Wicked and the Wallflower

Chapter Seventeen

“He could be dead.”

Felicity stabbed her needle into her embroidery hoop two mornings later with a violence that matched the thought, barely missing drawing her own blood—not that the threat served to slow her next stitch. Or the next. “I don’t care if he’s dead,” she added, speaking to the Bumble House sunroom at large despite it being empty of living creatures. “He was unkind, and it won’t matter a bit if he’s dead.”

Except, before Devil had been unkind, he hadn’t been unkind at all.

Before Devil had been unkind, he’d been altogether the opposite of it.

He’d kissed her and touched her and made her sigh in ways she did not know a person was able to sigh. He’d made her feel things she’d never felt before. “Not that any of that matters, as he ultimately became very unkind and is likely dead,” she repeated, stabbing her needle into her embroidery hoop again, with wicked force.

He wasn’t dead.

The words whispered through her mind as she continued her project, resisting the urge to find a piece of paper and send him a note telling him in great detail what he could do with himself if he were dead. Resisting the more pressing urge to toss her whole embroidery hoop into the fire and make her way back to Covent Garden in broad daylight and see his dead body for herself.

It occurred to Felicity that a woman should be able to sense the death of a man if she’d nearly ruined herself with him in an ice hold beneath a warehouse mere hours earlier. And yet she sensed no such thing. The universe was frustrating, indeed.

She set her hoop on her lap and heaved a sigh. “He’d better not be dead.”

“Goodness, Felicity, of course he’s not dead!” her mother sang from the doorway, her trio of dachshunds barking excitedly to punctuate the declaration, startling Felicity from her talkative reverie.

Felicity turned. “I beg your pardon?”

The marchioness waved a hand in the air and laughed in that way that mothers laughed when they didn’t want their daughters embarrassing them. “He is decidedly not dead! He’s clearly had business to attend to since last you saw him.”

Felicity blinked. “I’m sorry, Mother. Who is it who is not dead?”

“The duke, of course!” her mother said, and one of the dachshunds barked, then promptly tipped over Felicity’s embroidery basket and began to gnaw upon the handle, prompting the marchioness to add, in dulcet tones, “No, no, Rosie, that’s not good for you.”

The dog growled and continued to chew.

“I wasn’t suggesting the duke was dead,” Felicity said, “but I might say, Mother, that it’s not an impossibility. After all, we haven’t seen the duke in several days, and so we don’t know he is alive.”

“We do assuming he hasn’t perished in your father’s study in the last five minutes,” the marchioness replied before reaching down to pluck the dog from the basket—which did not work as planned, as the dog simply tightened her grip and brought the whole thing with her into her mistress’s arms.

“Father is here?” Felicity’s brows rose. If the Marquess of Bumble was at home, something serious was happening, indeed.

“Of course he is,” Felicity’s mother said. “Where else would he be with your marriage in the balance?” She tugged on the basket and the dog growled. “Rosencrantz. Drop it, darling.”

Felicity rolled her eyes and stood, needlepoint in hand. “Is that what they’re discussing? My marriage?”

Her mother smiled. “Your duke is arrived to save us from a life of poverty.”

Felicity stilled at the words, honest and somehow flippant. An echo of Devil’s words two nights earlier. Your family will never be poor enough to fear poverty.

She had been defensive when he’d said it, as though he didn’t take her seriously.

But here, as the words echoed beneath her family’s roof, as they wore their fashionable frocks surrounded by her mother’s dogs, who ate better than the children in the rookery where Devil made his life and were safer than the boys who worked for him—she understood them.

What had his life been like?

She might have been manipulated in recent months—pushed to marry without being told why, leveled with disappointment without reason—but she’d never doubted her family’s love for her. She’d never feared for her safety, or her life.

But Devil had—she knew that as clearly as she knew his kiss. As she knew the feel of his touch. And the thought consumed her.

Who had saved Devil from his past?

Or had he been forced to save himself?

Her mother interrupted the thoughts. “Well done. Landing the hermit duke is a cracking good job. I knew you could do it.”

Felicity’s attention snapped to the marchioness. “Well, if one is thrown into the path of enough dukes, one is bound to win one of them, I suppose.”

Her mother’s brows rose. “Surely you aren’t unhappy about the match. This one is infinitely better than the last.”

