Chapter 22
“You were saved by one of Black’s men.”
Sprawled in her bed, with her burned leg now treated, bandaged, and propped up, Cleopatra stared at the trio of young women at her bedside.
Reggie jammed an elbow into Ophelia’s side.
“Oomph. What?” her sister groused. “We were all thinking it, and someone really should have said it . . . long before now.”
“I believe Cleopatra knows very well who saved her,” Gertrude said with her usual pragmatism. “She wasn’t unconscious, just . . .” Burned and weak from the smoke inhalation. But she’d always known who’d braved a burning building and saved her. Not one of Black’s men. Not a rival, nor a member of Black’s gang. Not even her brother, who’d come to the base of the burning Hell and Sin. Rather, Adair Thorne, who’d lost his family to fire and risked that same torturous fate—for her.
And it had been her youngest brother who’d destroyed everything Adair had loved.
Tears filled her eyes. Only it was Stephen, not the brother everyone had believed was guilty.
Ophelia patted her hand. “There is no shame in being saved by a Black. We’re just happy you are alive.”
Cleopatra blinked slowly. Is that what her sisters believed accounted for her misery? That Cleopatra’s hatred was so great that she lay here—ashamed for having been rescued by Adair?
As her sisters spoke over one another, she stared blankly back, feeling like an outsider in a foreign world. That is who I was, too. Judgmental and guided so much by hatred that she couldn’t see they were all defined not by their kin . . . but by who they were on the inside.
Adair had shown her that. That she was so very much more than Diggory.
Cleopatra turned her face away.
And my family repaid that gift by torching that which he loved most.
Removing the spare pair of spectacles she’d donned since hers had been lost, Cleopatra brushed back the tears streaking down her cheeks.
Clearing her throat, Ophelia quietly spoke. “I trust it will not leave too bad a scar.”
“Do you know me so little you believe I care about the scars?” Cleopatra cried, that hoarse shout ushering in another wave of thick silence. The puckered, blistered flesh just above her ankle was excruciating by its own right, and stung with the same vicious pain as when Diggory had branded her. And yet . . . her heart crumpled. “There are altogether different types of suffering,” she said tiredly.
“Oh, dear. You are. . . crying.”
And if she weren’t so bloody miserable and hurting inside, she’d have found amusement at the horror wrapped in Ophelia’s tone, and the scolding administered once again by Reggie.
“She is entitled to a good cry,” Reggie said softly. “She’s endured more than most these four weeks.”
They of course assumed she’d been silently suffering in Black’s residence, and her near death atop a burning building was the cause of her moroseness.
“Oi can’t do it.” The admission ripped from her still raw throat, and the three women looked at her like she’d descended into the final depth of madness. “Oi can’t marry a nob to make Broderick his connections.” Odd that it should be easier to speak about her decision than the uncertain fate of her brother. The crime of burning down a nobleman’s club would only be met with a fate of Newgate. Of course, given Stephen’s treachery against him and his family, there could never, ever be anything more with Adair . . . she still couldn’t sell herself in marriage. Not when her heart would only belong to him.
Cleopatra sucked in a shuddery breath through her teeth, grateful that they’d never been a family to pry and probe. Their silence allowed her to gather her thoughts. She lifted her gaze from the floral coverlet and met her sisters’ gazes. “Oi thought I could . . .” And then for the first time in the whole of her existence, she uttered words she never before had . . . and certainly never thought to give to her sisters. “But I can’t. I cannot marry a nob.” Not any gentleman. Not even to save her siblings.
Silence enveloped the room.
“I love him.”
Ophelia cocked her head and did a search of the room with her gaze. “Love who?” she blurted, startling a painful laugh from Cleopatra.
She buried her face in her palms. “Adair Thorne.”
“Thorne? You love one of Black’s . . . oomph.” Ophelia cursed. “Would you stop hitting me, Reggie?”
“Let your sister talk,” Reggie chided.
Biting her lower lip, Cleopatra managed a shaky nod. “I love him.” She breathed that aloud inside the Devil’s Den, in this room she’d slept in since she’d been a girl, schooled on all the reasons to hate Adair Thorne and his family. “He’s a good man. He became my friend.” Once she would have cringed at uttering that admission aloud, feeling weak for it. “We talked about everything, and he never sought to change me but solicited my opinion and teased with me and didn’t think me silly for wanting to dance—”
“You . . . want to dance?” Ophelia squawked. “You, who mocked me for enjoying Monsieur La Frange’s lessons, all of a sudden like oomph . . . by God, if you jab me one more time, Reggie—”
“And he danced with me,” Cleopatra whispered. And he’d made love to her. “And . . .” I want it all with him. I want to be his wife and partner in every way. Unable to share those intimate truths with even her sisters, she fell silent. “And it cannot be, any longer.”
