Wicked and the Wallflower (The Bareknuckle Bastards 1)

Her brows stitched together. She did not know much about men, she would allow, but there was no doubt in her mind that this one did not wish to kiss her. Not really. “Why?”

“Does it matter?”

“Considering you have made it more than clear that you’ve no interest in passion with me, yes, honestly. It does.”

He closed the distance between them. “Fair enough. My reason is that I wish it.”

“I—” She stopped. “One kiss?”

He lowered his head toward her, blocking her view of the gardens with his broad shoulders and his handsome face. “Just one.”

Why not? she thought. Why not kiss him and see if kisses were all as magnificent as the one Devil had given her in the ice hold?

The duke was near. “I shan’t kiss you if you don’t allow it.”

Her gaze flew to his. Perhaps the kisses with Devil hadn’t been special. Perhaps it had been plain old ordinary kissing. “Why wouldn’t all kissing be the same?” she whispered. She wouldn’t know it unless she kissed another man, and she just so happened to have one.

“You are speaking to yourself,” he said, watching her, his amber eyes seeing far more than she’d like. “I won’t be your first kiss, will I?”

“I don’t see how that’s your business,” she said, pertly. “I shan’t be your first kiss, either.”

He didn’t reply, instead setting his hands to her arms and turning her so that her back was to the hedge he’d found so fascinating all afternoon. Once she was positioned carefully—for whatever reason—he returned his attention to the matter at hand, leaned in, and pressed his lips to hers.

It was . . . uneventful. His lips were firm and warm and utterly unmoving. And not only in the sense that the kiss itself did not move her. He also, quite literally, did not move. He set his lips firmly against hers, and kissed her as though he were a statue. A handsome statue, she would allow, but a statue nonetheless.

It was nothing even in the same realm as the kiss she’d received from Devil.

The realization had barely formed when he lifted his head and released her, like he’d been burned—and not in a mothy, singey way. In the kind of way that ended with medical treatment.

He looked down at her and said, “Fate is a cruel thing, Lady Felicity. At another time, in another place, you might have had another duke who would have loved you beyond reason.”

Before she could respond, he was pushing her out of the way and bounding for the hedge, moving branches aside and reaching one long arm into it.

He was mad.

Clearly.

She took a tentative step toward him. “Um . . . Duke?”

He grunted his reply, half inside the bush.

“At the risk of being impertinent, may I ask why you are so interested in the hedgerow?”

She didn’t know what he would say. She supposed he might tell her it reminded her of someone or something—whatever it was that had turned him into this odd man. She might have imagined that he would tell her he had an affinity for nature—after all, he was a notorious London recluse, having spent his whole life in the country. It would not have surprised her if he’d told her he cared for a particular species of bird in sight, or a weed sprouting below.

But she absolutely did not expect him to extract a boy from the hedge.

Felicity’s jaw dropped as the Duke of Marwick stood up and hauled the young man to his feet. “Do you know our spy?”

The child looked to be no more than ten or twelve, long and thin like a bean, with a sooty face and a cap low on his brow. She stepped forward and lifted the brim to see his eyes, blue as the sea and just as defiant. She shook her head. “No.”

The duke commanded the boy’s attention. “Are you watching me?”

The boy didn’t speak.

“No,” the duke said. “You wouldn’t be in the gardens if you were watching me. You’d be out front, waiting for me to leave. You’re watching Lady Felicity, are you not?”

“I ain’t tellin’ you nuffin’,” the young man spat.

Felicity’s heart began to pound. “You’re from the rookery.”

The duke’s brows rose, but he did not speak.

Neither did the boy, but he didn’t have to. Felicity did not need confirmation. Something like panic was thrumming through her. Panic and desperation. “Is he alive?” she asked, watching the boy consider not answering her. She leaned down, staring directly into his eyes. “Is he?”

A little nod.

A wave of relief. “And the others?”

A defiant lift of the chin. “They’ve holes in ’em, but yeah.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, collecting herself. Then, “I’ve a message for your employer,” she said, looking to the duke. “You tell him that I am soon to be married, and therefore do not require his attention—or yours—any longer. Do you understand?”

