The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers Book 1) Read online

  Cleopatra dragged her knees to her chest and dropped her chin atop them, as she’d been wont to do since she was a girl, taking shelter in hovels during storms. She’d made a bloody fool of herself, lusting after Adair, and he’d been wholly unaffected. Oh, she’d felt his manhood pressed against her and, from it, had felt his desire. But his hatred had proven far greater.

  With his coolly aloof warnings and dismissals last evening, she’d been reminded that they were enemies. He’d cut off her ability to freely roam this fancy townhouse or familiarize herself with the layout. Now she was a prisoner, stripped of her weapons and freedom of movement.

  She firmed her jaw.

  Alas, if Adair thought a curt command would stifle her, he was even more a fool than his club design plans had revealed him to be.

  Squinting in the dark, she sought to bring the numbers on the porcelain clock into focus.

  Thirty minutes past twelve . . .

  The last of the shuffling footsteps from the other side of the shared wall had come twenty-three minutes ago, indicating Adair, her guard, now slept.

  Nonetheless, she’d made mistakes last night. Too many of them. And after a day spent alone, in silent contemplation, she didn’t intend to make the same missteps.

  After scooting to the edge of the bed, she silently stood. He’d advised her to not roam the floors. Ordering her about like the prisoner Broderick had made her into. Well, she was no weak ninny. Be it a St. Giles gutter or a Grosvenor mansion, she’d be prepared.

  After having spent the day measuring the weak, protesting floorboards, she carefully sidestepped them and started for the window. Reaching it, she stopped and cast a glance over at the plaster divide between her and Adair.

  Did he truly believe she’d be contained and quelled by him or anyone?

  This wasn’t the first time Cleopatra had been underestimated. Not even by Adair Thorne—a man who’d challenged her more than a year earlier when she’d first proposed a truce between their families.

  It had simply proven the most convenient. She grinned wryly. Hitching herself on to the ledge of her opened window, Cleopatra glanced briefly down. At least one hundred feet to the street; she’d certainly scaled far higher buildings. As one who’d been locked away in a closet as punishment by Diggory and his loyal minions, Cleopatra found even being suspended above the ground preferable to any makeshift or imposed prison.

  She braced her palms on the edge and pulled herself upright. Standing on tiptoe, she grabbed the ledge of the window above hers. The distant rumble of carriage wheels echoed loudly, and she focused, driving back all hint of sound or distraction. One slight slip or miscalculation had seen too many pickpockets tossed to the cobbles. And I have far grander hopes than dying outside Black’s posh Grosvenor Square townhouse. Pushing back thoughts of the Blacks or her family or fear of falling, she drew herself up.

  Even though she had scaled countless townhouses and establishments without ever a broken limb, her pulse still raced at a maddening beat inside her ears. Using all the muscles in her forearms, she slowly lifted herself up. Concentrating all her efforts on her climb, she angled a knee to brace herself on her precarious perch and then brought herself upright.

  Cleopatra pressed herself against the crystal windowpane and peered into the darkened space. An entire day spent inside her own chambers and the dearth of movement from the room above had marked it as some extraneous space in Black’s home. She squinted, making out the empty chamber. The spring breeze whipped at her white skirts. With slow, measured movements, she brought her palms to rest on the opposite corners of the panes, slowly applying pressure. Satisfaction coursed through her when the window instantly gave way. The servants who cleaned these lofty homes were all responsible for the same mistake . . . believing those top windows could never be penetrated. That Black’s own staff should also demonstrate that carelessness spoke of a man who’d been removed from the streets too long. He’d gone soft. Then, her presence here was proof of that.

  Cleopatra braced herself on the edges of the windowsill. The heavy, solid wood grounded her, driving her heartbeat back into a normal cadence. She lowered herself and then swung inside the room. The leather soles of her boots hit with a soft thud. She shot her arms out to keep her balance. Breath frozen in her lungs, she glanced about, more than half expecting a rush of Black’s men to storm the room. The only company, however, proved to be the ornate mahogany bedroom furniture. Adjusting her spectacles, she picked up a porcelain shepherdess and turned it over in her hands.

