Wicked and the Wallflower

by Sarah MacLean

  He followed her.

  No. He followed the light. Not the girl.

  He didn’t care what happened to the girl. Let her explore the hold all she liked. Let her get frostbite for how she lingered inside it. “More ice,” he said, as she found the center of the space, along with its cold, muddy ground.

  “I’m not so sure.” The light disappeared as she turned the corner and it went out of view, darkness crawling over him from the rear. He took a deep breath, keeping his gaze on the hazy shadow of her head and shoulders above the ice . . . until it, too, disappeared, dropping out of sight. She’d no doubt slipped in the wet slop of the hold—a danger of working with ice.

  “Be careful,” he cautioned, picking up speed, turning into the empty center of the room to discover her crouched low, holding the lantern in front of her with all the skill of a Thames tide-picker, searching for treasure.

  She looked up at him. “There’s nothing here.”

  He exhaled. “No.”

  “Nothing but footprints of what was here before,” she said with a wry smile. She pointed. “A heavy box, there.” Changed direction. “And there, a barrel of some kind.”

  His brows rose. “Bow Street is missing your cunning investigative instincts.”

  The smile became a grin. “Perhaps I’ll stop there on my way home. What was it?”

  “Ice.”

  “Hmm,” she said, “I’m guessing it was something alcoholic. And I shall tell you what else . . .”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and replied dryly, “I wish you would.”

  She pointed a finger at him triumphantly. “I’m guessing it was something that came into the country untaxed.” She was so proud of herself that he almost told her it had been American bourbon. He almost did a lot of things.

  He almost pulled her to her feet and kissed the detective work from her lips.

  Almost.

  Instead, he rubbed his hands together and blew into them. “Excellent deductions, my lady. But it’s bloody freezing in here, so shall we head back so you might perform a citizen’s arrest for your accusations—for which you haven’t a lick of proof?”

  “You should have worn a coat.” She waved him off and went back to the wall of ice blocks. “What do you do with the ice now?”

  “We ship it throughout London. Homes and butcher shops and sweet shops and restaurants. And you’re wearing my coat.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” she replied. “Did you not have a waistcoat?”

  “We turn a profit on the ice, or we wouldn’t deal in it,” he said. “I typically don’t dress for manual labor.”

  “I noticed,” she said, and Devil snapped to attention at her low, soft words.

  “You noticed.”

  “It was virtually indecent,” she said, her voice louder, defensive. “I’m not certain how I was not to notice.”

  He approached her, unable to stop himself, and she pressed back, away from him, against the ice. Reaching out, she set a hand to the fabricated wall, instantly removing it when the cold registered.

  “Be careful,” he said.

  “Are you worried I’ll freeze?”

  He told the truth. “I’m worried you’ll melt it.”

  She raised a brow at him. “You forget I have not yet learned to be a flame.”

  For the life of him, he’d never know why he didn’t stop at that. Why he didn’t snatch up the lantern and take her away. “You and your desire to incinerate us all, Felicity Faircloth; you are terribly dangerous.”

  “Not to you,” she said softly as he drew nearer, the quiet words like a siren’s call. “You’ll never get close enough to burn.”

  He was already close enough. “You’d best keep your sights on another, then.”

  No. Set them on me.

  We can burn together.

  He was close enough to touch her. “Then you’ll teach me?”

  Anything. Anything she asked for.

  “You’ll show me how to make men adore me.”

  God, it was tempting. She was tempting.

  If Ewan adores her, it will hurt him more when you take her away. If he’s impassioned, you’ll punish him more.

  But that wasn’t all of it. Now, there was Felicity. And if she allowed herself to feel passionately about Ewan, she wouldn’t only be ruined by the dissolution of their courtship, she’d be devastated by it.

  She’d be a casualty of this war, decades in the making, that she’d had nothing to do with. She’d be wounded in the balance; that was never the plan.

  Bullshit. That was always the plan.

