Wicked and the Wallflower (The Bareknuckle Bastards 1)

How could anyone leave him?

The thought rioted through her on a flood of recognition. She loved him. Somehow, she’d fallen in love with him. What was she going to do?

She stepped toward him, reaching for him, wanting to show him. Wanting to love him. “Devil.”

He shook his head at the whispered name and stepped back, refusing her touch, his words unfeeling. Miraculously so. “He did not come for me. And no one in town wanted a bastard castoff—so they sent me to an orphanage. I had no name, so they named me Devon Culm—for the county from whence I came and the river where my mother died.”

She reached for him again, only to have him pull away again. “Your father . . . he must not have known . . . the letter must not have found him . . . he would never have left you.”

“You will make a lovely mother someday,” he said. “I told you that once before, but I want you to know I mean it. There will come a time when you will have beautiful, mahogany-haired daughters, Felicity, and I want you to remember that you will be a remarkable mother.”

Her eyes stung with tears at the words—at the invocation of those children that she did not want if they were not shared with a man she loved. With this man, whom she loved.

“You wanted the truth, Felicity Faircloth, and there it is. I am so far beneath you that I soil you with my very thoughts.”

She lifted her chin. “That’s not true.” Did he not see he was magnificent? Did he not understand that he was ten men? Stronger and wiser and smarter than anyone she’d ever known?

He reached for her then, his fingers trailing over her cheek in a caress that felt too much like a farewell. She reached up to capture his hand. “Devil,” she repeated. “It’s not true.”

“I made a mistake,” he said, so softly it was almost carried away on the wind. The words made Felicity ache with sadness.

“This isn’t a mistake,” she said. “This is the best thing I have ever known.”

He shook his head. “You’ll never forgive me,” he said, looking at her. “Not if I take you from the life you deserve. Don’t seek me out again.”

He dropped his hand and turned away. She watched him go, willing him to turn back. Telling herself that if he turned back, it would mean something. If he turned back, he cared for her.

He didn’t.

And her frustration and irritation simmered over.

“Why?” she called after him, getting angrier by the moment. Hating the way he had stripped her bare and made her believe that she mattered—and then left her as though she were nothing but an afternoon distraction. As though she were nothing at all.

He stopped, but did not look at her.

She did not move, refusing to chase him. Even a wallflower had pride. But she let her frustration ring out. “Why me? Why give me a taste of this? Of you? Of your world? Why let me have it and then snatch it away?”

It was becoming more difficult to see him in the dimming light, and she wondered if he would answer her. When he did, it was soft enough that she wondered if he meant her to hear it. If he realized that the breeze would carry the words to her just as the bench had done earlier.

“Because you are too important.”

And he was gone, into the darkness.

Chapter Twenty

Felicity had heeded his instructions.

She had not sought him out, nor had she broken into his offices or his warehouse, nor had any of his watches seen her in Covent Garden. In fact, Brixton, returned to his post outside Bumble House, had reported virtually no activity from Felicity at all since Devil had left her in her gardens.

She had not even resorted to sending him a note.

It had been three days, and Felicity had left him in peace, and Devil found he was more and more consumed with her with every passing second.

Perhaps he could have avoided it if he hadn’t answered the summons she’d sent via Brixton. Perhaps he might have been able to ignore her if he hadn’t kissed her in the gardens. If he didn’t remember the sound of her voice carried along that whispering bench. If he didn’t know she laughed when she came.

She laughed when she came.

He’d never known a woman to give herself over to pleasure like that. So fully, so completely that her pleasure poured from her in pure, unadulterated joy. For the rest of his life, he would remember the sound of her laughter in that garden, shared with him and the setting sun and the trees and nothing else.

For the rest of his life, he would dream of the taste of her pleasure and the sound of it. He was ruined by her.

He’d spent three days pretending to ignore the memory of her pleasure, of her glorious, rolling laughter, and finally, in failure, had left his offices to meet the latest ice shipment on the Thames. The sun had barely set—sending gold and purple streaks across the sky above London—and it was high tide.

Devil crossed over Fleet Street, toward the docks, checking his watch as he walked—ten past nine. He noted the quiet of the taverns frequented by London’s dockworkers, most of whom would have found work that evening, seeing ships in and out of the moorings on the river while tide was high and the boats could be controlled. Once tide ebbed, it would be twelve hours before the ships could be moved—and time in shipping was funds.

