly bent toward the child squeezing that digit. From the positioning of the marquess’s body down to the more measured rendition of the grin worn by the child, the artist had expertly captured a frozen moment in time. It was a tableau of a bucolic family with a proud, loving papa.

  Selfishly, Connor had thought only of how Stephen might secure Ophe
lia’s freedom. Now, he looked at the boy, the brother so very loved by Ophelia, and the enormity of what this upcoming meeting portended slapped at him.

  Had the boy in the portrait truly been happy? Had mother and father been equally blissful? Or had theirs been like so many other unions, riddled with resentment and faithlessness and disdain?

  The butler cleared his throat. “Mr. Steele?”

  Ignoring that unspoken question, Connor reached for the corner of the black satin.

  Lord Maddock’s loyal servant surged forward. “Mr. Steele . . . I must warn you—”

  Not bothering a glance in the uneasy butler’s direction, he lifted a palm, commanding the other man to silence.

  Details mattered. Every single one of them provided a clue. Drawing the sheet back, he revealed the other persons in the portrait . . . or in this case, the one.

  Clad in a pale-pink creation and her chestnut curls piled high upon her head, the young woman there could not be more than twenty years of age. A timid smile graced her lips, as she, too, with her head bent toward the child, evinced motherly warmth.

  I saw a fair maiden

  sitten and sing:

  She lulled a little child,

  A sweete Lording

  Lullay my liking.

  He pressed his eyes closed as those lyrics of a forgotten lullaby echoed hauntingly around the chambers of his mind, sung in the clear, bell-like tones of his mother’s voice.

  Pray we now to that child,

  As to His Mother dear,

  God grant them all His blessing

  That now maken cheer

  Lullay my liking.

  His throat constricted as he let the memories come rushing back in. Of joyous, peaceful times he’d forced himself to forget. Of a mother’s and father’s tender touch, a gentle smile. Stephen should have known that. Perhaps together, he and his father, two broken souls, could heal each other.

  A lone floorboard creaked, and Connor forced his eyes open.

  “That will be all, Quint.” The marquess ordered his butler away.

  The hasty beat of footsteps indicated the younger man had complied, leaving Connor alone with the reclusive lord.

  Lord Maddock joined him at the portrait and, clasping his hands at his back, simply studied it. Silent. Unmoving. His expression revealed nothing, his eyes even less.

  The quiet stood out so stark, so unforgiving, the faintest tick of Connor’s timepiece, buried as it was in his pocket, audibly marked the passing time.

  “The day of his birth,” the marquess finally said, his voice hollowed of emotion, eerily deadened, “he remained turned. For hours the doctor waited for the babe to turn himself. Just . . . waited,” he whispered. “Her agony came in waves. I sat outside her rooms, head in my hands, simply listening to the cadence of her breathing and the shrillness of her cries, until I could not take it anymore.” Lord Maddock drifted closer, so close his nose nearly kissed the canvas. “I stormed the rooms, ordered the doctor to do anything to save her. Threatened him by death at my hands if he didn’t deliver the child, and when he remained there, wiping a nonexistent smudge from his spectacles, I grabbed him by his unwrinkled jacket and tossed him out of the room on his arse.”

  Yet the lady had lived.

  The marquess grazed his fingertips along the ghost of a smile on his late wife’s face. “I ordered Quint to fetch the village midwife. My mother, living at the time”—his lip peeled in a sneer, a hint of his feelings for that now departed figure—“forbade it as beneath a vaunted marquess to allow a commoner inside the birthing room of his heir. Tossed her out on her arse, too.”

  Connor remained silent through the telling.

  “The midwife had to . . .” Lord Maddock’s face crumpled, and Connor averted his gaze, allowing the other man his privacy. When he looked back, the mask was firmly in place. “Turn the babe. She claimed it was the only way to save my wife. So she turned him. The screams,” he whispered. “They reached into my soul and forever remained.” The marquess dusted his fingertips over the curls piled high on the young woman’s head. “When I lie abed at night, I am kept awake with the question of her screams the night she was taken in that fire. Were they as tortured?” His throat bobbed. “Selfishly, thinking of only myself, I want to believe the smoke consumed her while she slept before she burned.”

  Reluctantly securing the satin fabric back in place, Connor covered the young marchioness as she’d been in happiness.

  With a tilt of his head, Lord Maddock encouraged him to follow. They fell into step, not another word spoken, until he’d been ushered in and Connor had been seated.

  The marquess made for the sideboard. “A drink?” he offered the way he might a casual friend come to chat and not an investigator who’d called in the dead of night.

  “No, thank you.”

