The Lady's Guard (Sinful Brides Book 3)

by Christi Caldwell

  “Would you question her because she is a woman?” Penelope challenged.

  Her devoted husband perched his hip on the edge of his desk. “I’d question anyone until I’d thoroughly investigated the circumstances,” he countered, and some of the fight left his wife. “But I can’t afford to ignore the lady’s worries.” This time, he looked out to the trio. “The lady requires a guard.”

  That was the reason for the meeting, then. To discuss who’d oversee the lady’s well-being. This was safe. This was something Niall did deal in. As head of security inside the hell, he knew every last detail about every man who served the club. Ryker settled his gaze on Niall. “I summoned you here so that you’re aware. So that you’re listening and alert. I’d speak to Niall, alone.”

  Avoiding his eyes, Calum and Adair filed out of the room. Niall waited while husband and wife exchanged hushed words. Periodically, Penelope nodded and then spoke, raising a frown from Ryker. He gave her hand a squeeze, and then a moment later, she marched to the front of the room. She paused beside Niall. “You once hated me,” she pointed out. “Wanted me gone from the hell.”

  At the unexpectedness of that unneeded reminder, he eyed her, confused.

  “Diggory was a terrible monster,” she said softly. “As are the men determined to avenge his death.” She held his gaze. “But not all people born of the streets are evil.” The lady was a bloody fool if she believed that. In the streets, boys like him wielded knives and slayed others at the command of their overlord. “Just as one shouldn’t judge all ladies of the peerage.” Penelope cast one last look over her shoulder at Ryker and then took her leave.

  As soon as the door closed, Ryker motioned to a chair. “Sit.”

  You advised me to sit . . . like a dog.

  He scowled and thrust back that unwanted thought of the bold chit who’d stabbed him in the alley. Mayhap another man would feel guilt at ordering her about. Niall’s very job was to do so. The welfare of every member of this establishment fell to him. Reluctantly, Niall pulled out the chair and sat.

  Ryker moved behind his desk and reclaimed his seat. “The lady requires a guard.” He rested his forearms on the surface of his desk. “Niall, it has to be you.”

  What was he on about?

  The other man nodded slowly, and Niall thinned his eyes into narrow slits. Mayhap he’d lost more blood from the wound inflicted on him by that little termagant, but he sought to muddle through that blasted nod. Surely Ryker wasn’t saying—

  “Wot ’as to be me?” Niall repeated, gritting that question out.

  “Niall, I’m sending you to be Lady Diana’s guard.”

  That pronouncement sucked the air from the room. The residual silence was punctuated by the steady ticking of the longcase clock.

  Abandoning his seat, Niall unfurled to his full height. Pressing his palms to Ryker’s desk, he leaned forward. “You are bloody mad,” he seethed, taking care to stretch out the words in practiced tones. The cultured tones he hated, that he’d perfected to grow their empire. “You want to send me out into Polite Society as a nursemaid for your sister. The bloody sister you don’t want any dealings with?” he spat. Fury pumped through his veins, and his muscles twitched with the vicious need for a fight.

  With an infuriating calm, Ryker leaned back. “She is my sister. As such, she’s deserving of the same protection that Helena is.”

  Niall scoffed. “You’d remember that now?”

  Ryker turned his palms up. “There wasn’t a need before.”

  Nor was there likely a need now. “Then send Calum or Adair,” he insisted with unwavering logic. The other two partners were far glibber and in possession of their tempers around the nobility. Niall had abandoned all pretense after Diggory had reemerged and shaken their ordered universe. “They fit in that world more than Oi ever would.”

  “I know,” Ryker concurred. “Which is one of the reasons I’m sending you.”

  Sending him. In the streets of London, a person honored the man who ranked above him. This was Ryker. His brother. He’d do anything for him. And yet . . . “Oi’m in charge of all the guards. Responsible for the safety of all, and you’d send me away to care for one noblewoman?” A lady in every sense but for the full crimson lips made for kissing and even darker, wicked acts. He started. Where in bloody ’ell had that lustful urging for the English princess come from?

