Wicked and the Wallflower

Chapter Twenty-Five

Devil spent hours that evening in the muck of the Thames, working the hook, the best way for him to keep his mind off what he’d done. He’d hauled and lifted until his muscles were raw, until his clothes were drenched with sweat and it felt as though the skin from his shoulders had been flayed. Only then did he find it in him to return home, aching and stinking and tired enough to have a promise of a bath and sleep before he woke, hard and hot and reaching for the one thing he could not have.

Christ. It had been barely a day and he missed her like air.

He cursed and unlocked the door to his offices, the building heavy with silence.

Letting exhaustion come, he climbed the stairs and extended a key into the lock, only to discover that no key was necessary. Someone had unlocked the door to his chamber and, while there were half a dozen plausible possibilities, there was only one person he wished it to be, even as he wished for it to be anyone but her.

He pushed the door open, the hinge groaning beneath the slow movement.

Felicity was standing at the center of his offices, in the most beautiful pink gown he’d ever seen—the kind of gown any man would kill to remove—still and straight and serene, her eyes instantly on his, as though she’d been standing there forever, waiting for him. As though she would stand there forever, until he returned.

Past and future and glorious, impossible present.

He entered, closing the door behind him, steeling himself for what was to come. Summoning the strength to send her packing again. “I would ask you how you got into the building, but I don’t think I would like the answer.” He lifted his chin at her dress, unable to stop himself from pointing out the finery. “Covent Garden has never seen a frock such as that, my lady.”

She did not look down at it. “I came from the Northumberland ball.”

He whistled, long and low. “Did you give the nobs my regards?”

“I did not, as a matter of fact,” she said. “I was too busy ending my engagement.”

The words rioted through him. He moved toward her without thought. False. There was a single thought. Yes. Yes, she was free, and could finally, finally, be his.

Except she couldn’t. “Why?”

“Because I did not wish to marry the duke, or anyone else in the aristocracy.”

Marry me.

She went on. “Because I thought that if I did it there—if I ended my engagement publicly, in front of all the ton—then you would see that I was willing to turn my back on that world and join you here, in this place.”

His heart began to pound.

“You see, after that . . . after striking the duke in public—”

“You hit him?” He reached for her. “Did he—”

She recoiled from his touch and he stilled, dread and something else settling, instantly, in his gut. Fear. “I did, as a matter of fact. At the center of a ballroom in the seat of one of the most powerful dukedoms in history. I’m well and truly ruined now.”

He didn’t care about ruination. He cared about her. “Why did you hit him? Did he hurt you?”

She laughed, the sound bitter. “Did he hurt me? No.”

“Then why—”

“I suppose some might be hurt by discovering they’d been betrayed by the man they are to marry . . .” She watched him for a long moment, unspeaking. “But I was never to marry him, was I? Not from the beginning?”

The question settled between them like ice.

“Was I, Devil?”

He pressed his lips together, suddenly off-kilter; the ground was shifting beneath his feet. “No.”

“Interestingly, he had no intention of marrying me, either, so for once, you and your brother were not at odds.” Blood rushed in Devil’s ears.

Brother.

She knew.

“How did you know?”

A beat. And then, “I know because you are the same.”

No. “We are nothing like the same.”

Her gaze narrowed on him. “Bollocks. You are more alike than you can imagine.” She didn’t know how the words would sting. How they would rage in him. How they would whisper truth.

“Neither of you thought twice before using me. Him, to summon you from the darkness, to find you after twelve years of looking. But here is the truth of it . . .” She paused, and he knew the blow was coming. Knew, too, that he could not escape it. “I don’t care about him. I didn’t trust him. I didn’t bare myself and worse—my heart—to him. And so, while his past sins are no doubt monstrous . . . while he more than deserved the blow I delivered . . . while I wish him ill beyond measure . . . his sin is nothing in comparison to yours.”

She turned away from him then, rounding his desk and going to the window at the far side of the room, the sound of her skirts brushing against the carpet like gunfire. He hated watching her leave him. Hated the way the air seemed to cool with every one of her steps, as though he might be left cold and frozen without her.

And he would be.

She stilled at the window, lifting a hand to a mottled pane of glass, small and barely transparent. It wasn’t worth filling Covent Garden windows with decent glass, and watching Felicity dressed like a queen and running her fingers down the windowpane only underscored everything Devil knew to be true. He could not have her.

Her discovery tonight was for the best.

She was not for him.

“Do you love me?” The question, so forthright, came like a blow. “I ask because two nights ago on the roof of this very building, you told me you could not love me enough to marry me. And I thought it was a shield you’d thrown up to protect yourself from your silly belief that I wanted that world instead of this one.”

It had been. Christ. He should have told her then, when he had the chance.

Except they’d still be here. And it would hurt all the more.

As though it could hurt more.

“So I ask you now, tonight, do you love me at all?”

He would not survive this. “Felicity.”

He moved toward her, coming around the desk, but she did not look at him. She remained at the window, looking out at the distorted Covent Garden rooftops, all he could give her. “I begged you to love me. I begged you to believe I was enough for you. That I was enough for this place.”

You are. You always were.

“Felicity.” Her name was like gravel in his throat.

“Of course,” she said, a smile on her lips. Ashamed. “I asked all of that because I did not know the truth. I did not know how well I had played into your plans.”

His heart stopped, then roared to a thunder. “Felicity.”

“Stop saying my name,” she said, the words cold and angry. “You don’t have the right to my name.”

That much was true.

“Felicity Faircloth, you whispered when you came into my bedchamber all those nights ago and made me promises no man would ever be able to keep. You mocked my fairy-tale name, telling me you could give me the fairy tale. Promising it to me. Knowing it was all I ever wanted.”

“I lied,” he said.