“Because of Stephen,” Gertrude supplied.
She nodded once. Because despite all her assurances to the contrary, her family was responsible for the very crime she’d so adamantly insisted against from the very start. Reggie stuck a kerchief under her nose, and Cleopatra took it and blew her nose noisily into the fabric. “I cannot marry a lord,” she looked to her sisters. “Not even for you.”
“Is that what you believe?” Gertrude demanded, hurt lending a tremor to her voice. “That we’d ever expect you to sacrifice your happiness . . . for us?”
“Happiness,” she echoed, a tear escaping from behind her lashes. She furiously swatted at it. There can be no future with Adair in it, and as such, there could be none of the happiness her sister spoke of.
When Gertrude made to speak, Reggie held a hand up. “May I speak to Cleo, alone?”
Gertrude and Ophelia hesitated, then reluctantly made their leave.
“They’re listening at the door,” Cleopatra whispered as soon as they’d gone.
Reggie settled into the chair beside Cleopatra’s bed. “Then we’ll have to speak more quietly.” She gathered Cleopatra’s hands and gave them a firm squeeze. “Your brother, as long as I have known him, has been relentless in whatever goal he’s set.” A wistful smile hovered on the crimson-haired woman’s lips. “If he wanted noblemen as patrons inside of the most dangerous hell in London, he merely decided on a number and that happened.” A little laugh bubbled past her lips, clear and bell-like. “I often said he could convince rain to cede control of the English sun over the sky.” Her smile dipped as a melancholy darkened her blue-green gaze. “I never knew there was a man such as him.”
Frowning, Cleopatra studied the other woman’s reaction, truly listening to Reggie. My God . . . “You care for him,” she blurted.
Crimson color chased away every last freckle on Reggie’s face. “What . . . ?” she squawked, slapping a hand to her chest. “No. I . . . you don’t . . .” She stammered. “You misunderstand what I was . . . am trying to say. Your brother . . .” Reggie scrunched her mouth up.
Her brother, whom Reggie very clearly had feelings for. Mayhap Cleopatra saw it now because her own heart had been so opened.
“Your brother cannot be deterred in any of his goals,” the other woman finally settled for. “He can convince a person to do anything and even get that person to believe they, in fact, were the owner of the decision.” She held her gaze. “But he cannot control Gertrude and he cannot control Ophelia.” She paused. “And he cannot control you. They will be all right. They’ll find love.” Just as I did . . .
“There cannot be love. Not with . . .” Her lower lip quivered, and she bit it to hide that tremble. “Not with everything that’s come.”
Reggie smoothed her palm over the top of Cleopatra’s head. “There’ll always be love. That won’t go away simply because of anything that’s come to pass or won’t or will. You love him,” she said simply. “And if he’s truly a man who’s deserving of your love, he’ll not hold you to blame for your brother’s crimes.”
The chamber door opened, and Broderick stepped inside.
Reggie instantly hopped up. “I’ll leave you to speak with your brother,” she said quietly.
Cleopatra carefully studied the other woman’s retreating back. She lingered, her gaze touching briefly on Broderick. Wordlessly, he stepped aside, allowing Reggie to take her leave. Her fool brother’s focus, however, remained fixed on Cleopatra.
Reggie shut the door, leaving them alone.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, coming over.
Like my heart is breaking and I’ll never be happy again. Was I truly happy before Adair? “How is Stephen?” she countered. Since she’d returned home, and the truth of his actions these past months had come to light, he’d carefully avoided Cleopatra. Instead, by her sisters’ accounts, he remained largely confined to his rooms, with a guard assigned him.
Broderick lingered at the doorway. “He’s afraid to see you.”
Conflict raged within. Had Stephen been born to a different station and a different lot, he would have been a child. But he’d been shaped by the ugliness of life, like all of them. “I’m his sister,” she finally said. Of all the people to fear, Cleopatra should be the last of them.
Silently, Broderick reached behind him, pressing the handle.
Shuffling back and forth on his feet, Stephen directed his gaze to the floor. And in this instance, he’d the look of the child he, in fact, was.
“Stephen,” she greeted in steady tones, wanting to rail at him, knowing it would accomplish nothing. No diatribe she rained down on him could ever restore all Adair had lost. And all I lost, as well . . .
Her youngest sibling reluctantly picked his head up.
