Connor raced through the streets of London.
In the span it had taken him to gather a glass of water and return, she’d disappeared like a phantom shadow, and he’d been left with his world upended.
All the while he’d searched for her, with the grimmest possibility of the fate awaiting a young woman alone, wandering the streets of London, he’d reassured himself with the reminder that no one knew these streets as well as Ophelia.
It hadn’t helped.
Instead, he’d tortured himself with the darkest memories she’d shared. A testament of the peril that faced all people in London regardless of skill, strength, size, or knowledge of those well-traversed paths.
Ultimately, his searches turning up empty, he found himself in the same wrinkled garments, unshaven, and earning a bevy of stares from the handful of respectable lords and ladies awake at this early-morn hour.
Several hours after Ophelia had flown off, Connor thundered on the heavy black panel. That rapid, incessant, staccato beat matched the wild thump of his heart.
By her flight, she wanted nothing more to do with him. She’d been clear from the beginning as to what her brother expected of her and what she intended to do—find a titled husband. When most women would only ever put their own desires and interests first, Ophelia acted on behalf of her sister.
Even if she did not, what makes you believe she’d even choose you?
That jeering, vicious thought wound around his brain.
Bethany had ultimately chosen wealth and title. If it weren’t Ophelia’s sister and the bid to protect . . . it would no doubt be something else.
A vise cinched around his chest. He’d been thrown over before.
Then, he’d been angry, resentful, bitter . . . hurt.
This, however, this searing, stinging agony in knowing Ophelia would belong to another, and nothing he offered—himself, his heart, body, and wealth—would be or ever could be enough, cleaved him in two.
For with Ophelia, he’d never had to hide the darkest parts of himself, because she’d known the demons that haunted him and did not judge him for acts he’d committed in order to survive. He loved her spirit and her strength and her absolute courage that had allowed her to emerge triumphant from the prison Diggory had once sentenced her to.
There were only two places she could be—KnockKnockKnock.
Here. KnockKnockKnock.
Or—
The door was yanked open, and a bleary-eyed, equally haggard butler greeted him. “Wot?” he groused, giving Connor a quick once-over. “Beggars ’round back.”
Connor shot out a hand to prevent it from being closed in his face. He fished inside his rumpled jacket and withdrew a calling card. “I am here to see Miss Killoran.”
The man eyed the scrap a moment. “Ya’re ’ere to see Miss Killoran?” Then his gaze snagged on Connor’s name. Suspicion darkened his eyes. “Ain’t ’ere for the loikes of ya.” He made to thrust the door shut once more.
Connor thrust his elbow in the door. “Is she here?” he demanded, his heart leaping.
“Oi ain’t answering to a damned investigator about whether she is or isn’t. Get yarself off Thorne’s doorstep or Oi’ll beat ya beyond recognition.” That threat was an inordinately bold one, given the amount of panting the butler was doing while they battled with the door.
At last Connor forced his way inside, knocking the burly guard on his arse.
The man immediately reached for a weapon.
Stepping on his wrist, Connor effectively disarmed the man. “Is she—?”
“Wot in blazes is this about?”
He whipped up his head.
Adair Thorne, his wife close at his heels, came charging forward.
That brief distraction proved costly.
The butler punched Connor behind his right kneecap, cutting his feet from under him. With a curse, he went down hard, reaching for the servant—just as Thorne bellowed.
“Waterly, enough.”
His assailant instantly jumped to his feet and looped his arms at his back.
Ophelia’s sister and brother-in-law stopped before them.
“Wot is the meaning of this?” her sister demanded, leveling them with a hard look, which even with her spectacles and waiflike size would be enough to alarm any sensible man.
“This one forced ’is way in. Asking questions about yar sister.”
Connor steeled his jaw. “Is she here?” How did that query come out so even? All the while panic rioted through him.
Husband and wife exchanged a look. “That will be all, Waterly,” Thorne murmured.
The servant hesitated, and then, with an uneven bow, ambled off.
Cleo Thorne gestured him forward. “Our offices.” Our offices. It was a bold stake of ownership when the ladies of London more often than not ceded all control to their husbands. It was a mark of just how much like Ophelia this younger, darker, somewhat more hardened version of Ophelia was.
