The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers Book 1)

by Christi Caldwell

  He narrowed his eyes. “Is there something amusing about this?”

  “Actually, yes.” In a bid to stir his ire, she drew herself up onto the edge of his desk.

  “Y—” He faltered in his reply, moving his gaze up and down her person, before settling once more on her face.

  Her skirts rucked about her ankles in a way that would have earned embarrassment from a proper lady. She did not, nor would she ever, fit into that category—no matter how much her brother sought to stuff her into that mold. “Am I expected to believe you’ll shoot me here in Ryker Black’s home?”

  Adair eyed her carefully for a long moment, and then, not taking his gaze from her, he tucked his pistol inside his waistband. “Is that why Killoran chose to send you? To learn our plans and bring them back?”

  She was torn between flattery that he thought her capable enough to be the one sent as a go-between, and . . . frustratingly hurt that he saw the inherent silliness in her being the sister to make a match. It didn’t matter that she was in complete agreement on the matter of her form and face. Knowing his disdain, however, rankled.

  “They’re rubbish,” she countered.

  He stitched his eyebrows into a single warning line.

  “Your plans,” she clarified.

  His jaw worked, and she braced for him to order her on to hell. “There’s four of them there,” he said gruffly, unexpectedly engaging in a discussion on his club. And they were drawn up by several builders and quickly. He’d not mention that point.

  “All right, then. I’ve looked through two of them, and these ones”—she indicated the pages in question—“are rot.”

  “You had no more than six minutes to study them,” he challenged.

  Cleopatra widened her eyes. He’d been there the entire time?

  The hint of a smile curved his lips. “I heard you in the hall.”

  “Impossible.” Her fingers made contact with the thick sheets, and they wrinkled noisily in the room.

  “Do you make it a habit of wandering the halls of another man’s home and snuffing out candles?”

  Shame at having been discovered, and against her knowing, brought her toes curling so tight her arches ached. “I thought the room had been left vacant and the flame was left lit,” she groused.

  There was a mocking edge to his grin, belied by the hardness in his eyes.

  “And you were worried because you know the danger posed by an errant flame?”

  A memory slid in of a beloved figure she’d made herself forget.

  Joan. The closest Cleopatra had ever come to a true mother. Another fire. One set by the Devil himself.

  Leave me . . . you need to leave . . . And coward that she’d been, she’d not hesitated before gathering her sisters and abandoning the decrepit building. Unable to meet his gaze, she briefly contemplated that sconce in question. “I know about it,” she gruffly admitted. Just not for the reasons he believed—the ones having to do with his burned club. Hopping down from her perch, she wandered several steps, presenting him her back. Cleopatra drew in several slow, quiet breaths.

  “Is that a concession of guilt?” Adair’s whipcord body went taut, bringing her attention to the previously escaped detail about the towering figure. Having discarded his jacket at some point, he stood in his bare feet, with his cravat gone, and only his shirtsleeves and breeches. It was a familiar state of undress she’d witnessed countless men in before. Only the tufts of dark curls peeking out from the opening at his neck and the olive hue of his muscled chest were so very different from the gents caught in dishabille at her family’s hell. Her pulse kicked up.

  He moved fast, like a tiger she’d once witnessed pounce in the royal menagerie. “I asked you a question.”

  Cleopatra retreated until the backs of her legs collided with the desk. Her heart hammered a wild beat that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the heat pouring off his chiseled frame. “My family didn’t torch your hell,” she got out, her voice far too faint to merit any respect or authority. Nonetheless, she surged on the balls of her feet, going toe-to-toe with him. “Ya were destroying it enough without any of ours bringing you to ashes.”

  His nostrils flared. “Yet you spoke about the power of a blaze—”

  “Because I do,” she snapped out, annoyance making her careless in all she revealed. “Not everything is about you and your ruined club.” Cleopatra pressed her palms against his chest to shove . . . but the heat of his skin pierced his shirt, the feel of his muscled physique burning her as sure as any of the blazes they now fought over. She curled her palms into the lawn fabric.

