The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers #1)(16)

For the devil-may-care attitude he’d adopted and worn like a second skin through the years, the column of Broderick’s throat moved. He had some regret in asking Cleopatra to do this—nay—in expecting any of his sisters to. Good, the blighter could chew on the Devil’s trident for it.

More than half fearing all her confidence and strength would crack if she stole another look at her siblings, Cleopatra started forward. She kept her gaze trained on the open doorway, then stopped. Wheeling around, she marched back to her brother. She spoke in a low voice reserved for him. “When we met you, and you gave us names, I loved you for that.” At that time, she would have sooner slit her own throat than admit as much. Cleopatra searched her gaze over his unreadable face. “You gave us the names of queens.” A wad of emotion stuck in her throat, and she despised herself for that weakness. It had seen her beat by Mac Diggory too many times as a child until she’d learned to conceal that weakness. “Now I know it’s not because you saw girls of strength and power, as you said . . . but because you wanted to make us into something we’re not.”

“Cleo,” he said gruffly.

Cleopatra glowered him into silence. “Shut your bloody mouth,” she said, her voice raspy. “I’ll have this done in several months, and you’ll not expect my sisters to . . .” Marry. My God, I cannot even bring myself to spit that word out. “. . . do the same. Are we clear?”

“It is for the good of the group,” he repeated somberly, with a resolve that made her believe she’d merely imagined the flash of remorse she’d spied earlier. “If we have noble connections, we will never have to worry about losing all and living in the squalor we did.” He took her hands, squeezing. “Think of it, Cleo. We will be dependent upon no man.” As they’d been with Diggory.

Adair Thorne’s sister killing that blighter was one favor she’d be forever grateful to their rival gang for, but she would sooner slice her own throat than breathe that thanks aloud.

Cleopatra briefly squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want her siblings to be racked with the fear they’d once known, beholden to a bastard like Diggory. Didn’t want to suffer through the cold nights, with nothing but tattered garments to drive back the winter’s chill. As much as it pained her and she despised it, she knew Broderick was right. She had thought his plan was logical from the moment he’d laid it out years earlier. That did little to ease the panic and pain in her leaving her life behind, now.

Turning on her heel, she stalked forward, bag in hand, toward Black’s residence and his butler. By the glower on the graying, scarred stranger’s face, he was just another one of Black’s guards.

“Thank you,” Broderick called after her.

“Go to hell, Broderick,” she shot back, not breaking stride.

“Cleo?” Gertrude called out, her voice quavering.

Cleopatra damned her heart for wrenching and quickened her steps to enter the enemy’s lair. Grateful for the muslin cloak that shielded her actions from the army of waiting Blacks, Cleopatra burrowed inside the folds. Warily, she passed her gaze around the eclectic gathering: Black and his scarred, battle-marked brothers . . . and the smiling, innocent-eyed misses who stared warmly back.

Warmth. It was something Cleopatra had only ever known and been shown by her siblings.

“What are you doing here?” Adair Thorne snapped.

Cleopatra’s face went hot. Stiffening, she shot a go-to-hell glance over her shoulder to where the surly bastard stood.

“Do hush, Adair.” Favoring her brother-in-law with a glower, Black’s wife came over to greet Cleopatra, a question in her eyes.

“I came instead,” she said lamely, not offering details as to why she’d taken Gertrude’s place.

Lady Chatham smiled. “How lovely to have you back among us, Miss Killoran—”

Niall Marksman’s wife, the same woman Cleopatra had helped to freedom nearly a year earlier, interrupted. “Given you’ll be living among our family, I expect we should dispense with formalities? You may call me Diana, and this is my sister-in-law Penelope.” Black’s wife lifted her fingers in a cheerful little wave.

Mad. They are utterly mad, this lot. Cleopatra stole a glance about to Black’s gang and found her own pained consternation reflected back in their ruthless eyes. She tamped down a sigh. Who in blazes would have ventured that she, Cleopatra Killoran, member of the Devil’s Den, would ever have a moment of commiseration with Black and his men?

A footman came forward to help her with her cloak, and Cleopatra automatically shot a hand out, slapping his fingers for daring to touch any part of her—garments included. “Cleopatra,” she clipped out. “You may call me Cleopatra.” For whether she wished to be here or not, these were the people she’d be spending the remainder of her unwed days with.

“Splendid,” Penelope Black piped in. What reason did the woman have to be cheerful? “And I believe you know my husband. Please, you may call him Ryker—”

“No,” Cleopatra said sharply, glancing to the man her own family had called enemy for too many years to overcome.

An awkward pall descended. “Mr. Black, then,” Penelope suggested with the relentlessness of a starved dog with a bone.

And the staggering reality of being here . . . among Black and his kin . . . with the purpose of making a match among a world she would never belong to, cinched the airflow to her lungs. But the horror of horrors continued.