The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers #1)(48)

Actually, he hadn’t been. He’d been born to a baker, but when one was orphaned and lived alone in St. Giles, one didn’t counter the idea that one had sprung from those dangerous cobbles. “Go to hell,” he said without inflection, holding out the untouched glass of lemonade Penelope had saddled him with.

Cleopatra snorted. “You think to fob that off on me?”

“I think if you don’t want me to steer you directly back to Lady Chatham, then I’d begin drinking.”

She scowled and, with a go-to-hell look in her eyes, took the cup. Quickly finishing the lemonade, Cleopatra set the glass down on the floor beside the pillar and brushed the back of her hand over her mouth. “Stuff is rot,” she muttered.

He grinned. Having spent the better part of the evening in the corners of the stuffy ballroom, alongside the equally stuffy lords and ladies present, he found Cleopatra’s reaction very refreshing.

“Not enjoying yourself, I take it?”

“Enjoying myself?” she whispered from beside the pillar. “Do I look like I’m enjoying myself?”

That demand invited him to look. Several strands had fallen free of her chignon and hung over her modest décolletage. Unbidden, he lingered his gaze upon the soft cream swells of her breasts. He’d always preferred the women he took to his bed bountiful, with curves that overflowed in his hands. Now he had to admit there was a dangerous appeal to Cleopatra’s lithe frame.

“No, I’m not enjoying myself,” she muttered under her breath, blessedly unaware that he even now took time to appreciate her form. Having kissed her senseless once was enough, a damning weakness he’d be wise not show again toward this woman. “And what are you doing here in the corner?”

His neck went hot.

“Guarding me?” She narrowed her eyes. “Still don’t trust me?”

Do not be fooled by the faint wounded undertone there.

“But for our first meeting last year, I’ve known you less than a week,” he said from the side of his mouth. “Am I to expect that if I took up with your family that I should forget a lifetime feud between us?”

She flattened her lips into a mutinous line.

“And there’s still the matter of your brother burning down my bloody club,” he said tightly. It might not have been Cleopatra herself, but it was still people she called family and blindly defended, and gave her loyalty to. And he’d be wise to remind himself of that—and often.



It was a sad day indeed when Cleopatra sought out the company of Adair Thorne.

It was one thing to have hungered for his kiss days earlier. After all, that had been merely her body’s response, something that could be explained without feelings or emotions involved. Actually, enjoying a person’s presence was altogether different—and a Black, no less.

Yet, she continued to seek him out, even though he believed her family the devils responsible for his misfortune.

“My family did not set your club ablaze,” she gritted out. For him to suggest that would mean the Killorans reneged on truces.

A muscle ticked at the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t say you did,” he said flatly, not removing his focus from the ballroom floor.

“You’re calling me a liar and arsonist.”

And say what one would of the evil acts they’d committed, neither Broderick nor Cleopatra nor any of her siblings and staff would ever dare play with fire, as Diggory had.

“You come from a family of one,” he said simply.

Cleopatra recoiled, grateful that his attention was trained elsewhere so he couldn’t see that his words had struck like a well-placed barb. When he’d been living, Diggory’s love of fire had been a popular tool of torture. He’d burned countless boys and girls to instill fear, and he had set conflagrations that had destroyed establishments and businesses . . . and lives. “Fire is not a trick of my brother’s,” she said quietly, needing him to understand that about Broderick, the boy who’d saved her and named her.

At last, Adair looked over. “It was one of Diggory’s,” he returned. “One of his favorite ones. And Killoran learned at that Devil’s feet.”

“As did you,” she accurately pointed out. “As did all your siblings.”

Diggory had managed countless hovels, filling them with children. His reach had extended far throughout London. Only a handful had escaped his hold . . . Adair and his siblings had been some of the fortunate souls.

He searched her face, and she hungered for the fight to defend her kin.

Adair sighed. “Don’t you have gentlemen to dance with?” he asked, holding his glass up.

A nearby servant rushed over and claimed the delicate cup, then rushed off.

She searched Adair for a hint of mockery. “Not much of a dancer,” she said carefully. She’d sooner cut herself than admit that even with the fortune she brought to the proverbial table, she’d not a single interested gentleman.

“Silly activity, isn’t it?” he asked companionably.

“Suppose so,” she settled for, wading through this unfamiliar ground. She’d not point out that she’d always enjoyed the lessons she’d received in those fancy steps. It went against everything she was to find pleasure in any ladylike pursuit . . . but something in dancing had been like gliding through the air on a wood swing her brother had set out back of the Devil’s Den.