The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers #1)(46)

Extend an offer of friendship. Friendship was earned, not a gift given. And it certainly didn’t come after but a handful of days of knowing another person. Still, since she’d lost Reggie, Broderick, Ophelia, Gertrude, and Stephen, there had been an aching loneliness inside. “Foine,” she said gruffly, and she may as well have replied with a proper tone and a curtsy for the smile she earned from Penelope.

“Splendid!” Lightly squeezing Cleopatra’s arm, the other woman urged them along. “And please know that as long as you are here, and even after you . . .”

Marry—oh, God, I’m going to toss the contents of my stomach.

“. . . go,” Penelope blessedly settled for, so that Cleopatra was able to freely breathe again, “. . . you will always have a friend in me and my family.”

A friend in the Blacks? That would be the damned day.

Adair Thorne’s reaction after he’d sent her from his makeshift office and then discovered her inside the nursery was proof that such a relationship could never be reached. Not truly. No matter how much this bubbly woman might wish it.

Penelope looked as though she wished to say more, but they had reached the top of the stairwell. “Here we are.”

Cleopatra stared down the thirty steps she’d counted on her first day inside this townhouse. Her gut churned as she took in the gathering below: Black, Calum Dabney, Niall Marksman and his wife, Diana, the duke’s daughter whom Cleopatra had saved, and through that rescue had brought about the temporary truce. And for all her claims of confidence and self-control and indifference, in this moment, she was not the composed, fearless figure she presented to the world. She was out of her bloody mind with terror, not necessarily about the lords and ladies she’d face—they could all go hang—but for the fate awaiting her. You are Cleopatra Killoran, Queen of the Dials, as Broderick named you. Undaunted by any. Breathe.

Her bid for calm failed.

“Cleopatra?”

Through the buzzing in Cleopatra’s ears, Penelope’s concerned query came muffled, and she struggled to hear it over her own breath.

Then her gaze collided with the tall, negligent figure off to the side, removed from the group of Blacks—Adair.

For the immaculate cut of his expensive black garments, and the stark white of his cravat, he by all appearances may as well have been a lord born to the ranks of the guests who’d be in attendance. The hint of the streets lingered in the form of faint scars that nicked his chiseled features. His arms folded, he leaned against a marble pillar, and the sight of him so coolly unaffected, but for the ghost of a smile dimpling his left cheek, brought her back from the abyss of panic.

Despite his lack of faith and hurtful accusations from the days prior, a matching grin pulled at her lips. “I’m ready,” she finally said, never taking her eyes from Adair.

As she and Black’s wife made a slow descent, Penelope prattled on at her side, and Cleopatra, who’d always abhorred inane rambling, was now grateful for it. With every step that brought her closer to the marble foyer, the dread eased, and in its place was a restoration of her self-confidence.

An assurance that had nothing to do with Adair’s hooded gaze . . . or the sparkle of amusement in his green eyes as he took in her yellow gown. Liar.

“Go to hell,” she mouthed.

And just as he’d done at their meeting a week earlier, he touched his fingers to an imagined brim. Only where that act had once been filled with derision, now there was a gentle teasing.

Cleopatra and Penelope reached the bottom step, and the icy coolness of Black and his men sent reality crashing back.

Black and his brothers parted, giving her a wide berth. The only smiles from the group belonged to Diana Marskman and Penelope.

“Shall we?” Black asked in gravelly tones. He held out a stiff elbow, and resisting the urge to glance back at Adair, she placed her scarred fingers upon the sleeve of the enemy, braced to face down a sea of them.





Chapter 13

Adair had found himself with a fist to the solar plexus too many times. A man never forgot the feel of having the breath sucked from his body.

The moment Cleopatra Killoran had appeared at the top of the stairs would forever be a like moment in his life.

It was a horrifying truth he’d fought back the moment it slid forward. But nearly an hour into the ball, hovering on the side of the floor, a guard watching over the young woman, he accepted the truth of it.

From where he stood in the corner, Adair used his cover and overall invisibility to the crowd to study her.

Be it the ton, or the underworld, Cleopatra Killoran would never be a beauty by any standards, and the silly yellow gown she donned could never be considered anything but hideous. But as she’d come toward him, her expressive eyes glittering through her always smudged lenses, her effervescent spirit had shone brighter than her dress, and he’d been trying to muddle through ever since. She was . . . she was . . .

He silently cursed.

Where in blazes was she? Springing forward on the balls of his feet, he did a quick sweep over the heads of the shorter guests, searching for a glittering tiara he would have mocked a week ago. Where was she . . . ? Where was she . . . ?

A small figure stepped into his direct line of vision.

“She’s being introduced to Diana’s family,” Penelope drawled, taking up a place beside him.