Chapter 19
There had once been a time when the sole reason Cleopatra would have cared to visit the Hell and Sin Club was to learn its inner workings so she could plot its demise and bring it down.
Forty minutes later, after a carriage ride through the empty London streets, Cleopatra made her way through the dark lanes of St. Giles, filled with an altogether different kind of eagerness to visit the hell. One that stemmed from a desire to step inside Adair’s club. That was a world she was wholly comfortable within.
Nay. You want to know everything about Adair Thorne and his world for reasons that have nothing to do with the long-standing rivalry between your clubs.
Adair slipped his hand into hers, and she automatically folded her fingers around his. She stole a sideways glance at him, this man who’d come to mean so very much.
He was the first person whom she’d shared secret parts of herself with, agonizing memories she’d not even revealed to her siblings. And what will happen when you have to leave him . . . ?
A dull, knifelike pain stabbed at her chest, but Cleopatra pushed back the grief that came in thoughts of their parting. She would steal whatever time she had left with him.
They reached the end of the street, and he drew his hand back. “Here,” he murmured, adjusting the cap he’d given her before they’d left Black’s townhouse. He briefly inspected the boy’s breeches and dark jacket she’d donned.
“’ow’s Oi look, guv’nor?” she teased, dropping a jaunty bow.
Adair lingered his gaze on her hips, and her earlier levity faded. When he lifted his eyes to hers, the heat within their green depths scorched her. “Perfect,” he said hoarsely. “You look perfect.”
And Cleopatra, who’d never been made to feel anything but the boylike, bespectacled sister of Broderick Killoran, felt beautiful.
“Come,” he murmured, setting a slow path along the pavement. They stepped around several drunken sailors snoring in the way. “I’ve guards stationed at each entrance,” he explained.
“If they’re worth their weight as guards, they’ll wonder why you’re here at this hour . . . with a young boy, no less.”
He scowled, but he was prevented from saying anything more as they reached the steps of the club.
To the two burly guards’ credit, they gave no outward reaction to Adair’s late-night visit. They did each, however, linger a curious stare on Cleopatra. “Mr. Thorne,” they both said in unison.
Adair inclined his head and reached past them to unlock the door. “Anything suspicious?”
“No, Mr. Thorne,” the crimson-haired guard supplied. He stole another peek in Cleopatra’s direction.
Adair motioned her forward.
As he closed the door behind them, she did a sweep of the spacious, open floors under construction. So this was the Hell and Sin.
Wordlessly, she moved deeper into the establishment, past beams of wood and tables littered with building supplies and materials, taking in the hell. She took every last corner in with her eyes.
Since she’d been a girl she’d heard tales of the rival club. There had been men, desperate lords and underhanded thugs of Diggory’s—and her brother’s—who’d infiltrated the walls of this once great place and brought back details. Cleopatra had taken in every detail of that hated family, secretly longing for a glimpse herself of how they ran their establishment. Her intrigue had only doubled upon learning of the changes Black, Thorne, and their other brothers had put into place: ending prostitution, hiring women in valuable roles throughout the club.
She picked her way over the charred carpet. All the gaming tables had since been removed, and but for several stubborn pieces of satin wallpaper that hadn’t burned or been pulled off in the aftermath, there was little trace of the club she’d heard spoken of.
Sadness filled her breast for all that had been lost . . . for all Adair, who loved this world, had lost. She knew what it was to lose her home to fire, but the place that had burned down about her ears had been dank apartments filled with vermin and lice. She also knew what it was to have found security and shelter inside the Devil’s Den and what it would be to lose all of that and begin from scratch.
In an effort to comfort her, Adair took her by the hand and proceeded to guide her about the club, speaking animatedly. “This is where the additional seating you suggested goes,” he said, gesturing to the area. “We’ll blend whist, faro, and hazard tables on this side.” He pointed across the cluttered but open space. “The roulette tables and vingt-et-un will have their own places over there.”
“We have a similar layout,” she acknowledged. Who would have ever believed she’d be sharing details about her family’s establishment with this man before her . . . and what was more, offering guidance to help improve his business. It would only represent greater competition.
Why did none of that seem to matter any longer?
Because you love him . . . and that is so much greater than the profits earned or the patrons fought over.