  “I’ve known you nearly my entire life,” Ryker said solemnly. “I call you brother. I know your loyalty. I trust it.”

  He studied Ryker a long while, taking in the set lines of his scarred face. When Ryker Black set his mind to something, one had better hope of moving the earth from its axis than altering him from the course he’d set. Nonetheless, Niall made one last attempt at swaying him. “Diggory’s men will strike, and ya want me here when that happens. Do ya truly believe anyone would ’arm your half sister?”

  The other man held his gaze. “We both survived by seeing danger everywhere, Niall. I’ll not abandon that instinct now. Not to keep you here and happy.”

  Keep him happy? Is this what the other man thought this was about? It was about being cast out like an aged member of a gang who no longer served a purpose. It was a mark of failure and weakness. “How long?”

  Ryker layered his palms along the arms of his chair. “Niall—”

  “Oi said how long?” he snapped.

  “Until you confirm the state of her safety.” The blasted traitor may as well have been speaking of forever.

  Niall curled his hands into fists. “That is all, my lord?” he jeered.

  Ryker waved a hand, like the king granting a benediction. “It is settled.”

  Panic spiraled, and he fought to conceal it as he turned on his heel and stomped across the room.

  “Niall?” Ryker barked, staying his movements, and for the fledgling of a moment, hope stirred.

  He glanced back.

  “You’re the only one who doubts yourself. We depart for Wilkinson’s at nine o’clock.” Niall tamped down another string of epithets. “Lady Diana’s suspicions will remain between us and the young lady herself.” So they’d keep the foolish girl’s equally foolish imaginings from the bloody duke.

  “Perfectly clear,” he spat, and, yanking the door handle, Niall took his leave. He slammed the door hard behind him, and the loud boom thundered in the quiet corridors. Niall stalked down the halls, making his way to the stairs.

  Niall in a goddamned Mayfair town house, with his only responsibility a duke’s pampered daughter? With a growl, he quickened his stride down the stairs. With every step the raucous din of revelry and coins clinking with coins grew louder. The sounds safe. Comfortable. This is where he belonged, and Ryker Black would send him away to care for a spoiled child.

  Niall reached the entrance to the gaming-hell floors and stopped. Pain radiated in his leg from where the bloody chit’s knife had grazed him. Another growl worked up his chest.

  The old, burly guard Oswyn glanced at him. Niall flexed his jaw. Let him say one word. Let him say one bloody word about being sent away, because there was no doubt word had already begun making its way among the guards. Guards who’d now answer to Adair. Instead, something glinted in the laconic man’s eyes—pity.

  I’ve seen that glimmer before. It had been there when Helena was cast out.

  Only now it was him. Over my damned body. Niall took two steps around Adair. The blond-haired proprietor blocked him. Near in height to Niall, the other man easily met his gaze. “That will be all, Oswyn,” Adair said quietly. Without hesitation, Oswyn stalked off.

  How easily he’d stepped into Niall’s role here. Ignoring his brother’s piercing stare, Niall flicked his gaze over the crowded hell. The tables were overflowing with drunken dandies and garrulous lords, while other gentlemen weaved between the crush of bodies to find an empty place at a gaming table. He curled his hands into tight fists, leaving crescent marks on his palms. This was where he belonged. Nowhere else. And certainly not rubbing shoulde
rs with the bloody nobs. He’d rather lop off his thigh with that dull fish knife.

  Adair positioned himself at Niall’s side. “It is not permanent,” Adair reasoned.

  “Go to ’ell.” Niall continued searching the room. Since he’d been old enough to walk through the streets of St. Giles, he’d always been searching—for threats, for danger. Because ultimately it was there, waiting for a person to make a misstep.

  At Adair’s silence, he looked over. The ghost of a smile hovered on the other man’s lips. But then, that had always been Adair. Where Niall couldn’t move those muscles in any rendition of mirth, Adair had always been more sparing with those useless expressions. “One never knows. You may find yourself wishing to remain, like Helena.”

  Niall stuck up his finger in a crude gesture that earned a laugh from Adair. Then the other man stopped and patted Niall on the back once. “Go. I have it.”

  He had it. Adair had control of the security inside the hell.