“We don’t know that,” Felicity replied.

“Don’t be so silly,” the marchioness huffed. “The last one was already married.”

“At least the last one showed emotion.”

“He offered to marry you, Felicity.” Her mother’s tone was getting more and more curt. “That’s emotion enough.”

“As a matter of fact, he didn’t offer,” she replied. “He said I was convenient. That I made the search for a wife easier.”

“Well. I don’t see the lie in that. Indeed, it might be the first time you’ve ever been accommodating,” the marchioness retorted. “And lest you forget, it’s not as though you’re a trial . . . you are daughter to a marquess, sister to an earl!”

“And I’ve excellent teeth.”

“Precisely!” the marchioness replied.

But she was more than that. Didn’t her mother see? She wasn’t simply the wallflower at the ball, desperate to do whatever necessary to win herself a husband and save her family’s finances. She looked like sunshine and smelled like jasmine.

The thought sent a wave of heat through her. When he’d said it two nights ago, it had taken all she had not to make him explain himself. It hadn’t seemed like a compliment even as it had sounded like the most beautiful compliment she’d ever heard.

Men raised in the dark will do anything for light.

She wondered if he realized how much she wanted to explore the darkness.

Except she couldn’t. Her desires were second to the needs of her family. She was their only hope—and it did not matter that she’d never be free of the yoke they wished for her. It did not matter that she’d just had a glimpse of the dark and she was losing her taste for the light.

It did not matter that she had no interest in summoning the duke to her flame. That she wished another moth. A different set of singed wings.

A moth that seemed to have no interest in flying near her.

And so she was left here: not flame. Merely Felicity.

Her family’s last chance.

She met her mother’s gaze. “The duke is here for me?”

“Well, he’s here to meet your father. And your brother. To sort the ins and outs of your marriage.”

“He is here to fill our coffers once more.”

Her mother inclined her head—tacit acknowledgment. “He’s rich as the devil, I’m told.”

Felicity refrained from telling her mother that she knew the Devil, and he was richer than anyone she’d ever known. It didn’t matter, of course, because Devil’s money would never be the saving grace of the Marquessate of Bumble. It would never rescue her brother from certain ruin.

And what of her? Could he rescue her?

No. Devil’s money wasn’t for saving Felicity. And neither was the man.

Don’t come back.

His words echoed through her, cold and clear.

So, she was left here, with the duke. The duke Devil had promised her. The duke he’d somehow delivered. Somehow . . . without telling her how. Without telling her why. Surely there was a reason, wasn’t there? But it wasn’t important enough for her to know, just as it hadn’t been important enough for her family to tell her their plans. To tell her their fears. To tell her how she was intended to save them.

Just as it wasn’t important to the Duke of Marwick to tell her why he was so willing to marry her in the first place.

Another locked door.

This time, she would unlock it.

Felicity sighed again. “I suppose I should go greet him.” She was out of the sitting room, her mother sputtering behind her, and in front of her father’s closed study door in moments.

She rapped firmly, already turning the door handle when her father barked out his “Come!”

Her brother came to his feet as she stepped inside. Her father remained behind his desk, but it took Felicity a moment to find the Duke of Marwick, standing at the long French doors on the far end of the room.

“Felicity—” Arthur began.

“No! No! Accident!” her mother sang from the hallway, a trio of dachshunds scrambling behind. “Accident!!” This as she pushed her way into the room with a wave of a hand. “Felicity did not realize men were meeting, Your Grace.”

The duke turned at that, finding Felicity’s eyes. “What did you think was happening?”

He wasn’t ordinary, this man. He didn’t seem dangerous—but rather . . . uncommon. “I thought you were here discussing our marriage and its relationship to my brother and father’s financial situation.”

He nodded once. “That is, indeed, what we are discussing.”

Was he inviting her in? Did it matter? “Then I’m certain you won’t mind if I join you.”

Her mother was nearly apoplectic. “You can’t do that. This conversation isn’t for women!”

“Girl,” her father warned from behind his desk.

Without looking away from the duke, Felicity said, “I rather think it should be for women, as its entire purpose is to put a price on one, is it not?”

“Watch it, Felicity,” her father cautioned, and it occurred to Felicity that in the past, she might have left at that cold, unmoved caution. For propriety’s sake. To retain the label of good and obedient daughter to a man who’d never paid much attention to her. Not even when she was his only hope for redemption.