  The plan was to show Ewan that Devil would always be able to pull the strings. That Ewan lived by his bastard brothers’ benevolence and nothing else. That they could end any marriage he thought to begin. That they could end him.

  Teaching Felicity Faircloth about passion would be the easiest way for Devil to put his plan into action. He could woo the girl even as she wooed the duke, and then, just as they were to marry, seduce her away and send his clear message—no heirs. No marriage. No free will. Never for you.

  That was the arrangement they’d made, was it not? The promise the brothers had sworn in the dark of night as their monstrous father had manipulated and punished, never once thinking of them as anything more than candidates to be the next in a long line of Marwicks.

  The three boys had vowed never to give their father what he asked.

  But Ewan had won the contest. And after he’d taken the title, the house, the fortune, the world their father had offered . . . he’d broken ranks and tried for even more. An heir to a dukedom that should never have been his to begin with.

  An illegitimate son, once willing to kill for legitimacy, now come for it on another path. One he had vowed he would never travel.

  And Devil would teach him a lesson.

  Which meant Felicity would have to learn it, too.

  He lifted the lantern from her hands and set it on the block next to her, the light flickering over the cloudy ice, setting it to a strange, grey-green glow. He could see the pulse racing in her neck as he did it, he was so close to her.

  Or maybe he couldn’t. Maybe he only wanted her pulse to race.

  Maybe it was his pulse he sensed.

  He met her gaze, eager and beautiful, and leaned toward her. “Are you sure you wish this door opened, Lady Lockpick?” he said, hating himself for the words. Knowing that if she agreed, she would be ruined. He would have no choice but to ruin her.

  She didn’t know that, though. Or, if she did, she didn’t care. Her eyes sparkled, candlelight flickering in their deep brown depths. “Very sure.”

  No man on earth could resist her.

  And so he did not try.

  He reached for her, his hand coming to her cheek, fingers grazing over the impossibly soft skin of her jaw, tracing the bones of it into her hairline, threading there, catching in the thick mahogany curls, trapped by her hairpins, bent into lockpicks, locking him to her. Her lips fell open at the touch, a soft, stunning intake of air revealing her excitement. Her desire.

  Revealing his.

  With his free hand, he touched the other side of her face, exploring it. Reveling in the silk of her skin, in the way her cheeks rose and hollowed, in the little crease at the corner of her mouth, where a dimple flashed when she teased him. He leaned toward her, fully, madly intending to put his lips to that crease. To taste it.

  “Blindman’s buff,” she whispered. “Your hands . . . It’s like the game.”

  A child’s game. A country house whim. One player blindfolded, trying to identify another by touch. As though Devil wouldn’t know Felicity Faircloth by touch for the rest of time. “Close your eyes,” he said.

  She shook her head. “That’s not how the game is played.”

  “I’m not playing a game.”

  Her gaze found his. “Aren’t you?”

  Not in that moment. “Close your eyes,” he repeated.

  She did, and he moved closer, leanin
g in, putting his lips at her ear. “You tell me what you feel.”

  He could hear the way he impacted her—the breath that caught in her chest, shuddered through the long column of her throat as she exhaled, thin and reedy, as though it were difficult for her to get the air in.

  Devil understood the feeling, even more so when one of her hands rose to hover above his shoulder—teasing him without touching him. He spoke again, letting his breath fan the high arc of her cheek, where he wanted to kiss. “Felicity, fairest of them all . . .” he whispered. “What do you feel?”

  “I—” she started, and then, “I don’t feel cold.”

  No, he didn’t imagine she did. “What do you feel?” he asked again.

  “I feel . . .” Her hand lit upon his shoulder, the weight of it like fire. He bit back a groan. Grown men did not groan at the brush of a hand against their shoulder.

  Not even if it was a flame, hot and impossible in the frigid room.

  “What do you feel?”

  “I think it must be . . .”

  Say it, he willed, the words a prayer to a God that had forsaken him decades ago if he’d ever been blessed to begin with. Say it, so I may give it all to you.

