The Vixen

by Christi Caldwell

  They read, a companionable silence falling between them, as they scrutinized all the information thus amassed. Otherwise, but for the ticking clock, the only sound came from the periodic crackle of a page being turned.

  After a lengthy stretch of quiet, Connor glanced over.

  Ophelia tenderly caressed the small rendering that had been completed for the purpose of his case. The plump babe captured from a combination of the marquess’s recollection and the handful of portraits throughout Lord Maddock’s Grosvenor Square townhouse existed upon the miniature canvas as a child frozen in time. His cheeks full, a mischievous smile on his lips, the future Marquess of Maddock, right down to the glimmer of his eyes, exuded joy and innocence. “He was so very small.”

  “Aye.” Through the melancholy of the moment, another thought slipped in. A welcome one. Another babe, loved and joyous and innocent. Only a blonde girl with Ophelia’s spirit and courage. The tantalizing dream of it sucked all the air from the room, gripping him with the beautiful possibility of it.

  “It could not have been Diggory.” The mention of that demon effectively kicked ash upon the lighter musings that had distracted him. “Diggory had no use for children.”

  “He required them to pick pockets and build his fortune,” he pointed out.

  “Mmm,” she said, noncommittal. “He did, but he took the children of whores and beggars. Those in foundling hospitals. He wouldn’t risk his neck for a noble child when he could have a sea of common ones answering to him as the King of the Underworld.”

  “But according to this . . . he didn’t.”

  Ophelia cocked her head.

  He flipped open the folder she’d previously gone through, searched, and then found the page he sought. He turned over to Ophelia the detailing of Lord Maddock’s son’s last day as a cherished child. “This woman . . . the nursemaid would have risked her neck. Diggory was always clever enough that he’d thrust others into the fire and never himself. And he certainly had enough willing to sacrifice their own necks to help him achieve his goals.”

  Ophelia didn’t refute his argument. Neither did she concur with it.

  Studying that heartbreaking sketch, she worked her eyes over the description provided by the marquess and any staff who’d remained on about the child.

  “Blond hair,” she murmured. “It could be any English child.”

  Aye.

  “It certainly would have been easier had he possessed red.” Connor folded his arms behind his neck, stretching his strained upper-back muscles. “There were several distinguishing marks upon the boy. A birthmark to the right of his navel and a horn-shaped scar upon his left knee.”

  Ophelia whipped up her head. “Wot?” she whispered, breathless.

  “It was not intentionally done.” The horror they’d endured as children had left them surrounded by people who’d mark a child: Connor’s brow, the Duchess of Somerset’s cheek, Niall . . . the list went on. “By Lord Maddock’s accounting, he entered the child’s nursery when he’d been playing soldiers. In his haste, running to the marquess, the boy tripped and fell onto one of those metal pieces. The arms were thrust into the young earl’s knee. I reminded Lord Maddock that as the wound had been relatively recent, he could not be confident either way that it had left a permanent scar.” Connor let his arms fall. “Regardless, these are the only defining characteristics by which I have to identify a missing child nearly seven years to the date of his disappearance.” Connor grimaced. “Nor would any sane boy living in East London be willing to lift his shirt and roll up his pants to expose himself because an investigator demanded it.”

  As such, Connor had found himself searching for a single needle in a meadow, as she’d charged weeks earlier. Until Ophelia, who with her information had at least narrowed down those paths which would have otherwise been a waste of his time and energies.

  Chapter 18

  It couldn’t be.

  There were a million reasons she was wrong and only one disconcerting reason she might be correct.

  Fighting the tremble to her fingers, she tightened them upon the page in her hands, not seeing the words there, hearing only those that Connor had casually supplied.

  Oi ain’t scared of ’im . . . ’e’s just a man . . . An’ Oi’m a man marked by the Devil.

  Except Diggory’s mark had been left on many Ophelia knew, and it had always come in the form of a D or his name. Letters carved into a person’s skin to remind them who their liege was and what their role was in serving him.