  “You know about it, then,” his melodic voice washed over her.

  She nodded slowly. “Oi do.”

  Run . . . you need to take your sisters and . . .

  Cleopatra pressed her eyes briefly shut. More than a foot shorter than he was, she’d have cursed and lamented the staggering difference that weakened her. Now she fixed her gaze on his chest, giving thanks that he could not see her.

  Adair brushed his knuckles over her jaw, forcing her neck back to meet his gaze. His quixotic touch muddled her senses as his intense, piercing green eyes sought hers. “Your parents?” he ventured.

  Her parents? What was he . . . ?

  Why, he assumed she was just another whelp taken in by Diggory. Numbly, Cleopatra dropped her arms to her side.

  “My parents and sister were also claimed by a fire,” he said gruffly, a surprising confession that let her into his world.

  Then the significance of that loss, coupled with the one he’d recently suffered, penetrated her shock. He’d lost not only his family but his club. Cleopatra dipped her eyes once more. Despite the horrors that gripped her nightmares still of that long-ago day, she’d not allowed herself to think of Adair’s club being consumed in a similar way. Of the terror he and the men, women, and children inside would have known. The smell of burning flesh—

  “Oi’m sorry about your club,” she said hoarsely.

  Chapter 7

  Cleopatra hadn’t probed and pried about the admission he’d made about his past: the parents and sister he never spoke of. Instead, she’d fixed on just one . . .

  Oi’m sorry about your club.

  There were five words there he’d never imagined a Killoran could or would ever string together.

  Everything about that apology stank of a street trick. A bid to deceive one’s enemy, all to gain an upper hand. After all, she’d been discovered sneaking about Black’s home. Her emotional response was likely nothing more than a bid to distract from the fact he’d caught her red-handed.

  Only—

  She spoke about fires as one who knew. It had been there in the flash of horror and the emotion thickening her tone as she’d simply stated an understanding for what he’d lived through . . . not only recently at the Hell and Sin . . . but as a boy.

  The young woman lifted her gaze to his, those luminous depths impossibly big behind the round rims of her spectacles. And something far more dangerous than a weakness for a Killoran consumed him—desire.

  Dismayed, he stepped around her, brushing her out of the way. “Don’t you ever come in here again,” he ordered, swiftly stacking the numerous building plans Phippen had designed. “Don’t wander the halls at night, and don’t let yourself into rooms that don’t belong to you,” he gruffly ordered.

  Cleopatra pulled herself up onto the edge of his desk, and from behind those silly, large wire-frames, rolled her eyes. “All the rooms here are unfamiliar.”

  His lips twitched. “Fair point.”

  “As much as you’d prefer to keep it that way, I’ll not let you make me a prisoner here,” she said.

  Adair gathered the finalized design plan for the Hell and Sin and purposefully tucked it in the middle of the pile. For as sneaky as this one had proven herself to be on countless scores, he’d be wise to lock up his paperwork and any room he wanted this one to keep out of.

  “That’s the one, then?”


  He paused, midmovement, and looked over.

  She nudged her chin. “It’s just you placed all the other pages on top, but you stuck that last one in the middle. So, I take it, you were attempting to . . . hide it.” By the amusement in that slightly overemphasized word, Cleopatra found that to be of extreme hilarity.

  “You’re observant.” It was a good reminder that he should trust this imp as far as he could throw her, but having lived the life he had, there was also an admiration for her cleverness.

  “No choice but to be,” she said simply, lifting her shoulders in a little shrug. She gave him a half smile that dimpled her cheek. “Learned quick that to not be watchful will ruin a person.”

  “I didn’t see that one,” she said, contentedly filling the void of his unresponsiveness.

  “And you won’t,” he muttered.

  A cynical snort escaped the young woman. “Afraid of even a Killoran seeing your club? I didn’t take you as smart, Thorne.”

  Thorne. Cleopatra used his surname to make her annoyance known . . . or to bait him.

