Yes, these were the people his sister sought to belong to. These were the empty, purposeless figures whose approval she sought . . . for her and her husband. In the course of a year, she’d lost fundamental parts of her soul. He tightened his mouth. And he’d taken but one look at the determined glint in his sister’s eyes this evening to know she sought more than his presence at this one bloody ball. He’d sooner sell his soul to Diggory’s new crew than step into this world any more than he already had.
Ryker rolled his shoulders and flexed his arms, stretching them out before him, experimentally. The cut of the fabric on his finely tailored evening clothes hampered his movement and would have made him an easy mark for anyone. As he loosened the cravat threatening to choke him, some of the tension left his frame. He strolled deeper into the gardens and glanced about.
Grass. While he’d robbed and killed in the rough cobbled streets, the nobility strolled their Mayfair grounds carpeted in beauty and purity. Ryker bent and retrieved a cheroot from inside his jacket. He stalked over to a lit lamp lining the path and touched the rolled tip to the flame.
Folding his arms, he inhaled deeply of the smoke. A faint click reached his ears, and in one fluid movement, he unsheathed the knife from his boot.
“I don’t think Helena would take kindly to your gutting any of her guests, Lord Chatham,” drawled Calum as he strode down the terrace steps.
Ryker gave no outward reaction to the other man’s stealthy appearance and approach. Long one of the greatest thieves in the Dials, Calum had moved with a speed, stealth, and silence that had seen their pockets well lined and food in their bellies. “If you come up on a man alone—”
The other man snorted. “I do not require a lesson on the rules we wrote, Black.”
Sheathing his knife, Ryker fished another cheroot from his jacket and wordlessly handed it over to the other man.
Calum lit the rolled wrapper and inhaled deep. “You believe Killoran’s men can infiltrate a duke’s Mayfair townhouse?” The heavy skepticism there spoke to Calum’s opinion.
His brother’s skills were sharp, and yet even with them he failed to recognize the perilous signs around them. “There have been unlocked and opened doors in the private suites.” Ryker ticked off on one hand. “Broken axles on the carriages. Deliveries are being tampered with.” Ryker took another pull of his cheroot. “Killoran is everywhere, and if you don’t believe that, then you’re a goddamn fool.”
A soft, whispery exhalation stirred the air, and he snapped his head about. “What was that?”
The biting wind continued to roll through the walled-in gardens.
“It is called the wind.”
He scowled at Calum’s dry response.
“We should return. I would say this was not what Helena expected when she invited us here.”
“I did what I pledged,” Ryker said flatly.
“We’ve been here but two hours. If you leave now, people will talk.”
Bloody Calum and his weakness for anything Helena would put to them. She never truly put favors to any of you . . . this has been the only one . . . He growled. Mayhap he was growing weak. “I do not answer to anyone.”
“Is it the crowd?” Calum continued.
At that damning question, Ryker looked about, then leveled Calum with a lethal glower that had even the street-hardened man before him shifting. One didn’t speak of a man’s weakness. Weakness destroyed, and so the secrets Ryker carried, known by only Calum, by his brothers, were not words to be uttered. Ever.
“My apologies.” Calum dipped his ashes over the side of the balustrade.
Shifting the cheroot in his fingers, Ryker shrugged out of his jacket and tossed the offending garment onto the bench. For the bond he and Calum had forged in the streets, there was no one Ryker truly let in. He’d long ago learned the perils of life . . . how fleeting it was, and as such, he’d not weaken himself by ever opening his heart—to his brothers, sister—or anyone. Ryker took another long pull from his cheroot and breathed the smoke out slowly. “Tell her I’ll return shortly.” An answer in and of itself, more than he ever gave anyone. The world long knew Ryker Black answered to no one.
“Do not forget your jacket when you do. You’ll scandalize the toffs and chits present.” At his own jest, a half grin formed on Calum’s mouth.
For those were the details that would shock these weak, mewling creatures; the men with their floral fragrances and oiled hair, and the ladies with their overblown gowns and glittering diamonds. How would these same people respond to the sight of a man with a blade jutting out of his back?