Adair continued speaking with a boyish enthusiasm that only made her feel all the more miserable. I want him to be the bearish, angry man who confiscated my blade.
She allowed him to tug her to the back of the hell. “These are the private game rooms you suggested,” he said as she stepped inside.
This space, largely complete, bore no hint of the chaos of the previous part of the establishment. Sapphire-blue satin wallpaper had been affixed to the walls. Rich mahogany gaming tables were set a distance apart, allowing for privacy. With the matching mahogany bar and crystal chandelier, the elegant rooms were befitting a White’s or Brooke’s, and not the seedy establishments owned by their respective families.
“Well?”
She turned back, and at the bright grin on his face, she hesitated. “It is lovely.”
His smile slipped. “You disapprove.” How much he’d come to know her that he’d sensed that reluctance on her part.
Cleopatra clasped her hands before her. “It’s not that I disapprove.”
Adair looked pointedly at her hands.
Damning that telling gesture, she let her arms drop. “You need to figure out what you want,” she said bluntly, giving him the truth he sought. “I already told you before, Adair,” she went on before he could speak. “You don’t know what it is you want. You don’t know if you want to be a seedy hell or a fancy club in the posh ends of London.”
Splotches of red suffused his cheeks. “The ’ell and Sin is a seedy hell.”
“Why?” she shot back. “Because you were born in the streets? You rose up.” They both had. “And yet, you’re now stranded between two worlds.” Cleopatra caught his hands in hers and gave a light, reassuring squeeze. “It’s time to pick one.”
Horror rounded out his eyes. “What are you suggesting?” he demanded, his voice graveled like an old Roman road.
She retained his hands when he made to pull them back, tightening her grip. “You’ve spent weeks on the rebuild and redesign. You’re constantly revising ideas—”
“Because you made suggestions that I hadn’t considered,” he bit out.
“Because you don’t want to make this the place where your club is forever established,” she predicted. “You, just like your brothers and sister, want out of St. Giles.”
Adair ripped his arms back and held them up as if he’d been burned.
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” she said gently, drifting closer. “You spent your life believing certain things to be fact: your place was in St. Giles, my family is evil, you could only run a scandalous club.” She tilted her head back so she could meet his gaze. “Not everything is as it always seems. It—”
Adair swallowed her words with his lips.
She stilled, and then she wrapped her arms about his neck and drew herself closer to the hard wall of his chest.
His tongue stroked between her lips over and over until she melted against him, a molten puddle of uselessness. “Are you . . . doing this to silence me?” she managed to gasp out between his bold, erotic kisses.
“Would you care if I did?” he breathed against the place where her pulse throbbed at her neck. He nipped and sucked at that sensitive flesh.
Moaning, she arched her head so he could better avail himself of her flesh. “I w-wouldn’t b-be pleased . . .” She struggled to get the words out, clutching her fingers in his lush brown hair and holding him close. “I d-don’t like to be—” He slipped free the laces at the top of her chest, and the fabric fell open, exposing her skin to the cool night air. Lowering his head, he caught a nipple between his lips. She hissed out a breath as he laved the tender bud, suckling it. “I—I confess,” she cried out softly, dropping her head back. “I—I’ve quite f-forgotten what I was . . .” He flicked his tongue back and forth over the swollen tip and then turned his attentions over to her other, neglected breast. “Adair,” she pleaded.
He caught her up, and then scooping her in his arms, he carried her over to the leather button sofa at the center of the room. Pausing, he stooped over her, his hands on the edges of his shirt. His chest moved with the force of one who’d raced across London and back. She dipped her eyes lower, to the muscular expanse of his oaklike thighs . . . and at the apex where his shaft tented the fabric of those dark garments.
“Look at me, Cleopatra.”
All the air left her.
He stared at her, his eyes hot with hungering. For me . . . he desires me. And she marveled that a man such as Adair Thorne, a model of male perfection, wanted her.
“I want to make love to you,” he said. His voice was husky and low, and it heightened the growing need to have him back in her arms.
She smiled slowly, and then never taking her gaze from his, with steady fingers Cleopatra lifted the shirt over her head and tossed it to the wood floor. The white lawn fabric landed in a noiseless heap.
