The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers #1)(51)

Cleopatra crept along the wall and made for the window. Placing her palms on either side, she shoved it up slowly. The cool night air spilled into the room, and closing her eyes, she let the familiar London air fill her lungs.

Except this wasn’t the familiar London, as she knew it. This was a strange place, where she’d been taken in by the enemy, who’d come to treat her as an object of pity more than anything. People for whom there was really no loyalty or affection toward her, but rather a sense of obligation.

Cleopatra opened her eyes and stared out at the tops of fancy roofs of these Mayfair townhouses. Nor are these familiar roofs, she thought blankly. These were ones she’d climbed upon as a child and then as a girl on the cusp of womanhood. She eyed the ledge, and then, angling her head out the window, measured the distance and windows between her spot and the top. The roof had always beckoned. It had been the one place Diggory had never been able to reach her. As such, she’d reveled in the assignments that sent her high above the London homes. For risking capture and hanging for stealing from a nob was far preferable to the terror Diggory had inflicted with a routine frequency.

Cleopatra lifted her skirts and shucked her slippers off. She tossed them under the nearest bed, where they landed with a soft thump. Her stockings followed suit. Straightening, she let her dress fall back into place and settle around her ankles with a shimmery rustle. She perched her left foot atop the sill and slowly pulled herself upright. Cleopatra stole a peek at the grounds below.

Of course, roof climbing had always been vastly easier when she’d donned boy’s breeches and a tight-fitting shirt. One slight misstep, one foot snagging the hem of her gown, would see her crashing to the cobblestones as nothing more than a fond memory for her small family. The pull of the roof had always been greater, though.

Propelling herself up on her tiptoes, she reached for the sill directly overhead. Cleopatra’s fingers connected with the cool stone, and curling her fingers around it, she dragged herself slowly up to the next narrow ledge. Her spectacles slipped, and she froze. Damning her dratted vision, and her desperate need of those lenses, she paused to push them back into place and then resumed her climb. With every step that carried her farther and farther away, the terror receded, and it was replaced with a solitary quiet that she’d come to crave through the years.

She continued her slow, purposeful ascent until she’d reached the sloped metal roof. The jagged slats provided an easy foothold as she made for the chimney.

Borrowing support from the cold bricks, she looked out over London. Through the faint fog of night, stars peaked out, twinkling in their distant glory. This moment belonged to Cleopatra, not Broderick or Lady Chatham and her family, and up here, for a brief time, she was beholden to none. She smiled, accepting that triumph no matter how small it was.

For now—she was free.





Chapter 14

“She’s gone missing.”

Adair’s hearing was off. It was surely why, through the clamor of the inane festivities arranged by his sister-in-law, he’d misheard Niall.

“What?” he blurted, having no doubt about the identity of the she in question.

A vein bulged in Niall’s street-hardened eyes. “Not ’ere,” he muttered in his coarse Cockney. “Ryker wants us in his office.”

They immediately fell into side-by-side step. The dandy-clad gents and satin-skirt-wearing ladies hurried to step out of their path. But then, that had been the horrified reaction they’d been met with since they’d been forced to suffer through their first ton event. It wasn’t a response reserved for the ton. Men, women, and children in the streets of St. Giles also looked upon them with the same horror and awe. Only Cleopatra had been fearless around him, talking freely . . . but sharing little, a voice needled at the back of his brain.

His brothers were being overly suspicious . . . nay, cautious of Cleopatra. Or mayhap you’re not being sufficiently wary of the spirited woman.

Bloody hell.

Quickening his stride, Adair reached Ryker’s office first. Not bothering with the expected knock, he let himself in. Niall trailed a step behind.

Ryker stood behind his desk, barking out orders to the four Hell and Sin guards who’d taken on the role of undercover servants while Cleopatra was living here.

“. . . already searched the nursery, and I have two men stationed outside, another inside at the connecting door,” Flannagan was saying. “One at the window . . .”

Ears trained on that terse cataloging, Adair came forward, joining the younger guard at the desk.

“You think she’d harm the babe?” he interrupted, not certain how to explain his annoyance with Ryker. It was wrong to expect his brother to trust that a Killoran wouldn’t inflict harm upon a babe of his . . . and yet . . . the gut instinct that had gotten him to see thirty years on this miserable earth had never proven faulty before.

Ryker issued a low directive to the other man, who nodded and rushed off.

“She’s gone missing,” Ryker said curtly, now attending Adair.

Guarding me? . . . Still don’t trust me . . . ?

Her faintly hurt accusation whispered forward.

“My lord?” Covington, one of the two remaining guards, asked at Adair’s side, slashing across his musings. Attired in crimson uniform, their garments were the only thing that lent their heavily muscled frames a hint of liveried footmen.