The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers #1)(32)

She went cold and ceased her distracted rocking. In the end, the only ones who’d made it free had been the ones who’d died.

The ominous click of a pistol held her frozen.

“Put the child down. Now, Killoran. Or I will end you.”

Adair’s steely whisper filled the quiet nursery and sent gooseflesh racing along her arms.

For a second time in Black’s household, Cleopatra had let her guard down and been caught by Adair Thorne . . . only this time with his family’s cherished babe in her arms. That, on the heel of his warnings last evening, sent fear twisting in her chest.

Bloody hell.

“I said put her down,” he demanded, taking a step closer.

The child wailed.

Fighting the instinct to protect the child, Cleopatra hesitated before returning her to her cradle. “Thorne,” she drawled, in a bid for calm. This is the same man you teased and kissed last evening. That reminder didn’t help. Inside, her emotions ran amok. Not because Adair had a gun pointed at her head but because she’d rather he fire that pistol than realize her inherent weakness for those tiny, helpless creatures. “If you’d wished to speak to me again, you need only have—”

“Walk away from her cradle. Now.” He took a step closer, briefly silencing her attempted bravado. She didn’t want it to hurt that his doubt of her was so strong he’d point a gun at her chest. And yet . . . it did.

The child continued to cry at their backs, babbling incoherently. Cleopatra tightened her mouth. “I wouldn’t hurt a babe. Not even one of yours,” she said coolly.

“Quiet.”

Cleopatra continued over that sharp demand. “Your family would do well to find a reliable nursemaid and not one who is nipping at too much brandy and sleeps through the child’s tears.”

“How do you . . . ?” Adair blinked slowly, then gave his head a firm shake. “I said quiet, and move away from her.” Stuffing his gun back in his waistband, he grabbed Cleopatra about the waist.

She gasped as he spun her around and proceeded to pat her. The thin fabric of her nightskirts provided little barrier against his heated touch. This touch, however, was so very different from the hungry searching of last night. Even so, her body didn’t care either way for any distinction. A dangerous fluttering started low in her belly, and she hated herself for her body’s damned awareness when it should be so distantly removed. “Damn you.” That curse tore from her lips—for him as much as for herself. “Oi wouldn’t ’urt a babe.”

He snorted.

“Oi wouldn’t.” It shouldn’t matter whether or not he believed her, and yet that he thought her capable of the same evil Mac Diggory himself had mastered grated on her nerve—and worse, sent a pang to her heart. “A-and you already stole my weapons.” The bloody bastard had taken the only material item of value to her.

“I didn’t steal them,” he muttered, spinning her back to face him. Dragging her by the shoulders, he brought her up on her tiptoes and bent his head down so their noses nearly touched. “Nor did you need a weapon. You needed nothing more than a pillow to snuff out her life.”

She recoiled. That allegation leveled her far more than any other insult or accusation he might hurl. “You’re a monster if ya even thought of that.”

“And this from a woman who gave her loyalty to a Devil like Mac Diggory.”

Cleopatra shot her palm out, catching Adair hard on his right cheek with such force it brought his head snapping back. The suddenness of her attack and that movement knocked loose his hold on her. Adair brought his palm up and rubbed the wounded flesh.

She stumbled away. How dare he? He’d paint her as one devoted to Diggory. The choices for young girls on the street were far different from the ones permitted boys. Suffering through her earlier life with Diggory had still been far safer than navigating through London without that distinction, and two sisters—one of them partially blind—to care for. “You know nothing of it,” she spat into the silence.

Her handprint stood out in stark contrast to his olive-hued cheeks. And despite her hurt, outrage, and fury, uneasiness stirred low in her belly. How many times had Diggory’s men knocked her around for daring to strike them? She backed slowly away.

“I said get away from the cradle.” With a growl, he lunged for her—

The bedroom door flew open, knocking against the wall so hard it snapped back and nearly hit the menacing, scarred figure there.

Black and a handful of guards surged forward. The explosion of sound and activity at the front of the room roused the baby to another round of noisy tears.

“Keep it silent or Oi’ll silence it forever.”

Diggory’s threats echoed around the chambers of her mind. Panicked, Cleopatra looked to the baby.

“Get away from my child, Miss Killoran,” Black ordered in death-promising tones.

The babe’s crying reached a fever pitch, and Cleopatra shook her head in befuddlement. “Oi don’t . . .”

“I said—”

Penelope Black sailed into the room. With her skirts whipping about her and a knife in her hand, she very much had the look of a London street warrior. “What is it?” she rasped, settling her hard stare on Cleopatra.

Feeling as cornered as when Mac Diggory’s number two had pressed her against the wall and threatened to split her belly open for failing to obey his orders, Cleopatra clutched at her throat. “Oi wasn’t. Oi wouldn’t—” Why should they believe you? Why should any of this enemy family believe you? She searched frantically about for escape. “She was crying,” she said hoarsely, as Black’s wife stormed over and rescued the babe from imagined harm.