Wicked and the Wallflower (The Bareknuckle Bastards 1)

He’d no doubt grow as mad as his brother, without the woman he loved.

But a thousand years ago, when three children escaped their horrible past and made for a bright future, they’d done so because of the man in front of them. Because he’d betrayed them brutally.

Devil’s scar throbbed with the memory.

And today, Devil meted out punishment with unmatched swiftness. “You tried to kill her, Ewan. Our father’s last test, and you were the one to take up the blade.” Ewan looked away. “She’s the proof of your theft. You stole a dukedom. But worse, you stole her name.”

Ewan turned to him, wild-eyed. “She never wanted it.”

“You stole it anyway,” Devil said. “We were children, but you two were always older by years. You were bound to each other.”

“I loved her.”

Devil knew that. Ewan and Grace had been too young for love, and still they’d had it. Which had made what happened even worse. “Then you should have protected her.”

“I did! I let her run with you!”

Devil turned his face, showing his scar to Ewan. “Only after I stopped you from destroying her. You think I don’t remember? You think I don’t still feel the burn of your blade?”

Punishment and protection, two sides of the same coin. Had he not learned that lesson for himself? Had he not punished himself to protect Grace all those years ago? Hadn’t he just punished himself again to protect Felicity?

Would he not take his punishment again and again for her safety?

And now he would punish Ewan. “Grace is gone.”

The lie rang through the darkness, clear and cold. And for the first time since he appeared, the duke showed himself. Ewan’s inhale was loud and harsh, as though Devil had unsheathed his cane sword and put the tip right through his heart.

And he had.

“Where?”

“Where you’ll never find her.”

“Tell me.” Ewan’s low voice shook.

Devil watched his brother carefully and threw his final blow. “Where none of us can find her.”

Let Ewan think Grace dead. She’d be furious at Devil for it, no doubt, but if it threw the fucking monster off her scent, he’d take his sister’s heat. And besides, Ewan deserved the pain. Devil would sleep well tonight.

Except he wouldn’t, because he’d be without Felicity.

He turned back to the locks, extracting his keys. Christ, he was tired of all of it. He was Janus, cursed with nothing but the broken past. The bleak future.

And, like Janus, he could not see the present.

The glint of silver from the lion’s head at the tip of his walking stick came too late for him to defend himself. The blow set him to his knees, the pain excruciating.

“You were to protect her.”

Devil bore the weight of his pain and lied perfectly, a lie that any good smuggler would be proud of. “You were to protect her first.”

Ewan roared, his fury coming without warning. “You took her from me.”

The room was spinning. “She came willingly. She came eagerly.”

“You have signed your death warrant tonight, brother. If I must live without love, you can die without it.”

The words were a harsher blow than the physical one Ewan had delivered.

Felicity. Devil was fast losing consciousness. He lifted a hand to his temple, feeling the telltale warm wetness there. Blood.

Felicity. He didn’t want to die without her.

Not without seeing her again. Not without touching her, without feeling the soft warmth of her. Not without one last kiss.

Not without telling her something true.

Felicity. Not without telling her he loved her.

He should have told her he loved her.

He would have married her . . . he did marry her.

A scrape of steel sounded harsh and somehow unfamiliar.

No. No he didn’t. He left her.

He married her. It was a wild, Covent Garden wedding with a fiddle and a pipe, and too much wine and too much song and he told her he loved her a hundred times. A thousand.

A slide. His body, dragged through the frigid mud into the hold.

He married her, and he made her a queen of the Garden, and his men swore her allegiance and she grew round with a child. With children. With little girls with heads for machines, just like their mother. And she didn’t regret it.

And neither did he.

No. Wait. He didn’t. It wasn’t past. It was future.

He rolled to his hands and knees, barely able to see the flicker of lantern light in the hallway beyond. He had to get to her. To keep her safe.

To love her.

She had to know he loved her.

That she was his light.

Light. It was going away. Ewan was in the doorway. “If I must live in the dark, you can die in it.”

Devil reached for the door, the infinite blackness of the hold already stealing his breath. No, not the blackness.

“Felicity!”

The door shut, closing out the light.

“No!”

The only response was the ominous sound of locks being thrown. One after another. Locking him into the hold.

“Felicity!” Devil screamed, fear and panic coursing through him. Forcing him to fight the haze and scramble for the door. He banged on it.

There was no answer.

“Ewan . . .” He screamed again, madness coming with the darkness. “Please.”

He threw himself at the door, pounding upon it—knowing that the hold was too far down and too well hidden for any of the watchmen outside to hear him. And still he screamed, desperate to get to Felicity. To keep her safe. He turned, darkness everywhere, feeling along the muddy ground until he found the ice, pulling himself up on the blocks to find the pick he’d left within.

The dark closed in on him, heavy and cloying in the freezing cold, and he forced himself to take deep breaths as he searched. “Where the fuck is it?”

He found it, and taking it by the handle and crawling back to the door, he roared her name again. “Felicity!”

But she wasn’t there to hear him. He’d pushed her away.

I love you, Devil.

He pulled himself to standing and swung the hook, scarring the steel. And again. And again. He had to get to her. Again. He had to keep her safe. Again.

Do you love me?

He did. He loved her. And in that moment, as he realized the futility of his blows, he was overcome with truth—he would never have the chance to tell her just how much.

You deserve the darkness.

The final strike took the remains of his strength, and he sank to the ground and closed his eyes, letting the darkness and cold come.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Unable to sleep, Felicity rose at the crack of dawn and went to her brother’s home, letting herself in through the kitchens and up into the family’s quarters, opening the door to his bedchamber to discover him still abed, kissing his wife.

She immediately turned her back and raised a hand to her eyes, crying out, “Ahh! Why?”

While it wasn’t the kindest response to the vision of marital bliss before her, it was certainly more kind than other things she might have thought or said, and it got the job done.

Pru gave a little surprised squeak, and Arthur said, “Dammit, Felicity—are you unable to knock?”

“I didn’t expect . . .” She waved a hand. She looked back to find her sister-in-law sitting up in the bed, counterpane pulled to her chin. Returning her attention to the door, she added, “Hello, Pru.”

“Hello, Felicity,” Pru said, a smile in her voice.

“It’s lovely to see you.”

“And you! I hear you’ve a great deal going on.”

Felicity grimaced. “Yes, I suppose you would have heard that.”

“Enough!” Arthur said. “I’m putting locks on all the doors.”

“We have locks on all the doors, Arthur.”

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“I’m putting more locks on the doors. And using them. Two people bursting into our private rooms uninvited in less than a day is two people too many. You may turn around, Felicity.”