Wicked and the Wallflower: Bareknuckle Bastards Book 1

by Sarah MacLean

  “Yes,” she said, cheeks blazing.

  “That sounds like the plot to a ridiculous romantic novel.”

  “It wasn’t ridiculous. And it was terribly romantic for the woman already married to the duke.”

  “Hmm,” he said. “So, I have it all right? Impoverished spinster wallflower?”

  Felicity rather hated to be boiled down to three unflattering words, but, “Yes. You have it right. Except for the bit where I proclaimed to be affianced to a duke whom I had never met.”

  “Ah. Yes. I had nearly forgotten that.” The words weren’t dry. They were honest. As though he had forgotten why they were conversing altogether.

  He might be mad.

  Felicity pressed on. “I’m sorry, Your Grace, but why on earth would you—a young, handsome duke with a clear past—choose to remain affianced to me?”

  “Are you trying to convince me not to remain affianced to you?”

  Was she?

  Of course she wasn’t. He was, after all, a young, handsome duke with a clear past, was he not? She’d falsely proclaimed him her fiancé, plunging herself and her family into certain social and financial ruin, and here he was, offering her rescue.

  I promised you the impossible, did I not?

  For a strange, wild moment, it occurred to Felicity that it was not the duke offering rescue at all—it was the Devil, with his outrageous offers and his wild deals and his wicked deeds.

  A ducal moth, straight to her flame.

  And here it was.

  Magic.

  “But . . . why?”

  He looked away then, turning back to the dark gardens, his gaze searching, as hers had done before he’d appeared. “What do they call it? A marriage of convenience?”

  The words settled between them, simple and unsatisfying. Of course, the offer of a marriage of convenience should have sent Felicity into convulsions of pleasure. It meant she’d save her family’s reputation, and her own. It meant money in her father’s coffers, the restoration of the estate, the protection of the name.

  And that was all before she became a duchess, powerful in her own right, welcome once more in the bright, glittering ballrooms of London. No longer strange or scandalous, but valued. Returned to the place she’d been before—plain, but empowered. Duchess of Marwick.

  It was all she’d ever wanted.

  Well, not all. But much.

  Some.

  “Lady Felicity?” the duke prompted once more, pulling her from her thoughts.

  She looked up at him. “A marriage of convenience. You get an heir.”

  “And you get a very rich duke. I’m told that’s a precious commodity.” He said it as though he’d just learned the fact earlier that day, as though all of recorded history hadn’t been predicated on women being forced to find wealthy matches.

  Her mother would be beside herself with pleasure.

  “What say you?” he prompted.

  She shook her head. Was it possible it was so simple? A single meeting, and her lie made true? Her gaze narrowed on the duke. “Why?” she repeated. “When you could have any of them?”

  She waved a hand at the open door to the ballroom, where no less than a half-dozen women openly watched them, waiting for Felicity to misstep, and for the duke to realize his mistake. Frustration flared, alongside that familiar indignation—the emotion that had set this insanity in motion. She resisted it as his gaze followed hers, lingering on prettier, younger, more entertaining unmarrieds, considering them.

  When he turned back to her, she expected him to have realized that she was not the most qualified bride for him. She was already imagining the disappointment in her mother’s eyes when this false engagement was no longer. She was already scrambling for a solution to Arthur’s empty coffers. To those of her father. Perhaps she could convince the duke to break off the engagement without revealing her stupid mistake. He did not seem a bad man. He simply seemed . . . well, frankly, he seemed uncommon.

  Except he did not break off the engagement as she’d expected. Instead, his eyes met hers and, for the first time, it seemed as though he saw her. And, for the first time, she saw him, cool and calm, not at all unsettled by the fact that she was there, and they were about to be engaged. He seemed not to care at all, actually. “I don’t want them. You turned up at the right time, so why not you?”

  It was ridiculous. Ducal marriages did not happen like this. Marriages in general did not happen like this—on empty balconies with no more than a vague whim born of convenience.

