She shook her head. “Appearances are not reality.”
“Lord knows that’s true, Felicity Faircloth, plain, unassuming, uninteresting wallflower spinster lockpick.” He paused. “What do your unfortunate, terrible friends think of your hobby?”
She blushed. “They don’t know about it.”
“And your family?”
She looked away, heat and frustration flaring. “They . . .” She paused, thinking twice about the answer. “They don’t like it.”
He shook his head. “That’s not what you were going to say. Tell me the first bit. The true bit.”
She met his eyes, scowling. “They are ashamed of it.”
“They shouldn’t be,” he said simply. Honestly. “They should be bloody proud of it.”
She raised her brows. “Of my criminal tendencies?”
“Well, you won’t find criticism of criminal tendencies here, love. But no. They should be proud of it because you’ve got the future in your hands every time you hold a hairpin.”
She stopped breathing at that, her heart pounding at the calm assessment of her wild, wicked skill. He was the first person who had ever, ever understood. Not knowing how to respond, she changed the subject. “What else is in the wagons?”
“Hay,” he said. “It insulates the ice at the back, near the door openings.”
“Oi! Dev!”
Devil’s attention snapped to the growl from the darkness. “What is it?”
“Tear yerself from the girl and ’ave a look a’ the manifests.”
He cleared his throat at the impertinent question and turned to Felicity. “You. Stay here. Don’t leave. Or commit any crimes.”
She raised a brow. “I shall leave all crime committing to you lot.”
His lips pressed into a flat line and he crossed into the darkness, leaving Felicity alone. Alone to investigate.
Ordinarily, if this were, say, a ballroom or a walk in Hyde Park, Felicity would have been too afraid to approach a location so teeming with men. Aside from pure good sense—men were too often more dangerous than they weren’t—Felicity’s interactions with the opposite sex rarely ended in anything that was not an insult. Either they rebuked her presence or they felt entitled to it, and neither left a woman interested in spending time with a man.
But somehow, now, she’d been made safe among them. And it wasn’t simply that Devil had wrapped her in the mantle of his protection; it was also that the men assembled didn’t seem to notice her. Or, if they did, they didn’t seem to care that she was a woman. Her skirts weren’t interesting. They weren’t judging the condition of her hair or the cleanliness of the gloves she was not wearing.
They were working, and she was there, and neither thing impacted the other, and it was unexpected and glorious. And full of opportunity.
She headed for the wagons, larger than most, and made not of the wood and canvas that was so commonly found on London streets, but of metal—great slabs of what looked to be flattened steel. She approached the nearest conveyance, reaching up to touch it, rapping at it to hear the sound of the full cargo beyond.
“Curious?”
Felicity whirled to face a tall man behind her. No, not a man. A woman, incredibly tall—possibly taller than Devil—and whipcord lean, lean enough to be mistaken for a man as she was, dressed in men’s shirt and trousers, and tall black boots that only served to elongate her, so that it seemed as though she could reach her arms over her head and touch the clouds themselves. But even without the height, Felicity would have been fascinated by this woman—by her easy stance and her obvious comfort. By the way she seemed to stand in the dimly lit warehouse and claim it as hers. She did not need to pick a lock to gain access . . . she possessed the key.
What must it be like to be a woman such as this, head now tilted to one side, staring down at Felicity. “You can look, if you like,” the woman said, one hand waving toward the back of the wagon, her voice carrying a strange, soft accent that Felicity could not place. “Devil brought you here, so he must trust you.”
Felicity wondered at the words, at the certainty that Devil would do nothing to harm this place or the people who worked within it, and something flared in her—something startlingly akin to guilt. “I don’t think he does trust me,” she replied, unable to keep herself from looking in the direction of the woman’s wave, wanting nothing more than to follow it and look inside this great steel wagon. “I brought myself here.”
A smile played at the other woman’s lips. “I promise you, if Devil didn’t want you here, you wouldn’t be here.”