His heart twisted.
He fought to regulate his breathing in time to his even steps.
As soon as the door was closed, he demanded, “Is your sister here?”
Adair Thorne made to speak, but his wife held up a silencing hand. “Ya do realize that given the hour, your appearance, and yar questions, it implies ya were with her.”
Because he had been. What had begun as an offer on her part to assist with his investigation had become more . . . and he wanted it to be even more.
A future. A marriage. A family.
His shoulders sagged. “Is she here?” he implored on a gruff whisper.
“She’s not,” her sister calmly stated.
He scrubbed his hands over his face. Her family’s club. She had to be there. Except . . . how to go about forcing his way into the secured gaming hell that would take even less to Connor’s appearance than Thorne’s butler? He let his arms fall to his sides. “Thank you,” he said hoarsely. “Forgive me for disturbing you at this hour.”
He made it no farther than two steps.
“Oi didn’t say Oi didn’t know where she was.”
Connor jerked to a stop. His pulse picked up a frantic beat as he spun to face her. She is well. She is safe. “The club?”
Cleopatra Killoran met him with a stony silence.
On the heel of that, the reality took root and grew . . . She’d fled him.
A debt owed . . . I want you to make love to me.
She’d not asked for more. Rather, she’d spoken of a favor asked in return of a debt.
Surely that wasn’t all she had wanted. With every question, the weight pressing on his chest deepened. Her sister and brother-in-law continued standing there with the unnerving quiet stretching on.
“If you’ll excuse me?” he said tightly. “I’m sorry to have stormed your household.”
He made to go, but Ophelia’s sister blocked the way.
She held her husband’s stare. Some unspoken dialogue passed between them, and then Adair took his leave.
I know that intimacy. There was one woman whose thoughts had always moved in a synchronic accord with his.
“Well?” she urged when they were alone.
Connor shook his head.
Cleopatra Thorne pointed her finger. “Oi’d think again before Oi played the lackwit, Steele. My sister was sneaking about in breeches, and ya come searching for ’er not even six ’ours later. Wot’s it about?”
By God, with the ferocity in her too-clever eyes, she’d the skill to rival him or any investigator. “She was . . . helping me with my investigation.” He settled for that vague truth.
An inelegant snort burst from the lady. “And that’s the reason you’ve come bursting into my home, smelling like ya rolled in pig shite with that thick beard on yar face?” She nudged her chin. “Try again.”
He took a slight sniff, wincing. Aye, after hours of running aimlessly about London, rolling in pig shite was kinder than his scent warranted.
“I’m in love with her.”
Cleopatra Thorne’s jaw fell. “What?” she blurted.
She’d been expecting him to prevaricate. And why shouldn’t she?
Connor scrubbed at his brow. “I want to marry her.”
“Ya want to marry ’er?” A look of chagrin flickered briefly to life in her eyes. It was instantly gone, shuttered behind thick, concealing lashes.
“Aye, I do.” He wanted to have children with her, and fill her life with laughter, and be the family they’d always both craved, but with each other. He’d always loved her. Even when she was just a girl, he’d loved her for risking herself for a boy who was nothing more than a stranger and saving him. He loved her even more for being a woman of unswerving strength, conviction, and courage.
At Cleopatra Thorne’s silence, he glanced over.
She chewed at her lower lip, that slight distracted gesture so very much like her older sister. “’ow well do ya know my sister, Steele?” she finally asked.
“I’ve known her more years than I haven’t.” He paused, honing his gaze on her face. “And I know I want to marry her.”
“Our life ’asn’t been loike yars.”
Standing witness to his parents’ murder and his mother’s rape, he’d wager they were more alike than she’d ever credit or believe. “You might be surprised by the life I’ve lived,” he said somberly.
“And ya might be surprised by the loife we’ve lived,” she shot back. “Wot, then? Wot ’appens when—if—you learned the darkest parts?”
He shook his head. “There is nothing that would stop me from loving your sister. I intend to offer for her.” Before she could speak, he went on. “Regardless of whether or not your brother approves.”
