Wicked and the Wallflower (The Bareknuckle Bastards 1)

The gold dress would send a message—all without Felicity Faircloth knowing—that Devil had been there first. That he was ahead of his brother in this game. That he would win.

Marwick watched her for a long moment, and all Devil wanted to do was steal her away.

He was saved from the instinct by a different man, the one who had touched her wrist earlier. He indicated the orchestra and extended his hand. An invitation to dance. Felicity put her hand in his and he led her onto the dance floor, away from Ewan.

Away from Devil.

Whit grunted. “I’m leaving.”

“Go, then,” he said. “I’m staying.”

“With her?”

Yes. “With them.”

After a long silence, Whit said, quietly, “Good chase, then,” and left Devil in the darkness, watching her as she was passed from partner to partner, spinning across the ballroom again and again. He watched as she smiled up at one escort after another, silently cataloguing each one’s missteps—a hand too low on her waist. A too lingering glance at her bosom. A whisper too close to her ear.

As he watched the performance, Devil began to ache with it, with the keen distaste for the men who were able to touch her, to hold her, to dance with her. And he quietly imagined punishing them the way he’d punished Reggie the night before. Banishing them from her presence. For a moment, he imagined what would happen if he could do that—if he could banish one after another after another, until the only man left was him.

A man unworthy of her, as he fully intended to use her to ruin another before leaving her in ruin herself.

But there had been a time, decades earlier, when it might have been Devil inside that room, dressed in finery, watching his betrothed, clad in finely spun gold, happily pulling her into his arms and dancing her through the room.

There had been a time when he might have been the duke. When he might have been able to give Felicity Faircloth the life of which she dreamed.

And for a fleeting moment, he wondered what he might have done to open that door if he’d known she was on the other side.

Anything.

Blessedly, the dancing stopped, and she was alone at the edge of the ballroom, behind a potted fern, stepping through a door left open to the night beyond.

The night, where he reigned.

Chapter Eleven

Felicity had spent much of her twenty-seven years at the center of the ton. She’d been born with immense privilege, the daughter of a rich marquess, sister of an even richer earl, cousin to dukes and viscounts.

She’d been smiled upon by society, and, when she came out, it was to be immediately welcomed by the most powerful children of the aristocracy. Women invited her to the gossip of ladies’ salons, men scraped and bowed and battled their way to refreshment tables to fetch glasses of champagne.

She’d never been belle of the ball, but she’d been belle of the ball adjacent, which meant dancing every dance and flirting with gentlemen and summoning the vaguest of pity for those who stood at the edge of the ballroom.

And she’d never quite noticed what it was to be at the center of the ballroom, because she’d always been there.

That is, until she was banished from it. Then, like an opium eater, all she’d wanted was to return.

Devil had promised her that return and, somehow, he’d delivered it. As though he were magic, after all. As though he really could make the impossible, possible.

She’d arrived that evening in the gown he’d sent, which looked as though it were made of spun gold, and she’d been instantly surrounded by smiling, welcoming faces, each more complimentary than the last, each wishing to speak a kindness to her. To make her laugh. And all because her lie had somehow not been revealed. In their minds, she was the next Duchess of Marwick, infinitely more valuable that night than she had been a week earlier—and they welcomed her with open arms.

But it was not as sweet a homecoming as Felicity had imagined.

Because she was no different than she had been a week earlier.

And now, halfway through the ball, having danced a half-dozen dances and flirted not at all effortlessly, having had trouble knowing when to laugh and when a laugh might be taken as a great insult, and having been terrified that she might say or do something wrong and ruin her one chance at saving her family, Felicity Faircloth knew the truth.

Being a darling of the ton was a fireplace filled with wood left out in the rain—hopeful and worthless. All of London minced and simpered after her because the duke had not denied their engagement and did not seem interested in doing so tonight. London seemed to have rediscovered Felicity Faircloth, plain, spinster, wallflower, and renamed her fascinating, affianced, bon vivant.

Which she wasn’t, of course. She was no different today than she had been a month ago, except today she was to marry a duke. Supposedly.

And her reentry into society because of that—it wasn’t nearly as rewarding as she would have expected.

Escaping the crush, Felicity tucked herself behind a potted fern beyond a blessedly open door. All she wished to do was to step over the threshold and flee into the darkness, to hide until it was time to leave.

But she couldn’t do that, as she still had three dances left on her dance card.

Three dances, and none with the Duke of Marwick, who was supposedly her fiancé. At least, he hadn’t denied the engagement, and he’d sent notice to her father that he would soon come to discuss the details of an impending marriage, which had sent her mother into fits of pleasure and set Arthur to smiling once more. Even Felicity’s father had grunted his pleasure at the turn of events, and the Marquess of Bumble rarely had time for domestic matters, let alone time for articulating his pleasure with them.