Felicity took the words at their face, and moved toward the open back of the wagon, her fingers trailing along the steel, which grew colder as she reached her destination.
The woman turned to a man nearby. “Samir, this one is ready for you. You stay on the North Road and you don’t stop until daylight. Keep to your planned stops and you’ll see the border in six nights. There, you’ll be met by three others.” She handed the man a handful of papers. “Manifests and directions for the other deliveries. Understood?”
Samir, who Felicity imagined was to drive the wagon, tipped his cap. “Aye, sir.”
The woman clapped her hand on his shoulder. “Good man. Good chase.” She turned back to Felicity. “Devil will be back in no time. He’s just checking the loads.”
Felicity nodded, rounding the corner of the wagon to discover a wall of hay, loaded up to the top. She looked to the woman. “They don’t have a better way to bring ice to Scotland than through London?”
The woman paused, then said, “Not one we know of.”
Felicity turned back to the wagon and reached out to touch the coarse straw hiding whatever was inside. “Strange no one has realized that Inverness is directly across the North Sea from Norway.” She paused. “Which is where ice comes from, no?”
“Is she bothering you, Nik?” Felicity pulled back her hand and spun toward the question, spoken altogether too close to her ear. Devil had returned to inspect the open wagon, and Felicity, it seemed.
“No,” the woman named Nik replied, and Felicity thought she might hear laughter in the other woman’s voice, “but I’m imagining she’s going to bother you quite a bit.”
Devil grunted and looked to Felicity. “Don’t bother Nik. She’s work to do.”
“Yes, I’ve heard,” Felicity retorted. “Ensuring your ice is shipped the hundreds of miles back toward its origin.” He looked over her shoulder at that, and she followed his gaze to Nik, who was smirking at him. Excitement flared. “Because it’s not ice, is it?”
“See for yourself.” He reached past her, pulling a bale of hay down from the wagon, revealing a block of ice behind. He frowned.
Felicity’s brows rose. “Are you surprised?”
Ignoring her, he reached for another bale, and another, pulling them down to reveal a wall of ice the length of the wagon and rising nearly to the top of it. He looked to Nik, the wicked scar on his face gone white in the dim light. “This is how we get melt.”
The woman sighed and called into the darkness, “We need another row here.”
“Aye,” came a chorus of men from the darkness.
They came almost instantly, carrying great metal tongs, each bearing a block of solid ice. One by one, they passed the blocks to Devil, who’d climbed up onto the wagon and was fitting them carefully into the void left at the top of the shipment, ensuring as little space as possible was left.
Felicity would have been fascinated by the process if she weren’t so fascinated by him, somehow hanging off the edge of the wagon, heaving great blocks of ice up nearly to above his head as though he were superhuman. As though he were Atlas himself, surefooted and holding up the firmament. He wasn’t wearing a topcoat or a waistcoat, and the linen of his white shirt stretched and flexed over his muscles as they did the same, making Felicity wonder if it might tear beneath his strength.
Everyone was always on about women’s décolletages and how corsetry was growing more salacious by the
minute and skirts clung too close to women’s legs, but had any one of those people seen a man without a coat? Good God.
She swallowed as he put the last block into place and leapt down, raising a strange, steel lip from the base of the wagon—approximately twelve inches high and so tightly fitted to the sides of the vehicle that the scrape of it screamed through the warehouse.
“What’s that for?” she asked.
“Keeps the ice from sliding when the melting begins,” he said, not looking at her.
She nodded. “Well, anyone peeking into this wagon would think that you were a very skilled ice deliverer, that is certain.”
He did look at her then. “I am a very skilled ice deliverer.”
She shook her head. “I would believe it, if it were ice.”
“Do your eyes deceive you?”
“They do, in fact. But my touch does not.”
His brow furrowed. “What’s that to mean?”
