Chapter 6
The house quiet since night descended, Adair climbed the stairs to the main living quarters in this, his new temporary home.
It had been one day.
One day had passed since Cleopatra Killoran had made herself at home in Ryker and Penelope’s home.
In that time, her belongings—after being searched and rid of additional hidden weapons—were delivered to her rooms. Meals had come and gone. Trays were delivered and taken away.
And there wasn’t a single thing Adair trusted about her actions.
Calum and Niall had since gone off to their own residences, ensuring their respective wives remained free from any harm a Killoran might inflict. However, Penelope, Ryker, and their babe resided under this roof with their enemy still. And not a single Black would ever know even a displaced hair on their head by the Killorans.
He reached the main landing and stopped alongside a crimson-clad servant. “Anything?” he asked from the corner of his mouth.
At first glance, one would only take the tall young man as a proper servant. “Nothin’, Mr. Thorne. Not even a hint of sound in ’er room.” When he spoke, however, Finch revealed the hardened tones of a London street tough. One who’d gone from guard inside the Hell and Sin to temporary servant.
Adair’s muscles went taut. “Someone’s had eyes on her?”
“Maid went in, went out with the dinner tray about an hour ago.”
Some of the tension left him. One could never be too careful where a Killoran was concerned.
“Adair!”
They looked toward Ryker’s wife, who came racing down the hall.
Finch immediately sprang to alert, but quickly took in her carefree smile and flushed cheeks as she skidded to a stop beside him.
“Hello, Mr. Finch.”
“Your Ladyship,” the footman greeted, and dropped a belated bow.
“You are dismissed for the evening.” The guard hesitated, and then beat a quick retreat. The ever-cheerful viscountess turned her focus to Adair. “If I might speak to you? There is a matter of import I’d discuss.”
With him? He eyed her warily, and with a nod at the other man, sent him back to the shadows he’d occupied at the end of the hall. Adair looked to Ryker’s wife. “Is everything all—”
“Fine, just fine,” she hurried to assure him. His sister-in-law looped her arm through his. “Walk with me for a bit.”
Adair hesitated, lingering his gaze on that suspicious doorway.
“I trust that given Cleopatra hasn’t left her rooms in a day now, our halls are quite safe,” she said wryly.
“I’m not afraid of the girl,” he said curtly.
Penelope winked at him. “I was jesting, Adair,” she said on an exaggerated whisper. “Come,” she urged, and it was spoken with the same persuasiveness that had managed to convert Ryker Black from ruthless, unbending gaming hell owner to one who sought his wife’s opinions and . . . took in Killorans.
He fell into step beside her as they walked away from Cleopatra’s chambers. “I’m worried about our guest,” she said when they’d stepped around the corner.
This is what she’d come to him about? “Our guest?” he echoed. Surely that isn’t how they’d refer to the termagant who’d brought him down not once, but twice, in the span of a few minutes—with all his siblings staring on as witnesses, no less.
“Cleopatra,” Penelope clarified. As though there was another person residing with them now.
“What has she done—”
“Nothing,” Penelope said on a beleaguered sigh. “You and your brothers are seeing monsters in even scared young women.”
He snorted. “Cleopatra Killoran was born with less fear than Lucifer him—oomph.” Adair rubbed his stomach, where he’d taken his sister-in-law’s sharp elbow.
“That young woman is afraid,” she insisted, glaring at him.
“She’s a Killoran,” he said in a bid to talk sense into her.
Penelope abruptly stopped, forcing him to halt beside her. Shesettled her hands on her hips. “Are you suggesting they’re incapable of being hurt simply because of their name?”
“Yes,” he said bluntly. Anyone who could take up with Diggory, destroyer of innocence and scourge of the streets, was incapable of it. “That is precisely what I’m saying.”
Regardless of Cleopatra Killoran’s gender, she was the same rotted, ruthless bastard as her brother. After all, her selling her soul and moving into Ryker Black’s residence on the hope of acquiring a title was testament to that.
Penelope gave her head a sad shake. “You and your brothers,” she said softly. “You’re still so consumed by your past . . .”
He stiffened. “I suggest ya speak to your husband about the treatment of your guest.”
Sister-in-law or no, other than his siblings, Adair hadn’t shared a single part of his existence with another soul. And even his brothers and Helena had made it a point to studiously avoid all talk of what they’d each endured. One didn’t speak of one’s suffering—not even with family.
“Ah, yes,” Penelope said, waggling her eyebrows. “But you see, my husband wasn’t the one who wrestled the young lady to the floor and divested her of her weapon.”
His neck went hot. Of course she had heard of the scuffle he’d gotten into with Cleopatra yesterday afternoon. I’ll not feel guilty. I’ll not feel guilty. Searching a person, man or woman, who’d come to live with them—particularly a Killoran—was the height of wise. “She was armed,” he groused, shifting back and forth on his feet. He’d not be made out to be a man who went about assaulting women.