Lifting his hand in parting, Calum took a final pull and dropped the wrapper to the stone floor. He ground it under the heel of his boot, and then stalked off.
Ryker stared after him a moment, and then turned his attention out to the late spring night. Stars flickered ahead, gleaming with a mocking brightness. Before he’d found Calum, Adair, and Niall, when he’d been a small boy slipping through the inky darkness of Seven Dials, lifting fat purses from unsuspecting gentlemen, he’d occasionally glanced up at those same stars. In those moments when he’d had nothing but Diggory for a father, friend, or mentor, he’d imagined those stars were friends overhead, watching out for him.
He stilled. Where in bloody hell had that thought come from? Those weakest moments of his early years—when he’d been a cowering boy, at the mercy of the world around him—had been memories he’d deliberately quashed and buried.
With a sound of disgust, Ryker finished his cheroot and dropped the small wrapper. Stepping on it, he then made his way back down the steps to his jacket. He’d never admit it to Calum, or even aloud, but the other man was right. At the bid of support for his sister and her husband, Ryker had pledged to come. Even as the crush of the ballroom had threatened to suffocate him, he’d endured far greater hells than a roomful of weak-willed men and women.
In several quick steps, Ryker strode over to the stone bench and swiped the hated black jacket he’d donned for this infernal affair. He made to shrug into the garment, but then froze. The moon cast a soft glow on a small forearm, jutting out from under the bench. Killoran’s men were everywhere. A growl lodged in his throat, and in one swift moment, Ryker dropped his jacket, bent down, and dragged the bastard out from under the bench.
It took but a single glance and frightened cry to ascertain the interloper was in fact . . . a woman. A very young one. With midnight curls and white cheeks to match her white skirts, anyone would take at first glance the lady as an innocent.
Ryker, however, had learned long ago Diggory’s gang took all manner of shapes and forms . . . and he’d expect Killoran’s were the same. The young woman didn’t look deadly, but then, he’d learned at the hands of small lads and lasses, the evil all persons were capable of. “Who are you?” he rasped, taking the slender, and decidedly very delicate, shoulders in his hands. He gave a slight shake, wringing a cry from her.
The narrow-hipped, bosomless stranger with a form better fitting a lad than a lady rounded her eyes into wide circles. Terror spilled from their sapphire depths. He braced for her tears and pleas . . .
“Release me, you bastard.”
Her cultured tones gave him pause. “I asked you a question,” he demanded in steely tones, maintaining his hold. If the lady flared her eyes anymore, they would disappear into her hairline.
“And I said ‘release me,’” she gritted out, and he narrowed his eyes as her bold response only belied the ladylike image she presented.
Ryker pressed his forehead against hers. “I will not ask you again. Who. Are. You?”
The column of her throat moved. Proper fear seeped from her too-expressive eyes. She wetted her too-full lower lip, bringing his attention to the plump flesh. In the whole of his life, he’d made it a habit of avoiding a woman’s kiss. Passion could be met, lust slaked, without the intimacy of joining mouths. There had always been a cool, pragmatic approach to sex . . . where a lady’s lush lips served but one
purpose. Staring at this lithe princess now, an unexpected wave of lust bolted through him.
The lady jammed her fist into his belly, with a surprising strength, and he grunted. She brought her arm back for another blow. In a move more fitting a doxy in the Dials, she jerked her knee up. Ryker grabbed it, and she gasped. “You should not have done that,” he whispered, forcing her down to the hard earth. A cry left her lips as he collected her slender wrists in one of his hands. With the other, he did a quick, methodical search, patting her voluminous gown, searching for a hint of her weapon.
Terror flared anew in her blue eyes.
Nothing. Which would mean she was a damned empty-headed lady sneaking around her host’s home. With a curse, Ryker released her hands, just as footsteps sounded overhead. As one, they whipped their gazes up.
Five pairs of eyes stared back, with varying degrees of shock, fury, and delight. Then Helena and her husband stepped up against the balustrade, alongside an unfamiliar older woman. Disappointment marred the young duchess’s features as she looked to the woman in his arms.
