The Lady's Guard (Sinful Brides Book 3)

by Christi Caldwell

  “Having saved his life, you would only ever have Niall’s respect and loyalty,” Diana said quietly. He would honor that brave act with his allegiance and friendship.

  “Yes,” Penelope concurred. She scooted to the edge of the chair and leaned forward. “He has asked about you.” That admission brought Diana’s eyebrows shooting up.

  “D-did he?” What had he said? Had his merely been polite inquiries?

  “He did,” Penelope confirmed with a nod. “Both times my husband returned from meeting with your father. Niall rushed him with questions. ‘And, Diana?’”

  Diana lifted her head in silent question.

  “Niall doesn’t ask about anyone. Not even his own siblings. But you . . .” She smiled gently. “He has. Numerous times.”

  Her fingers curled involuntarily in the fabric of her skirts, and to give those digits something to do, she picked up her cup. “You make more of it than it is,” she said softly, not pretending to misunderstand the other woman’s meaning.

  “Perhaps,” Penelope acknowledged. “But I do not believe so.”

  Heavy footsteps from outside the parlor saved Diana from replying.

  Her father cleared his throat, and the two ladies both stood. “Lady Chatham,” he greeted with the formality befitting two strangers meeting, and not a young woman and her father-in-law.

  Except, this was what Diana’s father had become. Because of his inability to see past that ancient title, he’d lost so much with Ryker, Helena, and their families. It was whom he’d been thirty-two years ago, when he’d chosen another over his true love. And it was whom he still was now, with his daughter.

  “Lord Wilkinson,” Penelope greeted. “I expect my husband is waiting for me.” She gathered Diana’s hands in her own and gave a light squeeze. With that, she was gone, leaving Diana and her father alone.

  All her life she’d believed her father so very different from her mother. He’d been smiling where she’d been severe. He’d been kindly toward his servants, where the duchess couldn’t even be bothered to look at them. But in so many ways, they were the same. In ways that could never be good.

  Her father looped his thumbs inside the front of his breeches and rocked on his heels. “Your brother came to speak with me.”

  “He has been devoted,” she acknowledged. When he’d every reason to hate Diana. When he could have blamed her for her mother’s role in his and Helena’s disappearance, he hadn’t. He’d offered her help, taking her at nothing more than her word.

  “He is a good boy,” he said, his blue eyes glassing over with a sheen of tears. Then, seeming to remember himself, he pulled the door closed and came over. Gesturing for her to sit, he settled his rotund frame in the chair previously occupied by the viscountess. “We spoke at length about your . . . desire to leave.” Her father paused. “Given everything that has happened, it would be, he believes . . .” The muscles of his face contorted in a paroxysm of pain. “We believe it would be in your best interest to put London behind you. For now, at least.”

  Her lips parted, and she tried to get words out. What was he saying?

  “I am saying I’ll turn over your funds as you requested. If going will make you happy and free you from . . .” He waved his hand. “From everything that has happened with your mother and my neglect and what transpired these past weeks, then I want you to go. For you.”

  He’d offered her everything she’d wanted for more than a year. The opportunity to control her funds and explore those worlds she’d only read about in pages. To go off and paint and discover if St. George’s was, in fact, a land of pink sand and cerulean waters. “Thank you, Papa,” she said softly.

  He gave a juddering nod. “In the carriage, I was . . . wrong about Mr. Marksman. It was unpardonable to suggest he was less worthy of you because of his birthright.” Her father heaved a great sigh. “After you were abducted and I came to, I raced not to any of those proper gents I’ve called friends over the years.” Men who’d failed to come around after his wife’s scandal. Diana let that go unspoken. He’d been hurt enough. Even with his failings, she’d not have him suffer. “The only people I trusted to help see you returned were Ryker and his brothers.” Her father gave her a long, agonized look. “As I was racing to them, I thought about you as you’d been as a girl. You were always so happy, Diana.” His voice broke, and tears filled her eyes. “Your smile, it dimpled your cheeks and lit your eyes.” It had been his smile. “And I haven’t seen it for nearly a year. I was too selfish to think about that until you were gone. Then all I could think about was how if you were safe, I’d want nothing more in life than your own happiness,” he said, on a sob that shook his shoulders. “And I didn’t care if it was Mr. Marksman or your journey to St. Georges. But I would give it to you.”

