The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers #1)(42)

Adair jabbed his fingertips against his temples and pressed furiously. This had certainly not been the diversion he’d sought from Cleopatra Killoran. Sidestepping the workers scurrying back and forth with pieces of plaster overflowing in their arms, Adair made his way back outside. The sun had begun its descent in the early evening sky.

He briefly consulted his timepiece and then glanced over to his carriage. I should return. There was the ball introducing Killoran’s sister to the lords of London, and Adair was expected there. According to Ryker, he was to be there to keep a wary eye on her at all times during the event. And to Penelope, his presence was necessary to show a solidarity built on friendship.

It spoke to Penelope’s naïveté but also hinted at Ryker’s inability to shed his suspicious nature. It gave a man hope . . .

“Oi was told Oi could find you here.”

Niall’s coarse Cockney broke through the din of carpenters’ banging hammers and the clank of wood beams going back into place.

Turning about, he faced the other man. Usually there would be jeers and jests at having been caught unawares. It was a fault that could not be forgiven in St. Giles. However, since the destruction of their club and the uncertainty of the new futures his brothers—nay, they—had agreed to embark upon, there had been less goading and grins. He redirected his attention to two workers laboring to bring a sizable beam inside the hell. “I had to speak with Phippen about some changes,” he muttered.

“All day?”

“They’re important changes,” he groused.

“At the end of the day?” Niall persisted, relentless.

It was telling that his brother didn’t first present questions about the design plans for the Hell and Sin.

Then—

“What kind of changes?” he asked gruffly.

Adair tamped down a grin. Regardless of how Calum and Ryker had moved away from their devotion to the Hell and Sin for more respectable ventures, Niall would always have a connection to this place. Niall had been born to the streets, and it would forever be in his blood. “I’m moving the private tables to the gaming floors.”

Niall frowned. “What about the areas set apart for gents to conduct their business?”

Cleopatra’s advice rolling around his head, Adair proceeded to share the new plans and his rationale—her rationale. When he’d finished, Niall was contemplatively rubbing his chin.

“All good ideas.”

“Cleopatra,” he said automatically.

His brother’s expression instantly darkened. “What was that?”

Cursing under his breath, Adair shuttered his gaze. Niall might have admitted to being indebted to Cleopatra for helping save his wife, but he was not so forgiving or trusting that he’d want her holding the plans to the club in her small hands. Not when those plans revealed every chamber, secret, and hideaway.

“Cleopatra Killoran,” he amended, carefully picking through his words, “made mention of the Devil’s Den and their table configuration.”

Niall scoffed. “And you altered our plans based on that?”

“I altered our plans because it made sense to do so, and made less not to do so simply because Killoran runs his a certain way,” he said evenly.

They locked stares. Anyone else would have been petrified by that frosty challenge. Niall was a man who bore every element of his days of crime and the filth of the street on his person. Adair, however, had saved his arse enough times to know that no man was infallible—including his brother. Niall was the first to look away. He glanced about the streets. “You intending to stay here all day and night?”

“And where should I be?” Not allowing Niall to speak, he indicated with his hand four workers guiding a long beam through the gaping entryway. “There’s rotten bricks and four bearing walls that need to be replaced. And those are just two of the issues I’m dealing with.”

Two boys scurrying by with buckets stepped a wide berth around them as they climbed the steps inside.

After they’d passed, Adair continued, “If we . . .” He paused. They don’t want to really call these streets home anymore. Only you do. His brothers and sister all had homes that would never again be the Hell and Sin. “If I,” he somberly corrected, “ever expect to return home, I have to oversee the work here.”

With his gaze, Niall scoured his face. Carefully schooling his features, Adair met his stare. “That’s what all this is about?”

“All this?” he retorted. Of course his brother didn’t, nor couldn’t, know that Adair stood here lusting after Broderick Killoran’s sister. “Why don’t you say whatever it is that’s brought you here.” And be done with it.

“You’ve been avoiding Ryker’s townhouse,” Niall said without preamble. For a horrifying instant, Adair believed his family had gathered that this dangerous fascination with Cleopatra Killoran had driven him out.

“I haven’t been avoiding it,” he offered in a belated declination. Her. I’ve been avoiding her.

“It wasn’t your fault that she was discovered alone with Paisley.”

So that was the erroneous conclusion that had been drawn. That Adair had fled because of some sense of guilt at having neglected his responsibilities. What would they say if they knew the truth? All of it. Content to let them to their opinions, Adair scrutinized the builders bustling about.