Adair’s Adam’s apple worked up and down, and he stretched out a reverent hand, palming her left breast. He tweaked the sensitive tip, bringing her eyes briefly closed. She bit the inside of her cheek when he again stopped. But then, he began working her breeches down over her waist, sliding them past her hips.
Unabashed, she kicked them away and stood before him naked.
“You are so beautiful,” he breathed hoarsely.
His compliment fueled her, and going up on tiptoe, she pressed herself against his chest. Gripping his nape, she forced his head down for her kiss, mating her mouth with his. All these years she’d scoffed at the women inside the Devil’s Den who’d excitedly whispered about sex. Only now, with Adair’s strong, callused palms roving a path along her buttocks and cupping that supple flesh, did she understand what compelled so many of those women. There was no shame or regret. There was just a burning heat that seared her from the inside. Guiding her down onto the sofa, Adair came over her and laid claim to her mouth once more. They dueled with their tongues, thrusting and parrying. Their breath came melded as one in a ragged, desperate rhythm.
He slipped a hand between her legs, finding the thatch of curls there. She went taut at the intimacy of his touch, and then a shuddery gasp burst from her lips as he parted her folds to caress the slick nub there. Of their own volition, Cleopatra’s hips lifted, arching higher as yearning drove back all reservations, and she was capable of nothing else but feeling. She clamped down hard on her lower lip as he slid a finger inside and began to stroke her. In and out. Over and over until Cleopatra was reduced to incoherency. “Adair,” she keened his name, and it became a litany. A pressure continued to build at her aching center, and he slipped another long digit inside. She increased the frantic gyrating of her hips.
And then he stopped.
She cried out and stretched her arms up to drag him back to her.
But he only stood, and with stiff, frantic movements, stripped his shirt overhead, then tossed it aside. Her mouth went dry, and she roved her gaze over his heavily muscled chest, lightly matted with tight coils of dark curls and marked with jagged scars. He epitomized a warrior’s beauty.
Adair tugged free first one boot, then the other, letting them fall beside him. He moved his hands to his waist and then slowly shoved the dark breeches off.
Her whispery gasp was lost in the noisy rustle of the garment hitting the floor. She stared on in wonder. His thick, tall manhood jutted proudly toward his flat belly. It throbbed under her scrutiny. Wordlessly, she reached her hand out and lightly folded him in her fingers.
A sound better suited a wounded bear ripped from Adair’s throat, and she paused, looking up. “Oi’m sorry,” she said, instantly lightening her grip. She’d kneed, kicked, punched, and grabbed enough assailants in that very region over the years to know it was given to pain.
“No,” he rasped, guiding her back to his length.
She hesitated. “Oi didn’t hurt you?”
“Only in the best possible way,” he squeezed out between clenched teeth.
Cleopatra explored him tentatively at first, and emboldened by his groan, she deepened her strokes. He was like heated steel in her hand.
“Stop,” he entreated, staying her movements.
She looked questioningly up at him, but he immediately shifted over her, taking her mouth again in a kiss. They tangled with their tongues in a primitive dance that increased the sharp ache at her core until incoherent pleas were falling from her lips.
She dimly registered Adair settling between her thighs, and she let her legs fall wider. His shaft pressed hard and thick against her damp curls.
“Please,” she begged, not knowing what she pleaded for, only knowing he could assuage the ache at her center.
He responded by palming her there. Biting her lower lip as the desperate hunger built, she looked at him wildly. All these years, she’d believed this act was a dirty one that stripped a woman of pride and strength. Only to be set gloriously free, under the power of his touch. “I need . . . more,” she breathed, reveling in that new freedom, abandoning everything she’d erroneously believed as a woman. There was no shame in this. Only wonder.
He slipped two fingers inside her sopping channel, slowly torturing her with his ministrations.
An incoherent plea spilled past her lips. “Please,” she moaned. She had no pride where this man was concerned. He entered her slowly, inch by agonizing inch, stretching the tight virginal walls.
The chiseled planes of his features tightened, and a sheen of sweat formed on his brow. “I’ve never felt anything like this,” he rasped, stopping when his manhood reached the thin flesh she’d preserved in the streets of St. Giles.
For him. I saved myself for this man and only him . . .
“Oi don’t want to hurt you,” he said in low, guttural tones.