“’e doesn’t,” she muttered.
He furrowed his brow.
“Approve of ya.” Ophelia’s youngest sister stuffed her hands into the pockets sewn along the front of her gown, looking years younger than her age. “She ain’t here, and my brother doesn’t want her living here.”
“I don’t take you or Ophelia as ones who’d have Broderick Killoran or any man dictate to you.”
Some of the worry melted from her narrow face; another wry smile replaced it. “Oi think Oi loike ya, O’Roarke.”
O’Roarke. His back went ramrod straight. She’d not referred to him as Steele but rather the one name only one other knew of.
Twin splotches of color splashed the lady’s cheeks. She realized her misstep. For the panic and misery that dogged him this day, a smile pulled. “Don’t be getting smug, O’Roarke. We talk about a lot.” She folded her arms. “There still remains the part of Ophelia now living at the clubs, and my brother wanting her nowhere near ya.”
“I’m asking you to help your sister,” he said quietly.
“Ya’re assuming she needs help. That she wants it.”
That reminder struck like a well-placed arrow. “I won’t know what she wants”—with me—“until I can speak freely with her myself.” So that he might tell her he loved her. And selfishly ask her to set aside her brother’s plans for her and the entire Killoran family for him. “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Thorne. If you’ll excuse me?” Connor dropped a bow and resumed his trek for the door.
“O’Roarke?” she called out, freezing him at the front of the room. “Oi’ll ’elp as Oi can.” Her eyes flashed a threat of death. “But don’t ya dare make me regret doing so. Are we clear?”
His heart kicked up. He nodded. “You have my word.”
In St. Giles, one’s word was a sacred vow not to be broken.
She eyed him a long while and then slowly nodded.
A short while later, Connor was let into his Piccadilly residence at Albany.
“Mr. Steele,” one of his three servants greeted.
The younger man, with Connor since he’d taken his own rooms years earlier, hesitated. His nose twitched.
“Have a bath readied, please,” he instructed, shrugging out of his thoroughly wrinkled jacket.
“Yes, Mr. Steele.” He hurried to take the garment and draped it over his arm. “A visitor arrived a short while ago.”
Connor started down the hall. He stopped abruptly. Ophelia. “Was it a young woman?”
His servant choked. “A young woman?” he repeated, scandalized horror wreathing that echo. “Uh . . . no, Mr. Steele.”
Aye, because women were forbidden from visiting the gentlemen’s rooms at Albany, and Connor, once a slave to respectability, would have never done anything to break with propriety. “I’m not accepting callers.”
“But, Mr. Steele,” the persistent butler called after him, “it was your father, the Earl of Mar.”
That gave him pause. “Should he return, please advise him I’m not home,” he instructed.
Connor turned the corridor—and stopped.
His father stared back. Except this was his father as he’d never before seen him: cheeks ashen, his eyes brimming with sadness, he was a hollow version of his usually jovial, garrulous self. “Connor.” Hat in hand, his gloved fingers toyed with the brim. He moved his gaze slowly over Connor, his eyes taking in every aspect of his unkempt appearance. “May we . . . speak?”
Wordlessly, Connor stepped aside, motioning for his offices.
They entered, not a word exchanged even after Connor closed the office door behind them. Moving around to his desk, he studied this man who’d adopted him. When the world had seen only a guttersnipe, this man had taken him in. He’d given him a new beginning and a future Connor had not even allowed himself a dream of.
The one unspoken request never explicitly stated but revealed by his father’s lack of questioning was that Connor not speak of the life he’d left behind.
As such, with the greying earl glancing all around, anywhere except at Connor, he found himself at a loss as to what to say.
How was it possible to know someone so fully . . . and yet, at the same time, not at all?
“Would you care to sit?” he finally invited, motioning to the chair before his desk.
“Thank you,” his father said, a formal acknowledgment that only further deepened the gulf between.
Connor claimed the chair opposite him . . . and waited. Contemplating his father, his future, his past.
Would the Lady Bethanys of the world who gave of their time and attentions put their own lives at risk for a child they didn’t know, as Ophelia had?