  It was possible he said the words aloud, because she replied to them, her beautiful brown eyes, black in the darkness, finding his, her fingers tightening at his shoulder, her free hand coming to rest high on his chest as she whispered, full of surprise and somehow certainty, “Want.”

  “Yes,” he said, leaning close, tightening his grip and pulling her to him, somehow finding the strength to keep his kiss from hers. “I feel it, too.”

  Her eyes closed, long dark lashes a sooty slash against her skin, luminous in the ethereal, icy light for half a moment before they opened again, found his. “Unlock me,” she whispered.

  The words were strange and perfect and irresistible, and Devil did as she commanded, his fingers sliding into her hair, his thumb stroking over her cheek, sipping at her lips, once, twice, gently, savoring the taste of her—soft and impossibly sweet.

  He lifted his head, leaving a minuscule space between them, enough for her to open her eyes. Her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, tugging at him, to bring him back. “Devil?”

  He shook his head, unable to stop himself. “When I was a boy,” he whispered, leaning in for another taste, a little, lingering lick, “I stole into the May Day fair in Hyde Park.” Another kiss, this one longer, ending on her sigh, pretty as sin. He pressed a kiss to her cheek, another to the corner of her lips, where that dimple lay, letting his tongue linger in the space until she turned toward him. He pulled back, suddenly wanting her to hear the story. “There was a stall filled with sticks of spun sugar, white and fluffy as clouds—I’d never seen anything like them.”

  She was watching him, and he leaned in to kiss her gently, unable to keep himself from licking at her full, lower lip, loving the way it went slack at the touch, the way she opened to him. “Children clamored for those treats,” he whispered, “and parents, lost in the festivities, were more generous than usual.”

  She smiled. “And did someone buy one for you?”

  “No one ever bought anything for me.”

  Her smile fell.

  “I watched as dozens of others received their treat, and I hated them for knowing what those white clouds tasted like.” He paused. “I nearly stole one.”

  “Nearly?”

  He’d been run off by fairground guards before he could. “For years, I’ve told myself that the idea of that treat was far better than however it might have tasted.”

  She nodded. “Tell me the idea of it.”

  “It couldn’t possibly taste near what I imagined it to be, you see. It couldn’t be as sweet, or as sinful, or as delicious.” He drew closer to her, his words barely a breath over her lips. “But you—” He let his lips slide over hers, a silken touch. “You, Felicity Faircloth, just might be all those things.” Another slide, the little whimper that escaped from her making him want to do wicked, wonderful things. “You just might be more.”

  Her fingers tightened, threatening to shred the linen of his shirt. “Devil.”

  “I’m going to steal you, instead,” he said then, knowing she’d hear the words as part of the story and not as she should—as the truth. “I’m going to steal you,” he confessed again. “I’m going to steal you and make you mine.”

  “It’s not theft if I allow it,” she whispered.

  Silly girl; of course it was. But it wouldn’t stop him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  She was so sweet, heady and lush and soft like that spun sugar from all those years ago. She was sin and sex and freedom and pleasure and something more and something worse, and he was lost in the feel of her lips and the taste of her when she opened to him like she’d been waiting her whole life for him.

  Felicity Faircloth was perfection—the first taste of it Devil had ever had.

  She tasted like a promise.

  She sighed and he groaned, pulling her tighter to him, his fingers tangling in her hair as hers came to the rough stubble of his cheek, her nails scraping across it until she was pulling his head down to her, as though she’d been waiting all her life for this kiss, and she meant for it to be worth it.

  Goddammit, he wanted to make it worth it.

  He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her tight against him so quickly, so thoroughly, that she gasped. He released her lips and said, “I wanted to hold you like this earlier, when we were watching the cargo move,” he said.

  Christ, why was he telling her that?

  She came up on her toes and pressed her forehead to his. “I wanted you to hold me like this,” she whispered.

  How could he resist that?

  He returned to her lips, playing over them gently, softly, teasing her with his tongue until she sighed, opening to let him in, all sweet, silken heat and lush promise. And then Felicity Faircloth, plain, spinster, wallflower, kissed him back, meeting his tongue, matching him, like a fallen angel.