Broderick motioned him forward, that single, wordless command as masterful on the always recalcitrant child as it was on all the most hardened thugs in the streets. Stephen came to a stop beside him.
“Why?” she implored. “Why would you do this?”
“I—I did not think you would b-be angry if you found out.” He spoke so faintly, Cleopatra leaned forward in a bid to hear. “They are the enemy.”
They are the enemy.
Cleopatra sank back.
Four words Diggory had uttered countless times to all of them, passing down the torch of his hatred, keeping that flame burning strong. Cleopatra herself had been as guilty of hating sight unseen, knowing nothing really about Adair or his brothers. She looked hopelessly at her brother.
“We are not arsonists or murderers, Stephen.” Broderick’s harsh chastisement set the boy’s lips to trembling.
“I didn’t want anyone to die.”
Which by the miracle of God himself, no one had. But others had been burned in the first blaze set by him, and cherished businesses had been lost.
Cleopatra turned her palms up. “Then tell me why. Make me understand—”
“Because I didn’t want you to go there,” Stephen cried out. “I wanted you to stay here with me . . . with us.”
Her heart cracked.
“And you knew if the truce were broken, that Ryker Black would force me to return,” she breathed.
Her youngest brother nodded once.
Over the top of his bent head, Cleopatra and Broderick exchanged looks.
“It’s all your fault,” Stephen snarled at Broderick, and then favoring him with a dark glare, he raced from the room, slamming the door in his wake.
Broderick dusted a tired hand over his face. “Black and his brothers came by a short while ago.”
She froze. His brothers. Adair. Adair had come. Did he wonder after her? Wish to see her? Or had it all been about exacting payment? “Wh-what will happen to him?”
Her brother grabbed the chair vacated a short while ago by Reggie and pulled it closer to the bed. “Black asked if I was capable of watching after him to see that he doesn’t carry out the same acts.” Again. “I assured him I would,” he said, after he’d sat.
Her heart thudded wildly as she silently screamed for him to continue.
“They promised not to pursue criminal charges.”
“What?” she whispered.
Stretching his legs out before him, Broderick shrugged. “It would seem Adair Thorne convinced them that the child should not be punished, but mentored.”
If it was possible, her heart filled to overflowing with her love for him.
“I’m not marrying a lord,” she said without preamble, wanting her piece said. He froze. She loved her brother, would always love him, and understood the hunger for security, but she now knew it could not come at the cost of her, or any of her siblings’, happiness. “I don’t want to marry anyone.”
Broderick lowered his eyebrows. “You don’t want to marry anyone?”
No, that wasn’t altogether accurate, either. “I love him. I love Adair Thorne, and I don’t care about the security, wealth, or connections that would come in marrying a lord.” When at one time nothing had seemed more vital. “I’ll not wed when my heart belongs to another.”
Her profession was met with a blanket of silence. Broderick drummed his fingertips on the scalloped arms of his seat. “Adair Thorne of the Hell and Sin?”
She nodded. “I don’t believe there is another Adair Thorne, is there?” she asked in a bid for levity.
He abruptly stopped his incessant tapping. “He’s not who I imagined as a husband for you,” he said drily.
No, with his lack of noble connections, Adair wouldn’t have been, but she loved him for who he was. “He is a good man, Broderick.”
“We may beg to differ there,” he muttered under his breath.
“Our brother burned his club down, and he forgave him. Convinced his brothers to do the same,” she said directly. “I don’t know a better man.”
Broderick sighed. “I only wanted you with the best.”
And to him, a link to the peerage defined that. “I’m tired, Broderick,” she said wearily, lying back down.
“Of course.” He shoved to his feet, pausing when he reached the doorway. “You’re certain you love him?” he tried again. “Because I believe—”
“I love him, Broderick.”
Mumbling, he gave his head a shake.
“And Broderick,” she called, when he’d opened the heavy panel.
He glanced back.
“Someday you’ll understand something of it, too.”
Broderick snorted. “I assure you that will certainly never be a concern there. You’re certain about—”
“I said, I’m certain.” Cleopatra pointed to the doorway.
Sighing, he let himself out.
Cleopatra lay there, grateful for the click of the door signaling the parade of visitors was at an end. She didn’t want any more questions about her time with Adair or discussions about the fire that had ruined his club. And her heart. She didn’t want to talk about how her heart was aching anymore.
A firm knock on the door ended the all-too-brief solitude.
Damning her brother’s tenacity, she shouted. “I said I’m . . . certain, Broderick. I—” Her words died quickly as the door opened and a tall, beloved silhouette filled the entrance. “Adair,” she whispered, blinking slowly, certain she’d conjured him of her own greatest desires.
