In his father’s parlor, with London’s leading Parliamentarian friends and Whig counterparts, Connor was reminded once more of the things good in his father.
It made it infinitely harder to continue the icy wall of indifference Connor had erected.
Standing beside one of the ceiling-to-floor-length windows in his father’s Grey Parlor, the buzz of conversation filling the room, Connor absently studied those gentlemen who’d already arrived.
Calum Dabney sat speaking with his wife. The young woman took her husband’s hand and gave his fingers a slight, encouraging squeeze.
Glancing away from that intimate moment, he looked in his father’s direction. At present he spoke with Bethany, that young lady Connor had once hoped to marry.
Connor had never loved Bethany. Not as anything more than a friend. And even that friendship had been forever fractured when she’d chosen to wed another—a man hand-selected as a suitable match by the Viscount of Middlethorne.
Periodically, his father glanced up from his conversation. His gaze would land on Connor, and he’d swiftly jerk his attention back to his goddaughter.
Never had the distance between him and his father ever been wider.
But then, that had been the divide since Connor had left his father’s carriage. Even his arrival a short while ago had been met with a stilted exchange. Unfamiliar.
How he hated it.
Hated that his father avoided his gaze and kept the room’s length between them. As if he were ashamed, as if he didn’t know how to be with Connor any longer.
“Plotting your escape, as you always do?” a teasing voice whispered over his shoulder.
In the crystal windowpane, his gaze collided with Bethany’s. Disappointment stabbed at him, wishing she were another. He forced a grin. “I’ve been assured there is no dancing,” he offered in a bid at levity.
Bethany snorted. “If it were a room full of Tories, that would be a certainty. With a gathering of Whigs, one never knows.”
They shared a smile, and he did another search of the bustling street below for a hint of Ophelia and her family.
“But you do dance with some women, Connor,” Bethany pointed out hesitantly.
Put your hand on my waist, O’Roarke. Oh, blast, I’ll do it myself.
A grin tugged at his lips. Ophelia Killoran was a woman who’d never accept no and would take command of any and every situation, if she so wished.
“Miss Killoran seems like a lovely young woman,” she said, following the path his thoughts had traversed.
“Aye.” As no good could come in speaking about one woman to another, one who’d had marital aspirations set on him since she’d been widowed, Connor met her nonstatement with nothing more than a concurrence.
Bethany drifted closer. “Your father disapproves.”
She spoke as someone who knew. The realization that his father had spoken freely and poorly of Ophelia to Bethany snapped his patience. “I’d hardly allow my father to make a determination for me, one way or the other.”
She recoiled and stared at him with wounded eyes.
“You . . . care about her, Connor.” Again, it was an observation stated more as fact than anything. Nay, I love her. “He doesn’t believe she deserves you.”
“He doesn’t know her,” he said tightly.
Bethany sighed. “Yes, well, they always believe they know what we need or deserve.” She spoke from experience.
“Your father has not yet arrived.”
She looked to the door. “No. He’s not been well—” Bethany’s lips formed a strained smile. “But he assures me he is fine and intends to be here for the lecture.”
Yet this was not a scholarly lecture one might find in a circulating room or library. This was an intimate reveal from two people who’d lived on the streets like Connor and sought to share their experiences as a way of exacting change for the better. “I’m so sorry, Bethany.” She’d been a devoted daughter and had enjoyed a closeness with her father that, at first witnessing, he’d envied and resented. Wanted for himself.
“If you’ll excuse me? I would speak with Mrs. Dabney regarding the foundling hospital.”
After she’d gone, Connor remained fixed in his place at the window.
“Hullo, Connor.”
He stiffened.
Just over his shoulder, the earl lingered. Wringing his hands, he was one who waged a tangible battle with himself.
“This is a wonderful gathering you’ve assembled,” Connor said gruffly, breaking the impasse. This was talk that was safe. The earl’s philanthropic efforts and the good he sought to do.
His father made a dismissive sound. “It is important that one sees and hears with one’s own eyes what is . . . all around us.”
Nonetheless. “I’m grateful to you for inviting Ophelia and her family.” He quit his spot at the hearth and moved to where his father stood. “Her brother wishes for her to make a match with a nobleman,” he continued, “but if she will have me, I intend to make her my wife.”
He may as well have run his father through. “Connor,” he said impatiently, “this is hardly the time to speak on that . . . on Miss Killoran or your intentions for her.” His father made to leave.
“I love her,” he spoke in hushed tones, needing this man who’d adopted him and given him a new beginning to understand. Needing him to accept Ophelia as she was. But even if he did not, it still would not matter.
