Wicked and the Wallflower (The Bareknuckle Bastards 1)

Aside from the fact that she quite liked the Duchess of Haven, she’d also learned a piece of critical information about the institution of marriage—that a man wildly in love made a remarkable husband.

Not that a wildly in love husband was in Felicity’s cards. That particular ship had sailed tonight. Well. It had sailed months ago if she were honest, but tonight was really the last nail in the coffin. “I’m mixing metaphors.”

“What?” Arthur snapped.

“You’re what?” her mother repeated.

“Nothing.” She waved a hand. “I was speaking aloud.”

Arthur sighed.

“For heaven’s sake, Felicity. That certainly won’t help land you the duke,” said the marchioness.

“Mother, Felicity isn’t landing the duke.”

“Not with that attitude, she won’t,” her mother retorted. “He invited us to a ball! All of London thinks he’s looking for a wife! And you are daughter to a marquess, sister to an earl, and have all your teeth!”

Felicity closed her eyes for a moment, resisting the urge to scream, cry, laugh, or do all three. “Is that what dukes are looking for these days? Possession of teeth?”

“It’s part of it!” the marchioness insisted, her panicked words devolving into a ragged cough. She brought a handkerchief to cover her mouth. “Drat this cold, or I could have made the introduction myself!”

Felicity sent a quiet prayer of thanks to whichever god had delivered a cold to Bumble House two days earlier, or she would have no doubt been forced into dancing or some kind of ratafia situation with the Duke of Marwick.

No one even liked ratafia. Why it was at every ball in Christendom was beyond Felicity’s ken.

“You could not have made the introduction,” Felicity said. “You’ve never met Marwick. No one has. Because he’s a hermit and a madman, if the gossip is to be believed.”

“No one believes gossip.”

“Mother, everyone believes gossip. If they didn’t—” She paused while the marchioness sneezed. “God bless you.”

“If God wished to bless me, he’d get you married to the Duke of Marwick.”

Felicity rolled her eyes. “Mother, after tonight, if the Duke of Marwick were to show any interest in me, it would be a clear indication that he is indeed a madman, rattling around in that massive house of his, collecting unmarried women and dressing them in fancy dress for a private museum.”

Arthur blinked. “That’s a bit grim.”

“Nonsense,” her mother said. “Dukes don’t collect women.” She paused. “Wait. After tonight?”

Felicity went silent.

“Arthur?” her mother prodded. “How was the evening, otherwise?”

Felicity turned her back on her mother and gave her brother a wide-eyed, pleading look. She couldn’t bear having to recount the disastrous evening to her mother. For that, she required sleep. And possibly laudanum. “Uneventful, wasn’t it, Arthur?”

“What a pity,” the marchioness said. “Not a single additional bite?”

“Additional?” Felicity repeated. “Arthur, are you, too, looking for a husband?”

Arthur cleared his throat. “No.”

Felicity’s brows rose. “No, to whom?”

“No, to Mother.”

“Oh,” the marchioness said from far above. “Not even Binghamton? Or the German?”

Felicity blinked. “The German. Herr Homrighausen.”

“He’s said to have a castle!” the marchioness said before dissolving into another coughing fit, followed by a chorus of barks.

Felicity ignored her mother, keeping her attention on her brother, who did all he could to avoid looking at her before finally replying with irritation. “Yes.”

The word unlocked the thought that had whispered around Felicity’s consciousness earlier. “They’re rich.”

Arthur cut her a look. “I don’t know what you mean.”

She looked up at her mother. “Mr. Binghamton, Herr Homrighausen, the Duke of Marwick.” She turned to Arthur. “Not one of them is a good match for me. But they’re all rich.”

“Really, Felicity! Ladies do not discuss the finances of their suitors!” the marchioness cried, the dachshunds barking and frolicking around her like fat little cherubs.

“Except they’re not my suitors, are they?” she asked, understanding flaring as she turned an accusatory gaze on her brother. “Or if they were . . . I ruined that tonight.”

The marchioness gasped at the words. “What did you do this time?”

