Wicked and the Wallflower by Sarah MacLean
He’d no doubt grow as mad as his brother, without the woman he loved.
But a thousand years ago, when three children escaped their horrible past and made for a bright future, they’d done so because of the man in front of them. Because he’d betrayed them brutally.
Devil’s scar throbbed with the memory.
And today, Devil meted out punishment with unmatched swiftness. “You tried to kill her, Ewan. Our father’s last test, and you were the one to take up the blade.” Ewan looked away. “She’s the proof of your theft. You stole a dukedom. But worse, you stole her name.”
Ewan turned to him, wild-eyed. “She never wanted it.”
“You stole it anyway,” Devil said. “We were children, but you two were always older by years. You were bound to each other.”
“I loved her.”
Devil knew that. Ewan and Grace had been too young for love, and still they’d had it. Which had made what happened even worse. “Then you should have protected her.”
“I did! I let her run with you!”
Devil turned his face, showing his scar to Ewan. “Only after I stopped you from destroying her. You think I don’t remember? You think I don’t still feel the burn of your blade?”
Punishment and protection, two sides of the same coin. Had he not learned that lesson for himself? Had he not punished himself to protect Grace all those years ago? Hadn’t he just punished himself again to protect Felicity?
Would he not take his punishment again and again for her safety?
And now he would punish Ewan. “Grace is gone.”
The lie rang through the darkness, clear and cold. And for the first time since he appeared, the duke showed himself. Ewan’s inhale was loud and harsh, as though Devil had unsheathed his cane sword and put the tip right through his heart.
And he had.
“Where?”
“Where you’ll never find her.”
“Tell me.” Ewan’s low voice shook.
Devil watched his brother carefully and threw his final blow. “Where none of us can find her.”
Let Ewan think Grace dead. She’d be furious at Devil for it, no doubt, but if it threw the fucking monster off her scent, he’d take his sister’s heat. And besides, Ewan deserved the pain. Devil would sleep well tonight.
Except he wouldn’t, because he’d be without Felicity.
He turned back to the locks, extracting his keys. Christ, he was tired of all of it. He was Janus, cursed with nothing but the broken past. The bleak future.
And, like Janus, he could not see the present.
The glint of silver from the lion’s head at the tip of his walking stick came too late for him to defend himself. The blow set him to his knees, the pain excruciating.
“You were to protect her.”
Devil bore the weight of his pain and lied perfectly, a lie that any good smuggler would be proud of. “You were to protect her first.”
Ewan roared, his fury coming without warning. “You took her from me.”
The room was spinning. “She came willingly. She came eagerly.”
“You have signed your death warrant tonight, brother. If I must live without love, you can die without it.”
The words were a harsher blow than the physical one Ewan had delivered.
Felicity. Devil was fast losing consciousness. He lifted a hand to his temple, feeling the telltale warm wetness there. Blood.
Felicity. He didn’t want to die without her.
Not without seeing her again. Not without touching her, without feeling the soft warmth of her. Not without one last kiss.
Not without telling her something true.
Felicity. Not without telling her he loved her.
He should have told her he loved her.
He would have married her . . . he did marry her.
A scrape of steel sounded harsh and somehow unfamiliar.
No. No he didn’t. He left her.
He married her. It was a wild, Covent Garden wedding with a fiddle and a pipe, and too much wine and too much song and he told her he loved her a hundred times. A thousand.
A slide. His body, dragged through the frigid mud into the hold.
He married her, and he made her a queen of the Garden, and his men swore her allegiance and she grew round with a child. With children. With little girls with heads for machines, just like their mother. And she didn’t regret it.
And neither did he.
No. Wait. He didn’t. It wasn’t past. It was future.
He rolled to his hands and knees, barely able to see the flicker of lantern light in the hallway beyond. He had to get to her. To keep her safe.
To love her.
She had to know he loved her.
That she was his light.
Light. It was going away. Ewan was in the doorway. “If I must live in the dark, you can die in it.”
Devil reached for the door, the infinite blackness of the hold already stealing his breath. No, not the blackness.
“Felicity!”
The door shut, closing out the light.
“No!”
The only response was the ominous sound of locks being thrown. One after another. Locking him into the hold.
“Felicity!” Devil screamed, fear and panic coursing through him. Forcing him to fight the haze and scramble for the door. He banged on it.
There was no answer.
“Ewan . . .” He screamed again, madness coming with the darkness. “Please.”
He threw himself at the door, pounding upon it—knowing that the hold was too far down and too well hidden for any of the watchmen outside to hear him. And still he screamed, desperate to get to Felicity. To keep her safe. He turned, darkness everywhere, feeling along the muddy ground until he found the ice, pulling himself up on the blocks to find the pick he’d left within.
The dark closed in on him, heavy and cloying in the freezing cold, and he forced himself to take deep breaths as he searched. “Where the fuck is it?”
He found it, and taking it by the handle and crawling back to the door, he roared her name again. “Felicity!”
But she wasn’t there to hear him. He’d pushed her away.
I love you, Devil.
He pulled himself to standing and swung the hook, scarring the steel. And again. And again. He had to get to her. Again. He had to keep her safe. Again.
Do you love me?
He did. He loved her. And in that moment, as he realized the futility of his blows, he was overcome with truth—he would never have the chance to tell her just how much.
You deserve the darkness.
The final strike took the remains of his strength, and he sank to the ground and closed his eyes, letting the darkness and cold come.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Unable to sleep, Felicity rose at the crack of dawn and went to her brother’s home, letting herself in through the kitchens and up into the family’s quarters, opening the door to his bedchamber to discover him still abed, kissing his wife.
She immediately turned her back and raised a hand to her eyes, crying out, “Ahh! Why?”
While it wasn’t the kindest response to the vision of marital bliss before her, it was certainly more kind than other things she might have thought or said, and it got the job done.
Pru gave a little surprised squeak, and Arthur said, “Dammit, Felicity—are you unable to knock?”
“I didn’t expect . . .” She waved a hand. She looked back to find her sister-in-law sitting up in the bed, counterpane pulled to her chin. Returning her attention to the door, she added, “Hello, Pru.”
“Hello, Felicity,” Pru said, a smile in her voice.
“It’s lovely to see you.”
“And you! I hear you’ve a great deal going on.”
Felicity grimaced. “Yes, I suppose you would have heard that.”
“Enough!” Arthur said. “I’m putting locks on all the doors.”
“We have locks on all the doors, Arthur.”
“I’m putting more locks on the doors. And using them. Two people bursting into our private rooms uninvited in less than a day is two people too many. You may turn around, Felicity.”
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.”
&
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.”