“You shouldn’t be in Covent Garden.”
“Why not?”
/> “Because, Felicity Faircloth, you’re looking to marry a duke and assume your rightful place as a jewel of the ton, and if some aging aristocrat saw you here, that would never happen.”
He had a point, but oddly, at no time during her journey had she even considered the ton. She’d been too excited about what was to greet her at the other end of the calling card. “No one saw me.”
“I’m sure not for lack of you sticking out like a daisy in dirt.”
Her brows rose. “A daisy in dirt?”
His lips flattened. “It’s a figure of speech.”
She tilted her head. “It is?”
He drank. “Covent Garden isn’t for you, Felicity Faircloth.”
“Whyever not?” Did he know that saying such things made her want to explore every nook and cranny of the place?
He watched her for a long moment, his dark eyes inscrutable, and then nodded once, turned on his heel, and marched to the far end of the room, pulling a cord. Perhaps he did know.
“You needn’t summon anyone to escort me out,” Felicity said. “I found my way in—”
“That much is clear, my lady. And I’ve no interest in having anyone escort you out. I can’t risk you being seen.”
He was an irritating man, and Felicity’s patience began to fray. “Afraid I shall destroy you, as well as your sister?”
“It’s not out of the realm of possibility. Haven’t you—I don’t know—a ladies’ maid or a chaperone or something?”
The question unsettled her. “I am a twenty-seven-year-old spinster. Very few people would think twice about me traveling sans-chaperone.”
“I’m certain your brother, your father, and any number of Mayfair toffs would think far more than twice to find you traveling sans-chaperone to my offices.”
Felicity brazened it through. “You think having a chaperone would make it more acceptable for me to be here?”
He scowled. “No.”
“You think me more dangerous than I am.”
“I think you precisely as dangerous as you are.” The words, so forthright and without edge, gave her pause, sending a thread of something strange coursing through her. Something suspiciously like power. She inhaled sharply, and he leveled her with a look. “That’s not exciting, either, Felicity Faircloth.”
She disagreed, but thought it best not to say so. “Why do you insist on calling me by both of my names?”
“It reminds me that you are a fairy-tale princess. Faircloth indeed. The fairest of them all.”
The lie stung, and she hated herself for letting it do so, more than she hated him for speaking it. Instead of saying so, however, she forced herself to laugh at his unwelcome jest.
His brows knit together. “You are amused?”
“Is that not what you intended? Did you not think yourself immensely clever?”
“How was I being clever?”
He was going to make her say it—and that made her hate him more. “Because I’m the opposite of fairest.” He did not speak, and did not look away, and she felt she had to continue. To make her point. “I am the plainest of them all.”
When he still did not speak, she began to feel foolish. And annoyed. “Is that not our arrangement?” she prompted. “Are you not to make me beautiful?”
He was watching her even more intently now, as though she were a curious specimen under glass. And then, “Yes. I shall make you beautiful, Felicity Faircloth.” She scowled at the intentional use of both of her names. “Beautiful enough to draw the moth to your flame.”
The impossible, made possible. And yet . . . “How did you do it?”
He blinked. “Do what?”
“How did you ensure he wouldn’t deny it? Half a dozen doyennes of the ton turned up for tea this morning at our home, believing that I am the future Duchess of Marwick. How?”
He turned his back on her, moving to a low table laden with papers. “I promised you the impossible, did I not?”
“But how?” She couldn’t understand. She’d woken that morning with a keen sense of impending doom, certain that her lie had been exposed, the Duke of Marwick had proclaimed her mad before all London, and her family had been ruined.
But none of that had happened.
Nothing near to that had happened.
Indeed, it seemed that the Duke of Marwick had tacitly confirmed the engagement. Or, at least, he had not denied it.
Which was impossible.
Except, this man, Devil, had made that precise promise, and made good upon it.
Somehow.
Her heart had pounded with each successive gawking well-wisher, and something like hope had flared in her chest, alongside another emotion—startlingly akin to wonder. At this man, who seemed capable of saving her and her family.
So, of course she’d come to see him.
It had seemed, frankly, quite impossible not to.
A knock sounded on the door and he moved to answer it, swinging it open and allowing a dozen servants in from the hallway beyond, each holding large pails of steaming water. They entered without a word—without looking at Felicity—marching through the room to the far wall, where a doorway stood open to a dark space beyond.
