Wicked and the Wallflower (The Bareknuckle Bastards 1)

Her lips twitched at that. “I haven’t anything to give you.”

He looked at her for a long moment. “You undersell yourself, Felicity Faircloth.”

“My family hasn’t any money to give,” she said. “You said so yourself.”

“If they did, you would not be in this predicament, would you?”

She scowled at his matter-of-fact assessment. At the helplessness that flared with the words. “How do you know it?”

“That Earl Grout and the Marquess of Bumble have lost a fortune? Darling, all of London knows that. Even those of us who aren’t invited to Marwick’s balls.”

She scowled. “I didn’t know.”

“Not until they needed you to.”

“Not even then,” she grumbled. “Not until I could do nothing to help.”

He tapped his walking stick twice on the floor. “I am here, am I not?”

She narrowed her gaze on him. “For a price.”

“Everything has a price, darling.”

“And I assume you already know yours.”

“I do, as a matter of fact.”

“What is it?”

He smiled, the expression wicked. “Telling you that would remove the fun.”

A tingle spread through her, across her shoulders and down her spine, warm and exciting. And terrifying and hopeful. What price her family, comfortable in their security? What price her reputation as an oddity, yes, but never a liar?

And what price a husband with no knowledge of her past?

Why not deal with this devil?

An answer whispered through her, a promise of something dangerous. And still, temptation thundered through her. But first, assurance.

“If I accept . . .”

That smirk again, as though he were a cat with a canary.

“If I accept,” she repeated with a scowl. “He shan’t deny the engagement?”

The devil inclined his head. “No one will ever know of your fabrication, Felicity.”

“And he shall want me?”

“Like air,” he said, the words a lovely promise.

It wasn’t possible. The man was not the devil. And even if he were, not even God could erase the events of the evening and make the Duke of Marwick marry her.

But what if he could?

Bargains cut both ways, and this man did seem more exciting than most.

Perhaps in the loss of the impossible passion he promised her, she could win something else. She met his gaze. “And if you cannot do it? Do I collect a favor from you?”

He was silent, and then, “Are you certain you wish a favor from the Devil?”

“It seems that would be a far more useful favor than one from someone who is perfectly good all the time,” she pointed out.

The brow above his scar rose in amusement. “Fair enough. If I fail, you may claim a favor from me.”

She nodded and extended her hand for a proper handshake, one she regretted the moment his large hand slid into hers. It was warm and big, rough at the palm in a way that evoked work far beyond anything polite gentlemen performed.

It was delicious, and she released him immediately.

“You should not have agreed,” he added.

“Why not?”

“Because nothing good comes from deals made in the dark.” He reached into his pocket and brandished a calling card. “I shall see you two nights hence, unless you require me beforehand.” He dropped the card to the little table next to the chair Felicity thought she might think of as his for the rest of time now. “Lock this door behind me. You wouldn’t want a nefarious character coming in while you are asleep.”

“Locks didn’t keep the first nefarious character out of my room tonight.”

One side of his mouth kicked up. “You’re not the only lockpick in London, love.”

She blushed as he tipped his hat and exited through the balcony doors before she could deny her lockpicking, his silver cane flashing in the moonlight.

By the time she reached the edge of the balcony, he was gone, snatched up by the night.

She returned inside and locked the door, her gaze falling to the calling card there.

Lifting it, she considered the elaborate insignia there:

The back offered an address—a street she’d never heard of—and underneath, in the same, masculine scrawl:

With the Devil’s Welcome.

Chapter Six

Two nights later, as the last rays of the sun faded into darkness, the Bareknuckle Bastards picked through the dirty streets of the farthest reaches of Covent Garden, where the neighborhood known for taverns and theaters gave way to one known for crime and cruelty.

Covent Garden was a maze of narrow, labyrinthine streets, twisting and turning in upon themselves until an ignorant visitor was trapped in its spider’s web. A single wrong turn after leaving the theater could see a toff liberated of his purse and tossed into the gutter, or worse. The streets leading deep into the Garden’s rookery were not kind to visitors—especially proper gentlemen dressed in even more proper finery—but Devil and Whit weren’t proper and they weren’t gentlemen, and everyone there knew better than to cross the Bareknuckle Bastards, no matter what finery they wore.