Crossing down to the river’s edge, walking stick in hand, he followed the docks for a few hundred yards to the large berth the Bastards leased on evenings when they received shipments. A massive ship loomed ink black against the grey sky, just docked, half-sunken in the high water because of its cargo—one hundred and fifty tons of ice, a good portion of it melted inside the hold.

Whit was already there, black hat low on his brow, greatcoat waving in the wind, with Nik by his side. The Norwegian was leafing through lading papers under the nervous gaze of the ship’s captain. “It’s all here, according to the papers,” she said. “But we can’t be sure until we get to it.”

“How long?” Whit asked, lifting his chin in acknowledgment of Devil’s approach.

“If we’re lucky, Wednesday night.” Two nights hence. “If we start draining the melt from the hold tonight, the moment the tide begins to ebb, it might be finished before then.”

“Two nights and no more,” Whit growled. “We can’t risk it sitting without full guard for longer.” A dozen men would be posted to protect the cargo while the water was drained from the ship’s hold, because there was no other option—it was impossible to access the hold while it was filled with ice melt—but the docks were low ground, and, while on them, the guard could protect neither the cargo nor themselves as well as the Bastards liked.

“Two nights, then. I shall have the boys prepare for wet boots.” Nik nodded to the captain, releasing him to his ship once more.

“We’ll want extra guards on the move to the warehouse, as well,” Devil said, tapping his stick against the boards of the dock. “I don’t want to see another load compromised.”

“Done.”

“Excellent work, Nik.”

The Norwegian dipped her head in a barely-there acknowledgment of the praise.

“Especially since Devil had nothing to do with this one,” Whit added.

Devil looked to him. “What does that mean?”

“You’ve spent two weeks mincing after the girl.”

“Why in hell are you tracking me?”

Whit looked away, down the dock. “As long as he is here, I’m having everyone tracked.”

Ewan. “If he wanted us, he would have come for us.”

“He wants Grace.”

“Between her cover and her guard, she’s well protected.”

Whit grunted, low and full of grit. “I’m surprised you knew we had a shipment coming in today, with all the time you’ve had with your girl.”

What a fucking bastard his brother was. “I had to convince her to trust me if we were going to use her to punish him.”

Whit grunted. “That still the plan, is it?”

“No,” Devil replied instantly, knowi

ng that he was begging for trouble, but he rejected the idea of using Felicity as a pawn in their game so thoroughly now that he could not find the strength to pretend otherwise.

Christ, he’d made a hash of it.

“Bad plan after all, innit?” Whit said, and Devil resisted the urge to put his fist into his brother’s face.

“Bollocks off.”

Whit shared a sidelong glance with Nik, who spoke for them both. “If that isn’t the plan, then what have you been doing all this time?”

“You worry about the ship,” Devil said. “This isn’t your business.”

She shrugged and turned away.

“’S a fair question, bruv.”

It was. But that didn’t mean Devil had to answer it. “Tonight, you find your tongue?”

“Someone’s got to help you sort out your idiocy.”

“I’m handling it,” Devil said.

He was.

He would.

All he had to do was stop thinking about her goddamn laugh.

“You. Fucking. Fools.”

Devil turned toward the words. “Excellent.” He looked to Nik. “Leave while you still can.”

The Norwegian made her way up the gangway to begin her assessment of the hold as Grace neared, tall and proud and perfectly turned out in a tailored scarlet coat. She was flanked by two lieutenants—women in similarly cut black coats. All that was visible beneath the trio’s outerwear were black boots, but Devil knew they were all wearing trousers—which made for fast walking and even faster running, should they need to avail themselves of the skill. The guards stopped ten yards from them as Grace approached.

Whit’s brows rose and he looked over his shoulder at their sister for a long moment before returning his attention to the half-sunken ship in the water. “Evenin’, Dahlia.”

Grace narrowed her gaze on Whit. “What the hell has you so chatty?” Before he could answer, she turned to Devil. “The two of you together have the sense of an addlebrained hedgehog.”

“I am routinely amazed that London’s best and brightest find you charming,” Devil said.

“Did you think I wouldn’t discover it? Did you think it could happen beyond my notice? Is it possible that the two of you have suffered simultaneous blows to the head and forgotten that I am smarter than you both put together?”

Whit looked to Devil. “She seems unhappy.”