  Tears fell freely down Diana’s cheeks, and she let them roll unchecked. “Oh, Papa,” she whispered, going to him. She wrapped her arms around him as he wept. His arms automatically came up about her.

  “I am so s-sorry,” he said between his great gasping tears. “I am so sorry for not having been there. For failing you and your mother before. For—”

  “Shh,” she whispered, holding him tight, the way she had as a young girl who’d scraped her knees and sought comfort in this same embrace. “I forgive you.”

  And at long last, a calming peace stole through her.

  He’d given her nearly everything she’d wished for.

  But even her father could not give her what she yearned for most—Niall Marksman’s heart.

  Arms clasped at his back, Niall assessed the crowded floors of the Hell and Sin.

  The tables were overflowing with guests, tossing down fat purses. The clink of crystal touching crystal as spirits flowed freely.

  He’d been gone five weeks and back but one day, and yet nothing had changed. It had all continued on as though he’d never left.

  Niall’s gaze touched on the Earl of Maxwell, sipping brandy at his private table. And Niall recalled the damned ball when the young lord had his hand on Diana’s waist as they’d danced. Would he be the man to court her? Woo her? Win her? He briefly closed his eyes.

  Everything had changed.

  “It feels good, doesn’t it?”

  Distracted from his musings, he looked over at Adair. He had the easy look of a man relieved to be out of Mayfair and inserted in St. Giles once more.

  “Being back,” the other man clarified, gesturing to the floor. Adair rolled his shoulders. “The sounds of this place. The smell of it. It’s home.”

  Home. Niall rolled that word through his mind. Odd. This place had over the years represented security and stability, but never had he looked at it as a home. Home was a word better suited for a fiction book, for a place where families dwelled and laughed and built memories. Whereas the Hell and Sin had never truly been that. Not to Niall.

  Shouts went up at the center of the club, and they looked as one to the roulette table, both poised and versed on the peril in any unexpected sounds. Several gentlemen slapped a lucky winner on the back and motioned over a serving girl for celebratory drinks.

  Some of the tension went out of Niall.

  Yes, all here was the same as it had always been. Day over day, minute to minute, the same in every way. That sameness had provided his security . . . but prevented him from truly living.

  You’ve lived in your club for so long, you’re afraid to step outside that world. You can go anywhere, and yet you choose not to.

  Niall looked out once more at his club. Calum stood conversing with a dealer at the faro table. Young women moved between tables, poured drinks, and continued on. It was familiar. It was safe. Just like he preferred his life, after breaking free of Diggory’s hold. He passed a wistful once-more gaze over this great club, built with the blood, sweat, and turmoil of a London street tough. “No problems here,” he murmured to himself.

  “There hasn’t been in the two days since her visit,” Adair acknowledged.

  Cleo Killoran. Th
at small slip of a woman who’d single-handedly led Niall to Diana and unraveled the sinister plot against her and Niall’s own club. For that, Cleo Killoran and every last person she called kin would have Niall’s unswerving loyalty. Killoran’s younger sister had also managed the seemingly impossible—orchestrating a peace between the rival establishments.

  Lord Maxwell shoved to his feet and, glass in hand, strolled through the club. From his elegant dress and unscarred visage down to the rank bequeathed him by some king of old, he was everything Niall would never be. Once that had grated. No longer. “There won’t be any more problems,” Niall predicted, following the earl’s lazy movements and then dismissing him. “Not ones brought by Killoran.” It didn’t mean Killoran wouldn’t continue to curry the favors and memberships of their patrons. But Niall would wager his life that the sabotage had been effectively ended with the deal struck between their families.

  Adair grunted. “Time will tell.”

  Niall had once been that same jaded cynic. Until Diana. His heart lurched, aching with the need to again see her. “Ya’ll excuse me?” he said quietly.