His father whipped around. “Connor,” he managed, an entreaty in his hoarse tone. He lifted his palms. “You do not know what you are saying. You do not know her. Not truly. Come.” He gave an impatient flick of his hand. “I’ve to speak to Lord Marlborough prior to Mr. Dabney and Mr. and Mrs. Thorne’s words to the room.”
The butler appeared with the next guests to arrive. “Mr. and Mrs. Thorne and Miss Killoran,” he announced.
She’d arrived.
He immediately found her with his gaze. Desire lanced through him.
Clad in silver satin and a glittering tiara atop her crown of pale curls, she was Lagertha in every way.
As Thorne and his wife went to greet the Dabneys, Ophelia fell back, lingering at the doorway. She’d the look of a bird poised for flight.
Weaving through the throng of Parliamentarians assembled, he found his way before her.
“Mr. Steele,” she greeted quietly.
Mr. Steele. They’d returned to formalities.
“Miss Killoran,” he said with a wry grin, “it is a pleasure.” He bowed over her hand and, bringing her fingers close to his mouth, whispered against them. “Given your hasty flight and subsequent disappearance, I’d feared you’d not be here.”
She flinched. “I had . . . reasons for rushing off.”
He angled his shoulders in a way that he cut off their exchange from prying eyes. “You had your reasons? My God, Ophelia, I tore through the streets of London, sick with worry of what might have happened to you.”
“I’m sorry,” she said somberly. “I returned home.”
Home. The club owned by her family, passed down by Diggory.
And yet no man had ever made her flee. “What happened?” he asked quietly.
“I’d not speak on it here.”
Very well. “Then, where? When?”
His father clapped his hands, bringing silence to the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, if I might invite you to take your seats.”
Connor cursed that interruption and, holding his arm out, escorted her to the chairs arranged at the front of the room for those who’d be speaking this afternoon and their families.
After the guests had all claimed their seats, his father remained standing at the front of the room, delivering his formal introduction. “As you know, I dedicated much of my life to improving the plight of the children in St. Giles.”
At his side, Ophelia remained with her attention trained forward.
“I missed you,” Connor whispered against her ear.
She wetted her lips, stealing a nervous glance at her sister and Thorne. The pair seemingly engrossed, Ophelia shifted her focus back to the earl. “I . . . missed you, as well,” she whispered from the side of her mouth.
“There have been conflicting opinions in Parliament regarding the fate of those children. Some contend . . .”
“What is it, Ophelia?” he asked, searching the cherished planes of her face.
“My brother believes you are a dangerous influence.”
He didn’t give a hell what her brother wanted or felt. “And you?”
His father’s speech droned on as nothing more than noise in the background of the only discussion that mattered. “These members of Parliament will defend their legislation with tales of the dangerous aspects of those lives, too. It is imperative to listen to both and see that ultimately good . . .”
She lifted her eyes to his. “I believe I’m better only because of you.” Ophelia dropped her gaze briefly to her lap, but not before he caught the flash of pain there. “But—”
“As such, allow me to present the Earl of Whitehaven.”
All the color leached from Ophelia’s cheeks. She sat unmoving as her dead, horror-filled eyes fixed on the lectern now abandoned by his father and taken over by the earl of middling years.
Connor narrowed his eyes, taking in the way Ophelia slumped in her seat, her tightly curled fingers on her lap.
“Many of you know of my recent attack in the streets of St. Giles.”
All the room murmured their ascent.
“It is a trap,” Ophelia whispered, scratching at her throat.
Her sister leaned over and looked at Ophelia, a question in her eyes.
“What?” Connor demanded. What was she—?
“I was attacked with a knife, and I’ve kept that piece, a reminder of the darkness in the souls of those people.”
Lord Whitehaven brandished a heavily jeweled dagger, and the room exploded in scandalized whispers. Connor didn’t need to inspect the blade, a slightly curved serpent hilt studded with emeralds for the snake’s coiled frame and ruby eyes. He had felt the sting of that dagger against his flesh two times in his life.
Ophelia slid her eyes closed.
A chill snaked through Connor as a recent conversation flitted forward.
“I lost mine.”
She’d lost hers. Lost a piece that had once been the defining part of her presence in St. Giles. His stomach muscles clenched in a thousand knots.
“I was attacked after I attempted to save a small girl from being taken at the point of a knife—”
“Lies,” Ophelia whispered. She struggled to her feet. The earl froze midsentence.