Felicity ignored the tone, as though it was expected that Felicity would have done something to cause any eligible suitors to flee. The fact that she had done precisely that was irrelevant. The relevant fact was this: her family was keeping secrets from her. “Arthur?”

Arthur turned to look up at their mother, and Felicity recognized the frustrated plea in his eyes from their childhood, as though she’d nicked the last cherry tart or she was asking to follow him and his friends out onto the pond for the afternoon. She followed his look to where her mother stood on watch from high above, and for a moment, she wondered about all the times they’d stood in this exact position, children below and parent above, like Solomon, waiting for a solution to their infinitesimal problems.

But this problem was not infinitesimal.

If the helplessness on her mother’s face was any indication, this problem was larger than Felicity had imagined.

“What’s happened?” Felicity asked before shifting to stand directly in front of her brother. “No. Not to her. I’m at the center of it, obviously, so I’d like to know what’s happened.”

“I could ask the same thing,” her mother said from up on high.

Felicity did not look as she called up to the marchioness. “I told all of London I was marrying the Duke of Marwick.”

“You what?!”

The dogs began to bark again, loud and frenzied, as their mistress succumbed to another coughing fit. Still, Felicity did not look away from her brother. “I know. It’s terrible. I’ve caused a fair bit of trouble. But I’m not the only one . . . am I?” Arthur’s guilty gaze found hers, and she repeated, “Am I?”

He took a deep breath and exhaled, long and full of frustration. “No.”

“Something’s happened.”

He nodded.

“Something to do with money.”

And again.

“Felicity, we don’t discuss money with men.”

“Then by all means, Mother, you should leave, but I intend to have this conversation.” Arthur’s brown eyes met hers. “Something to do with money.”

He looked away, toward the back of the house, where down a dark corridor a narrow staircase climbed to the servants’ quarters, two dozen others slept, not knowing their fate was in the balance. Just as Felicity had done, every night before now, when her brother, whom she loved with her full heart, nodded a final time and said, “We haven’t any.”

She blinked, the words at once expected and shocking. “What does that mean?”

Frustration flared and he turned away, running his fingers through his hair before turning back to her, arms wide. “What does it sound like? There’s no money.”

She came down off the staircase, shaking her head. “How is that possible? You’re Midas.”

He laughed, the sound utterly humorless. “Not any longer.”

“It’s not Arthur’s fault,” the Marchioness of Bumble called down from the landing. “He didn’t know it was a bad deal. He thought the other men were to be trusted.”

Felicity shook her head. “A bad deal?”

“It wasn’t a bad deal,” he said, softly. “I wasn’t swindled. I simply—” She stepped toward him, reaching for him, wanting to comfort him. And then he added, “I never imagined I’d lose it.”

She reached for him, taking his hands in hers. “It shall be fine,” she said quietly. “So you’ve lost some money.”

“All the money.” He looked to their hands, ent

wined. “Christ, Felicity. Pru can’t know.”

Felicity didn’t think her sister-in-law would care one bit if Arthur had made a bad investment. She offered him a smile. “Arthur. You’re heir to a marquessate. Father will help you while you restore your business and your reputation. There are lands. Houses. This shall right itself.”

Arthur shook his head. “No, Felicity. Father invested with me. Everything is gone. Everything that wasn’t entailed.”

Felicity blinked, finally turning up to her mother, who stood, one hand to her chest, and nodded. “Everything.”

“When?”

“It’s not important.”

She spun on her brother. “As a matter of fact, I think it is. When?”

He swallowed. “Eighteen months ago.”

Felicity’s jaw dropped. Eighteen months. They’d lied to her for a year and a half. They’d worked to wed her to a collection of less-than-ideal men, then sent her off to a ridiculous country house party to throw her lot in with four other women who were attempting to woo the Duke of Haven into accepting one of them as his second wife. She should have known then, of course, the moment her mother, who cared for propriety, her dogs, and her children (in that order), had presented the idea of Felicity competing for the hand of the duke as a sound concept.

She should have known when her father allowed it.

When her brother allowed it.

She looked to him. “The duke was rich.”

He blinked. “Which one?”

“Both of them. Last summer’s. Tonight’s.”

He nodded.