Ryker jerked his attention back to take in the lady he still held: Her torn décolletage. Their positioning. His discarded jacket.
And now the deathly look trained on him by one dark-haired gentleman he recognized from his club. The Earl of Sinclair. “By God, Black, unhand my sister.”
Bloody hell.
Bloody hell, this was bad.
As she was lying on the ground, underneath the form of Ryker Black, Lord Chatham, with her mother, brother, sister-in-law . . . and Lady Jersey, who was gleefully smiling on, panic crested like a powerful wave and threatened to pull Penelope under.
No. No. No. No. Penelope bit down hard on her lower lip. The metallic tinge of blood filled her senses. “Release me,” she begged, bucking against the dastard who still held her.
And surprisingly, he did. She pushed away from him and shoved to her feet.
“Penny,” her brother growled, rushing down the stairs. His footsteps faltered, as he glanced from her torn décolletage and gown to the jacketless Mr. Black. Bloodlust seeped from the dark stare he trained on the towering midnight-haired, scarred beast at her back. “By God, I’ll face you at dawn.”
Jonathan’s wife, Juliet, cried out. Penny swung her gaze to her sister-in-law, and the agonized terror on those usually smiling features wrenched at her.
Oh, God. This is all my fault. More cries went up as Jonathan launched himself at Mr. Black.
“Stop,” Penelope pleaded. Cries from above mingled with Penelope’s as she positioned herself between them, preventing Jonathan’s attack of the other man. A man who was more than a foot taller than Penelope’s five-foot, five-inch frame also towered over Jonathan’s six-foot, three-inch frame. A stranger who’d so ruthlessly and effortlessly taken Penelope down would destroy Jonathan with a single blow. “Please,” she begged, matching Jonathan’s steps as he tried to move around her. “It is not as it seems.”
“How does it seem, Penny? As though this bastard had his bloody hands all over you?”
“He was not forcing himself on me.”
Which ushered in only another blanket of shock. Mortified heat slapped her cheeks. “N-not that I was willingly in his a-arms,” she said on a rush, tripping over her words.
Another primal shout left her brother, and he charged forward. Penelope tripped over herself, backing directly into a solid wall—or in this case, Mr. Black’s hard chest. “Stop,” she demanded, putting her hands up. She cast a glance up at the implacable stranger behind her, the man whispered about in the ballroom and written about in the gossip sheets. A man who revealed not even a hint of emotion. Another shudder wracked her frame. He was a beast. A cold, unfeeling, emotionless beast.
“Why . . . why, they were meeting for an assignation,” Lady Jersey incorrectly surmised.
Jonathan growled and charged forward once more.
In the end, Juliet halted Jonathan’s futile attack. She gripped her husband by the arm and looked pointedly to the voyeurs above. Even in the dark of night, Lady Jersey’s eyes radiated glee. The duchess took her cue as hostess, and gathering Lady Jersey’s arm, escorted her from the terrace. Whatever words she uttered to get that biddy away from the scene of Penelope’s public shame, she did not know. She knew only her own gratitude.
Silence descended upon the gardens, and then the faint weeping of Penelope’s mother reached her ears, that plaintive sound ravaging her. This must be how Patrina felt. And Prudence. This horrible, empty, humiliating moment. How quick she’d been to judge, and just as quick to fall.
Her stomach pitched. I am going to be ill . . .
“What say you?” Jonathan demanded, yanking off his gloves.
The stranger may as well have been carved of granite for all the emotion he showed.
“May I suggest the lady be escorted home, Sinclair, and we discuss this in my office?”
Blinking back the thick fog of shock, Penelope looked to the Duke of Somerset, who had moved into position beside his brother-in-law. When had he arrived? She’d failed to hear his approach through the panic cloying about her mind.
“There is nothing to discuss,” Penelope implored, looking between the three gentlemen present. For surely in moments such as this, challenging a duke was permitted.
“There is the matter of your torn gown.”
Following her brother’s lethal stare to the gaping fabric, she gasped, and swiftly righted the torn material. The blasted lace. “As I’ve already said, it is not as it seems.”