Her gaze flew to Devil’s. “What is that?”
“My bedchamber,” he said simply. “Did you not have a look when you picked my lock?”
Heat roared to life on her cheeks. “I didn’t pick—”
“You did, though. And I don’t understand how a lady procures the superior skill of lockpicking, but I hope you will one day tell me.”
“Perhaps that will be the favor you ask of me once you’ve brought me my besotted husband.”
One corner of his stern mouth twitched, as though he were enjoying their conversation. “No, my lady, that tale you shall offer freely.”
The words were quiet and full of certainty, and she was grateful for the dim evening light lest the unexpected flush they brought with them be obvious. With a little uncomfortable cough, she looked to the door to his bedchamber, where a light had flickered to life, bright enough to make the shadows within dance, but not enough to reveal anything of the space beyond.
And then the servants returned, empty pails in hand, and Felicity knew exactly what they had done. Before they’d had a chance to file out and close the door behind them, Devil was shucking his waistcoat and making quick work of the buttons on the sleeves of the linen shirt beneath.
Her mouth fell open, and he turned to enter the room beyond, calling over his shoulder as he disappeared, “Well, we might as well begin.”
She blinked, calling after him, “Begin what?”
A pause. Was he . . . disrobing? Then, from farther away, “Our plans.”
“I . . .” She hesitated. Perhaps she was misunderstanding the situation. “I beg your pardon, but are you about to bathe?”
He peeked his head back around the edge of the door. “As a matter of fact, I am.”
He was no longer wearing a shirt. Felicity’s mouth went dry as he disappeared back into the room, and she watched the empty doorway for long minutes, until she heard the twin thuds of his boots, and then the splash of water as he took to the bathtub.
She shook her head in the empty front room of the apartments. What was happening? And then he called out, “Lady Felicity, do you wish to shout from out there? Or are you coming in?”
Coming in?
She resisted the urge to ask him to elaborate, and instead made her choice, knowing doing so could easily mark her a lamb to slaughter. “I am coming in.”
No, not lamb to slaughter.
Moth to flame.
Chapter Eight
He’d been teasing her. He’d wanted to make the innocent Lady Felicity Faircloth reconsider her rash decision to turn up in his rooms uninvited, knowing that there was no earthly way she would join him in his bedchamber, let alone in his bedchamber as he bathed.
And there he was, waist-deep in water in the copper tub, smirk upon his face, congratulating himself on
delivering a proper lesson to the lady beyond—who would certainly never find cause to arrive, unchaperoned, on his Covent Garden doorstep again lest she be faced with proof of the baseness of the neighborhood—when the lady in question called out from the next room, “I am coming in.”
He barely had time to hide his surprise before Felicity Faircloth flounced into his bedchamber, glass of his hard-won bourbon in hand, as though she belonged there.
To add insult to injury, he then found himself imagining what it might be like if she did, in fact, belong there. If it were perfectly normal for her to sit upon his bed and watch as he bathed the dirt of the day from his body, cleaning himself before he joined her there, on that bed.
Cleaning himself for her.
Shit. This had all gone sideways.
And there was no way to repair it, as he was naked in a pool of water, and she was fully clothed, hands clasped demurely in her lap, watching him with avid interest.
Hers was not the only interest that was avid, it should be said.
Not that his cock was going to have its interest slaked. This was not the kind of woman whom one fucked in the darkness. This was the kind of woman to be won over. Had she not waxed poetic about passion in her own bedchamber?
Seducing Felicity Faircloth away from his brother would take more than one night in his rooms in Covent Garden. And it wouldn’t happen in Covent Garden at all—as she would never be here again.
He wasn’t used to being concerned for people’s safety on the Bareknuckle Bastards’ turf, but with her, he was. Far too concerned. He still wasn’t clear how she’d made it here without running into trouble.
The thought grated, and he found comfort in that, letting it overcome his first response to her. He was not the one who needed to be unsettled. She was.
He forced himself to lean back, pulled a length of linen from the edge of the tub, and moved it with purpose. “Once I am clean, I intend to return you to Mayfair.”
Her gaze flickered to where his arm moved, lazily scrubbing up his chest. He slowed his pace when she swallowed, a faint flush creeping up her neck. She drank, her eyes going wide and slightly watery as a little hack sounded at the back of her throat—a cough she clearly refused to release. After she recovered, she met his eyes, narrowing her own on him. “I know what you are doing.”