“Only that if this entire steel wagon were filled with ice, the entirety of the outside would be as cold as the rear two feet.”
Nik coughed.
Devil ignored the words, reaching to swing the large rear door to the wagon closed, latching it in three separate places. Felicity watched carefully as he closed the locks and delivered their keys to Nik. “Tell the men they’re ready.”
“Aye, sir.” Nik turned to the men assembled. “That’s a go, gentlemen. Good chase.”
At the words, the men scrambled, the drivers leaping up to their blocks, seconds joining them. Felicity watched as the one closest to her slid a pistol into a holster attached to his leg. Two other men hefted themselves up onto the rear step of the wagon, pulling wide leather straps around their bottoms.
Felicity turned to Devil. “I’ve never seen anything like those—seats for outriders? To keep them from having to stand the whole trip?”
He watched as one of the men lashed himself to the wagon with the strap. “Partially for comfort,” he replied, turning to accept something from the man to his left. “Partially because they might need their hands for something other than to hang on.” Moving forward, he handed a rifle up to the outrider, and another to the man’s partner.
“Ah, yes. I see now that it is all ice,” she said dryly. “Why else would it require so many armed men?”
He ignored her. “Aim true, boys.”
“Aye, sir.” The reply came in unison.
“Yourselves above all,” Devil said, and her gaze snapped to his face, registering the seriousness of his words and something else—something like concern. Not for the cargo, but for the men. Felicity’s chest tightened.
“Aye, sir.” They nodded, strapping the weapons across their chests and checking the fastenings on their seats before banging on the side of the wagon.
Down the line, other young men were similarly preparing, lashing them to the wagons and strapping rifles to their chests. Metallic thuds echoed through the great room, until every wagon was ready to leave. A great scrape sounded as several men slid an enormous steel door open—large enough to pull a wagon through.
“The border,” Nik called, and the wagon closest to Felicity leapt to movement, pulling through the open door and into the night. She backed into Devil, his arm coming around her waist to steady her as Nik said, “York.” Another wagon moved, and it occurred to Felicity that she should step away from his touch. That another woman certainly would do so. Except . . . she didn’t want to.
Next to him, with the horses stomping their feet and the men shouting their orders, she felt like the lady of a medieval keep, skirts billowing in the Scottish wind as she stood next to her laird and watched her clan prepare for war.
“London First,” Nik shouted above the racket of wagon wheels.
It seemed a little like war. Like these men had trained together, becoming brothers in arms. And now they sojourned together in service to a greater purpose.
To Devil.
Devil, whose arm held her closer than it should. Stronger than it should. And precisely as she found she wished. As though she were his partner, and he hers.
“Bristol,” Nik called, spurring another wagon to motion. “London Second.”
Before the last of the vehicles left the warehouse, the door was sliding closed, several men moving forward to place a great wooden beam against it to prevent it being opened from the outside. At the thunder of the heavy lock, Devil released her, stepping away, as though his hold had been nothing more than a fantasy.
She tried for levity. “And so, your ice is beyond your control.”
“My ice is well within my control until it reaches its destination,” Devil said, watching as another man approached, this one dark-haired, with golden-brown skin. “I would remind you, my lady, that I am able to wield considerable power with or without physical presence.”
The words, a low rumble, sent a shiver through her—reminding her of the way he had seemed to exude power from the moment she met him. He’d somehow prevented the duke from denying her claim of their engagement. He’d discovered her family’s secrets without even trying. He’d made her safe in Covent Garden even when he wasn’t with her. Perhaps he was the Devil, after all, all-powerful and omniscient, manipulating the world without struggle, collecting debts along the way.
But he hadn’t yet collected her debt.
The duke might have offered her marriage, but a marriage of convenience was not her plan. And so she was here in this magnificent place like nothing she’d ever seen, ready to face the Devil once again. And remind him that his end of the bargain had not been met.
“Not enough power,” she replied.