  “Why would I show you my plans?” he retorted. Relinquishing his pile, he folded his arms and met her gaze. “Isn’t one wise to keep one’s enemy close?” One also didn’t engage in casual discourse or make mention of one’s past . . . but he’d done—and continued to do—both this night. It’s boredom. Nothing else to account for it, but the tedium of living inside the fancy end of Mayfair.

  “You’ve seen my club.”

  My club. Not my brother’s. Not Killoran’s. Nor even Diggory’s. My club. Even in her boldest, most confident day, his own sister, Helena, had never laid claim to the gaming hell. This boldness and strength in Cleopatra only sent that blasted admiration swirling.

  “Only fair you show me yours,” she continued over his tumult, giving a little shrug of her shoulders.

  “Show me yours?” He chuckled. “Using a child’s argument.”

  “It is the only way I seem able to reason with you.”

  Adair stilled. Wait. By God, had she just . . . ? Why, did she call him . . . ?

  Cleopatra winked and stretched her palm out.

  He was going mad. There was no other accounting for the fact that even now he considered turning his plans over to a damned Killoran. Adair shot a glance over his shoulder at the closed door. His brothers would have his head for such foolishness. Returning his focus back to the persuasive minx, he dropped his gaze to her hand—and stopped.

  A jagged D stood stark upon her palm. That possessive tattoo that marked her connections to the beast who’d tortured Adair and his brothers. Cleopatra balled her hand and yanked it back to her lap. It also served as a reminder of the folly in lowering his defenses where this one was concerned. He opened his mouth to deliver a jeering taunt.

  It was her lips, however, that halted that flow of words. Or rather . . . the corners of her lips. White, tense lines that revealed that for her brave show and grand displays, she wasn’t the unaffected, deadened person Diggory had been.

  “Never mind,” she mumbled. “Keep your damned plans. If they’re as rubbish as the other ones I looked through, then you needn’t even worry about competition in the first place.” She jumped to her feet, and any grand exit she surely intended to make was ruined as her spectacles slipped from the bridge of her nose and clattered noisily upon the floor.

  Cursing, Cleopatra sank to her knees and stretched her fingers about. Why . . . why . . . she really had a need for those frames.

  Swiftly joining her on the floor, Adair rescued the slightly bent pair. “Here,” he murmured.

  “What are you—?”

  He tucked the curved wires around her delicate, shell-like ears and perched them on the bridge of her freckled nose.

  Freckles. She had freckles. A faint dusting upon her nose and upon her cheeks. It . . . softened this woman he’d thought could never be taken for delicate.

  Adjusting her glasses, Cleopatra glowered at him through the smudged frames, shattering his foolish musings. “What are you staring at?” she demanded.

  He frowned. Ignoring her cursing and questioning, Adair plucked them from her face and stood.

  “Thorne,” she gritted, jumping up.

  Yanking the tails of his shirt free of his waistband, he proceeded to scrub the frames with the soft material. “For someone who requires glasses, Cleopatra Killoran, you’re certainly one who doesn’t take proper damned care of them.” Ignoring her grasping hands, he held the spectacles higher, out of her reach, and continued cleaning them. “Here,” he muttered, replacing them again.

  She blinked wildly like an owl startled from its perch, and in this instance, she may as well have been any innocent lady of Polite Society and not a ruthless member of Diggory’s—and now Killoran’s—gang.

  He cleared his throat. “You need to clean your glasses.”

  Just like that, the charged moment was shattered. “Don’t tell me wot Oi need,” she barked. “You with your presumptuous hands and . . . Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded as he returned to his desk. “Oi was . . .”

  Shuffling through the stack, he withdrew the most recently agreed-upon plans for the club. “You wanted to see it,” he pointed out. “Here’s your chance to glimpse inside the greatest club in England.”

  A half laugh, half snort filtered from her lips. Without hesitation, she joined him at the cluttered desk. He’d been so damned busy overseeing the construction and this one here that he’d really neglected his makeshift office.

  “You really should tidy your space, Adair,” Cleopatra said, unerringly following his very thoughts.

  “Shut it, Killoran,” he said without inflection. “Or don’t you want to see my hell?”