  “So, this is what has become of you, Black,” she mouthed into the quiet. He’d gone from gaming hell proprietor to . . . fancy viscount with delicate porcelain and open windows.

  And that was the path Broderick was headed down, if he continued on with his lifelong fascination with respectability.

  Over her dead body.

  She returned the ruffled shepherdess to its proper position and brought the window back down. She’d lay down her life for Broderick. He was as much her sibling as Gertrude, Ophelia, and Stephen were, but he didn’t have the blood of the streets coursing through his veins. Oh, when he’d come into their fold, able to read and write and speaking so fancy, she’d wanted to clobber him on the head and jumble all those damned words up. For he’d made her feel—for the first time in the whole of her then short existence—inadequate. But he’d saved her life more times than she deserved, and what was more, he’d cared after her sisters and younger brother. She’d never allow them to become weak, as the Blacks had.

  Her purpose that night reinvigorated, she firmed her mouth and made her way to the door. Whenever one entered a new territory, one needed to identify how the land lay. One needed to know all the doorways and windows and halls that could lead one to escape, just as much as one had to be prepared for the walls that would block a hasty retreat. She’d monitored one floor last evening; she’d add another this night. Having been divested of all her weaponry, she’d need not only a new knife but also a map of Black’s house.

  A memory flitted forward of Adair as he’d cupped her breast, all the while feasting on her mouth like a man starving for her. Any other man of St. Giles, particularly one she’d been in the midst of battling, would have gladly let her fall flat on her face. In fact, he’d have given the final push or kick and sent her sprawling—especially after the way she’d assaulted Adair Thorne’s manhood with her knee. But he hadn’t. Even as curses had dripped from his lips and fire had lit his eyes, he’d rolled her atop him, breaking her fall.

  And he stole your damned knife . . . don’t forget that much . . .

  Prodded back into movement, she pressed the handle and opened the door a fraction. The hum of silence spilled into the darkened chambers. She hesitated, counting several seconds, and opened it farther. Where the whores at the Devil’s Den were always lauding the benefit of their plump, curved frames, Cleopatra had long given thanks that she’d been born with a child’s form and maintained that narrow waist and smallish stature. It had allowed her a furtiveness to rival the fleetest London pickpocket. It also enabled her to sneak about Ryker Black’s home.

  Letting herself out, she drew the door closed behind her with a silent click. Cleopatra glanced up and down the hallway, silently estimating the distance in each direction. Then with measured steps, she started forward. She ran her gaze over each doorway, mentally calculating the number and size of those wood panels. By the stillness on these floors, Black and his family didn’t inhabit this portion of their sprawling townhouse. What a waste of bloody rooms. How many years had she spent in one-bedroom apartments with her sisters, brother, and other bastard issue of Diggory’s men? Cleopatra reached an intersecting hallway. A faint whine pierced the quiet, and she stopped abruptly. Only silence met her ears.

  Except—narrowing her eyes, she started in the direction of that previous sound. As she drifted farther down the hall, that keening cry suited to a hungry kitten grew louder. Cleopatra stared at the door handle a long moment. When no
ne of Black’s servants or men came rushing forward, she pressed the handle and stepped inside.

  Cleopatra blinked into the inky darkness and tried to bring the room into focus through her wire-rimmed spectacles. She stilled, her eyes quickly taking in a child’s armchair, the matching mahogany waterfall bookcase, and the floral curtains and upholsteries.

  Pink. “More pink,” she muttered under her breath.

  What in blazes was it with the nobility and that color? Given she stood in a nursery belonging to her family’s mortal enemy, it was a nonsensical wondering that could see her killed. One that Diggory, had he been alive still, would have said should see her killed. And yet, since she’d spied a lady years earlier with a girl clad in pink, she’d been riveted by that color of childlike innocence. It was a shade of lightness that stood in direct contrast to the dark hues and dirt-stained garments Cleopatra and her sisters had been forced to don.