  Adair flared his blond eyebrows. “Of course.”

  Yes, because in their well-ordered world, Niall never did something as outrageous as turn his shift over to anyone . . . Calum, Ryker, or Adair included. With a final look about the club, Niall nodded his thanks. He wound his way through the crowded club. Patrons scurried out of his path, avoiding his eyes and presence altogether.

  That fear shown around him had only been exacerbated since word of Diana’s abduction, and Niall’s murder of the brute who’d held her had circulated in every last gossip column.

  It was one kill, however—God willing, a final one—he’d never regret. Niall reached the back of the club and nearly collided with Calum. “Ryker wants a meeting.”

  No one ever wished to be summoned to Ryker Black’s office. It inevitably resulted in demotions and vanquished posts. Once that call would have sent Niall’s hackles up. No longer. Niall nodded and made to step around him, but Calum shot a hand out. He clasped his forearm and gave a slight squeeze. “It is good having you back.”

  His throat squeezed, making words impossible. He mustered a smile that felt more of a mangled grimace than anything. Then Calum marched off. Niall stood there for a long moment with the club’s near-deafening din filling his ears. He cast another glance back, lingering his gaze on where Adair and Calum now spoke. With a small smile, he took his leave of the floors and made the familiar climb abovestairs to the private suites.

  He reached Ryker’s office and stopped. There was an odd air of finality that hung in the space. You do not have to do this. Niall thumped his fist hard on the door panel.

  “Enter.” Ryker’s booming response carried through the heavy oak.

  Niall pressed the handle and stepped inside to another familiar sight: Ryker behind his desk, poring through one of many leather ledgers. He picked up his head. “Niall,” he greeted, shoving the book aside. It was their first real meeting since Niall had returned from Mayfair.

  Niall closed the door behind him and entered. As he strode over to the wingback chair positioned before Ryker’s tidy mahogany desk, he took in the touches made to this sacred space by Ryker’s wife. Prior to his banishment from the club, he’d viewed the material changes with derision. A mark of Ryker’s weakness for not only his wife but of the structure of this establishment itself. Now he saw the vases brimming with flowers as a mark of the happiness Penelope had brought.

  Ryker motioned to the chair. “I understand you are through with your end of the investigation.” This is why he’d been summoned.

  “Yes,” Niall confirmed. The questions put to him and Adair about the fate of two London street roughs had been few, and the investigation quick. “Our reports were sufficient.” Then, to Society, the deaths of men such as Niall and those who’d dwelled in Diggory’s hovel at some point in their lives didn’t much signify. He’d believed that was how all the world viewed him and his family. Diana had proven the error there.

  Ryker rolled his shoulders. “I spoke to them, as did the duke. They’ll not bother you.” He flashed a grin. “Wilkinson and I have ensured you’re free to work, without further distractions.”

  Wilkinson. Niall had never given much thought to the strained, nonexistent relationship Ryker had with his father. Had Niall been born to such a man, would he have clung to that hatred and resentment? Now, having his eyes opened to the shades of gray in life, he was not so sure.

  His brother folded his arms at his chest and stared at him with assessing eyes. “Are you . . .” He grimaced. Yes, regardless of how Niall and Ryker may have been altered by the influence of good women, they’d never be men at ease talking about one’s feelings or emotions. “Troubled by your role—”

  “No,” he interjected swiftly and truthfully. “I’ve no regrets.” And he didn’t. Not when the result had been Diana’s survival.

  Ryker drummed his fingertips along his black coat sleeves. “According to the investigators, they hauled off five men who did Amelie’s work.” He paused midtap. “We were all wrong about Oswyn.”

  Niall gave another distracted nod.

  Standing, Ryker stalked over to the sideboard and poured a brandy. He turned and held up the glass, but Niall waved it off.

  “I did not properly thank you,” Ryker said when he’d returned to his seat, “for saving my sister.” He leaned back in his chair and cradled the crystal snifter between his fingers.