“My God, it is her.”
It was that voice. Familiar. Hated. That night came rushing back in a fury. There ain’t no mercy in these streets. His pleas. His cry. The crack of his head striking the hard, cold earth.
Lord Whitehaven.
She struggled to draw breath.
It was a trap.
She’d walked directly into it on the arms of her sister and brother-in-law. Numb, she looked to Connor, her heart rending in two jagged shards. She searched for evidence of his treachery in this.
Confusion clouded his eyes.
“Stop her,” Lord Whitehaven cried.
Ophelia bolted.
Straight into the arms of a sturdy footman. Panic knocked around her insides as she wrestled against the servant. Except her delicate slippers and thin satin gloves dulled her ability to strike. It had been likely she’d again see him, the man she’d attacked. Nor would a single lord or lady care or believe the reasons for her actions that day. They’d see only a street rat, an interloper who’d assaulted a lord.
Oh, my God, I’ll hang.
She bucked and thrashed. “Let me go, ya bastard,” she panted.
“Wot in blazes is this?” Cleopatra hissed, brandishing a knife. Cries went up. Several ladies wilted in their seats. “Unhand my sister.”
“Unhand her,” Connor boomed, stalking forward.
In this instance he was an avenging angel, more powerful than even that Devil Lucifer.
To the servant’s credit, any other man, woman, or child, with the fury of Connor O’Roarke and Cleopatra Thorne, would have been reduced to a blubbering mess. The heavily muscled servant merely glanced to his employer.
“In my offices,” the earl boomed.
Digging his callused fingers hard enough into her flesh to raise bruises, the servant wrenched her arm back and used it to steer her from the rooms. Tears stung her eyes.
At her back, the music room exploded into a hum of whispers and weeping.
Frantically, Ophelia searched about.
Connor was immediately at her side. “By God, remove your hands from her or I’ll cut yours off with glee.”
The footman instantly released her.
Her legs buckled.
Connor caught her. “Ophelia,” he whispered. “What is it?”
“I . . .” There was too much to explain. She longingly eyed the path from this place. Her sister caught her other arm and edged Connor out.
“What is this?” she whispered, Adair close at their heels.
“Th-there was a girl. I intervened on her behalf.”
Cleopatra cursed.
Yet with every step, terror receded, replaced with a righteous sense of fury. The age-old resentment she’d carried for the lying lords who took their pleasures and left a trail of misery in their wake surged forward.
The difference was she knew there were those who were truly good. As such, she’d not let this bastard reduce her to a quivering mess.
“Now what is the meaning of this?” Connor’s father demanded as soon as the group had gathered in his offices.
“This woman attacked me.”
All eyes went to her, none more searing than Connor’s.
“That’s rot,” Cleopatra bit out. “Ya’re a bloody liar.” She surged forward, but her husband and Calum Dabney caught her by the arms.
For one sliver of a moment she considered lying about that night. However, she’d make no apologies. “I did,” she quietly intoned, eliciting a series of gasps. “But only after I came upon him in an alley, attempting to rape a girl.”
The Earl of Whitehaven went ruddy-cheeked. “Lies,” he hissed. “Your type are capable of nothing but—”
Connor felled him with a single blow.
“Connor,” his father cried, storming forward. He stepped between his son and his next attack. “Hear Lord Whitehaven out.”
Hear Lord Whitehaven out. Those four words that confirmed this was no chance meeting.
“I’ve seen the work Miss Killoran does with children, and I know your reputation,” Connor said sharply, jabbing a finger at the cowering lord on the floor.
That defense filled her heart with a healing lightness.
“We’re leaving,” Adair said coldly.
“Do you also know who her family is, Connor?” his father called out over Adair’s interruption.
Her throat closed, and she struggled to breathe.
“What is this about?” Connor asked, looking to his father. “I know precisely who—”
“Not her siblings.”
She dimly registered Cleo sliding her fingers into hers, and she clung to them, absorbing that support. So that was what this was about . . . destroying Ophelia before his son.
He turned to Ophelia.
“I wanted to tell you,” she whispered. “I just . . .”
“Didn’t, Miss Killoran,” his father snapped. “You just didn’t. Just as you fed lies about Lord Whitehaven, you also fed lies to my son.”
“No,” she begged. She ripped her hand from Cleo’s and lifted her palms in entreaty, needing him to understand and, more, needing Connor to. “It was different. This was different.”
“You don’t need to do this,” Cleo said quietly. “We’re leaving.”
Ophelia shook her head. She needed to have this finally said.