  Her heart thumped an erratic rhythm. Of course, that single scar Connor spoke of that might not even be a scar all these years later served as no definitive proof of anything. She reached for the rendering of the missing babe. Briefly closing her eyes, she counted to five, not wanting to look closer, with the information Connor had supplied whispering around the back of her brain.

  She didn’t want to question the world as she knew it and the implications for all if what Connor supposed was truth.

  Forcing her eyes open, Ophelia looked.

  The smiling child, more babe than boy, stared back. Innocence in his eyes, trust in his smile, he was unlike any child she’d ever known in St. Giles. All those boys and girls had been born with a frown and hadn’t an extra ounce to spare for the food sparingly provided.

  A little whispery sigh of relief sailed past her lips.

  So why did she not put the page down? Why did she retain her white-knuckled grip upon it, staring at a child who as she’d claimed earlier could truly be any English child? A nurtured and beloved nobleman’s babe, that was.

  Ophelia forced her gaze back over it once more.

  He was a cheerful babe, always smiling. Each year, however . . .

  Those words she’d casually confided to Connor not even two days ago slammed into her with all the weight of a fast-moving carriage. She ceased breathing; all the air remained trapped in her lungs.

  It was impossible . . . it couldn’t be.

  Just because of mention made to a possibly scarred knee . . . and . . .

  August Rudolph Thadeus Stephen Warren, the Earl of Greyley.

  Even as her mind screeched in protest to the improbability of what she’d unwittingly pulled forth, bile climbed up her throat.

  She stole a frantic look in Connor’s direction.

  His head remained bent, fixed on the pages in his hand.

  How? How?

  How could he not see she sat before him in tumult, questioning everything she’d known to be fact? Questioning her existence and the existence of a sibling she would have traded her life over to the Devil ten times to Sunday to prevent his suffering.

  Think, Ophelia . . . think. Just because Stephen had once been a smiling child, plump, cheerful, with a mark upon his right knee . . . those details did not a nobleman’s lost son make.

  It was a fantastical leap that defied logic and reason when that had been the only tenet of life that guided her.

  Before now.

  Now . . . she could focus on nothing more than a scar, a lengthy name, and memories of Stephen as he’d been.

  Again, she clenched her eyes shut, willing the memories of her past forward. Forcing herself back to the days when a new Diggory bastard had been thrust into their care.

  ’e’s my roightful ’eir . . . a boy . . . if a single ’air on ’is ’ead is even combed wrong, I’ll carve out yar innards. Are we clear?

  Ophelia’s stomach pitched. She and her sisters had assumed the boy was another Diggory bastard brought into their midst. As long as she could remember, he’d railed at the whores who’d given him daughters while lamenting their whore’s blood. But what did she really know about Stephen’s origins?

  Think . . . think . . . when did Stephen join the fold?

  They’d pegged him as nine, nearly ten. But none had known for sure. What if he were in fact a year older? Her heart stumbled, and ignoring that similarity in her mind, she inventoried the years.

  The year would have been . . .
1819?

  She jumped up.

  Connor looked over with a question in his eyes.

  “Water,” she managed in even tones. Ophelia made a show of searching his offices. “Do you have water? A glass.”

  “Of course.” He shoved to his feet with languid movements. Cupping her cheek, he placed a kiss on her lips.

  When he broke that too-brief meeting, he tweaked her nose. “Don’t go running off on me, Miss Killoran.”

  She forced a laugh. As soon as he’d gone, she bolted over and retrieved one boot. Heart racing, she yanked it on. Where was the other? Where was it?

  Falling to her knees, she crawled around the room and found her missing boot peeking out from under the crimson-velvet sofa.

  Where Connor had made love to her.

  On a lie.

  So many lies.

  Had there ever been any truths between them?

  A sob catching in her throat, she yanked on her other boot. Not bothering with laces, she slipped from the room, down the hall, and out into the night once more.