But she found she wasn’t much for propriety at the moment.

Nor was she in the market to let her family make decisions about her future any longer. Not when she was their sole bargaining chip.

She was saved from having to say any of that, however, by the duke. “Of course you should stay.” And with that, the decision was made. He turned back to the window, and Felicity noticed that his hair gleamed gold in the room, as though the man traveled with his own light source.

She supposed another woman might find him beautifully handsome. She had, in the past, hadn’t she? Hadn’t there been a time when she’d called him the handsomest man she’d ever seen? It had been a lie, of course. Told to another, handsomer man.

A man who shouldn’t be so handsome, but was, in fact, so handsome it made her want to spit with how irritating he was.

“Where did you leave off?”

“We were discussing the terms of our marriage.”

She nodded. “Without me.”

“Felicity . . .” her mother said before turning to the duke. “Your Grace, forgive her. We raised her to be less involved.”

“That’s only because you preferred not to tell me anything about your plans for my future,” Felicity said.

“We didn’t want to worry you,” Arthur replied.

She looked to her brother. “Shall I tell you what worries me?” He didn’t reply, but she saw the guilt flash over his face. Good. “The fact that even after everything that has happened, you still cannot see beyond your own problems.”

“Dammit, girl. This is how it’s done,” her father interjected. “Women like to think marriage is about love. It’s not. It’s a business. We’re discussing business.”

She looked to her father, then back to Arthur. “Then you will surely understand that it worries me that you thought I was a commodity to be traded without my consent.”

“One might argue that you consented when you told half of London that we were to be married,” the duke pointed out—not incorrectly.

She started across the room, toward him. “Nevertheless, Your Grace will surely understand that I have a vested interest in the terms to which you’ve agreed?”

Her fiancé was calmer than ever, his attention fixed to a hedgerow in the distance. “I certainly do understand, as they are more the terms to which you’ve agreed.”

Felicity hesitated. Was it possible this man was an ally? It was difficult to imagine what he might be with how impenetrable he was. “Of course. I forgot that my father and brother speak with my voice.”

“Felicity—” Arthur began.

The duke cut him off. “I’m not certain anyone in the world speaks with your voice.”

“Is that an insult?” she asked.

“No, as a matter of fact.”

He was a strange man. “And so? To what have I agreed?”

“The banns will be posted immediately, and we will marry in three-weeks’ time. After which, you have agreed to live here in London, in the house of your choosing.”

“Have you more than one London home?”

“I do not, but I am very rich, and you are welcome to purchase another home should you find one you prefer.”

She nodded. “And you aren’t interested in where we live?”

“As we will not live there, I am not.”

The words surprised her. She looked to her father, jaw set in irritation, then to her mother, whose jaw dropped just slightly, then to Arthur, who appeared to be transfixed by the carpet. She returned her attention to the duke. “You mean, as you will not live there.”

He inclined his head and returned his attention to the gardens beyond the window.

She watched him for a moment. “You’ve no interest in marrying me.”

“Not particularly,” he replied absently.

So much for moths and flames. “But you will, nonetheless.”

He was silent.

Her gaze narrowed. “And what then?”

One side of his mouth kicked up in a little wry smile. “You’ll be very rich, Lady Felicity. Surely you’ll find something to do with yourself.”

Her mouth opened. Her mother gasped. Her father coughed. Arthur was silent.

The words weren’t cruel. The duke wasn’t angry or bitter or punishing. He was simply forthright. And there was something in that truth that spoke to Felicity . . . just long enough for her to wonder what, precisely, he was planning. “This isn’t going the way I thought it would.”

“And how did you think it would?”

“I thought you would want—” She stopped.

“Did you think we would love each other?”

No. Love had never been a part of it. At least, not with him. With another man, perhaps, when she was younger. Another faceless husband. Tall and dark and with golden eyes and lips that had been forged in sin.

She pushed the thought aside. “No.”

He nodded. “I didn’t think so.” His gaze lowered to the embroidery hoop she continued to clutch in her hand. He tilted his head. “Is that a fox?”

She lifted the project, looking down at it, surprised. She’d forgotten what she’d been doing before he’d arrived here and everything had gone to pot. “It is.”