“You are all armed. We all are,” she corrected.
It was a mark of how Ryker’s wife, a lady of the ton, had been transformed that she, too, should carry a dagger about.
“But none of us would harm one another. Cleopatra Killoran . . .” Could gut them all in their sleep if they let their guards down. He’d spare Ryker’s wife those gruesome details.
“I was her,” Penelope pressed, like a dog with a bone where the Killoran woman was concerned.
Incredulity swept over him. “You were never Cleopatra Killoran.” That hellion had likely ended as many men and women as Adair himself.
His sister-in-law gripped his shoulder and gave a slight squeeze. “I was alone in a world away from my family . . . just like her. For what you think you might know about the lady, she is scared, and I’d have you at least treat her with kindness as long as she’s living with us.” Penelope sent another long, sad look to Cleopatra’s borrowed chambers. “I would wager she’s alone in there, worrying after her future, and hating every moment of being here.” Her lips twisted. “And who could blame the young lady? After all, you and your brothers have treated her as more prisoner than guest.”
“We haven’t treated her as a prisoner,” he said defensively.
They’d had countless patrons who’d harmed members of their club or hurt the girls employed by the Hell and Sin. Those men had been dealt with as the criminals they were. “I hardly believe opening your arms, allowing the hell . . .” At his sister’s look, he swiftly amended his word choice. “Allowing the girl rooms, food, and an entry to society merits the comparison to a prison.” Having himself entered Newgate to free his brother Calum years earlier, he could testify that rat-infested, dank hell bore no hint of a resemblance or comparison to a Grosvenor Square residence.
Adair tamped down a sigh. There would be no reasoning with Ryker’s innocent wife. “Unless she gives me reason, I’ll treat her with . . .” He grimaced. He couldn’t bring himself to say it.
“Kindness,” Penelope supplied.
“Kindness,” he gritted out. Kindness for a woman who was, with her connections to Killoran and Diggory, an enemy in every way. The same woman who’d drawn a knife and, by the glitter in her eyes, would have gladly gutted him yesterday afternoon. And now his sister-in-law painted her as a wounded, scared young woman. It was laughable. It was inconceivable. It was . . .
Adair’s gaze involuntarily slid to that doorway down the hall. It was damned possible. How many times had he marched down these corridors and put questions to the guards stationed at the end of the hall? Not once did Cleopatra exit her chambers. In fact, if it weren’t for the meals she consistently ordered and the bath she’d called for, he’d have doubted the hellion was even in those rooms. But she was. And damn if he didn’t feel the unwanted sting of remorse. For Adair and his brothers had treated Cleopatra Killoran precisely as Penelope said—as more prisoner than guest.
With a frustrated sigh, he dragged his hands up and down over his face.
“I understand the need for caution,” Penelope said, speaking the way she might to a fractious mare. “But we needn’t treat the lady as though she is a criminal.” Cleopatra Killoran was undoubtedly a criminal. A person couldn’t survive in the streets without breaking society’s laws. “It is late. You needn’t stalk her chambers and dog her footsteps.”
“I can hardly dog her footsteps when she’s shut herself away,” he muttered.
A twinkle lit Penelope’s eyes. “That is because she is sleeping,” she said on an exaggerated whisper.
Life had given him too many reasons to be suspicious . . . particularly of the men and women who were part of Diggory’s crew. “But what if—”
“Adair,” his sister-in-law cut in, her earlier teasing gone and replaced with a military-like command. “It is late. Find your chambers, and we can try again with Cleopatra tomorrow.”
Did Penelope think this was truly about forging a relationship with the young woman? The only thing he’d try to do with Killoran’s sister was determine how to coordinate her exit out of this household.
“As you wish,” he said tightly. Feeling his sister-in-law’s eyes on him, he started down the hall to the rooms he’d been assigned—next to Cleopatra’s. For Penelope’s defense of Cleopatra, Adair well knew the lady’s husband was not of a like opinion where Killoran’s sister was concerned. Adair being placed in the guest suites next to hers had been no matter of coincidence but rather a strategic plan designed so he could keep a close watch on the unpredictable hellion’s movements.
Entering his rooms, Adair pushed the door closed behind him. As he walked, he loosened his cravat and tossed it aside. He claimed a spot at the edge of his bed.
Shadows cast by the handful of lamps danced off the walls; the only sound of the room was the groan of the floorboard as he removed his boot. Setting it aside, he tugged free the next and laid it beside the other. And then he registered the absolute still.
He frowned. Life in the streets had taught him proper wariness of those stretches of silence.
“Nothin’, Mr. Thorne. Not even a hint of sound in ’er room.”
