Wicked and the Wallflower (The Bareknuckle Bastards 1)

She did, to discover that both her brother and sister-in-law had donned dressing gowns. Pru, heavy with child, was crossing the room to a pretty dressing table, and Arthur was standing at the end of the bed, looking . . . not pleased.

“I was invited,” she defended herself. “I was summoned! Felicity. Come and see me immediately. One would think you were king for how superior a summons it was.”

“I didn’t expect you to think you were summoned for this hour.”

“I couldn’t sleep.” She didn’t expect to be able to sleep ever again, honestly, for the moment she began to dream, it was of Devil, the King of Covent Garden, and the way he looked at her and the way he touched her and the way he might love her, and just when it all felt so deliciously real, she woke, and it was all horribly false, and so not sleeping seemed a better alternative. “I intended to come and see you today, Arthur. I was going to come and apologize. I know it’s dreadful, and Father has disappeared, and Mother is in a constant state of vapors, but I’ve been thinking about what happened two nights ago and—wait. Someone else burst into your rooms?”

His brows rose. “I wondered when you would note that.” He sighed. “I am unconcerned about what happened at the Northumberland Ball.”

Felicity sighed. “Well, you should be concerned, Arthur. It was . . . not my best moment. I’m properly ruined.”

He barked a laugh at that. “I can imagine.”

“I rather think it might have been your best moment, honestly,” Pru said happily from her dressing table. “Marwick sounds quite unpleasant.”

“He is,” Felicity said. “Mostly. But—” She stopped herself before she could point out that her decision, however freeing for herself, was the opposite for her father and Arthur, who now had no hope for recovering their losses. If Arthur still hadn’t told Pru, it would be a terrible betrayal of her brother.

Even if he deserved it.

She looked at him, the question in her eyes.

“She knows,” he said.

Felicity looked to Pru. “You do?”

“That this idiot man was keeping the truth about his own ruin from us both? In fact, I do.”

Felicity’s jaw dropped. She never expected her sister-in-law to weep and wail in the face of financial disaster, but she also did not expect her to be so . . . well, frankly, happy. She looked to her brother. “Something has happened.”

Her brother watched her for a long moment. “Indeed, something has.”

Was it possible the duke was not allowing the engagement to end? He was just mad enough to do it—just to punish Devil. And as much as Felicity was irritated with Devil, and hurt by Devil, she was not interested in punishing him. “I’m not marrying Marwick. I made that very clear at the ball . . . and even if he came to . . .”

“I’ve no interest in you marrying Marwick, Felicity. Frankly, I despised the idea from the start. Similarly, I have little interest in discussing the ball. I should like to talk about what happened after the ball.”

Felicity froze. Impossible.

“Nothing happened after the ball.”

“That’s not what we were told.”

Felicity looked to Pru, then back to Arthur, a thread of suspicion in her. “Who burst into your rooms before me?”

“I think you know.”

She went cold. “He shouldn’t have come here.” He’d used her. He’d betrayed her.

You were the perfect revenge.

He’d done enough damage; couldn’t he leave well enough alone?

“Nevertheless,” Arthur said, “he turned up here yesterday.”

“He isn’t important,” she lied.

Arthur raised a brow.

“He seems quite important, if you ask me,” Pru interjected.

No one asked you, Pru. “What did he say?” Felicity asked. He wouldn’t have told Arthur the truth about the night on the roof, certainly. That ran the risk of landing him with her for a wife, and Lord knew he wasn’t willing to risk that for anything.

Lord knew he wasn’t willing to even consider her for a wife.

“He said a number of things, as a matter of fact.” Arthur looked to Pru. “Introduced himself all polite—despite the fact that he’d climbed a tree and broken in.”

“He does that,” Felicity said.

“Does he?” Pru asked, as though they were discussing Devil’s penchant for riding.

“We’re going to have to have a talk about how you know that, eventually,” Arthur said. “He then tore a strip off of me for mistreating you.”

Her gaze flew to her brother’s. “He did?”

“He did. Reminded me that you were never a means to an end. That we were treating you abominably and that we didn’t deserve you.”

Tears welled, along with anger and frustration. He, too, didn’t deserve her. “He shouldn’t have done that, either.”

“He does not seem the kind of man who can be stopped, Felicity,” Pru said.

Especially when you want to stop him from leaving you.

“He was right, is the thing,” Arthur said. “We did behave abominably. He thinks you ought to turn your backs on us. Thinks we’re unworthy of you.”