“With a hen?”

It was, indeed. The orange and white animal held a silky brown chicken in its mouth. “Yes.”

“Good Lord.”

She looked up to him. “I’m quite good at needlepoint.”

“So I see.” He stepped forward, not lifting his gaze. “The blood is rather . . .”

She considered the hoop, then offered, “Gruesome?”

He nodded. “Gruesome.”

“I was angry when I started it.”

Devil had exiled her from his world and rushed off, armed, to Lord knew where. He might be dead.

He wasn’t dead.

Did it matter? He’d sent her home and told her never to return. He might as well be dead for all he was rid of her. She didn’t like the way her chest constricted at the thought. She wasn’t ready to be rid of him. Or the world in which he lived, or the hints of magic he’d shown her.

But he was ready to be rid of her, and here she was, negotiating the terms of a loveless marriage with this strange duke who proposed nothing like magic.

Here she was, alone once more.

“Is this how you show your emotions?” Marwick pressed on, curious, “Needlepoint?”

“I also talk to myself.”

“Christ, girl . . . he’ll think you mad.”

She didn’t look to her father. “That’s fine, as I think him rather mad myself.”

“Felicity!” Her mother threatened the vapors, no doubt. One of the dogs barked and attacked the clawed foot of her father’s desk.

“Dammit, Catherine,” her father shouted at her mother.

“Gilly! Stop it! No biting! Guildenstern! Enough!”

The dog continued.

Arthur stared up at the ceiling and sighed.

The duke did not seem to mind the chaos. His eyes went to the windows again. “Then we are settled?”

She supposed they should be. She looked to her brother, meeting the brown eyes as familiar as her own. Saw the pleading in them. The hope. And she couldn’t stop the irritation that flared at it. “And so we have it. I marry and you live happily ever after.”

Her brother had the grace to look guilty.

“You deserve it,” she said, unable to keep the sadness from her voice. From her mind. “You and Pru and the children. You deserve everything you’ve ever wished. You deserve happiness. And I shall be glad to give it to you. But I’m not sure I’ll ever stop begrudging you for it.”

Arthur nodded. “I know.”

She turned to find the duke watching her for the first time, something more than boredom in his face. Something like longing. Which was impossible, of course. This mad duke did not seem a type that longed. And certainly not for her. For the life of her, she’d never understand why she asked him, “Would you like to see the gardens?”

“No,” her father interjected, his frustration evident. “We’re not done.”

“I would, as a matter of fact,” the duke said, before turning to the marquess. “We can discuss the rope I shall toss you both to keep you from drowning when I return.”

With that, he set his hand to the door handle and opened it to the balcony beyond. Standing aside, he allowed her to exit before he followed her out, closing the door firmly behind them.

Felicity hadn’t gone three feet when he said, “I don’t care for your family.”

“Neither do I, at the moment,” she replied. Then, supposing she should offer a defense, she said, “They’re desperate.”

He passed her, heading for the stone steps leading down into the gardens, clearly expecting her to follow. “They don’t know what desperation is.”

The words were so familiar—an echo of Devil’s rant at the warehouse—but in the wake of the place and man who had said them first, they seemed ridiculous, and Felicity found herself irritated by them. “What does a duke rich as a king know of desperation?”

He turned to her then, something in his eyes unsettling enough to stop her in her tracks. “I know that your father is a marquess and your brother is an earl, and even if they never married you off, they’d fail to understand the level of want that men can achieve. And I know that if they have even an inkling of love for you, they will regret sacrificing you for their own happiness.”

She inhaled sharply at the words, clear and filled with honesty. She opened her mouth. Closed it. Then tried again. “They are my family. I wish to protect them.”

“They should be protecting you,” he replied.

“From you?”

He seemed to struggle with the reply, finally settling on, “You’ve nothing to fear from me.”

She nodded. “Especially since you’ve no intention of our interacting once we’re married. What would I fear . . . becoming lost in your piles of money?”

He did not smile. “Did you expect us to interact?”

The question shouldn’t have summoned a vision of two nights earlier—of the interaction Devil had offered her. Of the kiss that had stolen her breath and her thoughts for longer than it should have. If that was a commonplace interaction between married couples, she had most certainly not expected it. Pressing her hands to her cheeks to will away the flush that came at the memory, she replied, “I don’t know. I never expected any of this.” He did not reply, and she asked, “Why marry me, Your Grace?”