He snapped his attention back to her, his narrow gaze setting her heart racing. “What did you say?”
Before she could reply, the other man joined them, also in shirtsleeves, rolled up along his forearms, revealing a pattern of black ink that Felicity would have considered more seriously if the man hadn’t stepped into a pool of golden light that revealed his face—beautiful beyond measure. The kind of face that painters assigned to angels.
She couldn’t hold back her gasp.
Both men looked at her.
“Is there a problem?”
She shook her head. “No. It’s just—he’s very—” She looked to the man, realizing it was rude to speak of him as though he weren’t standing directly in front of her. “That is, sir, you’re very—” She stopped. Was it appropriate to tell a man he was beautiful? Her mother would no doubt dissolve into conniptions. Though, to be fair, her mother would likely dissolve into conniptions if she knew her daughter was anywhere near Covent Garden—let alone deep in one of its rookeries. So she was long past any semblance of understanding of what was appropriate.
“Felicity?”
She did not look at Devil. “Yes?”
“Do you intend to finish that thought?”
She remained transfixed by the newcomer. “Oh. Yes. I’m sorry. No.” She cleared her throat. “No.” Shook her head. “Definitely not.”
One black eyebrow rose, curious and assessing.
And familiar.
“Brothers!” she blurted out, looking from him to Devil and back again, then took a step toward him, sending him back a half step, his gaze flying to Devil’s, giving her a chance to inspect his eyes—the same mysterious color of Devil’s—somehow gold and somehow brown, and with that dark ring around them, and altogether, thoroughly unsettling. “Brothers,” she repeated. “You’re brothers.”
The beautiful man inclined his head.
“This is Beast,” Devil said.
She gave a little laugh at the silly name. “I suppose that’s meant to be ironic?”
“Why?”
She looked over her shoulder at Devil. “He’s the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.”
Devil’s lips flattened at that, and she thought she heard a little growl of amusement from the man called Beast, but when she returned her attention to him, he hadn’t moved. She pressed on. “Your eyes are t
he same. The bones of your cheeks, your jaws. The curve of your lips.”
The growl seemed to come from Devil then. “I’ll thank you to stop considering the shape of his lips.”
Her cheeks grew warm. “I’m sorry.” She looked to Beast. “That was quite rude of me. I shouldn’t have noticed.”
Neither brother seemed to care about the apology, Devil already moving away, no doubt expecting her to follow. She supposed no one was going to stand on ceremony in a Covent Garden warehouse and make introductions, so she decided to do it herself. She smiled at Devil’s brother. “I am Felicity.”
That brow rose and he stared at her outstretched hand, but he did not take it.
Really. Were the brothers raised by a mother wolf? “This is the bit where you tell me your real name; I know it isn’t Beast.”
“Don’t talk to him,” Devil said, his long legs already eating up the ground as he headed across the warehouse.
“But you believe his name is Devil?” The question came low and graveled, as though the Beast was out of practice using his voice.
She shook her head. “Oh. No. I don’t believe that at all. But you seem more reasonable.”
“I’m not,” he replied.
Felicity probably should have been unsettled by the answer, but instead, she found she rather liked this second, quiet brother. “I wasn’t noticing your lips you know,” she offered. “It’s just that I’ve noticed his and yours are the same . . .” She trailed off when both his brows rose. She supposed she shouldn’t have admitted to that, either.
He grunted, and Felicity imagined that it was supposed to set her at ease.
Oddly, it did. Together, they followed Devil, who had already disappeared into the shadows of the warehouse—hopefully far enough away that he hadn’t heard her. As they walked, she searched for a topic that might make the unsocial man more willing to converse. “You’ve been running ice for a long while, then?”
He did not reply.
“Where does it come from?”
Silence.
She searched for something else. “Did you design the transport wagons yourselves? They’re very impressive.”
Again, silence.
Wicked and the Wallflower: Bareknuckle Bastards Book 1 Page 17