The earl rested his hat upon the edge of the desk. “I trust you are . . . preoccupied with your investigation.”
“Aye.” Each case prior to the Maddock assignment had been a solitary endeavor. Ophelia had been the only person to ever demand entry into his work, challenging him along the way.
“But that is not all?” his father ventured with his usual astuteness.
Connor’s jaw worked. “No.” For everything that had come to pass, the earl’s ill opinion of Ophelia, his unwillingness to accept Connor’s future, he still loved him. As such, he could not feed him the lie, even as it would be easier to do so. “It is not.”
“Is this about that wom . . .” At Connor’s narrowed eyes, he swiftly amended his words. “Is it because I expressed my reservations with Miss Killoran?”
Connor leaned forward, erasing some of the distance between them. “It is because you cannot see that having her in my life has been good. She has been the one person”—his father included—“whom I’ve never had to hide my past from.”
The earl pursed his lips. “Your past has been a secret to no one.”
“But it has mattered to everyone.” There’d been only one who’d never cared about his origins or the evil deeds he’d committed in the name of survival. Tiring of the exchange, Connor eyed the clock hanging over his father’s shoulder. “If you’ve come this morning to speak on Ophelia’s suitability”—the earl’s brows went shooting up—“or to debate me on a subject I’ll not relent on, there is nothing further to say.”
“That isn’t why I’m here.” The earl stretched his legs and crossed them at the ankles. It was the same casual pose he’d assumed when Connor had first entered his household and joined him in the library following the evening meal. “I’m here to ask you to join me tomorrow evening. Bethany’s father and I will be leading a discussion with other members of Parliament. Bethany will be there.”
Ah, the real reason for the visit, then. Yet again, another desperate attempt to matchmake Connor and his father’s goddaughter.
Connor indicated the folders stacked before them. “I’m afraid given the work I have on my latest assignment, I must convey my regrets.”
There was a time a lifetime ago when that was the only match you would have aspired to . . . or hoped for.
With Ophelia he saw how very empty his life would have been had he married Lady Bethany. Respectable. Predictable and safe. Because he’d been chasing safety since the moment Mac Diggory had hauled him by his shirtfront and forced him into his gang.
How bleak and empty your life will be when—if—Ophelia chooses another.
His fingers curled around the arms of his seat, leaving marks on the aged wood.
His father worked his eyes over Connor’s face and then shoved himself up. “That is . . . unfortunate,” he settled for. He collected his hat and placed it atop his head, adjusting the article until it sat perfect. “I am sorry I’ve hurt you, Connor,” he said softly. “I am sorry that I’ve failed you with my unwillingness to talk about those days.” Connor’s heart squeezed. “But you are my son,” he said hoarsely. “I love you as much as if I’d given you life myself. I would spare you any and every hurt if I could. And I would have you know that every decision”—his Adam’s apple jumped—“has only ever been made with your happiness in mind.”
“I know that,” Connor said somberly. Even with this new glimpse he’d had of his father’s character, it did not change his love for him. Ultimately, they were all flawed beings in their own ways and rights. “I am so very grateful for not only everything you’ve given but also who and what you’ve been to me.” He paused. “Another father.”
His father offered a shaky smile and made to go.
But then he stopped, lingering at the entrance of the room. Once more he fidgeted with his hat, adjusting it back and forth. Finally, he turned back to face him. “I would have you know I’ve extended an invitation for Mr. and Mrs. Thorne to join my dinner party.” Connor’s muscles jumped. “Along with Mr. Thorne’s sister-in-law, Miss Killoran.”
Every nerve thrummed to life.
“Father?” he called out.
The earl stopped and threw a questioning glance back.
“I will join you.”
Something flared in his father’s eyes and then was quickly gone. “I—I am grateful to you for coming. This is for you, Connor. I would have you know that, as well.”
Connor stared after him.
His father, Ophelia’s brother—they were both determined to keep them apart.
He steeled his jaw. He’d no intention of having either man, or anyone else, dictate his and Ophelia’s future together.
Now he needed to convince Ophelia that she wanted him in her life.