“I would prefer you not call me that.”

She tilted her head. “Your Grace?”

“I don’t like it.”

“All right,” she said slowly, surprised less by the request than she was by the simple way he made it, as though it were perfectly ordinary. “Why marry me?”

His gaze did not leave the hedge at the far end of the garden. “You’ve asked before. The answer has not changed; you’re convenient.”

“And I positively swooned,” she said, dryly.

He cut her a look and she smiled. He did not. “Why do you sacrifice yourself for your family?”

“What choice do I have?”

“The choice that ends with you having the life you wish.”

She smiled, softly. “Does anyone really have that life?”

“Some of us have the chance of it,” he replied, distracted again.

“Not you, though.”

He shook his head. “No.”

She wondered what had made this man—a prince among men, handsome and rich and titled, so lost to his own future that he chose a loveless marriage over the chance of a life he wished. “Have you family?”

“No.” The answer was clipped and unemotional.

She knew his father had died years earlier, but, “No mother?”

“No.”

“Siblings?”

“Gone.”

How tragic. No wonder he was so odd. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I might be irritated with Arthur right now, but I do care for him.”

“Why?”

She thought for a moment. “Well, he is a good brother and a good husband. A good father.”

“I’ve seen no evidence of his husbanding or fathering, but I can tell you he does not seem a good brother.”

She pressed her lips together at that assessment.

Silence fell, until Felicity almost thought he’d forgotten she was there. He watched the hedgerow in the distance, his stare blank. And then, after a long moment, he said, “It must be nice,” he said, “having a partner in the past.”

It was. Arthur drove her mad, and she was irate that he’d kept the secret of their family’s finances from her, even more so that he’d attempted to manipulate her future for it. But he was her brother and her friend, and she had trouble believing he didn’t wish the best for her. Even shrouded in uncertainty, she knew her family wished her well—they hadn’t forced this marriage, after all; she had.

Even though, now, she did not wish it.

Even though, now, she wished for something else indeed.

Even though, now, she wished for a different partner. A different future. An impossible one. But it was not impossible for him, and she felt she had to point it out. “You realize that without me . . . you might still find a partner in the future?”

As though he’d been far away, he returned to her then, and she realized how close he was, recognized the conflict in his eyes, a beautiful golden brown—a strange, unsettling echo of another pair of eyes that had threatened to consume her.

Before she could allow her thoughts to wander to Devil, the duke spoke. “I can’t find her.”

“I am not she.” Felicity offered him a small smile.

“And I am not he.”

No. You’re not.

She took a breath. “And so?”

“And so, banns shall be posted, and I shall send an announcement to the News for Monday.” It was as simple as that. “And in three weeks, you may begin anew, a duchess, with your family returned to money, power, success. On one condition,” the duke said, absently, his attention returned to the hedge. “One kiss.”

She stilled. “Excuse me?”

“I think I was clear,” the duke said. “I should like a kiss.”

“Now?”

He nodded. “Precisely.”

Her brows stitched together. She did not know much about men, she would allow, but there was no doubt in her mind that this one did not wish to kiss her. Not really. “Why?”

“Does it matter?”

“Considering you have made it more than clear that you’ve no interest in passion with me, yes, honestly. It does.”

He closed the distance between them. “Fair enough. My reason is that I wish it.”

“I—” She stopped. “One kiss?”

He lowered his head toward her, blocking her view of the gardens with his broad shoulders and his handsome face. “Just one.”

Why not? she thought. Why not kiss him and see if kisses were all as magnificent as the one Devil had given her in the ice hold?

The duke was near. “I shan’t kiss you if you don’t allow it.”

Her gaze flew to his. Perhaps the kisses with Devil hadn’t been special. Perhaps it had been plain old ordinary kissing. “Why wouldn’t all kissing be the same?” she whispered. She wouldn’t know it unless she kissed another man, and she just so happened to have one.

“You are speaking to yourself,” he said, watching her, his amber eyes seeing far more than she’d like. “I won’t be your first kiss, will I?”

“I don’t see how that’s your business,” she said, pertly. “I shan’t be your first kiss, either.”