She laughed, harsh and unamused. “So I have divined. You thought you could tempt me into your game with promises of being loved again. Of being accepted again. Of being a part of that world. And I went, blindly. Happily. Because I believed you.” He loathed the words. The affirmation of her desire to return to her tower and play princess once again.

“And then you made it worse. You showed me a wide world that I wanted more than anything I’d had before. You showed me a life worth living. And you presented me with a man worth—”

She stopped, but he heard the end of the sentence nonetheless. A man worth loving. He heard the words she would never give him. Not now that she knew the truth.

She shook her head. “You are worse than them all. I would rather have the cut of every member of the aristocracy than your lies. Your manipulative promises. I wish—” She shook her head and stared out the window. “I wish you never knew my name. I wish it had been a secret. Like yours.”

“No longer a secret,” he said. “I told it to you.”

“Yes. You did. Devon Culm. Named for the past.”

“That is the truth.”

She nodded. “He told me you intended to seduce me out from under him. To use me to teach him a lesson.”

He nodded. “I did.”

She laughed without humor. “I shall tell you this, you are the only person I have ever met whose truth is all lies. You didn’t tell me your name because you cared I know it.” It wasn’t true, but he didn’t say it. “You didn’t tell me for any reason but to tempt me further. To make me your pawn. You knew the story would break me. You knew your past would link me to you. And you preyed upon me with that knowledge, all while you planned my demise.” She paused, anger and regret warring in her eyes. The first, Devil could manage—he’d always been able to manage anger. But the latter—it was a knife to the gut to think of her regretting him. “All while making me love you.”

The words threatened to crush him.

“Our arrangement. All those nights ago. You were to have given me the duke, and I was to have given you a favor. What was the debt you planned to collect?”

“Felicity.”

“What was it?” Her fury was like a blow.

“One night.” Christ, he felt like a monster. “Your ruination.”

A beat. Then, softly, to herself more than him, “No heirs.” She laughed, humorless. “I don’t know which is worse,” she said, and he heard the sadness in her voice. “The fact that you intended to ruin me for sport, or . . .”

“It wasn’t sport.”

“Revenge is sport. It isn’t important. Nothing changes in the end, and double the wrongs have been committed.” She paused. “And innocent people have been hurt. I have been hurt.” Guilt slammed through him as she spoke, as she turned her beautiful brown eyes on him and said, “I have been hurt a thousand times, and none of them have mattered in comparison to this . . . in comparison to you. Devil, indeed.”

He ran a hand over his chest, where an ache had settled—one he did not expect to ever be rid of. “Felicity, please . . .”

She did not hesitate. “What is worse than that, though—than your stupid plan—is that I would have given you a thousand nights. And all you had to do was ask.” She looked away from him. “What a fool I was, thinking I could go up against the Devil.”

“Felicity.”

“No.” She shook her head. “You’ve made me foolish long enough. You and your pretty words. You are important, Felicity . . .”

Christ, she was.

“You’re beautiful, Felicity . . . You’re so far above me I can barely see you, Felicity . . . What utter rubbish.”

Except it wasn’t. God, he hadn’t meant for it to be.

“And then . . . No, Felicity, we can’t. I shan’t ruin you . . .” She paused. “That one is my favorite. How very, very rich, when that was the plan all along. To ruin my engagement. My future. Me.”

No. Not on the roof. By then . . . all I wanted was to protect you.

By then, all he wanted was to love her.

She turned and looked at him, her eyes glistening with anger and frustration and unshed tears. “You know, I actually started to believe it. I started to believe that I was more than all of it. I started to believe that Finished Felicity could be Fearless Felicity. That Mayfair Felicity could be reborn on the rooftops of Covent Garden. At your hands.”

Every word was a blow, like Whit’s knives, thrown one after another, into his chest, making him want to get down on his knees and tell her the truth. Except, she was giving him the chance to give her the life she deserved. All he had to do was stomach losing her. All he had to do was choose her over himself.

Sadness edged into her gaze, and he willed himself not to look away. Not to reach for her. Not to move. “I worked the plan for you, didn’t I? I made the decision for you. I chose ruination, thinking it was going to bring me happiness.” She scoffed. “Thinking I could convince you, in it, that we could be happy. That I didn’t want any of that if I could have this. If I could have you. How you must have laughed. How you must have rejoiced.”

No. Christ, no. Nothing about the night on the roof was about revenge. None of it was about his brother. It had been about her, and about him, and about the knowledge that she was all he’d ever wanted, laid bare before him. Forever.

She hadn’t been the one reborn on the roof, he had been.

But if he told her that, she would stay. And he couldn’t have her stay. Not here. Not when he could give her the rest of the world.

Sadness gave way to anger. Good. Anger was good. She could channel anger. She could survive it. And so he would stoke that anger. “Shall I tell you something true?”

“Yes,” she said, and he hated the word on her lips . . . that word that had echoed in his ear as he’d made love to her. That word that meant they were together. That they were partners. The word that marked her pleasure and their future.

But there was no shared future. Only hers. He could give her a future. He could give her the present. And she deserved it. She deserved all time.

“Tell me,” she said, letting the words come, angry and forceful. “Tell me something true, you liar.”

So he did the only thing he could do. He cut her loose from this world that did not deserve her. He set her free.

He lied.

“You were the perfect revenge.”

She went still, her eyes going narrow with a hot loathing that was nothing close to the one he had for himself—the one that seeped through him, settling in muscle and bone and stealing every shred of happiness he might ever have.

Loathing was good, he told himself. Loathing was not tears.

But it also was not love.

He’d stolen that from her, like a thief. No, not from her. From himself.

And his love, his beautiful, spinster, wallflower lockpick, she did not cry. Instead she lifted her chin and said, calm as a queen, “You deserve the darkness.”

And she left him to it.