The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers #1)(47)

Adair searched and at last found Cleopatra, conversing with the duke. Shoulders back, her delicate features an expressionless mask, she’d a bearing the queen herself would admire. Then Penelope’s earlier words registered . . .

Had he been that obvious? He shifted his attention back from the minx who commanded his notice, over to his sister-in-law.

“Yes, you were,” Penelope answered his silent question. “That obvious,” she elucidated on a whisper. “Here.” She proffered one of the two glasses in her hand.

Reluctantly, he accepted the fragile cup. He eyed it dubiously and then took a sip. Adair immediately choked on his swallow. “What is that?”

“Lemonade. My mother would argue that tepid lemonade makes any ball complete.”

The ton would all be better off sipping from flasks of whiskey and snifters of brandy before drinking this rotted stuff. With a grimace, he downed the contents in a long swallow. “And you’re suddenly one who does as Society expects,” he drawled. That certainly went against everything he knew of the lady who’d maneuvered Ryker into marriage and then single-handedly converted the rooms and roles inside the Hell and Sin. The only woman he knew to rival her in spirit and spunk was Cleopatra.

“Hardly,” she assured.

Unbidden, Adair’s gaze went back to the ballroom floor where Cleopatra remained conversing with the sad-eyed duke.

“You don’t have to watch her as though she intends to make off with the silver,” Penelope said in a hushed whisper.

He whipped his head sideways.

“Despite her rough exterior, Cleopatra really is quite lovely and I’m certain incapable of cruelty.”

So that is what his sister-in-law believed. That he’d been watching over the young woman the same way a constable would track a street urchin. Content to leave her to her opinion, Adair remained stoically silent. Nor would he point out that it was, in fact, the lady’s husband who’d asked Adair to watch after Cleopatra.

“I know my husband expects you to dog her steps.” Goodness, the woman had an uncanny ability to follow a person’s unspoken thoughts. “But I’m telling you that she doesn’t mean us harm.”

“No,” he concurred, ignoring the surprise in her eyes. Originally, he’d believed Cleopatra could have very well been the one who’d issued the orders to burn his club down. No longer. Capable of subterfuge as she clearly was, he’d gathered in the handful of days he’d known her that she would have proudly taunted him for her role in it, before she denied taking part.

“I rather think she is lonely,” Penelope said softly, those quietly spoken words nearly lost to the hum of the orchestra and the ballroom revelry. But they weren’t, and Adair heard them. “It is hard to leave behind one’s family and make a new life with strangers.”

Having joined their ranks not very long ago, after her hasty marriage, Penelope spoke as one who knew.

Staring out at Cleopatra still in discussion with Diana and her father, Adair clenched his fingers so tightly he nearly snapped the handle of his silly glass. The same way he didn’t want to find her clever with a keen wit, was the same way he didn’t want to contemplate Cleopatra as a forlorn, dejected woman alone in an unfamiliar world. It was far safer when she’d only been an amorphous enemy of the Killoran gang that he’d no dealings with.

The orchestra’s lively reel came to a halt, and Penelope handed over her untouched glass, filling both his hands. “If you’ll excuse me? I would see to Cleopatra. I . . .” She went up on tiptoe. “I . . .” Her brow wrinkled. “Drat. Where is she?”

The previously occupied duke and his daughter had been joined by Niall, but sometime after the point at which Adair had blinked, his quarry had gone. He silently cursed, looking about. “I thought you trusted her,” he muttered drily.

Penelope shoved an elbow into his side. He grunted. The unexpectedness of her jab sent liquid sloshing over the sides of Penelope’s glass, now in his hand, so that his fingers were coated with the sticky beverage. “Hush,” his sister-in-law chided unapologetically. “I’m not watching after her. Well, I am. In a way,” she prattled.

“Penelope,” he said exasperatedly.

“Right. Right. I promised to introduce her to several . . . people.” In short, suitors. It was the ideal plan carried out by Penelope. The sooner Cleopatra was wed, the sooner Adair—and all of his family—would be done with her and the whole of the Killoran gang.

Cursing, Penelope sank back on her heels, and without a backward glance, she started forward. Adair stared after her as her smaller form was swallowed by the crush of guests. He followed her movements, searching all the while for Cleopatra. For his assurances about Cleopatra Killoran and his own gut feeling about the young woman, all the age-old reservations trickled forward. After all, he’d known her but a handful of days. What if she even now waited for his family to be occupied and—

“Drinking lemonade, Thorne?” Cleopatra’s droll whisper sounded from over his shoulder. “If anyone on the street saw you, you’d be finished.”

He whipped his head about, looking for the owner of that husky contralto. Bloody hell. Where in blazes was . . . ?

A long, beleaguered sigh cut across his thoughts. “Oy, getting snuck up on and not being able to find the person?” Cleopatra stepped out of the shadows, a small grin on her face. That unjaded, real expression did funny things to his chest. “You certain you were born to the streets?”