The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers #1)(31)

“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 none 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.