  “I don’t want your damned thanks,” Niall snapped, and his neck instantly heated. Diana had initially been an obligation. An unwanted assignment.

  Hooding his lashes, Ryker eyed him. “You are adjusting to being back?” he asked, the meaning clear—something was not right with him.

  Niall gave a slight nod, and then, restless, he continued to skim his gaze around the room. You’ve lived in your club for so long, you’re afraid to step outside that world. You can go anywhere, and yet you choose not to.

  Diana’s whisper-soft words echoed around his memory as real as when she’d spoken them. Days ago. A lifetime?

  Clearing his throat, he reached inside the front of his jacket and pulled out several folded sheets. He handed them over to Ryker, who took them.

  “You need a new vetting process for the guards we’ve hired,” he began, as Ryker opened and skimmed the first page. “Simply hiring men who lived on the streets because we ourselves came from there is no longer enough. You need to be discriminatory in the process.”

  Ryker slowly worked his eyes over the first page, lingering his stare on the words.

  “That’s a new schedule for the guards,” he said as Ryker moved on to the next sheet. “We’ve expected them to go without rest. It was cost-effective but also wrong to the men here. You’ll also need to question those closest with Oswyn. Find out what they knew. If anything.” Most men would have been staggered by that betrayal. Niall and Ryker, however, had been born to the streets. “Men from the Dials can withhold from a constable. We can read them differently.”

  His brother folded those pages and laid them in a neat stack before him.

  You’ve lived in your club for so long, you’re afraid to step outside that world.

  Niall drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “Adair needs to oversee security.”

  Ryker’s shoulders went taut, and he leveled his gaze on Niall’s face. “Surely you don’t still doubt yourself? My sister is alive because of you. You thwarted two attempts, and there is no one I trust more, Niall.” He held his stare. “No one.” Given that Calum had been Ryker’s right-hand man since they’d all found one another, Ryker’s words were a testament to his faith.

  Niall layered his palms along the side of his chair. “I know that.” Again, he studiously avoided Ryker’s eyes. In the weeks he’d been away, he’d divorced himself from Ryker’s connection to Diana. Thrust back into the club and into his presence, he was forced to confront what he’d done—he’d n
ot only bedded his sister but had also fallen in love with her.

  “You’re avoiding my eyes, Niall.” Ryker spoke in his probing, gravelly tones. “You never avoid anyone’s.”

  A man did when he was in the wrong, and there could be no mistaking. Niall was in the wrong. “I am in love with your sister,” he spoke so quickly.

  Flummoxed, Ryker fell back in his chair. And had this been any other exchange and the topic someone or something other than Diana Verney, Niall would have hooted with a newly discovered laughter at the shocked-silent Ryker Black.

  “You don’t like the nobility,” his brother finally said into the silence.

  “No. I don’t. I didn’t,” he swiftly amended. “Thought they were all the same.” He drew in a ragged breath and, glancing about, raked a hand through his tousled hair. “Diana, she’s different, though.” She’d shown him that station and birthright didn’t define a person’s worth or character.

  Ryker’s midnight brows dipped. Did he disapprove? He should. Any worthy, decent brother worth his salt on earth would take umbrage with a man like Niall falling in love with his sister. Niall fished another page from inside his jacket and slid it across the desk. “This is why I’m here,” he confirmed in solemn tones.

  Ryker briefly dipped his gaze to the handful of lines, and given what they signified and represented, Niall should feel something. Regret. Sadness. Fear. And yet . . . he felt none of that. Instead he felt this great, hopeful lightness in his chest. “What is this?”

  He jerked his chin at it. “It’s my resignation.”

  His brother’s frown deepened, and he shoved the page back. “I’m not accepting your resignation.” It was the hard-edged tone that had earned him rank of leader among his small gang in the streets.

  “I’m not asking for permission. I need to do this.” He shook his head. “I want to,” he corrected. And again, there was no fear. “If she’ll have me.” If I didn’t bungle it so badly three days ago when I put this club before a life together. “I’m marrying her.” Niall jutted out his chin.