Jonathan looked beyond her shoulder. “The absence of the gentleman’s jacket? Don’t tell me?” he bit out. “It is not as it seems.”
She opened her mouth, but no words came out. When presented just that way, it was rather damning. Nay, very damning. A scandal and ruin as great as her eldest sisters’—mayhap more . . . This is not happening.
It has already happened.
“Nothing to say?” Jonathan demanded, taking another threatening step forward.
“I expect the better question is why the lady was outside, unattended.” If ever words could be coated in icy steel, this man’s were.
And damn him for being correct. He’d far more right to be outside his own sister’s balcony than she, a guest in this home.
A gentle hand on her arm brought her head snapping up. Juliet stared back with such a tender concern, tears sprung to Penelope’s eyes. “Come,” her sister-in-law said gently, guiding her away. “His Grace is correct. We should return home and allow the gentlemen their meeting.”
The truth hovered in the air. Even though it was a horrid mistake and a rotted misunderstanding, Penelope realized it could not be undone.
Penelope shot a desperate look at the expressionless stranger in his crisp white shirtsleeves and loose cravat. “Tell them,” she implored. “Tell them that nothing transpired.” Nothing beyond his putting his hands on her and searching her with a harsh intimacy that had scorched her skin. Frustration roiled through her when he remained stonily silent. Penelope turned her appeal once more to Jonathan. “We merely happened out here at the same time.”
“Penelope,” Juliet urged, and that snapped her back.
Oh, God, the whispers. They had to leave. Forcing a jerky nod, Penelope straightened her shoulders and allowed her sister-in-law to guide her from the gardens of her ruin. With each step that carried her away from the trio of gentlemen, her neck prickled with the heat of a stare. She stole a peek over her shoulder.
Mr. Black narrowed his eyes and studied her through hooded lashes, but not before she detected the glint of antipathy in those blue, nearly black, irises. How can anyone be so unfeeling? Not a hint of warmth clung to the man. Instead, he may as well have been chiseled in stone. Right down to the harsh, angular set to his features, his crooked nose. With her retreat, he kept his gaze trained on her, until the Duke of Somerset said something that called the gentleman’s attention.
They made their way up the small steps that had bee
n the path to her ruin and reentered the duke and duchess’s lavish residence. She tripped over her torn hem, and Juliet quickly righted her. Fresh embarrassment burned her skin from the tips of her toes to the roots of her hair. Once inside, Penelope drew her arms close to her chest and hugged. “I am so sorry,” she whispered, as they continued in silence down the corridor. She could not reenter that ballroom. There would be cruel stares and crueler whispers . . . How had her sisters endured this?
“It is all right,” Juliet said softly, and there was so much regret in those four words the lie shone through. It was not all right. And even as this woman beside her had once been her governess, who’d taught her so much, and offered greater comfort, in this moment, she could not make it right for Penelope. No one could.
They had reached the end of the corridor when the Duchess of Somerset stepped into their path, forcing them to stop. Penelope’s stomach lurched and she prepared to see the icy derision from her hostess.
The woman gave a gentle smile, that warm expression softening the threatening marks that marred her pale cheeks. “Please, let me show you an alternative way to your carriage. I’ve already seen the Dowager Countess of Sinclair from the ballroom.”
Gratitude filled her, and then she registered those words.
“Thank you,” Juliet said for the both of them. “That was very kind of you.” Even as her sister-in-law spoke, Penelope’s pulse throbbed in her ears, dulling sound.
By the time they reached the carriage, no doubt most in London would have learned the wickedly shameful story. A small moan lodged in her throat, and she swayed. Juliet caught her against her slender frame, and the duchess rushed forward, collecting her other arm.
Now she’d become one of those swooning creatures. Tears dotted her vision, and she blinked them back. And the crying sort.
As the duchess led them down the carpeted hall, a panicky laugh built up in Penelope’s chest, strangling its way past her throat. In the course of an evening she’d systematically come undone in the span of just minutes. The two women at her side cast her concerned looks.
The Scoundrel's Honor Page 4