  And yet . . . this was happening.

  She’d done it.

  No, Devil had done it. Like magic.

  The words whispered through her, at once true and terribly false. Devil hadn’t worked magic. This duke was no moth. Felicity was not flame. She was convenient.

  And there was nothing magical about convenience.

  “Have you room on that fan for another dance?” the duke said, interrupting the rush of awareness that flooded her at the thought.

  She looked down at the fan, at the empty slat that remained. An echo came from earlier. A vague imagining of another man marking that slat. Claiming that dance. A man who disappeared into the darkness, replaced with this one—who reigned in the light. She tried a smile. “I do have room, as a matter of fact.”

  He reached for the fan, stopping before he touched it, waiting for her to offer it to him. Devil hadn’t waited. Devil wouldn’t have waited. She extended her hand to the duke and he lifted the fan, taking the little pencil dangling from it in hand and writing his name across the bare stick. Marwick.

  Felicity imagined she should feel breathless at the action—but she didn’t. Not even when he released the fan and claimed her hand instead, lifting it in a slow, deliberate motion, until his full, handsome lips grazed over her knuckles.

  She most definitely should have felt breathless at that. But she was not, and neither was he. And as she watched the Duke of Marwick—her proclaimed fiancé turned real—lift his head, a single thought rioted through her.

  The duke’s wings remained unsinged.

  Which meant the Devil had not made good on his deal.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Devil was already spoiling for a fight the next night when he stepped through the well-guarded door to the Bastards’ warehouse—so much so that the sound of the lock turning in the great slab of steel did not comfort him the way it should have.

  He’d spent much of the day attempting to focus on his ledgers, telling himself that it was more important than everything else—that he had plenty of time to seek out Felicity Faircloth and discover precisely what had happened between her and Ewan.

  In fact, he knew what had happened. His watch had seen her home only two hours after he left her—along with her mother, deposited there by her brother—after which, no one had left Bumble House, not through any of the ground-level egresses, nor down the trellis beyond Felicity’s bedchamber. This morning, the ladies of the house had spent the morning in Hyde Park with the marchioness’s dogs and returned for luncheon and tea and note writing or whatever it was that ladies did in the afternoons.

  Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary had come to pass.

  Except Felicity had met Ewan. Devil had watched from the shadows as they’d spoken, resisting the instinct to go to her and stop their conversation. And then Ewan had kissed her—on her gloved hand, but kissed her nonetheless—and Devil had gone stone-still and somehow turned his back on the scene rather than giving into his second, baser instinct, which was to destroy the duke, carry Felicity off to Covent Garden, lay her down, and finish the kiss they’d started the last time she was there.

  But she wasn’t for him. Not yet.

  Not until it was time to thieve her away from his brother and remind him of how easily he could be raised up only to be dropped, hard and fast, to the ground, ensuring Ewan never again considered flying too fast or too far.

  That was why Devil had been so kind to her. So complimentary. Because Fe
licity Faircloth was a means to a very specific end. Not because he actually thought she was beautiful. Not because he actually cared if she was wearing pink undergarments. Not because he actually wished her to believe in her own worth.

  He didn’t. He couldn’t.

  And so, he told himself that it was nothing more than general curiosity that sent him to the warehouse to find Whit in shirtsleeves, hook in hand, overseeing the distribution of the shipment that had been sitting in the ice hold for more than a week, waiting to move.

  General curiosity in the business and not the memory of Ewan’s lips on Felicity’s knuckles. Not remotely.

  After all, Devil told himself, a smuggling empire did not run itself, and there were workers to be paid and deals to be inked and a new shipment to arrive next week, laden with liquor and contraband, which they wouldn’t have room for if they didn’t get rid of the one in the hold.

  General curiosity, and not a keen need to resist the urge to go to the Faircloth home this afternoon, climb the damn trellis, and talk to the girl.

  He was a businessman. What mattered was the work.