The boy nodded.

“What’s your name?” she asked gently.

“Brixton,” he said. Her brows furrowed at the name, and the boy grew defensive. “It’s where ’e found me.”

She nodded, hating the way the words tightened her chest. “You’d best get back, Brixton.” She looked to the duke. “Let him go.”

Marwick looked to the boy, as though he’d just discovered that he was holding a child aloft, and said, “Be sure to tell him about the kiss.” He set Brixton down without hesitation, and the boy was gone like a flash, over the hedge and into the world beyond. She stared after him for longer than she should, wanting to follow him more than she should.

Wanting, full stop.

Finally, she turned to the duke, who appeared not at all surprised by the turn of events. Indeed, there was a light in his brown eyes that had not been there before. Something that looked like satisfaction, though it made no sense whatsoever why that would be. She took a deep breath. “Thank you.”

“Would you like to tell me about the boy’s employer?”

She shook her head. “I would not.”

He nodded. “Then tell me this. Was I right or wrong?”

“About what?”

“About the kiss being a worthy report for our little watchman.”

For a moment, Felicity allowed fantasy to roll through her—the idea that Devil might care that the duke had kissed her. That he might care that banns would be posted. That he might care that she’d returned home after he’d tossed her out and decided to get on with her life with another man. That he might regret his actions.

But that was all it was—a fantasy.

She met her fiancé’s gaze. “You were wrong.”

Chapter Eighteen

He came to tell her that she couldn’t use his boys as messengers.

He came to tell her that he had more important things in his life—responsibilities that far outweighed that of a bored wallflower lockpick for whom he had little time and even less interest.

He came to tell her that he didn’t belong to her, and she should not for a moment think he did.

He did not come because Ewan had kissed her.

And if he did come because Ewan had kissed her, it wasn’t because of Felicity. It was because he knew his brother well enough to know that Ewan was trying to prove a point. Trying to send his own message to Devil, that he had his marriage and his heir well within his grasp.

Either way, he didn’t come for Felicity.

At least, that’s what Devil told himself as he crossed the back gardens of Bumble House mere hours after Brixton returned to the rookery with news of the kiss, his subsequent discovery, and the fact that Felicity Faircloth had returned him to deliver a scolding to his employer.

Devil tucked his walking stick beneath his arm and began to climb the rose trellis beneath her window. He was a handful of feet above the earth when she spoke from below.

“I thought you were dead.”

He froze, clinging to the slats and vines for longer than he’d like to admit, loathing the way her voice had his breath catching in his

chest and his heart beating slightly faster than it should. It wasn’t because of her, he told himself. It was because he was still on edge from the last time he saw her. From the news that the Bastards’ shipment had been hijacked and their men hurt. From the fact that he’d been with her instead of taking care of his men.

That was all.

He looked down at her.

A mistake.

The sun was setting over the Mayfair rooftops, sending rich rays of copper-tinted light into the gardens, catching her dark hair and setting it aflame, along with the satin of her gown. Pink again, now the color of an inferno thanks to a trick of the light. Not that Devil should have noticed that it was pink. He shouldn’t have. He also shouldn’t have wondered if she was wearing the undergarments he’d purchased her days ago. He certainly shouldn’t have wondered if the undergarments came with pink satin ribbons like he’d asked.

Asking for those was another thing he shouldn’t have done.

Christ. She was magnificent.

He shouldn’t notice that, either, but it was impossible not to, what with how she looked like she’d been forged in fire and sin. She was beautiful and she was dangerous. She made a man want to fly right to her. Not like a moth. Like Icarus.

The only thing he should notice was that this woman was not for him.

“I’m not dead, as you can see.”

“No, you’re quite hale.”

“You needn’t sound so disappointed,” he replied, climbing down a foot or two before letting himself drop to the ground and taking his stick in hand.

“I thought you were dead,” she repeated, as he turned to face her, her velvet brown eyes a wicked temptation.