Cleopatra held him close. “I want this,” she panted. Before she left him, she needed to know him in this way. Wanted to take every memory of Adair Thorne she could.
He clenched his eyes and pressed forward.
A scream tore from her lips, and Adair instantly covered her mouth with his, swallowing the sound of her pain.
He stilled inside her, going absolutely motionless.
Breaking his kiss, Cleopatra tightened her arms about him. As one who’d been punched, kicked, and burned, she’d thought herself largely immune to pain, only to find she was still human, after all. “That ’urt,” she acknowledged in ragged tones.
Adair touched his lips to the corner of her mouth, then trailed a tender path of butterfly-soft kisses to her brow. “Oi’d rather cut myself with my own knife than cause you pain.”
She didn’t want to think of his suffering. Cleopatra focused on evening her breaths. “Oi’m fine,” she finally said.
The ghost of a smile dimpled his cheek, and Adair gently shoved her spectacles back into their proper place. “Cleopatra, are you trying to reassure me?”
“Ya look loike you’re going to toss the contents of your belly, Thorne. Green like you just—” He reclaimed her lips in a tender joining that rekindled the fluttering inside her belly.
And then he began to move. She held herself stiffly at the slow drag of him. The dull throbbing of pain receded, and in its place was the familiar ache of desire. Their chests moved together with the force of their breaths.
Cleopatra laid her palms on the side of Adair’s neck so she could retain his gaze, wanting to see him as he made love to her. He leaned down and caught her mouth. Then the slide of his tongue between her lips matched the pace he’d set for them.
She gasped and lifted her hips, meeting his movements as he filled her again and again. “Yes,” she rasped as he dragged her back up to that precipice where she’d hovered before. The pulsing between her legs intensified, so she could focus on nothing but the feel of their bodies joining together.
Adair gripped her hips and stroked her harder. Faster. “Come for me,” he urged.
“Yes,” she whimpered. “I want . . . I want . . .” Cleopatra went taut, and then he pulled free and thrust home once more. She softly screamed, exploding in a blur of white light.
With a hoarse shout, he came inside her in long, rippling waves. Rapturous shudders racked her body as she took all of him. His chest heaving, Adair collapsed. He caught his weight with his elbows, anchoring them on either side of her head.
Tears pricked behind her lashes as their ragged breaths filtered around the quiet of the room. She tried to speak. “I never felt . . . I didn’t know . . . I . . .” Cleopatra struggled to find adequate words to capture what she was feeling—and failed.
Adair kissed the tip of her nose, that gesture so achingly tender, her heart filled all the more with her love for him. “This isn’t why I brought you here,” he said, a smile in his voice.
In one fluid movement, he rolled her from under him. She gasped as he reversed their bodies’ positions and brought her atop him. The crisp curls matting his chest tickled her cheek. Cleopatra struggled herself into a semiupright position and propped her chin on him. “I would not mind if you did,” she teased.
He gave her a teasing swat on her backside, eliciting a sharp laugh. “Minx.” Adair opened his eyes, and her own dazed, silly smile reflected back in his eyes.
When have I ever been this happy? This trusting? With anyone? Having kept even her own sisters out, she’d believed herself incapable of this closeness with another person.
And he’d despise you if he knew who you really are.
It was the ultimate secret she’d convinced herself Adair didn’t need to know because she was only a fleeting presence in his life.
“Why so somber all of a sudden?” he murmured. He stroked a palm over her back in smooth, calming circles that only made her want to cry.
And she didn’t cry. I’m not Cleopatra Killoran. I’m . . .
Tears blurred her vision, and she swung herself upright. Reluctantly, she shifted onto the tiny sliver of space at the corner of the sofa, needing some distance between her and Adair . . . and her inherent weakness for him.
From the corner of her eye, she watched him.
He stood, beautiful in his naked splendor, and gathered his garments. Grateful for his diversion, she sought to put together a shattered heart. Futile. It is futile. She wanted what she could never have—him. Too much divided them. It had divided them from the moment she’d come squalling into the miserable world that was St. Giles, and it had only grown in time.
Her relief was short-lived. Adair fished a white kerchief out of his jacket and returned to her side. He dropped to his haunches beside her and proceeded to wipe the remnants of his seed and her blood from between her thighs.
