Wicked and the Wallflower by Sarah MacLean
Again, silence.
“I must say, Beast, you do know how to put a woman at ease.”
If she weren’t paying such close attention to him, she might not have heard the little catch in his throat. A laugh of some sort. But she did, and it made her feel triumphant. “Aha! You are able to respond!”
He said nothing, but they’d reached Devil by then. “I told you not to talk to him.”
“You left me with him!”
“That doesn’t mean you should talk to him.”
She looked from one brother to the other and sighed, then waved a hand at the men dispersed around the enormous room. “These are all your employees?”
Devil nodded.
Beast grunted.
Felicity heard it and turned on his brother. “That. What does that mean?”
“Don’t talk to him,” Devil said.
She didn’t turn back. “I think I shall, thank you very much. What did that noise mean?”
“They are his employees.” Beast’s gaze slid away from her.
She shook her head. “That’s not all it meant, though, is it?”
Beast met her eyes, and she knew whatever he was about to say was important. And true. “The kind of employees who would walk through fire for him.”
The words fell in the darkness, filling the warehouse, reaching the corners and warming them. Warming her. She turned back to Devil, who stood several feet away, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets, a look of irritation on his face. But he wasn’t looking at her. He couldn’t.
He was embarrassed.
She nodded, then said, softly, “I believe that.”
And she did. She believed this man who called himself Devil was the kind of man who could engender deep, abiding loyalty from those around him. She believed he was a man with whom one did not trifle, and also a man of his word. And she believed that he was the kind of man who held up his end of the bargain.
“I believe that,” she repeated, wanting him to look at her. When he did, she realized his eyes were not the same as his brother’s. Beast’s gaze did not make her heart pound. She swallowed. “So, they help you smuggle cargo?”
Devil’s brow furrowed. “They help us move ice.”
She shook her head. She didn’t believe for a second that these two men, with the way they fairly oozed danger, were mere ice traders. “And where do you keep this alleged ice?”
He straightened his arms and fisted his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels and looking at the ceiling. When he replied, his words were filled with frustration. “We’ve a hold full of it downstairs, Felicity.”
She blinked. “Downstairs.”
“Underground.” The word rang forbidden in the dimly lit room, spoken low like sin, as though he were the Devil, inviting her not only underground—but so far underground that she might never return.
It made her want to experience everything it promised. It made her ask for that experience, without hesitation. “Show me.”
For a moment, no one moved, and Felicity thought she had asked too much. Pushed too hard. After all, she hadn’t been welcome here; she’d picked the lock to make her way in.
But she had been welcome here. He’d let her pick the lock. He’d given her free rein of the warehouse, let her stand among his men and see the operation and, for a moment, he’d let her feel something other than alone. He’d given her access to his world in a way no man ever had before. And now, drunk on the power that came with that access, she wanted all of it. Every inch.
More.
“Please?” she added in the silence that followed her demand—as though politeness would impact his answer.
And it did. Because Devil looked to his brother, who revealed none of his own thoughts as he passed a large brass key ring to Devil. Once the keys were in hand, Devil turned away, making for a great steel plate set into the ground nearby, reaching down and opening it up, revealing a great black hole in the ground. Felicity approached as he reached for a nearby hook, bringing down a coat. “You’ll need this,” he said. “It will be cold.”
Her eyes went wide as she reached for it. It was happening. He was going to show her. She swung the great heavy cloak around her shoulders, the scent of tobacco flower and juniper encircling her, and she resisted the urge to bury her nose in the lapel. The coat was his. She looked to him. “Won’t you be cold?”
“No,” he said, reaching for a lantern nearby and dropping into the hold.
She came to the edge and looked down at him, his face shadowed by the flickering light. “Another thing you control? Cold does not bother you?”
He raised a brow. “My power is legion.”
She turned and climbed down the ladder inlaid into the side of the hatch, trying to remain calm, trying not to notice that her world was changing with every step. That the old, plain, wallflower Felicity was being left behind, and in her place was a new, strange woman who did things like pick locks that opened doors instead of closing them, and visit smuggler’s caches, and wear coats that smelled of handsome, scarred men who called themselves Devil.
But truth such as that was impossible not to notice.
There was something to be said for being in league with the Devil.
When Felicity reached the dirt ground, she spoke to the rungs of the ladder. “I am not certain you wield the power you think, sirrah.”
“And why is that?” he asked, his voice quiet in the dark.
She turned to face him. “You made me a promise, and you have yet to deliver.”
“How is that?” Had he moved closer? Or was it the darkness playing tricks? “From what you’ve said, it sounds like your duke is won. What was it you said? He dances like a dream? What more would you like?”
“You didn’t promise me a duke,” she insisted.
“That is precisely what I promised you,” he said as he climbed several rungs of the ladder and pulled the door to the hold closed behind them, throwing them into darkness.
She blinked. “Is it necessary to shut us in?”