  She wrinkled her pert nose. “I want to see it,” she conceded.

  He stretched out the plans before them, laying the long sheet out for her viewing. Adair cast a sideways glance over and found her squinting hard. Quitting the place beside her, he crossed over to the nearest sconce. Carefully lifting the candle, he carried it about the room, setting the other candles alight, until the room was doused in light. Feeling Cleopatra’s eyes on him, he looked over.

  The glowing candles played off the surprise in her eyes. “Do you think me so much a bastard that I’d have you squint to see the damned plans?” he asked gruffly.

  “Yes,” she said softly. “I did believe that.”

  Blowing out the one in his hand, he rejoined Cleopatra. “My family is not evil.” Unlike hers, who’d been loyal to the Devil. Just like that, he shattered the easy camaraderie, and a formal relationship between them was restored.

  Angling her body away from his, Cleopatra examined the finalized plans for the renovated Hell and Sin. As she leaned forward, scraping her gaze over every portion of the page, the implications of what he’d given her access to registered. His brothers would kill him—and with good reason—were they to see him with Cleopatra even now. It didn’t matter that when the hell opened, there would be men of Killoran who infiltrated and reported back. His stomach queasy, he made to grab the page.

  “This is all wrong,” she said, moving her finger up and down the hazard and faro tables stationed along the right portion of the club.

  “Beg pardon?” he blurted, her observation instantly staying his hand on the sheet.

  “You have your private tables set up here.” She drifted the tip of her index finger to the area in question.

  Do not engage her . . . you’ve already shared enough with a Killoran. “And?” The question came as though pulled from him. For the truth was, he’d made enough sacrifices in his life that he wasn’t too proud to take advice proffered.

  “Pfft.” The bold minx lifted her gaze from the designs and arched an eyebrow over the rim of her spectacles. “And?” she asked, and had her tones been mocking, it would have been far more palatable than the painful emphasis there. “You have your gaming tables separate. That means they have to walk”—she jabbed the page as she s
poke—“one, two, three, four, five, six . . . twenty paces before they get from their private tables here”—Cleopatra swiveled her judgmental finger to each point in question—“to here.”

  As they had for years. “Noblemen prefer to have a place to converse with peers over drinks, separate than where they play.”

  “Of course they prefer it. A fancy toff doesn’t know what he wants by way of seedy lifestyles.” Cleopatra gave another skyward point of her eyes. “It doesn’t matter what they want or prefer. It matters what you get out of them. They’re too accustomed to their fancy clubs.” She paused and searched about, muttering incoherently to herself. “Ah.” Killoran’s sister grabbed a charcoal pencil. Over his sounds of protest, she etched small Xs upon the plans, marking the sheets. Adair lowered his hands on the table and leaned closer to assess her work. The scent of her—a hint of apple and strawberries—filled his senses, and he took it in, breathing deep.

  “You paying attention, Thorne?” she snapped, glancing up.

  Heat slapped his cheeks, and for the first time in the whole of his damned life . . . he was . . . blushing. “I am.” A liar.

  “Look here.” She refocused all her attention upon the desk.

  All the while I stand here sniffing her like a damned rose pushed into my hand by a London peddler, he thought, disgusted with himself.

  “You place drinking tables here. One here, and here,” she continued, writing on the page. “All through it, interspersed with your gaming tables. This way your patrons are drinking all evening, and the wagering is always a step away.” Her spectacles slipped, and she paused to push them back into place.

  Adair dusted a hand over his jaw, contemplating both her opinion and the markings she’d made. “Many lords come to discuss business.”

  “Then you give them a place for that,” she said before he’d even finished. “Apart from your main floors. You don’t let the handful of ones there for nondrinking, whoring, and wagering drive the whole club.” She wrinkled her nose. “I forgot. You don’t have whores.”

  Since Ryker Black had wedded a lady and had ultimately made the decision that they’d no longer offer the services of prostitutes for their clients, their profits had taken a blow. For Adair’s appeals to his brothers, they’d been adamant to continue on without those services offered. “You think it’s foolish,” he predicted.