No one seemed concerned that the duke had not thought it necessary to darken Felicity’s doorstep at any point.

“Surely, he’ll turn up eventually,” her mother had replied when Felicity had pointed out the odd progression of events and her alleged fiancé’s invisibility. “Perhaps he’s simply busy.”

Felicity rather thought that a man who had time to send correspondence relating to an engagement would find the time to set the thing in motion, but that seemed beside the point.

All that, and Devil had promised her that the dress she wore would lure the duke, would put him in her path and help to win him, but so far, there had been no inkling of such a triumph. She wasn’t even certain the duke was in attendance. Was it possible he’d left London altogether? And if so, what was Felicity to do—continue to brazen it through and lie to all the world?

At some point, the Duke of Marwick would have to realize that they were not, in fact, engaged. And no frock—sent by the Devil or otherwise—was magic enough to protect her from the truth once she had to stare down the Duke of Marwick himself.

Not even this frock, which seemed more magical than any she’d ever imagined.

It was perfect.

How he’d done it was a mystery—but he’d promised her a perfectly fitted dress, and one had arrived that morning, as though crafted by magical beings. It had been crafted, in fact, by Madame Hebert, London’s most renowned modiste, despite Felicity not having been to the dressmaker in months—the product, she now realized, of her family’s penny pinching as much as her own disinterest in frocks now that she wasn’t welcome at the center of this world.

It seemed, however, that Hebert knew what kind of gown would be of interest. And it was a most definitely interesting one, Felicity had to admit. Even if Arthur’s brows hadn’t shot up when she’d appeared in it, Felicity had known the moment she’d opened the great white box embossed with a gold H that it was going to be the most beautiful gown she’d ever worn.

It hadn’t been a dress alone, however. There had been shoes and stockings and gloves and undergarments—she blushed at the memory of them, each piece edged with ribbons in a pink so vibrant it seemed scandalous.

I like pink, she’d told him earlier in the week.

It fe

lt sinful to wear those underthings, silk and satin and stunning, knowing they came from him. Nearly as sinful as wearing the dress itself, because she hadn’t been able to stop herself from thinking of wearing it for the man who had sent it, rather than for all the men who had seen it tonight.

She’d even left the door to her balcony open all day, thinking perhaps he would sneak in once more. That he might wish to see her in it. That he might wish to see that she looked something like pretty in it.

But he hadn’t come.

He’d kissed her in the darkness, giving her a taste of wickedness and sin, tempting her with its power, promised to see her in three nights’ time, and then . . . deserted her.

It wasn’t as though a man who lived in Covent Garden and carried a weapon in his walking stick had been invited to a ball hosted by one of the longest standing titles in Britain. Even if Felicity wished it so.

“He didn’t come, the bastard,” she whispered to herself and the inky blackness beyond.

“Such language, Felicity Faircloth.”

Her heart began to pound as she spun around to face him. “Are you an actual devil? Have I summoned you with my thoughts?”

His lips twisted in a wry smile. “Have you been thinking of me?”

Her mouth dropped open. She’d had too much champagne if she was admitting that. “No.”

The smile became a wolfish grin and he backed away into the shadows. “Liar. I heard you, my talkative wallflower. I heard you curse my not coming. Was I expected in your rooms?”

She blushed, grateful for the darkness. “Of course not. I keep my doors locked, now.”

“It’s a shame I don’t know a lockpick, then.” She coughed, and he laughed, low and dark and delicious. “Come into the darkness, Felicity, lest you be caught cavorting with the enemy.”

Her brows knit together but she followed him nonetheless. “Are you the enemy?”

He rounded the corner, where the light from the ballroom gave way to dark. “Only to everyone in Mayfair.”

She drew closer to the shadow of him, wishing she could see his face. “Why is that?”

“I am all they fear,” he said, low and dark. “Everyone has a sin, and my trick is knowing it. I can read them on people.”

“What is mine?” she whispered, her heart pounding, at once eager to hear his answer and terrified of it.

He shook his head. “Tonight, you are too aflame for sin, Felicity Faircloth. You’ve burned it all away.” She smiled, the words making her breathless. “And so, tell me. Have you reentered the aristocratic fold?”

She spread her hands wide. “Wallflower no more.”

“Pity,” he said.

“No one wants to be a wallflower,” she said.

“I’ve always thought the wallflowers the best in the hothouse,” he replied. “But tell me, my potted orchid, which moths have you lured?”