  Inside the warehouse, two dozen strong men moved in unison, muscles straining under the weight of the crates they passed from down the line, from the hole in the floorboards to one of five caravans ready to move the product overland: two to a score of locations in London; one west, to Bristol; one north, to York; and the last to the Scottish border, where it would be redistributed for delivery into Edinburgh and throughout the highlands.

  There were any number of moments in the life of a smuggler that brought danger and uncertainty, but these were the worst, knowing that once the goods left the warehouse, the transport was in more danger than ever. No one could prove the Bareknuckle Bastards were smuggling goods inside the ice ships they worked; there was no way to check the contents of the ships as they entered the harbor, nearly sinking for all the melted ice in their holds. In this moment, however, with untaxed, undeclared goods in the hands of their loyal men, no one would be able to deny the criminal activity.

  On nights when they moved product, every able body in the organization helped to get it done as quickly as possible. The longer night hung over the rookery, the safer the product, and all their futures.

  Devil made for Whit and Nik, shucking his coat and waistcoat, exchanging his walking stick for a great, curving box hook. He moved to the hole, coming alongside Whit heaving crates up and passing them to another man, then another, and another, and a second row of men immediately followed him, forming a new line, doubling the pace of the work.

  Nik was down in the hole, marking boxes and barrels with white chalk as they passed, calling out their destinations and marking them into the small ledger that never left her pocket. “St. James’s. Fleet Street. Edinburgh. York. Bristol.”

  It wasn’t the business of smuggling that made for salacious news; crates of contraband weren’t interesting until they were opened and used. But the purchasers of those crates? The most powerful men in government, religion, and media? Suffice to say, the world would be eager for even a glance at the Bareknuckle Bastards’ client list.

  Devil hooked a barrel of bourbon headed to York Cathedral, and lifted it up with a loud grunt. “Christ, those things are heavy.”

  Whit didn’t hesitate in pulling up a crate, his heavy breathing the only indication that the grueling task was impacting him. “Weakling.”

  Nik snorted a little laugh, but did not look away from her list. Devil reached down for the next box, ignoring the way the muscles of his shoulders strained when he pulled it up and passed it to the man at his back. He returned his attention to Nik. “I’ll have you know that I’m the intelligent brother.”

  She looked up at him, eyes twinkling. “Are you?” She marked a box. “Bank of London.”

  Whit grunted and leaned into the hole. “And the books he insisted on reading when we were children continue to keep him warm at night.”

  “Oi!” Devil said, hooking another barrel. “Without those books, I’d never have learned about the Trojan horse, and then where would we be?”

  Whit didn’t hesitate. “I imagine we would have had to devise for ourselves that we could smuggle one thing inside another thing. However would we have done that?” he asked with a little grunt as he pulled up a cask of brandy. “Thank goodness for your primitive knowledge of the Greeks.”

  Devil took advantage of his empty hook and offered a rude gesture to his brother, who turned to the men assembled with a wide, white grin and said, “You see? Proof I am right.” Whit looked back to Devil and added, “Though not at all a sign of intelligence, one might point out.”

  “What happened to you being the brother who does not talk?”

  “I’m feeling out of sorts today.” Whit heaved up a heavy crate. “What brings you out, bruv?”

  “I thought I’d check on the shipment.”

  “I’d’ve thought you had other things to check on tonight.”

  Devil gritted his teeth and reached down for a crate of playing cards. “What’s that to mean?”

  Whit didn’t reply.

  Devil straightened. “Well?”

  Whit shrugged a shoulder beneath his sweat-dampened shirt. “Only that you’ve your master plan to see to, no?”

  “What master plan?” the ever-curious Nik asked from below. “If you lot are planning something without me . . .”

  “We’re not planning anything.” Whit reached back into the hole. “It’s just Dev.”

  Nik’s keen blue gaze moved from one brother to the next. “Is it a good plan?”

  “It’s a shit plan, actually,” Whit said.

  Unease threaded through Devil, and his retort stuck in his throat. It was a good plan. It was the kind of plan that punished Ewan.