  As she rushed alone through the London streets, the night wind tugged at her loose hair, whipping those strands about her face. Hers was no longer a veiled disguise. If she were seen running as she was without a chaperone, she’d be called out for the Killoran she was and ruined. There would be no match . . . a match she’d never wanted and still didn’t.

  But one made even more impossible given everything she’d learned in Connor’s offices.

  Ophelia continued walking and didn’t stop until she’d reached the point where Finchley Road intersected with Hendon Way.

  Stephen is not my brother.

  Her heart squeezed.

  Oh, he was and would forever be her brother in every way that mattered. But his life had been a lie.

  All of it.

  As soon as that thought slid in, she sucked in a shuddering breath. Mayhap she was wrong. There could simply be a collection of oddly connecting details that made it seem to be one thing, when it was really another.

  She knew.

  Knew in her heart.

  Stephen’s unhealthy fascination with fires. Diggory using him to set blazes, even when Broderick had gone toe-to-toe with their liege to end Stephen’s role as an arsonist.

  Ophelia hugged herself, rubbing at her arms.

  ’e’s a boy of fire . . . ’e’ll set my fires.

  A boy of fire.

  She’d not given much thought to that statement. Any thought. They’d all, after all, filled respective roles within the Diggory gang. That had been Stephen’s. Now, with the files she’d read and the suspicions settling around her brain as more than suspicions, she heard the twisted, sinister relish in that long-ago pronouncement.

  What now?

  For Stephen? For their family?

  Yet, for her and her siblings, the Devil’s Den mattered more than anything for what it represented. Now she was proven so very wrong. All of them.

  Another cold night wind stole across the silent London streets.

  Her neck prickled, and she glanced about.

  Someone is watching me.

  It was an innate knowing that could come only from a lifetime of creeping through the darkest corners of England and living to tell of it.

  Springing into motion, Ophelia quickened her steps until the sensation grew. Silently cursing, she glanced back and forth, heart knocking painfully against her rib cage as she lengthened her strides.

  She broke into a full run, sprinting onward until the safe, familiar sights of the Devil’s Den loomed ahead.

  Not breaking stride, gasping from her run, sweating for her efforts, she bolted for the only home she’d ever known.

  “Ya there, stop,” a guard barked.

  The barrel of his pistol gleamed bright in the otherwise dark. The faint click.

  “Ellis,” she managed to pant. Dropping her hands on her knees, she bent forward and drew in slow, steadying breaths. “It’s me.”

  “Miss Killoran?” The burly bearded guard instantly lowered his weapon.

  “The same.” Offering him a weak smile, she looked down the alley, hesitating.

  Do not think of it . . . do not think of it.

  Connor had helped her to see the absolute control she had over her demons. She’d reclaimed her heart, body, and soul this night.

  Lifting her head, she waved to the warrior who’d served with their family since Broderick had joined the Diggory gang.

  “Killoran coming,” he thundered behind her.

  The guards stationed at the end of the alley dropped their pistols.

  “Coleman. Aubert.”

  “Miss,” they replied in unison from their positions flanking the doorway. As though it were entirely commonplace to find the head proprietor’s sister down this particular alley. As though they were familiar friends exchanging pleasantries about the weather.

  Ophelia fiddled with the handle and let herself in. The soothing scents of freshly baked breads and cinnamon permeated the air, filling her nostrils, bucolic scents better suited to a country kitchen. She closed the door behind her and made quick work of the three locks and special top bolt Broderick had installed years earlier.

  She leaned back against the wood, taking comfort in the solid, reassuring weight at her back.

  Several shadows whispered forward, breaking the brief moment of peace she’d allowed herself. Unsheathing her dagger in one fluid motion, Ophelia brought her arm back—and froze.

  Her sisters glared back.

  “Cleo?” she whispered, shocked. “Gertrude?” Then a sense of doom filled her.

  An always clever Gertrude, who’d seen too much, examined Ophelia’s garments, her flyaway hair. “Where in blazes have you been?” she exploded, and it was a sign of Gertrude’s panic that her ever-in-control sister both cursed and raised her voice.

