Wicked and the Wallflower (The Bareknuckle Bastards 1)

“That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”

He didn’t reply. He’d placed her in full view of London, promised her a match for the ages, and left her alone with terrible advice and without making good on the promise. As though she were the flame he’d assured her she’d be.

Except she wasn’t.

“This is the worst mistake ever made. In history,” she said to herself and the night. “This is up there with accepting the gift of a Trojan horse.”

“Are you giving a lecture on Greek mythology?”

She spun around at the words, and found the Duke of Marwick standing not three feet from her.

Chapter Twelve

Because she wasn’t entirely certain what one was to say to a man whom one had proclaimed her fiancé, Felicity settled on, “Hello.”

She winced at the decidedly unmagical word.

His gaze flickered to the dark gardens where Devil had disappeared, then back to her. “Hello.”

She blinked. “Hello.”

Oh, yes, this was all going quite well. She was all flame. Good God. It was only a matter of time before he ran back to the ballroom, stopped the orchestra, and denounced her publicly.

But the duke did not run. Instead, he took a step toward her, and she pressed back to the stone balustrade. He stopped. “Am I interrupting something?”

“No!” she said altogether too forcefully. “Not at all. I was just . . . here . . . breathing.” His brows rose at the words, and she shook her head. “Breathing air. Taking air. I mean. It’s quite warm in the ballroom, don’t you think?” She waved a hand at her neck. “Very warm.” She cleared her throat. “Hot.”

His gaze slid to her wrist. “It was good foresight for you to bring something to combat it.”

She looked down at the wooden fan dangling from her wrist. “Oh.” She snapped it open and fanned herself like a madwoman. “Yes. Of course. Well. I have excellent foresight.”

Stop talking, Felicity.

Those brows rose again. “Do you?”

Her brows narrowed. “I do.”

“I only ask because it seems to me that someone uninformed of that particular quality might find you to have the opposite of foresight.”

She caught herself before her jaw dropped open. “How is that?”

He did not immediately reply, instead coming to stand next to her at the balcony railing, turning his back to the gardens, crossing his arms over his chest and watching the revelers inside the beautifully lit ballroom. The light made his fair hair gleam gold as it harshened the angles of his face—high cheekbones and strong jaw; something about him whispered familiarity, though she couldn’t place it. After a long silence, he said, “One might argue that telling the world you are engaged to a duke when you’ve never met him lacks foresight.”

And, like that, the truth of her act was between them. Felicity was not riddled with the embarrassment or the shame she might have imagined. Instead, she was consumed with an immense relief. Something near to power—close to the way she felt when she picked a lock, as though the past was behind her and what was to come was all possibility.

Which was, of course, a kind of madness in itself, because this man held her fate and that of her family in his hands, and the future he might mete out was dangerous indeed. Madness seemed to reign, nonetheless. “Why did you confirm it?”

“Why did you say it?”

“I was angry,” she said quietly. She lifted a shoulder. “It’s not a good excuse, I know . . . but there it is.”

“It’s an honest excuse,” he said, returning his attention to the ballroom. “I, too, have been angry.”

“Did your anger result in tacit engagement to a person you’d never met?”

He looked to her, and it was as though he was seeing her for the first time. “You remind me of someone.”

The change of topic was jarring. “I . . . do?”

“She would have adored that dress; I promised to keep her in spools of gold thread, someday.”

“Did you deliver on that promise?”

His lips flattened into a cold, straight line. “I did not.”

“I am sorry for that.”

“As am I.” He shook his head, as though to rid himself of a memory. “She is gone now. And I find myself in need of an heir to . . .”

Felicity could not help her little huff of surprised laughter. “I say, you’ve come to the right place, Your Grace, as there’s nothing London likes more than a duke in your precise predicament.”

He met her gaze, and that eerie familiarity echoed. “If we are to be engaged, you ought to understand my purpose.”

“Are we? To be engaged?”

“Aren’t we? Did you not make that decision five nights ago at my home?”

“Well, I wouldn’t call it a decision,” she said softly.

“What would you call it?”

The question didn’t seem relevant, so instead, Felicity asked, “How did he convince you?”

He looked to her. “Who?”

“As I’ve said, you could have denied me and chosen another without hesitation. What did he threaten you with to make you choose me?” She didn’t think Devil the kind of man who would threaten bodily harm, but she supposed she didn’t really know him, and he had climbed her trellis and entered her bedchamber uninvited, so perhaps he had less of a conscience than she thought.

“What makes you think I had to be threatened?”

The duke was an excellent actor, clearly. Felicity almost believed that Devil hadn’t convinced him to marry her. Almost.

And then said, “I accepted your proposal, did I not?”

“But why? We’ve never met.”

“We met several minutes ago.”

She blinked. “Are you mad?” It was an honest question.

“Are you?” he countered.

Felicity supposed that was fair. “No.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Then perhaps I’m not, either.”

“You don’t know me.”

He looked to her. “You would be surpr

ised by what I know of you, Felicity Faircloth.”

A thread of unease passed through her at the way he said her name, an echo of another man. The fairest of them all. “I’m sure I would, Your Grace, as I am surprised you were even aware of my existence.”

“I wasn’t honestly, until late in the evening on the night of my ball, when a half-dozen doyennes of the ton—none of whom I knew existed, either, by the way—waylaid me on the way to the water closet to confirm my engagement to—what was it they called you?—poor Felicity Faircloth. It seemed they wanted to be certain I knew precisely what sort of cow I was purchasing.”

“Hog,” she corrected, immediately regretting the words.

He looked to her. “I’m not certain that’s more flattering, but if you prefer it.” Before she could tell him she was not enthralled by either descriptor, he pressed on. “The point is, I narrowly escaped the gaggle of women and then the ball—I should thank you for that.”

She blinked. “You should?”

“Indeed. You see, I no longer had need of it, as my work had been done for me.”

“And which work is that?”

“The work of finding a wife.”

“And an heir,” she said.

He lifted a shoulder. Dropped it. “Precisely.”

“And you thought a madwoman who pronounced you her fiancé was a sound choice for the mother of your future children?”

He did not smile. “Many would say a madwoman is my best match.”

She nodded. “Are you a madman, then?”

He watched her for a long moment, until she thought he was not going to speak again. And then, “Here is what I know of you, Finished Felicity. I know you were once a perfectly viable option for marriage—daughter to a marquess, sister to an earl. I know something happened that landed you in the bedchamber of a man to whom you were not married, and who refused to marry you—”

“It wasn’t what you—” she felt she had to explain.

“I don’t care,” he said, and she believed him. “The point is, after that, you became more and more curious, an oddity on the edges of ballrooms. And then your father and brother lost a fortune and you became their only hope. Unbeknownst to you, they took your freedom from you, and shipped you off to—do I have this right?—vie in a competition for a married duke’s hand?”