  Like a fucking goddess.

  And he reveled in it, in her pleasure, in her sighs and moans and the shiver that went through her when he opened her coat—no, his coat—and put his hands to her. She broke their kiss on a gasp. “Devil.”

  “Are you cold?” Goddammit, of course she was cold. They were surrounded by ice.

  “No.” She panted the response, her hands clutching his shirt in one fist and pulling him closer. “No, I’m blazing.”

  Her grasp almost undid him—she was magnificent, a queen in the darkness. He knocked the lapels of his coat aside, resisting her pull to watch his hands on her, on that pretty white and pink frock that didn’t belong anywhere near this place that was too dark and too dirty and too sinful for her. Felicity didn’t belong here, but it didn’t stop him from touching her.

  “You are blazing,” he said, his gaze tracking the movement of his hands, up the sides of her bodice to the neckline, where silk gave way to impossibly soft skin. He touched her there, where breath came hard and fast, revealing her pleasure. “You don’t need lessons in fire. You’re an inferno.”

  She nodded. “I feel it.”

  He almost smiled. “Good.”

  “Would you—” She stopped, and then, “Would you kiss me again?”

  Yes. Christ. Yes. “Where?”

  Her eyes went wide. “Where?”

  “Shall I show you where you might like it?”

  Her lips curled in a magnificent smile. “Yes, please.”

  Far be it from him to deny a lady. Returning his hands to her waist, he pulled her closer, putting his lips to her jaw, letting his tongue slide along the line of it. “Here, perhaps?”

  “Oh, yes.” She sighed. “That’s quite nice.”

  “Hmm,” he said. “I think we can do better than quite nice.” He ran his teeth down the long column of her neck. “How about here?” Her fingers slid up over his tightly shorn hair, her nails raking over his scalp, sending shivers of plea
sure through him as he sucked at the place where her neck met her shoulder, knowing he must be careful. Knowing he couldn’t mark her. Wanting desperately to mark her. She whimpered, and he lifted his head. “What does that mean?”

  She slid her gaze to his, and the look in her eyes nearly brought him to his knees there in the hold. “That’s very nice.”

  The woman was teasing him. And it was delicious. He was hard as steel, and he loosened his tether, grasping her waist and lifting her to sit on the ice behind her. When she squeaked her surprise, he slid between her legs, her heavy skirts making it impossible to get too close, which was probably best.

  Definitely best.

  And also the fucking worst.

  “This isn’t—” She cut her own breathless words off.

  He reached for her again. “It isn’t the kind of thing ladies do.”

  She shook her head, bit her bottom lip. “No, but I find I do not care.”

  He did laugh then, a short, unwelcome bark of laughter.

  “It is delicious. Show me another place.” And his laughter dissolved into a groan.

  He pulled her closer with one hand, setting the other to her soft, bare ankle beneath her skirts. “You are not wearing stockings,” he whispered at her ear.

  “It’s June,” she said.

  “And in June ladies are able to dispense with stockings?”

  She dipped her head, and he adored her embarrassment. “I did not expect anyone to see.”

  “I can’t see,” he whispered, letting his frustration fill the words, loving the laugh he summoned with the words.

  “I most certainly didn’t expect anyone to touch.”

  “Mmm,” he replied, letting his hand climb higher. “That’s the problem with being flame, Felicity . . . moths want to touch.”

  “Show me,” she whispered.

  God help him, he did, taking her lips and letting his hand climb higher, pushing her skirts up, over her knee, revealing a long, soft expanse of leg. He took her thigh in hand, lifting her leg, pressing closer, and damned if she didn’t come to the edge of the ice block to meet him. He pressed a line of kisses to her shoulder and down the slope of one breast to the neckline of her dress. “Here?” he whispered, playing at the place where her breast rose from the lacy white fabric. He raised a hand, tugged at the bodice, baring more skin, enough to reveal the upper edge of a nipple. “Here?”