“The door stays closed at all times. It prevents melt, and the curiosity of anyone who might be interested in what we do inside the warehouse.”
“No, you promised me a moth,” she said, not knowing where the bravery came from. Not caring. “You promised me singed wings and passion.”
His eyes glittered with his attention. “And?”
“The duke is under no risk of bursting into flames, you see,” she replied. “And I thought it only right that I inform you that if you are not careful, you are at risk of finding yourself in my debt.”
“Hmm,” he said, as though she’d made an important business point. “And how do you suggest I change that?”
“It’s quite simple,” she whispered. He was closer. Or maybe it was that she wanted him closer. “You must teach me to lure him.”
“To lure him.”
She took a deep breath, his warmth around her, tobacco flower and juniper drugging her with power. With desire. “Precisely. I should like you to teach me to make him want me. Beyond reason.”
Chapter Fifteen
The idea that any human male would not want Felicity Faircloth beyond reason surpassed understanding. Not that Devil intended to tell her that.
It was important to note, however, that when the thought crashed around him in the dark hold beneath the Bareknuckle Bastards’ Covent Garden warehouse, Devil did not count himself in that particular group of human males.
Obviously, he had plenty of reason when it came to Felicity Faircloth. He wasn’t near beyond it. Not even when she stood mere inches from him, wearing his coat, and speaking of burning men to cinders.
He was immune to the lady’s charms.
Remember the plan. The words echoed through him as his hands itched for her, fingers flexing, wanting nothing more than to reach for the lapels of his coat and pull her to him, close enough to touch, until she couldn’t remember the Duke of Marwick’s name, let alone the way the man danced.
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He cleared his throat at the thought. “You want a love match. With Marwick.” He scoffed. “You’re too old and too wise for simpering, Felicity Faircloth.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t say anything about a love match; I want him to want me. I want passion.”
It should be illegal for a woman like Felicity Faircloth to say the word passion. It conjured images of wide expanses of skin and beautiful, mahogany locks across white sheets. It made a man wonder how she would arch her back to his touch, how she might ask for it. How she might direct it. How her hand would feel on his, moving his fingers to the precise location she wanted them. How her fingers would feel against his scalp as she moved his mouth to the precise location she wanted it.
Thank God they were standing fifteen feet from a hold full of ice.
In fact . . . “This way.” He raised the lantern and moved down the long, dark corridor, toward the ice hold, forgetting, for the first time, ever, that he didn’t care for the dark. Grateful for the distraction, he spoke as they walked. “You wish for passion.”
Remember the plan.
“I do.”
“From Marwick.”
“He is my future husband, is he not?”
“It’s only a matter of time,” he said, knowing he should be more committed to the endeavor, considering that Ewan and Felicity had to be engaged before Devil could steal her away from the engagement. The engagement was part of the plan. A part of Ewan’s lesson. Of course Devil wanted it.
“He asked me last night.”
He just hadn’t wanted it so quickly, it seemed.
He turned to her. “He asked you to do what?”
Her hair glittered copper in the candlelight as she smiled up at him. “To marry him. It was really quite simple. He introduced himself, told me he was happy to marry me. That he was in the market for a wife, and I had . . . how did he put it? Oh, it was terribly romantic.” Devil’s teeth clenched as she searched for the words and then found them, dry as sand. “Oh, yes. I had turned up just at the right time.”
Good Lord. Ewan had never been a brilliant wordsmith, but that was particularly bad. And proof that the duke, too, had a plan. Which meant that perhaps Felicity Faircloth’s request was not such a terrible idea after all. “Terribly romantic, indeed,” he said.
She shrugged. “But he is very handsome and dances like a dream, as I said.”
It didn’t seem possible that she was teasing him. How could she possibly know how the words would grate? “And that is a thing all women look for in their husbands.”
She grinned. “However did you know?”
She was teasing him. She was teasing him, and he liked it. And he shouldn’t. “You want the man mad for you.”
“Well, I remain unconvinced that he is not mad in general, but yes,” she said. “Doesn’t every wife want that from her husband?”
“Not in my experience, no.”
“Do you have a great deal of experience with wives?”
He ignored the question. “You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he said, turning back down the corridor.
She followed him. “What does that mean?”
“Only that passion isn’t a thing one toys with—once the wings are singed, the moth is yours to deal with.”
“As the moth shall be my husband, I imagine I will have to deal with him anyway.”
But he won’t be your husband. Devil resisted the urge to say it. Resisted, too, the emotion clawing at him as he thought the words. The guilt.
“You promised me, Devil,” she said softly. “You made me a deal. You said you’d make me flame.”
He didn’t have to do anything to turn her to flame. She burned too brightly already.
They reached the exterior door to the hold, and he crouched low, placing the lantern on the ground as he reached for the ring of keys. She came to his side, reaching out for the row of locks, her fingers tracing over one of them as though she could pick it by touch alone. And with the way she’d tackled the Chubb earlier, he half believed she could.
