The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers #1)(10)

Marching ahead of her brother, Cleopatra bounded up the seven steps leading to the impressive establishment. From the corner of her eye, those gaslight sconces in their crystal casing snagged her attention. Those impractical adornments her brother insisted on, which were broken over and over and always promptly replaced, served as a mark of Broderick’s love of that noble connection. The ornate oak doors were flung open, and she swept inside.

Since Cleopatra had long moved freely about the gaming hell floors, the gentlemen and guttersnipes who tossed down their coin here had ceased staring whenever she or her sisters wandered around. With focused footsteps, she made her way through the crowded club. Her sister Ophelia, hovering at the hazard table, caught her gaze with a question in her eyes.

Cleopatra shook her head once. She didn’t care to speak about the meeting with the Blacks. Not now. And her siblings knew enough to honor that.

Cleopatra exited the gaming floors and continued down a long corridor with an intersecting hall. Pausing at the back wall, she found the clever switch of the hidden door and let herself in. The wise in St. Giles never forgot that danger lurked in every corner. One would be a fool to let one’s guard down, and as such, regardless of the wealth or powerful connections one had, danger was always at hand. She reached her rooms and, loosening the fastenings of her cloak, kicked the door closed with the heel of her boot.

Cleopatra dropped the fine garment and stalked over to her armoire. Yanking the doors open, she proceeded to draw out gowns and dresses of satins and silks. Finer garments than any she’d worn while Diggory had been living, which largely hadn’t been worn outside the streets of St. Giles until now. For it hadn’t been until that bastard had taken a deserved bullet to the belly by Black’s crew that she’d known a hint of the fineries he had with the club’s success. All the bastards Diggory had whelped and the street thugs who’d taken on employment here had found a roof over their heads and food in their bellies and nothing more. That had been the truest debt they owed Black’s family—offing that cruel bastard. Cleopatra gritted her teeth. Not that she’d ever given a rat’s arse about the fineries. It had only and always been about security. She tossed a dress on her wide four-poster bed.

But in this—God rot his soul—Broderick was correct.

Their establishment could crumble as easily as Black’s club had. The difference between them? That man had a title behind his name and a fortune beyond his gaming hell. What do we have?

She stopped and eyed the mound of clothes she’d heaped upon the bed. This would be nothing more than a business transaction struck between Cleopatra and the peerage. It was no different from the contracts they signed with their liquor distributors or wheat suppliers. For the gentleman who sold his title for their fortune would be a partner in a business endeavor and not much more.

A knock sounded at the door.

“Come in,” she called.

Regina Spark, affectionately dubbed Reggie by their family, rushed inside. “What happened?” The ethereal woman who swept in had been more like a mama trying in vain to tame her unruly daughters. Concern gleamed bright in Reggie’s aquamarine eyes. “Cleopatra?” Reggie demanded impatiently, moving over in a whir of noisy, drab skirts. That sudden movement knocked her chignon loose, and several loose curls fell down her back. “What did he de―” Her gaze alighted on the stack of garments, and her words trailed off. “It’s you,” she breathed.

“It has to be me,” Cleopatra said tightly, and resumed gathering her belongings.

“It does not.”

Cleopatra glanced over, and Reggie flattened her lips into a hard line.

“Why need it be any of you?”

Older than Cleopatra, Reggie had been rescued years earlier by Broderick, and she had devoted her loyalties, services, and friendship to him and his siblings ever since.

“You know my brother,” she explained matter-of-factly.

“Yes, I do,” the woman muttered. The details surrounding that night Broderick rescued Reggie from the streets were ones Cleopatra had never gleaned from either of them, and she’d lived long enough in St. Giles to know not to pry or probe. “I will speak to him.”

“I’m not afraid of a man, Reggie.” Civilized society might be bound by laws and rules, but Cleopatra and her kin had gotten on without those societal dictates. “I’d kill a man before I let him hurt me.” She’d done it before . . . for herself and her sisters.

Reggie’s expression darkened. “Sometimes it is beyond your powers, and spending a life forever bound to one is vastly different than what you speak of.”

What I speak of. Cleopatra knew not what the other woman’s life had been like before she’d joined their gang, but her tendency to skirt descriptive words and truths told of a different rearing than Cleopatra’s.

“I am going to speak to him.” Reggie spun on her heel and stomped over to the door.

“You’ll not speak for me, Reggie,” she said in solemn tones, willing the other woman to understand that this was Cleopatra’s decision and she’d own it.

“I’ll not let him send you there—”

“I volunteered myself.” No one made Cleopatra Killoran do anything. Not even the siblings she loved and would sacrifice her very life for.

Reggie opened and closed her mouth several times, and then a sigh slipped out. “Of course you did.” She strode over. “Here,” she said with her usual mothering, taking the blue satin striped gown from Cleopatra’s fingers. She proceeded to organize the piles into day dresses, undergarments, and ball gowns . . . ball gowns that had been useless scraps before, but now served a purpose. “I have it,” she muttered, slapping at Cleopatra’s fingers. It spoke volumes to the bond between them.