“I don’t understand,” Connor said slowly, turning agonized eyes to her.
“I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Didn’t want to hurt him?” His father stalked forward, and she forced her feet to remain rooted, forced herself to meet his condemning gaze. “But then, your father hurt him enough, did he not?”
A single tear streaked along her cheek. “I’ll speak to you now, Connor. Alone.”
“The time for that is at an end, Miss Killoran, but then, that’s not truly your name, is it?”
Her heart thudded.
“Ophelia?”
At Connor’s questioning, she shook her head. “That is not my name.” She lifted her chin. “Just as yours is not Steele.” In their quest for a new family and a new start, they were not unlike. “I’m not truly a Killoran, but that does not make me less.”
Hideous splotches of crimson outrage marred the Earl of Mar’s cheeks. “Don’t you dare compare yourself to my son.”
“Father,” Connor bit out, but the earl lifted his hand, urging him to silence.
“Miss Killoran is not simply another member of Mac Diggory’s gang.”
“Not . . . ?”
Ophelia’s heart knocked against her rib cage.
“She is Mac Diggory’s daughter.”
Silence hummed loudly in Ophelia’s ears, muting the frantic pounding of her heart.
Connor shook his head.
“It is true, Connor,” she whispered.
He reached for the high back of the oak chair and dug his fingers in hard enough to leave crescent marks upon the otherwise-immaculate wood.
“Her father killed your parents. Raped your mother. And with her ruthlessness, she is just like the monster who sired her.”
A painful groan lodged in her throat. Did that tortured sound belong to her?
The door opened, and another gentleman entered. Connor’s father waved a tired hand in his direction, and this time when he spoke, his voice sounded decades older. “If you wish further proof of her treachery, Stanley can stand as witness.”
A dull buzzing filled Ophelia’s ears, like a swarm of bees set free in her mind.
She could not move. She could not breathe. Around her the words raced in a nonsensical blur.
Years later, and more than ten years older, time had changed him, and yet one never forgot.
Her eyes closed.
He was fatter, fleshier in his cheeks, and rounder about his middle. A jovial-looking gentleman as soulless as Satan.
Only now—he had a name.
Stanley Alberts. Viscount Middlethorne. Lady Bethany’s father. The man who’d attempted to rape her.
You want it, you little whore. Your kind always want it.
Biting her lip, she was still unable to keep the agonized moan better suited to a wounded beast from spilling out. Fighting the sting of bile in her throat, she searched her hands around for purchase. Anything to keep herself from collapse.
A hand wrapped about her lower arm.
Crying out, she wrenched away, tripping over herself in her haste to be free.
Adair. It is only Adair.
She scratched her fingernails down her cheeks. What was happening to her?
“Ophelia?” Adair urged, concern heavy in his voice.
“You,” she whispered, staggering back, away from the handful of guests, witnesses to her shame and humiliation.
Looking around at the witnesses present with befuddled eyes, Lord Middlethorne nodded once. “This is the woman who once attacked me. Years ago. I’d always remember that hair.”
Look at that hair . . . May I touch it?
Her stomach pitched. I’m going to throw up.
“Seems she has a history of it,” Lord Whitehaven spat. “Attacking an innocent child, indeed.”
Ophelia stood trembling. Say nothing. Challenge him, this man who with his actions that night haunts you still. Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth, and she tried to make it move, to form words.
Why, why can’t I speak?
“My wife had died, and this one, a gypsy,” Viscount Middlethorne spat, a grander actor than any London stage had seen, “offered to read my palms. Tell my future.”
Connor’s body went whipcord straight.
Motionless, pale, and most damning of all—silent.
That silence was a greater betrayal and condemnation than had he called her out before the room of guests. Icy rage froze her veins. Her fury grew, and she turned herself over to it. Otherwise she’d become lost to the misery and horror threatening to break her.
“Liar,” she breathed. “Ya’re all liars.”
The Earl of Mar sputtered, “Madam, these are some of the most respectable, honorable gentlemen in England. Seize her.”
The doors exploded open, and three constables stormed the room.
Adair and Cleo put themselves between Ophelia and the constables, and she took even more strength in that show of support.
She whirled around.
The footman who’d been stationed in the parlor leapt forward.
Panting, her breath coming loudly in her ears, she feinted left toward the window.
Strong hands wrapped about her waist. “No,” she panted, kicking her feet.
“Ophelia,” Connor thundered. His father and Viscount Middlethorne wrestled him back.
With her sister bellowing after the constables, they carted Ophelia off.