Cold seeped through the steel door, and he hunched his shoulders, sliding the key into the first lock. “Why do you lockpick?”
“Is that relevant?”
He threw her a sidelong look. “I’m sure you can see how it would be of interest.”
She watched as he worked the second lock. “The world is full of doors.” Lord knew that was true. “I like being able to open my own doors.”
“And what do you know of locked doors, Felicity Faircloth?”
“I wish you would stop doing that,” she said. “Treating me as though I have never wanted for anything in my life. As though it has all been mine for the taking.”
“Hasn’t it been?”
“None of the important bits, no. Not love. Not . . . friendship. Barely family.”
“You’re better off without those friends.”
“Are you offering to be a new one?”
Yes.
“No.”
She huffed a little laugh, reaching to take one of the padlocks from the door as he continued his work. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her turning it over and over in her hand. “I pick locks because I can. Because there are very few things in the world I can control, and locks are something I am good at. They are a barrier I can clear. And a secret I can know. And in the end, they bend to my will and . . .” She shrugged. “I like that.”
He could imagine bending to her will. He shouldn’t imagine it. But he could. He opened the first, heavy door, frigid air washing over them as the second door came into view. He set to work on the next row of locks. “It’s not the kind of skill one expects a woman to have.”
“It’s exactly the kind of skill we should have. Our whole world is built by men. For them. And we’re simply here for decoration, brought in at the end of everything important. Well, I grow tired of ends. Locks are beginnings.”
He turned to look at her, consumed with a desire to give her infinite beginnings.
She kept talking, seemingly mesmerized by his keys as he worked. “The point is, I understand what it is to want to be on the other side of the door. I understand what it is to know that the room isn’t mine for the taking. So many doors are closed to all but a fraction of us.” He opened the last lock, and she finished, softly, “Why should others be the ones to decide which doors are for me?”
The question, so honest, so forthright, made him want to break down every door she came to from now until the end of time.
Devil settled on the one in front of them, pushing it open to reveal the ice hold. A wall of cold greeted them, and beyond it, darkness. Unease thundered through him—resistance to the darkness, an all too familiar urge to run.
Felicity Faircloth had no such urge. She stepped right into the room, wrapping her arms about her. “So, ice it is.”
He followed her, holding the lantern high, even as the cavernous space swallowed the light. “You still did not believe me?”
“Not entirely.”
“And what did you think I was planning to show you down here?”
“Your mysterious, underground lair?”
“Underground lairs are highly overvalued.”
“They are?”
“No windows, and they’re hell on the boots.”
Her little laugh was a flicker in the darkness. “I expect I shall have some explaining to do tomorrow when my maid sees the hem of my skirts.”
“What will you tell her?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know.” She sighed. “Late night gardening? It doesn’t matter. No one expects me to do anything like explore the underground caverns of Covent Garden.”
“Why not?”
She paused, and he would have given anything to see her face, but she was too busy peering into the darkness. “Because I’m ordinary,” she said simply, distractedly. “Terribly so.”
“Felicity Faircloth,” he said, “in the few days I’ve known you
She turned back to him at that, fast and unexpected, and in the lantern light he discovered her cheeks pinkening from the cold, which made her rather . . . fetching.
Whit would eat him for supper if he knew Devil had even thought the word fetching. It was a ridiculous word. The kind of word used by fops and dandies. Not by bastards who carried cane swords. And she wasn’t fetching. She was a means to an end. An aging, wallflower, spinster means, in his orbit for a sole purpose—his brother’s end.
And even if she weren’t all those things, she absolutely wouldn’t be for him. Felicity Faircloth was the daughter to a marquess, the sister to an earl, and so far above his station she should have a different climate. Her porcelain skin was too perfect, her hands too clean, and her world too grand. Her wide-eyed delight at his Covent Garden warehouse and her smirking pride at cracking the lock to his criminal life only proved the point. Lady Felicity would never know what it was to be common.
That, alone, should have been enough.
Except she smiled before he could stop this mad game, and the candlelight played tricks, because she went from fetching to fucking beautiful. And that was before she said, breathlessly, “No kind of ordinary; I think that might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
Christ.
He had to get her out of there. “Well, now you’ve seen the hold.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“This is all there is to see.”
“It’s dark,” she replied, reaching for the lantern. “May I?”
He relinquished it reluctantly, a thread of unease coiling through him at the idea that he was no longer in control of the light. He took a deep breath when she turned away from him and moved deeper into the hold to discover the stacks of ice within.
The ship’s cargo had been moved carefully, through a long, straight path cut by removing blocks of ice, revealing the center of the hold, which only hours ago was full of casks and crates and barrels and boxes now on their way to myriad locations throughout Britain.
Damned if Felicity Faircloth didn’t head straight for that path, as though she were attending a tea party at the center of a labyrinth. She called back, “I wonder what I shall find inside the ice?”