What’s more, the brothers were revered in the neighborhood, having come up from the slums themselves, fighting and thieving and sleeping in filth with the best of them, and no one likes a rich man like a poor man with the same beginnings. It didn’t hurt that much of the Bastards’ business ran through this particular rookery—where strong men and smart women worked for them and good boys and clever girls kept watchful eye for anything out of sorts, reporting their findings for a fine gold crown.

A crown could feed a family for a month here, and the Bastards spent money in the muck like it was water, which made them—and their businesses—untouchable.

“Mr. Beast.” A little girl tugged on Whit’s trouser leg, using the name he used with all but his siblings. “It’s ’ere! When are we ’avin’ lemon ice ’gain?”

Whit stopped and crouched down, his voice rough from disuse and deep with the accent of their youth, which only ever came back here. “Listen ’ere, moppet. We don’ talk ’bout ice in the streets.”

The girl’s bright blue eyes went wide.

Whit ruffled her hair. “You keep our secrets, and you’ll get your lemon treats, don’t you worry.” A gap in the child’s smile showed that she’d lost a tooth recently. Whit directed her away. “Go find your mum. Tell ’er I’m comin’ for my wash after I finish at the warehouse.”

The girl was gone like a shot.

The brothers resumed their walk. “It’s good of you to give Mary your wash,” Devil said.

Whit grunted.

Theirs was one of the few rookeries in London that had fresh, communal water—because the Bareknuckle Bastards had made sure of it. They’d also made sure it had a surgeon and a priest, and a school where little ones could learn their letters before they had to take to the streets and find work. But the Bastards couldn’t give everything, and the poor who lived here were too proud to take it, anyway.

So the Bastards employed as many of them as they could—a collection of old and young, strong and smart, men and women from all over the world—Londoners and North Countrymen, Scots and Welsh, African, Indian, Spanish, American. If they made their way to Covent Garden and were able to work, the Bastards would provide it

at one of their numerous businesses. Taverns and fight rings, butchers and pie shops, tanneries and dye shops and a half-dozen other jaunts, spread throughout the neighborhood.

If it wasn’t enough that Devil and Whit had come up in the muck of the place, the work they provided—for decent wages and under safe conditions—bought the loyalty of the rookery’s residents. That was something that other business owners had never understood about the slums, thinking they could hire in work while bellies in spitting distance starved. The warehouse on the far edge of the neighborhood now owned by the brothers had once been used to produce pitch, but had long been abandoned when the company that had built it discovered that the residents had no loyalty to them, and would steal anything that was left unguarded.

Not so when the business employed two hundred local men. Entering the building that now acted as the centralized warehouse for any number of the Bastards’ businesses, Devil nodded to a half-dozen men staggered throughout the dark interior, guarding crates of liquors and sweets, leathers and wool—if it was taxed by the Crown, the Bareknuckle Bastards sold it, and cheap.

And no one stole from them, for fear of the punishment promised by their name—one they’d been given decades earlier and stones lighter, when they’d fought with fists faster and stronger than they should have been to claim turf and show enemies no mercy.

Devil went to greet the strapping man who led the watch. “All right, John?”

“All right, sir.”

“Has the babe come?”

Bright white teeth flashed proudly against dark brown skin. “Last week. A boy. Strong as his da.”

The new father’s satisfied smile was sunlight in the dimly lit room, and Devil clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ve no doubt about that. And your wife?”

“Healthy, thanks to God. Too good for me by half.”

Devil nodded and lowered his voice. “They all are, man. Better than the lot of us combined.”

He turned from the sound of John’s laughter to find Whit, now standing with Nik, the foreman of the warehouse, young—barely twenty—and with a head for organization that Devil had never met in another. Nik’s heavy coat, hat, and gloves hid most of her skin, and the dim light hid the rest, but she reached out a hand to greet Devil as he arrived.