  Another sharp cry echoed around the room and slashed across her nonsensical musings. Cleopatra furrowed her brow. Surely there was a nursemaid about? A loud snore punctuated that thought, and Cleopatra instantly found the doorway. Cracking it open, she glanced inside. A young woman lay sprawled on a small bed, with a brass cylindrical flask just beside her pillow. With a sound of disgust, she closed the door, then wandered back to the small cradle and looked down.

  A plump babe with thick black curls rooted around, making suckling noises with her mouth.

  And for all the hardness of the exterior she’d built up, warmth suffused Cleopatra’s heart as it invariably did when presented with a small baby. I should leave. Standing at the bedside of Black’s babe was the kind of act that would see them slay her first and ask questions later. The girl emitted a sharp cry, and Cleopatra closed her eyes and instantly scooped up the small girl. Her weight settled slight and yet reassuring against Cleopatra’s chest.

  “Shh.” She whispered nonsensical soothing sounds and gently rocked the girl back and forth. Since she’d been a child, she’d taken on the role of caring for Diggory’s and his men’s bastard babes. It hadn’t been any sense of loyalty that had led him to look after his enormous brood, but rather his kin had served a utilitarian purpose—to run the streets on behalf of his empire. Cleopatra, however, had imagined in each child who’d fallen to her care a different life. In them, she’d dreamed of her own escape—wanting more, hoping for more, for each of those children.

  She went cold and ceased her distracted rocking. In the end, the only ones who’d made it free had been the ones who’d died.

  The ominous click of a pistol held her frozen.

  “Put the child down. Now, Killoran. Or I will end you.”

  Adair’s steely whisper filled the quiet nursery and sent gooseflesh racing along her arms.

  For a second time in Black’s household, Cleopatra had let her guard down and been caught by Adair Thorne . . . only this time with his family’s cherished babe in her arms. That, on the heel of his warnings last evening, sent fear twisting in her chest.

  Bloody hell.

  “I said put her down,” he demanded, taking a step closer.

  The child wailed.

  Fighting the instinct to protect the child, Cleopatra hesitated before returning her to her cradle. “Thorne,” she drawled, in a bid for calm. This is the same man you teased and kissed last evening. That reminder didn’t help. Inside, her emotions ran amok. Not because Adair had a gun pointed at her head but because she’d rather he fire that pistol than realize her inherent weakness for those tiny, helpless creatures. “If you’d wished to speak to me again, you need only have—”

  “Walk away from her cradle. Now.” He took a step closer, briefly silencing her attempted bravado. She didn’t want it to hurt that his doubt of her was so strong he’d point a gun at her chest. And yet . . . it did.

  The child continued to cry at their backs, babbling incoherently. Cleopatra tightened her mouth. “I wouldn’t hurt a babe. Not even one of yours,” she said coolly.

  “Quiet.”

  Cleopatra continued over that sharp demand. “Your family would do well to find a reliable nursemaid and not one who is nipping at too much brandy and sleeps through the child’s tears.”

  “How do you . . . ?” Adair blinked slowly, then gave his head a firm shake. “I said quiet, and move away from her.” Stuffing his gun back in his waistband, he grabbed Cleopatra about the waist.

  She gasped as he spun her around and proceeded to pat her. The thin fabric of her nightskirts provided little barrier against his heated touch. This touch, however, was so very different from the hungry searching of last night. Even so, her body didn’t care either way for any distinction. A dangerous fluttering started low in her belly, and she hated herself for her body’s damned awareness when it should be so distantly removed. “Damn you.” That curse tore from her lips—for him as much as for herself. “Oi wouldn’t ’urt a babe.”

  He snorted.

  “Oi wouldn’t.” It shouldn’t matter whether or not he believed her, and yet that he thought her capable of the same evil Mac Diggory himself had mastered grated on her nerve—and worse, sent a pang to her heart. “A-and you already stole my weapons.” The bloody bastard had taken the only material item of value to her.

  “I didn’t steal them,” he muttered, spinning her back to face him. Dragging her by the shoulders, he brought her up on her tiptoes and bent his head down so their noses nearly touched. “Nor did you need a weapon. You needed nothing more than a pillow to snuff out her life.”