He didn’t reply, instead setting his hands to her arms and turning her so that her back was to the hedge he’d found so fascinating all afternoon. Once she was positioned carefully—for whatever reason—he returned his attention to the matter at hand, leaned in, and pressed his lips to hers.

It was . . . uneventful. His lips were firm and warm and utterly unmoving. And not only in the sense that the kiss itself did not move her. He also, quite literally, did not move. He set his lips firmly against hers, and kissed her as though he were a statue. A handsome statue, she would allow, but a statue nonetheless.

It was nothing even in the same realm as the kiss she’d received from Devil.

The realization had barely formed when he lifted his head and released her, like he’d been burned—and not in a mothy, singey way. In the kind of way that ended with medical treatment.

He looked down at her and said, “Fate is a cruel thing, Lady Felicity. At another time, in another place, you might have had another duke who would have loved you beyond reason.”

Before she could respond, he was pushing her out of the way and bounding for the hedge, moving branches aside and reaching one long arm into it.

He was mad.

Clearly.

She took a tentative step toward him. “Um . . . Duke?”

He grunted his reply, half inside the bush.

“At the risk of being impertinent, may I ask why you are so interested in the hedgerow?”

She didn’t know what he would say. She supposed he might tell her it reminded her of someone or something—whatever it was that had turned him into this odd man. She might have imagined that he would tell her he had an affinity for nature—after all, he was a notorious London recluse, having spent his whole life in the country. It would not have surprised her if he’d told her he cared for a particular species of bird in sight, or a weed sprouting below.

But she absolutely did not expect him to extract a boy from the hedge.

Felicity’s jaw dropped as the Duke of Marwick stood up and hauled the young man to his feet. “Do you know our spy?”

The child looked to be no more than ten or twelve, long and thin like a bean, with a sooty face and a cap low on his brow. She stepped forward and lifted the brim to see his eyes, blue as the sea and just as defiant. She shook her head. “No.”

The duke commanded the boy’s attention. “Are you watching me?”

The boy didn’t speak.

“No,” the duke said. “You wouldn’t be in the gardens if you were watching me. You’d be out front, waiting for me to leave. You’re watching Lady Felicity, are you not?”

“I ain’t tellin’ you nuffin’,” the young man spat.

Felicity’s heart began to pound. “You’re from the rookery.”

The duke’s brows rose, but he did not speak.

Neither did the boy, but he didn’t have to. Felicity did not need confirmation. Something like panic was thrumming through her. Panic and desperation. “Is he alive?” she asked, watching the boy consider not answering her. She leaned down, staring directly into his eyes. “Is he?”

A little nod.

A wave of relief. “And the others?”

A defiant lift of the chin. “They’ve holes in ’em, but yeah.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, collecting herself. Then, “I’ve a message for your employer,” she said, looking to the duke. “You tell him that I am soon to be married, and therefore do not require his attention—or yours—any longer. Do you understand?”

The boy nodded.

“What’s your name?” she asked gently.

“Brixton,” he said. Her brows furrowed at the name, and the boy grew defensive. “It’s where ’e found me.”

She nodded, hating the way the words tightened her chest. “You’d best get back, Brixton.” She looked to the duke. “Let him go.”

Marwick looked to the boy, as though he’d just discovered that he was holding a child aloft, and said, “Be sure to tell him about the kiss.” He set Brixton down without hesitation, and the boy was gone like a flash, over the hedge and into the world beyond. She stared after him for longer than she should, wanting to follow him more than she should.

Wanting, full stop.

Finally, she turned to the duke, who appeared not at all surprised by the turn of events. Indeed, there was a light in his brown eyes that had not been there before. Something that looked like satisfaction, though it made no sense whatsoever why that would be. She took a deep breath. “Thank you.”

“Would you like to tell me about the boy’s employer?”

She shook her head. “I would not.”

He nodded. “Then tell me this. Was I right or wrong?”

“About what?”

“About the kiss being a worthy report for our little watchman.”

For a moment, Felicity allowed fantasy to roll through her—the idea that Devil might care that the duke had kissed her. That he might care that banns would be posted. That he might care that she’d returned home after he’d tossed her out and decided to get on with her life with another man. That he might regret his actions.

But that was all it was—a fantasy.

She met her fiancé’s gaze. “You were wrong.”