“Cleopatra,” he returned in his low, mellifluous baritone.
She drank in the sight of him as he came over. Immaculately clad in a midnight jacket and breeches, he exuded power and beauty. How was it possible to so miss a person after just a single day apart? “How did you get in here?” She glanced to the window.
He chuckled. “No scaling involved. Your brother allowed me to see you.”
Broderick had? Trying to make sense of that incongruity, Cleopatra struggled up onto her elbows. “Why are you here?” she asked quietly.
Quirking his lips in the corner, he perched himself at the edge of her mattress. “And where should I be, Miss Killoran?” He brushed his knuckles over her cheek in that familiar, tender caress.
Then the horror of the past twenty-four hours slashed into the stolen moment of joy in seeing him again. “Your club.” As soon as the words slipped out, she flinched. “I didn’t mean . . . what I’d intended to say . . .” She looked at him squarely. “I am so sorry about your club, Adair.” How inadequate that apology was when he’d lost what mattered most. “All the hours you toiled over that building, and my b-brother destroyed it a-all.” Her voice cracked again.
Adair let his hand fall to the bed. “Do you know the interesting thing about my club, Cleopatra?”
His ruined club. She shook her head.
“All these years, my siblings and I placed the Hell and Sin above all else. Nothing and no one superseded the club in importance.” He smiled wryly. “Then my sister married, and then Ryker, and Niall, and eventually Calum. I resented them,” he admitted. His gaze traveled over to the wide windows across the room. “I could not understand how they could forget all the effort and struggle and strife that went into building it . . . for a person.”
Cleopatra bit down hard on her lower lip. Unable to meet his eyes, she studied her coverlet.
“Until you.”
That husky murmur brought her head shooting up. She touched a hand to her chest.
He nodded. “The Hell and Sin can be replaced.” Adair shifted closer until their thighs brushed. He paused, lingering his stare on her bandaged lower leg. His face contorted in a paroxysm of agony. “But you, Cleopatra, cannot.” Emotion hoarsened his voice. “When I learned you were there, in that building, I didn’t think about the money I’d stolen as a boy to purchase it. I didn’t think about the first patrons who’d stepped through the doors or the money lost.” He cupped her face in his hands, and she struggled to see him through the tears clouding her vision. Those drops fell fast and furiously down her cheeks, and he brushed each drop away. Another only replaced it. “I thought about you. I thought about marrying you, and having children with you. I love you, Cleopatra.”
She ached to take the gift he stretched out before her. It was all she’d never known she wanted, and now the only thing she desperately needed. Still, reality held her back. “What will you do now—”
“What will we do now?” he amended, and her heart quickened.
We. A marriage where he’d never seek to change her into someone she was not, or would ever be. A union that was a true partnership.
Adair drew himself closer and dropped his brow against hers. “You were correct. I’ve been straddling two worlds, committing to neither . . . and part of that has been fear to leave the only streets I’ve ever known.” He spoke with an animation that stirred an equal excitement within her. “I thought of a club, the way you described, in the fashionable end of London, safe streets where our children will know greater security than either of us did.”
A tantalizing image stirred—of a future with him . . . and babes: a gift she’d not allowed herself even to dream of. Now she let the possibilities sweep through her, filling every corner of her being with a healing warmth. “Babies,” she repeated, her voice hoarse. Not children forced to murder, steal, and beg, but cherished ones who’d be nurtured and loved by her and Adair.
He caressed her cheek. “Brave, clever, beautiful girls like their mama.”
Tears pricked behind her lashes. At one time, she would have viewed those as tokens of weakness. No more. Adair had shown her there was no shame to be found in feeling. “And boys. Honorable, good, and handsome like their da.”
“A compromise?” Adair pressed his brow to hers, an easy smile on his lips. “We’ll have both.”
A half laugh, half sob escaped her. “Agreed.”
He caught a lone teardrop with the pad of his thumb.
His grin dipped as a somberness settled within his rugged features.
“What is it?” she asked hesitantly, not wanting anything to intrude on the future he’d so beautifully painted of their lives together.
“I’ll not have them live as we did. Not in St. Giles or the Dials, but a place where we might have apartments within or a townhouse nearby if you want that, because whatever you want is yours.”
Cleopatra cupped him about his nape and angled her lips up toward his. “You still don’t know?” she whispered against his mouth. How could he not know?
He shook his head once.
“I love you, Adair Thorne. You are all I ever want, Adair Thorne. You are all I want.”
And as he kissed her, Cleopatra smiled, eager for their future—together.