  A battle warred inside Niall. An urge to stay and fight for his place here. And a bloody sense of acceptance.

  But to play damned nursemaid to a duke’s daughter?

  He’d always known the fate awaiting him—Hell.

  Being sent to Mayfair to watch over a duke’s pampered daughter, it would seem the Devil had come to collect.

  Chapter 5

  The following morning, standing silent before the Duke of Wilkinson’s desk with his hands clasped behind his back, Niall trained his gaze over the top of the portly, foolishly grinning nobleman.

  “My boy, how very good it is to see you.” The Duke of Wilkinson’s weak voice barely reached Niall’s ears. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

  My boy?

  Niall stared on incredulously. Mayhap the Duke of Wilkinson had a touch of the madness that afflicted his wife. The duke’s lowborn son hadn’t visited in the whole of his lifetime. In fact, the only time he’d had any specific dealings with him had been when Ryker had sent Helena here for hiding. And even then, the duke had been summoned to Ryker’s territory. Yet he’d greet him as though this was a special social visit between a beloved father and son?

  Ryker didn’t bother with pleasantries. “I’m here about your daughter.”

  Worry chased away the duke’s earlier smile as he alternated his stare between Ryker and Niall. “Helena?”

  Interesting. Niall scrutinized the older nobleman through hooded lashes. The duke didn’t worry after the child with pure blue blood, but rather his bastard. It spoke volumes about just how cherished the girl sprinting down the St. Giles alley, in fact, was. Who’d have believed a highborn lord would worry after his illegitimate whelps more than the princess with her pure blood?

  Laying claim to the duke’s space, Ryker motioned for his father to sit.

  His Grace dropped his rotund frame into the seat, settling himself on the edge. “Have those men come for her again?” he blurted. “I believed after that vile monster was killed—”

  “Helena is fine.” Ryker’s emotionless interruption bore no hint of a man seeking to provide reassurance. He settled into one of the vacant wing chairs across from the desk.

  Niall kept his hands clasped at his back and remained standing. He was not here on a social call and knew better than to lower his defenses in any way during any meeting.

  “You are certain?” the duke pressed, ringing his hands together.

  “Your other daughter,” Niall snapped. He didn’t like the princess who’d stolen into the alley last night and resulted in his being ousted from his position as guard, but he liked even less a man disloyal to his kin. “We’re ’ere because of your other daughter,” he said, deliberately slipping back into his coarse street tones.

  “Diana?” The incredulity in the duke’s voice rang as clear as the bells in St. Giles.

  “You have more bastards running about, then?” Niall drawled, rolling his shoulders. He pointedly ignored the frosty glare trained on him by Ryker.

  Confused lines marred the man’s wrinkled brow. “What? No . . . I . . .”

  Ryker’s harsh baritone cut across the man’s muddled reply. “I have reason to believe that someone intends to harm Lady Diana.”

  “Diana?” the duke parroted like one of those bold-colored birds Niall had once spied in a street show in the Dials. Then the old nobleman dissolved into a rumbling laugh.

  “I assure you. There is no reason to worry after Diana.”

  Niall and Ryker exchanged a look.

  Niall didn’t like admitting he was wrong.

  He’d suffered through too many broken noses and fists to the belly before he’d dared breathed those words or any variation of them aloud.

  But in this instance, he admitted, at least to himself, he’d been wrong. Very wrong. Lady Diana had far more sense than he’d credited, trusting her welfare to Ryker, a stranger who hadn’t acknowledged her existence over this pompous duke. How differently these lords and ladies moved through life. They feared nothing. Saw danger nowhere . . . and invariably they were right to those simplistic thoughts. Their lives mattered in ways no person reared on the streets ever would.

  Dazedly, the duke shook his head. “S-surely not. Why . . . what . . . who would want my girl harmed?”

  Surely not.

  Niall schooled his features, concealing his disgust. Even though it was unlikely Diggory’s men, or any person, would wish to harm Lady Diana Verney, as Ryker had pointed out, one would be a fool to ignore a possible threat.

  Even the reckless, innocent Lady Diana Verney saw it. Saw it when her own father didn’t.