  She recoiled. That allegation leveled her far more than any other insult or accusation he might hurl. “You’re a monster if ya even thought of that.”

  “And this from a woman who gave her loyalty to a Devil like Mac Diggory.”

  Cleopatra shot her palm out, catching Adair hard on his right cheek with such force it brought his head snapping back. The suddenness of her attack and that movement knocked loose his hold on her. Adair brought his palm up and rubbed the wounded flesh.

  She stumbled away. How dare he? He’d paint her as one devoted to Diggory. The choices for young girls on the street were far different from the ones permitted boys. Suffering through her earlier life with Diggory had still been far safer than navigating through London without that distinction, and two sisters—one of them partially blind—to care for. “You know nothing of it,” she spat into the silence.

  Her handprint stood out in stark contrast to his olive-hued cheeks. And despite her hurt, outrage, and fury, uneasiness stirred low in her belly. How many times had Diggory’s men knocked her around for daring to strike them? She backed slowly away.

  “I said get away from the cradle.” With a growl, he lunged for her—

  The bedroom door flew open, knocking against the wall so hard it snapped back and nearly hit the menacing, scarred figure there.

  Black and a handful of guards surged forward. The explosion of sound and activity at the front of the room roused the baby to another round of noisy tears.

  “Keep it silent or Oi’ll silence it forever.”

  Diggory’s threats echoed around the chambers of her mind. Panicked, Cleopatra looked to the baby.

  “Get away from my child, Miss Killoran,” Black ordered in death-promising tones.

  The babe’s crying reached a fever pitch, and Cleopatra shook her head in befuddlement. “Oi don’t . . .”

  “I said—”

  Penelope Black sailed into the room. With her skirts whipping about her and a knife in her hand, she very much had the look of a London street warrior. “What is it?” she rasped, settling her hard stare on Cleopatra.

  Feeling as cornered as when Mac Diggory’s number two had pressed her against the wall and threatened to split her belly open for failing to obey his orders, Cleopatra clutched at her throat. “Oi wasn’t. Oi wouldn’t—” Why should they believe you? Why should any of this enemy family believe you? She searched frantically about for escape. “She was crying,” she said hoarsely, as Black’s wife storm
ed over and rescued the babe from imagined harm.

  “You expect us to believe you were just here to calm Ryker’s babe?” Adair asked with incredulity.

  He thought her mad, then. That realization drove back her panic and confusion, replacing it instead with righteous indignation. She jutted her chin up. “Oi don’t care wot ya believe, Thorne.”

  “Where is the nursemaid?” Black commanded.

  “You’re all a bunch of bloody fools,” Cleopatra snarled to the room at large. “Ya, too,” she said to Black’s wife, who was hugging her child close. How quickly all that pretend warmth and kindness from a day earlier had faded. It only proved what she really thought of Cleopatra. Not that Cleopatra blamed the woman . . . she’d simply, however, reinforced the truth that they were enemies. And would always be so, deal or not. “Your nursemaid is in her bed, drunk enough to sleep three nights straight.”

  That charge was met with a heavy silence.

  Penelope glanced between Cleopatra and Ryker Black. “I don’t—”

  “Know anything?” Cleopatra supplied insolently for her. “Ya certainly don’t.”

  A muscle ticked in the corner of Black’s right eye, and then he stalked wordlessly across the room and shoved the door open. A bleating snore met that sudden movement.

  The roomful of Blacks stared on at Cleopatra with varying degrees of mistrust. She studiously avoided Adair’s probing green eyes.

  Black reemerged with that brass flask in hand; top removed, he held it up in silent confirmation.

  Shoulders back, Cleopatra started over to the door.

  “Cleo,” Penelope said quietly, regret filling those two syllables.

  “Oi’ll be gone tomorrow,” Cleopatra returned. This had all been a mistake. Broderick would have to find some other way to have his respectability . . . but using the Blacks’ connections was not, nor would ever be, the way.

  “Miss Killoran?” Ryker Black barked after her, staying Cleopatra’s steps. She stiffened, and her hands curled into reflexive fists.