  And Felicity.

  There was only one way to respond. Another rude gesture.

  Whit and Nik laughed, before she interjected from her place below, “Well, as much as I am loath to end this fascinating conversation, that’s the last of it.”

  Devil turned to watch the men on the line tuck the last of the product into the large steel wagons as Whit nodded down and said, “All right then. Tell the lads to send up the ice.”

  Passing his hook down to Nik, Devil received another, cold as the product it held—the first of the six-stone blocks of ice. Turning, he passed the hook and its capture to the next man in line, who handed him an empty hook, which Devil passed down to catch its frozen prey. The second block was passed up, and Devil passed down another empty hook, and so it went, rhythmic and backbreaking, until the backs of the steel caravans were filled to the roof with blocks of ice.

  There was a pleasure in the grueling work, in the line of men working in unison, toward a common, achievable goal. Most goals were not so easily reached and, too often, those who aspired to them found themselves disappointed in the reaching. Not this. There was nothing so satisfying as turning to discover the work finished well, and the time ripe for an ale.

  But there was no satisfaction to be had that day.

  He was reaching down into the hole when John shouted out for him; turning, he found the big man crossing from the back entrance to the warehouse, a boy trailing behind him. Devil’s gaze narrowed in recognition. Brixton was one of Felicity’s watch.

  He dropped the hook to the dusty floor, unable to keep himself from moving toward them. “What’s happened to her?”

  The boy lifted his chin, strong and proud. “Nuffin’!”

  “What do you mean, nothing?”

  “Nuffin’, Devil,” Brixton replied. “Lady’s right as rain.”

  “Then why are you off your watch?”

  “I weren’t, until this stroker pulled me off it.”

  John cut the boy a warning glance at the insult, and Devil turned to the head of the warehouse’s security. “What were you doing in Mayfair?”

  John shook his head. “I wasn’t in Mayfair. I’ve been on guard outside.” They were moving a shipment tonight,
so the roads leaving the rookery were monitored by a team of men in their employ. No one came in or out without the Bastards’ approval.

  Devil shook his head. He couldn’t have understood. It wasn’t possible. He narrowed his gaze on the boy. “Where is she?”

  “At the door!”

  His heart began to pound. “Whose door?”

  “Yours,” John said, finally allowing the smile that had been threatening to break through. “Your lady’s tryin’ to pick the lock.”

  Devil scowled. “She’s not my lady. And she sure as hell shouldn’t be in the rookery.”

  “And yet, here we are.” This, from Whit, who had appeared behind Devil. “Are you going to get the girl, Dev? Or are you going to leave her out there like a lamb to the slaughter?”

  Goddammit.

  Devil was already heading for the back door. A low rumble of laughter behind him that could not have been his brother’s, as Whit surely did not want murdering.

  He found her crouched low at the door to the warehouse, a sea of barely visible pale skirts billowing around her, and the flood of relief at discovering her unharmed quickly dissolved into irritation and then unwelcome interest. He pulled up short just around the corner of the building, not wanting to alert her to his presence.

  Giving her a wide berth, he approached her from behind. Her head was bowed toward the lock, but not to see it—it was the dead of night and even if it hadn’t been cloudy, the moonlight wouldn’t have been enough for her to see her workspace.

  Lady Felicity was talking to herself again.

  Or, rather, she was talking to the lock, presumably without knowing that it was unpickable—designed not only to guard, but to punish those who thought themselves better than it.

  “There you are, darling,” she whispered softly, and Devil froze to the spot. “I shan’t be rough with you. I’m a summer breeze. I’m butterflies’ wings.”

  What a lie that was. She threatened to incinerate every butterfly in Britain.

  “Good girl,” she whispered. “That’s three and—” She fiddled with the picks. “Hmmm.” More fiddling. “How many have you got?” She fiddled again. “More importantly, what is so important inside this building that something as beautiful as you is protecting it . . . and its master?”