  The delicate clink of crystal touching crystal, followed by the steady stream of liquid hitting the glass, filled the rooms. “Your child has been found.”

  The tumbler slid from the marquess’s hand and thumped the edge of the table. As the amber droplets spilled a path down to the floor, the marquess remained motionless. “What?” His voice, a ragged whisper steeped in disbelief, reached Connor. He turned slowly back. “Did you say—?”

  “Your son has been found,” he repeated, the admission the right one, and also heart-wrenching in what it would mean for Stephen and Ophelia and the entire Killoran family.

  Lord Maddock gripped the edge of his sideboard, that white-knuckled grip keeping him upright. “I don’t believe . . . I . . . How?”

  Connor proceeded to reveal every detail recently shared by Ophelia. When he’d finished, the marquess said nothing. He remained rooted to the floor. Then a dark glint flickered in his eyes. “It is a trick,” he whispered.

  For a long moment, Connor didn’t move. “I beg your pardon?” he finally asked.

  Lord Maddock clenched and unclenched his fists. “They are hoping she’ll be named a savior and her life spared.”

  Connor’s neck heated at having his own hopes and thoughts so readily identified. “She wished to do what was right. She only just discovered—”

  A chuckle laced with bitterness shook the marquess’s frame. “How very convenient the young woman should share that information now.” Fury spilled from Lord Maddock’s taut frame. His lips formed a harsh sneer. “I may be more than half-mad, but I’m no fool. They’d foist that child off on me in the hopes a pardon will be issued, and I’m saddled with another one of Diggory’s bastards who’ll take flight the first moment he can.” Lord Maddock grabbed the bottle and poured himself another glass. He slammed the crystal decanter down hard enough to shatter it.

  “He has the marks.” That gave the widower pause. “Upon his right knee and a mark on his belly.”

  Lord Maddock downed the contents of his snifter in one long, smooth swallow. His lips pulled. “I understand you’ve become quite taken with the young woman.”

  At that abrupt shift, Connor cocked his head. “I beg your—?”

  “All the papers have commented on your infatuation with the Jewel of St. Giles, the diamond who took the ton by storm.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Say what it is you’d say and be done.”

  “As one in possession of details about my son’s identifying marks, you would be in a position to share with anyone. Including Miss Killoran. Would you not?”

  The air slipped from Connor on a loud hiss. “My God, you are mad.”

  Lord Maddock grinned coldly. “Yes, I am. But then, having one’s wife burned to death in a fire and one’s child stolen has that effect.” He swiped his bottle of French brandy and snifter and carried them to his desk. “Get the hell out, Steele. I no longer have need of your services.”

  Fury roared through his body, and he curled his hands tightly to keep from bloodying the marquess senseless. The marquess was known in all respectable circles as a madman. One whose guilt had driven him insane. Though Connor would wager his very career and
security that the man hadn’t killed his wife and child, neither did he believe for a moment the man who’d employed his services was in full possession of his faculties. With madness oftentimes came ruthlessness. “Aye, you are correct. I am in love with her,” he coolly acknowledged. “Orphaned by Diggory, I have no love or loyalty to the bastard who ruled East London. But the young woman now imprisoned, I know her. She saved me as a boy. And she has found your son. You’ve become so twisted by your hatred that you’d let it keep you from your child.”

  Grief had clouded the marquess’s ability to see reason. Nonetheless, Connor made a final attempt. “Ophelia Killoran would not hurt a child.”

  Lord Maddock winged an eyebrow. “Would she steal one?”

  “The Killorans have the most prosperous gaming hell in London. They have power, wealth.” And now sought noble connections. “What reason should she, or any of the Killorans, have to harm a child?”

  “It is in her blood.”

  It was those five words that indicated a truth he’d not realized before now: Connor could not help this man. Nor reason with him. “I believe we’ve reached an impasse,” he said tightly.

  As Connor took his leave, the last flicker of hope went out.

  Only . . .

  His steps slowed, and he stood frozen outside the marquess’s townhouse.

  There had been one offer presented—one that would see Ophelia saved.

  Connor’s eyes closed.

  He knew what had to be done.

  Chapter 25

  At best, Ophelia had an idea of her age because of her clever sister. There was not, however, a birth date, no one single day that had commemorated Ophelia’s entry into the world. She’d simply been another bastard of a whore and gang leader, celebrated by none and unwanted by all.

  There would, however, be a date to mark the last day she’d draw breath.

  The 12th of April, 1826.

  Lying on the unforgiving floor, she remained as she’d been since the evening before—on her back, staring at the stone ceiling overhead. Until the inky black of the night gave way to the faintest hint of light through the narrow window that looked out to the grounds below.