“He doesn’t really believe that.” Her worth had run its course the moment her usefulness in his revenge had done the same.

“For someone who doesn’t believe in your worth, he certainly was willing to pay a fortune for it.”

She froze, instantly understanding. “He offered you money.”

Arthur shook his head. “Not just money. A king’s ransom. And not just to me—to Father as well. A hefty sum to fill the coffers. To begin again.”

She shook her head. Taking Devil’s money tied them together again. He could turn up any time to check on his investments. She didn’t want him near her. She couldn’t bear him near her. “You can’t take it.”

Arthur blinked. “Whyever not?”

“Because you can’t,” she insisted. “Because he’s only doing it because he feels some kind of guilt.”

“Well, one might argue that a guilty man’s money spends as well as that of someone who sleeps well at night, but, leaving that aside, why would Mr. Culm feel guilty, Felicity?”

Mr. Culm. The name sounded ridiculous on her brother’s tongue. Devil had never used it before with her. He loved being the opposite of a mister with a powerful passion.

And also, Mr. Culm made her remember when she wished she was his Mrs.

Which she didn’t anymore. Obviously.

“Because he does,” she settled on as an answer. “Because . . .” She trailed off. “I don’t know. Because he does.”

“I think he might feel guilty because of the other thing he said while he was here, Arthur.”

Arthur sighed, and Felicity looked to Pru, who looked like the cat that got the cream. “What was it?”

“How did he put it?” Pru asked with a smile that gave Felicity the keen sense that her sister-in-law had committed whatever Devil had said to memory. “Ah. Yes. He loves you.”

Tears came. Instantly. Tears and anger and frustration and loathing that he’d said the words she’d longed to hear to Prudence and Arthur and not to her. The person whom he ostensibly loved.

She shook her head. “No, he doesn’t.”

“I think he might, you know,” Arthur replied.

One lone tear spilled down her cheek and she dashed it away. “No, he doesn’t. You are not the only ones who treated me abominably, you know. He did, too.”

Arthur nodded. “Yes. He told us that, as well. He told us he’d made enough mistakes to make it impossible for him to make you happy.”

She stilled. “He said that?”

Pru nodded. “He said he would live with the regret for a lifetime. That he would remember the chance he’d had and lost.”

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nbsp; Another tear. Another. Felicity sniffed and shook her head. “He didn’t care enough about me.”

Arthur nodded. “I shan’t tell you otherwise; you must decide if he is a man worthy of you. But know that Devon Culm has bestowed a fortune upon you, Felicity.”

“Upon you,” she corrected. “So, what, that I may be kept? That I may be your responsibility forever? That I may belong to you, and live in sadness and silence here in this world that used to be all glitter, and is now faded paint, peeling from the rafters? All he’s done is make my future a gilded prison.”

“No, Felicity. I spoke correctly. Culm bestowed a fortune upon you. He wished you to have enough to find your own happiness.” He looked to Pru. “How did he say it?”

Pru sighed. “A future wherever and with whomever you wish.”

Felicity’s brow furrowed. “A dowry?” The bastard. He’d just thrown up another door. She’d unlocked everything, and here she was again, surrounded by new chains. New locks.

Arthur shook her head. “No. It’s yours. The money is yours. An enormous amount, Felicity. More than you could ever spend.”

The shocking words settled as Pru lifted a box from her dressing table and walked it over to Felicity. “And he left you a gift.”

“The money was not gift enough?” The black onyx box, longer than it was wide, barely an inch high, and tied with a pink silk bow. Her chest tightened at the pretty package it made. Pink on black, like light on darkness. Like a promise.

“He was adamant you receive this when we told you of the funds.”

She slipped the ribbon from the box, wrapping it carefully around her wrist before she opened the lid to discover a thick white linen card inside. Across it, in Devil’s beautiful black scrawl, were three words.

Farewell, Felicity Faircloth.

Her chest tightened at the words, tears springing again instantly.

She hated him. He’d taken away the only thing she’d ever really wanted. Him.

She lifted the card, nonetheless, and her breath caught at the glint of metal beneath, six straight, thin lines of shining, gleaming steel, beautifully wrought. Tears came freely now, her hand shaking as she reached for the gift, her fingertips caressing the smooth metalwork. “Devil,” she whispered, unable to keep his name from her tongue. “They’re beautiful.”