  “Wilkinson,” Ryker went on gravely, “there’s reason to worry after your daughter’s well-being.”

  “But here?” the duke whispered. “This is Mayfair, Ryker. Those kind of people do not live here—”

  “Tell me, where do they live, then, Your Grace?” Niall put in before Ryker could speak. “The streets of St. Giles?” He leveled the powerful lord with a hard, taunting glare. “The halls of Bedlam?”

  At the thinly veiled reference to his wife, the older man paled. His throat worked hard, and he dropped his eyes to the surface of his desk.

  Ryker broke into the quiet. “Niall will remain on here as a guard for the young lady.” His tone brooked little room for argument. But then this was a man who commanded and controlled both the streets of St. Giles and powerful peers such as the Duke of Wilkinson.

  “Ryker,” the duke said in a faintly pleading tone, “you do not have many dealings with Diana.” Any dealings. “After she entered your club,” the man went on, clasping his hands together, “she was . . .”

  Niall attended the duke. “She was what?” he snapped when it became apparent no additional words were forthcoming.

  Wilkinson jumped. “Ruined,” he said on a rough whisper. “How would it now appear if . . . if . . . one of your men—”

  “Brothers,” Ryker interjected crisply.

  An involuntary sneer peeled at Niall’s lips. Of course, a stiff-necked lord would never recognize the bond between his bastard son and the proprietors of the Hell and Sin as more powerful that a blood one.

  His Grace hastily averted his gaze. “Brothers,” he conceded. “How would it appear if one of your brothers was following her about?”

  Niall rocked on his heels. So this is what that polite refusal was about, then. Appearances and social standing. God, how repulsive this world was. Niall might be a merciless thug to the streets, but the men and women he’d made his family would lay down their lives for one another and send Society on to the Devil if one but asked it. Whereas these peers would sacrifice their daughters to appease Society’s sensibilities. “Ya’d risk your daughter’s life?” Niall snapped.

  The duke lifted his palms beseechingly. “Please, you must understand.” There was nothing to understand. One placed the safety and well-being of their kin above all else and all others. “How do you expect me to have her make a match with . . .” His eyes strayed over to Niall, and
then he swallowed audibly. “A guard following her about?”

  Niall made a sound of disgust. Scurrilous blighters, they were, these fancy toffs who ruled Society. Ryker shot him a hard look. Ignoring it, Niall hooked his fingers into the top of his breeches.

  “Regardless of her birthright, Lady Diana shares my blood, and that marks her unsafe,” Ryker continued.

  “Unsafe?” the duke repeated, his voice hollow.

  At last, Ryker had penetrated the naive nobleman’s misplaced concerns.

  His son nodded once.

  His Grace wiped tired hands over his face. Those digits trembled in a mark of his weakness. A man didn’t shake and shiver unless he was prepared to have that frailty laid out before the whole of the world. Ultimately, those fragile souls perished. “You are certain?” the older man asked gruffly when he’d dropped his hands to his lap.

  Both men remained silent. Your word in the Dials was your bond. Neither could speak with an absolute certainty or fact born of any definitive truth about the young lady’s well-being. That, however, did not mark her safe. The duke could never, nor would ever, make the distinction that both were invariably the same.

  “Come.” He struggled to his feet. “You must meet Diana.”

  Together, Niall and Ryker stood.

  Yet the duke lingered.

  “What is it?” Ryker asked with his usual impatience.

  “It is just . . . I’ll not have Diana worry.”

  The lackwit lord didn’t even recall his daughter speaking to him with concerns about the broken axles. But then, men, regardless of station, failed to hear a woman’s words. It was the way of most Society. Not in Niall’s world, however. He’d learned firsthand from the streets the treachery and skill a person was capable of regardless of age or gender. “I do not know how to explain . . .” His pudgy fingers fluttered in the air as he gestured to Niall.

  Niall curled up his mouth in the corners in a faint, mocking grin. He’d long ago ceased to care about Society’s deservedly ill opinion of him. He was a thief turned gaming-hell owner and made no apologies for who he was. He did, however, take an unholy delight in the discomfort of those pompous lords.