Averting her gaze . . . praying he believed it was false modesty, she took the cloth from him and finished the task. She set it down on the floor and jumped up. She winced at the soreness there. Ignoring the discomfort, she scrambled into her garments. At her back, the rustle of clothing indicated Adair went through those same rituals.
After she’d finished, Cleopatra glanced at the opposite wall.
“I’m sorry.”
She blinked slowly. Had she uttered that aloud?
“I should not have touched you,” Adair said hollowly.
Let him believe that is what compels your silence. Then, there would be no questions. There’d be nothing more than his own guilt. And she’d certainly caused others enough pain and suffering in her existence where a misunderstanding on Adair Thorne’s part was the least of her crimes. She pressed her hands to her face. Who would believe she, Cleopatra Killoran, was incapable of that lie?
“I wanted this, Adair,” she insisted, turning about to face him.
“You have regrets.”
Not for the reasons he believed. Not even about what he believed. Don’t be a coward. Tell him. Mayhap it wouldn’t matter.
You’re a fool if you believe that.
She needed to tell him. Needed to have it out between them—who she, in fact, was. Cleopatra strolled over to the doorway and looked out at the mess that was the main rooms of his gaming floor. Given their connection to Diggory, Adair was certainly right to have his reservations where she and her family were concerned. She rested her cheek against the smooth doorjamb. “I’m so sorry.”
Feeling him beside her, she looked up. He held himself whipcord straight, but revealed nothing.
“About your club.” She searched for evidence of the same fury that came with any reminder of the blaze. “We did not do this.” She needed him to know that—more . . . to believe it. Just as she needed one thing to not matter to him.
A grimness settled over his features. “That’s not why I’ve brought you here,” he murmured, and regret pulled inside that he should still doubt her word and whom her family were as people.
She planted her feet, digging in. “Mayhap it’s not. But we’ll have the discussion. You don’t know the manner of man my brother is.”
“I know precisely the type he is,” he said flatly, pulling his jacket on. “I’ve dealt with him and men of his ilk since I was a boy of seven.”
The idea that the two men she loved most in this world hated one another as they did gutted her.
“Ya can woipe those thoughts from your head,” Cleopatra said tightly. “’e was . . . is the best brother.”
“You’d defend a man who’d sell you at the marital altar.”
She recoiled. “That is . . . was . . . will be my decision,” she said quickly, her words rolling together, as just the mention of marriage sent fear surging through her.
Cleopatra rushed forward, until just a foot of space divided them. “You think he’s selling me for a title—”
“I know that’s what he’s doing.”
“But he looked after me. He stood up to Diggory when no one else did to protect my siblings and I.” She paused. “He gave me a name and lived to see another day for it.”
That revelation brought him up short. “He named you.” She didn’t know what to make of that halting statement.
Cleopatra nodded. “And he fought Diggory when most others who’d tried, failed,” she added as an afterthought. “He called me Cleopatra”—she dared him with her eyes to make light of her name—“and told me I didn’t have royal blood in my veins, but I was as fierce and as clever as that queen herself.” An Egyptian woman Cleopatra had never even heard of until her brother entered her life with his fancy words and love of books.
“It is a name befitting queens and warriors,” he said, almost as if to himself. “It suits you.”
Unnerved by that husky acknowledgment, she doffed her spectacles and cleaned the lenses. “He swore that someday we would have connections to kings and lords.” She’d laughed at him then. The sheer lunacy to believe street brats like Cleopatra and her sisters would ever be looked at as anything more than women those toffs might one day want to take up against an alley wall.
“And that’s so important to him . . . and you?” Heavy recrimination coated that query.
“Security is important,” she countered. “After . . .” Say it. Say her name. Adair, in opening the window into Cleopatra’s past, had given her the strength to do so. “After Joan was killed, Broderick came along,” she shared, putting her spectacles back in place. She’d not allowed herself to think of that woman who, when she’d burned to death in that hovel, hadn’t been many years older than Cleopatra was now herself.
She walked on wooden legs over to a nearby worktable and stared beyond it. The back of her nape pricked with the feel of Adair’s stare upon her. What was it about Adair that made her able to speak about those darkest times in her life? About Joan and her sister being beat into blindness and the agony of fear and . . . She pressed her eyes closed, fighting for a semblance of control. Cleopatra concentrated on drawing in slow, even breaths.
