The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers #1)(76)

“And that’s so important to him . . . and you?” Heavy recrimination coated that query.

“Security is important,” she countered. “After . . .” Say it. Say her name. Adair, in opening the window into Cleopatra’s past, had given her the strength to do so. “After Joan was killed, Broderick came along,” she shared, putting her spectacles back in place. She’d not allowed herself to think of that woman who, when she’d burned to death in that hovel, hadn’t been many years older than Cleopatra was now herself.

She walked on wooden legs over to a nearby worktable and stared beyond it. The back of her nape pricked with the feel of Adair’s stare upon her. What was it about Adair that made her able to speak about those darkest times in her life? About Joan and her sister being beat into blindness and the agony of fear and . . . She pressed her eyes closed, fighting for a semblance of control. Cleopatra concentrated on drawing in slow, even breaths.

“What happened to Joan,” Adair said quietly from just over her shoulder, “was not your fault.”

Her breath came all the faster. Stop talking. Please, stop talking. She was going to splinter apart with the pain of that past.

Adair rested a strong, reassuring palm upon her right shoulder. “It was an evil that belonged only to Diggory. You’re incapable of the evil he forced upon you.”

I’m not. Because I have evil pumping in my veins . . . Her throat thickened, and she couldn’t get out that truth.

“You’ve taken over the care of your sisters,” Adair continued, “looking after everyone else . . . and never yourself.”

The unexpectedness of his words held her frozen. “I want to take care of them,” she said belatedly, curling her fingers until the nails dug sharply against the branded D on her left palm. She did. Ophelia, Gertrude, and Stephen were her everything. And now, Adair is, too . . . Oh, God.

“You feel you have to take care of them,” he challenged, bringing her about to face him. “Because of Joan.”

She wrenched away, her heart knocking loudly in her ears. She wanted to stick her fingers in her ears until his words were nothing more than muffled silence. Because he only spoke the truth . . . You’ve spent your life after Joan trying to be everything and everyone to your siblings . . . “You know nothing about it,” she rasped.

“I know everything about it,” he said bluntly. “We all live with the guilt of what we’ve done in the streets.” He took a step toward her. “But marrying a fancy gent”—a man you don’t love—“will not ease the pain of what you and Joan lost that night.”

Cleopatra skittered a panicky gaze about, but he persisted.

“It will only result in you sacrificing your own happiness for your sisters.”

“But that is what you do when you love someone,” she cried out. She tossed her hands high. “I had to sacrifice Joan—”

“And now you’re sacrificing yourself,” he said quietly.

“Why are you doing this?” she implored.

“Because I love you.”

The shock of his graveled pronouncement ushered in a blanket of silence. Cleopatra fluttered a hand to her chest. “You . . .”

Adair opened and closed his mouth. He gave his head a slow, befuddled shake. “I love you,” he repeated, making that profession all the more real.

He loves you on a lie. That taunting voice whispered around the chambers of her mind. She closed her eyes tight, and Diggory’s face was there. His evil smile, pockmarked visage . . .

Cleopatra whirled away from him. “Ya love me,” she spat. “Ya don’t know anything about me . . .” Whereas Cleopatra knew everything about who this man was. Knew he was good and honorable and that he put thoughts of the women inside his club above profit, sparing them from a life of prostitution.

“I know so much.”

She could hear the gentle smile in his voice.

But not the most important part.

“You’re fearless and clever and strong and—”

“Diggory was my father.”

Adair froze midsentence, his rugged features forming a frozen mask. Was it shock? Horror? Disbelief? Mayhap it was all three etched there?

“What?” he asked, taking a step back.

She followed that slight, but telling, movement, and her heart shattered, falling into a million useless pieces at his feet. Damn you for loving him. And damn you for caring that it matters to him. An agonized laugh bubbled in her chest, and she forcibly fought it back. After the terror Diggory had inflicted upon Adair’s family, how had she been naive enough to believe it might not matter to Adair? “Diggory was my father,” she repeated, watching his features closely. “’e sired me. Gave me life.” How many ways could she say it that it might sink into his confused state?

Horror flashed to life in his green eyes. “Your father,” he echoed dumbly.

And it was then she had confirmation of what she’d always known. There could never, ever be anything more with Adair. It wouldn’t have mattered if there was no need for a nobleman for her. For a great chasm had always and would always exist between them. Her hatred for Mac Diggory burned through her like a cancer, vicious and biting. That mark of hate in itself was testament to her late sire.

And with Adair standing there ashen-faced and silent, Cleopatra did what she’d always done—she fled.