  She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She wasn’t ready for a lecture from her sisters on propriety.

  “You don’t want to talk about it?” Cleo barked.

  Before Ophelia could formulate another reply, Gertrude whipped over and took her so quickly by the shoulders, the blade slipped from Ophelia’s fingers. The dagger clattered noisily upon the hardwood floor. “Oh, we are going to speak on it,” her eldest sister rasped. “My God, do you know how worried we’ve been? I received word from Cleo two hours ago asking if you’d returned home. We’ve been tearing up London in search of you, thinking . . . believing . . .” Gertrude buried a sob in her fist. “Will you say something to her?” she ordered Cleo.

  Cleo, however, just studied Ophelia with a quiet contemplativeness, far more unnerving than Gertrude’s show of temper.

  “Very well, then, I’ll say something. You don’t just disappear and not . . .”

  While Gertrude continued her tirade, Ophelia glanced away.

  She wasn’t ready to talk to her sisters or anyone about anything. She needed to slink off, find her rooms, and make sense of what she’d uncovered. “I needed a walk,” she said after Gertrude finally stopped with her lecture.

  Cleo’s dark eyebrows formed a hard line. “Do ya think I believe that yarn?” she demanded.

  Tucking her knife back in her boot, Ophelia sighed. “Was it too much to hope that you would?”

  “Ya were with Steele.”

  Ophelia’s entire body jolted. Had Cleo announced that she’d discovered Ophelia was, in fact, born to the king and queen themselves, she couldn’t have been more shocked by her sister’s accurate supposition. “What?” she blurted. “How? Why?”

  “How did Oi know?” Cleo drawled with some of her earlier outrage gone. “Oi’m yar damned sister, Ophelia. I know ya.”

  Gertrude rocked back on her heels. “What?” Sputtering incoherently, she looked to Ophelia. “You were with . . . Mr. Steele? You lied to me?”

  For everything Cleo did know and was keen enough to gather, there was also so much she didn’t. Horrible, ugly stories of a time long ago that Ophelia had only
ever shared with Connor.

  A man whom she could never, ever be with.

  I’m the daughter of a murderer and kidnapper.

  She briefly considered the path beyond her sisters to her rooms, and privacy, wanting nothing more than to shut herself away.

  Except . . .

  “Though that isn’t the only reason I suspected where you might be,” Cleo confessed, drawing her attention back. Behind her spectacles, a twinkle lit her brown eyes. “Given the fact you were making eyes at him the moment he entered Eve and Calum’s parlor, I trust there’s at least some grounds for suspicion.”

  Ophelia choked on her swallow. She’d seen that?

  Cleo went on. “Surely you didn’t believe I of all people would fail to see how you were looking at the man?” A frown lingered on her sister’s lips. “I wasn’t one of those fancy ladies in attendance.”

  Gertrude glanced back and forth between them.

  Ophelia gave the doorway serious consideration. These were her sisters . . . but she didn’t want to have this discussion with them. Nay, she didn’t want to have it with anyone.

  “Were you . . . watching him?” their eldest sister asked softly. She switched her gaze between Ophelia and Cleo.

  Cleo didn’t allow Ophelia an answer. “You were making moon eyes, and Oi also despised Adair Thorne and drew a knife on him. Things change,” she said matter-of-factly. “Sit,” she ordered, motioning to the long wood table.

  As she briefly considered retreat once more, Gertrude stepped into her path.

  Ophelia slid onto one of the benches.

  Yes, as her sister correctly pointed out . . . things changed.

  Only Ophelia had never truly hated Connor. She’d admired him . . . marveled at his strength and courage, even as she’d resented him—unfairly.

  She’d been wrong about so much. Ophelia scraped a hand over tired eyes.

  Her younger sister, the one Broderick had always had such faith in, and for so many rightful reasons, wandered over to the stone counters. She gathered a dish of sponge biscuits and carried it back, then set it down between them. Cleo sat. “You were with him tonight.” She’d slipped back into her smooth, measured tones. Ones that hinted at her steadying control.