“What happened to Joan,” Adair said quietly from just over her shoulder, “was not your fault.”
Her breath came all the faster. Stop talking. Please, stop talking. She was going to splinter apart with the pain of that past.
Adair rested a strong, reassuring palm upon her right shoulder. “It was an evil that belonged only to Diggory. You’re incapable of the evil he forced upon you.”
I’m not. Because I have evil pumping in my veins . . . Her throat thickened, and she couldn’t get out that truth.
“You’ve taken over the care of your sisters,” Adair continued, “looking after everyone else . . . and never yourself.”
The unexpectedness of his words held her frozen. “I want to take care of them,” she said belatedly, curling her fingers until the nails dug sharply against the branded D on her left palm. She did. Ophelia, Gertrude, and Stephen were her everything. And now, Adair is, too . . . Oh, God.
“You feel you have to take care of them,” he challenged, bringing her about to face him. “Because of Joan.”
She wrenched away, her heart knocking loudly in her ears. She wanted to stick her fingers in her ears until his words were nothing more than muffled silence. Because he only spoke the truth . . . You’ve spent your life after Joan trying to be everything and everyone to your siblings . . . “You know nothing about it,” she rasped.
“I know everything about it,” he said bluntly. “We all live with the guilt of what we’ve done in the streets.” He took a step toward her. “But marrying a fancy gent”—a man you don’t love—“will not ease the pain of what you and Joan lost that night.”
Cleopatra skittered a panicky gaze about, but he persisted.
“It will only result in you sacrificing your own happiness for your sisters.”
“But that is what you do when you love someone,” she cried out. She tossed her hands high. “I had to sacrifice Joan—”
“And now you’re sacrificing yourself,” he said quietly.
“Why are you doing this?” she implored.
“Because I love you.”
The shock of his graveled pronouncement ushered in a blanket of silence. Cleopatra fluttered a hand to her chest. “You . . .”
Adair opened and closed his mouth. He gave his head a slow, befuddled shake. “I love you,” he repeated, making that profession all the more real.
He loves you on a lie. That taunting voice whispered around the chambers of her mind. She closed her eyes tight, and Diggory’s face was there. His evil smile, pockmarked visage . . .
Cleopatra whirled away from him. “Ya love me,” she spat. “Ya don’t know anything about me . . .” Whereas Cleopatra knew everything about who this man was. Knew he was good and honorable and that he put thoughts of the women inside his club above profit, sparing them from a life of prostitution.
“I know so much.”
She could hear the gentle smile in his voice.
But not the most important part.
“You’re fearless and clever and strong and—”
“Diggory was my father.”
Adair froze midsentence, his rugged features forming a frozen mask. Was it shock? Horror? Disbelief? Mayhap it was all three etched there?
“What?” he asked, taking a step back.
She followed that slight, but telling, movement, and her heart shattered, falling into a million useless pieces at his feet. Damn you for loving him. And damn you for caring that it matters to him. An agonized laugh bubbled in her chest, and she forcibly fought it back. After the terror Diggory had inflicted upon Adair’s family, how had she been naive enough to believe it might not matter to Adair? “Diggory was my father,” she repeated, watching his features closely. “’e sired me. Gave me life.” How many ways could she say it that it might sink into his confused state?
Horror flashed to life in his green eyes. “Your father,” he echoed dumbly.
And it was then she had confirmation of what she’d always known. There could never, ever be anything more with Adair. It wouldn’t have mattered if there was no need for a nobleman for her. For a great chasm had always and would always exist between them. Her hatred for Mac Diggory burned through her like a cancer, vicious and biting. That mark of hate in itself was testament to her late sire.
And with Adair standing there ashen-faced and silent, Cleopatra did what she’d always done—she fled.
“Cleopatra!” His startled shout stretched across the quiet.
Heart pumping, she flew through the decrepit club, bolting for that doorway.
“Stop,” he called out, his voice closer. Then a loud crash, and a thunder of curses.
Not sparing a glance, she raced out the front of the Hell and Sin, past the startled guards, and into the familiar streets of St. Giles—free.