There were plenty of reasons why there wouldn’t be a sound in those chambers. The young woman was friendless, in a strange household. The hour was late. And yet . . . With a curse, Adair stood. Barefoot, he stalked over to the shared wall, and much the way he had as a boy raiding the local bakeries after they’d closed for the night, he put his ear to the wall . . . and listened. The moment stretched on, with no answering sound. Only silence reigned. Some of the tension went out of him.
She slept. Grateful to be at last resolved of his responsibilities where the hellion was concerned, he quit his post at the wall and sought out his own bed for the night.
At last, silence filled the hallway outside Cleopatra’s chambers as Penelope Black and Adair Thorne ceased their yammering.
For a boy born of the streets, he’d certainly shown remarkably weak moments where Cleopatra was concerned. She’d knocked him on his arse—twice. And by the click of the door closing, he’d dismissed her room outright and found his chambers—for a second time.
Cleopatra slipped down Black’s halls, inspecting her surroundings. One who cared about surviving always had to have a familiarity with one’s surroundings. It would be perilous to share a roof with the Black family and not have a grasp on the layout of the setting she was to call home.
As she strode along the carpeted corridors, she mentally counted the doors—as well as the lit sconces. The number of lit candles in a given corridor provided an unwitting indication of just how many people occupied a certain hall. She glanced to the shadows flickering off the silk wallpaper. By the dearth of lit ones here, the Blacks had kept her largely isolated inside their townhouse. Which proved they were far cleverer than she’d credited.
Cleopatra reached the end of the wide corridor and stopped. Hands on hips, she swept the area in a small circle. Her plaited hair fell over her shoulder, and she pushed it back. There were ten doorways on one side and—she wrinkled her nose—eleven on the other. It was an incongruity that didn’t fit with lords and ladies who preferred everything neat and orderly. All in all, one and twenty doors total, on this floor. She did another glance about, then stretched her arms out on either side of her to measure the distance between doorways. With her eyes, Cleopatra took in every detail, from the types of door handles, to the slightly faded portions of carpeting indicating which areas were most heavily traveled.
She owed her twenty years’ existence to having never missed a detail, and she was certainly not so naive that she’d miss one inside this household. Making the return trek, Cleopatra counted her footsteps across the length of the hall, then stopped abruptly.
A faint glow penetrated through the crack at the room two doors down from Adair’s. Frowning, she eyed that oak panel. For all the pride she took in noting the details of her surroundings, she’d failed to register the faint light coming from under that door. She automatically reached for her knife.
Her fingers curled into reflexive fists. For the first time in her entire life, she was without her weapon. She’d been stripped of control and placed in a hall where careless maids forgot to douse all the candles at night.
Fire . . . Run, just go. Leave me . . .
Cleopatra gulped several times as those dark memories trickled in. Mayhap it was the vulnerability of being away from her siblings. Or mayhap being forced to remember the power wielded in shattering lives, as it recently had Adair’s club, that brought forth thoughts of a night she’d not recalled in more years than she could remember.
I’m simply tired, is all. “Bloody careless maids,” she mouthed into the quiet. With renewed purpose, she closed the space between her and that door. Mindful of the danger in entering unfamiliar rooms, she quietly pressed the handle and let herself in the dimly lit room. She blinked several times to adjust to the dark. Cleopatra inventoried the space—the empty space. Of what had apparently once been a bedroom and had since been converted into some haphazard, thrown-together . . . officelike space. The mahogany desk littered with papers called to her . . . beckoned when everything said to get herself gone. But then, Cleopatra had never been one to do as she was expected or ought. Closing the door at her back, she quickly located the nearest sconce. Drifting over, she blew, snuffing the candle. A trail of dark smoke wafted a path up.
The pungent odor burning in her nose briefly held her frozen. That acrid scent sent her belly churning, as it always did. Ye show any more of that weakness, and I’ll end ye, girl . . . Sucking in a slow breath, she sought out the other flame, making her way over to it. She might despise Diggory and would gladly spear him with the Devil’s trident when they met in hell, but he’d left her invaluable lessons on survival.
Except . . .
Cleopatra paused, leaving that candle lit, and adjusted her path.
She crossed to the cluttered pedestal desk. The green-leather top peeked out from under stacks of papers and ledgers, bringing her to another stop. Only this time it was not fear that compelled her . . . but rather, intrigue.
She wetted her lips and took another swift glance about. The shadows serving as her only company, she wandered closer. Sifting through the pile, she took in drawing after drawing. Some copies had been marked with an X, and others, a question mark. Her earlier reservations gone, Cleopatra dropped her palms on the available space on the desk and evaluated the numbered sheets. Then it hit her what she was looking at. “They’re plans for their club,” she breathed into the quiet.
It was the kind of information Diggory or Killoran would have used to their advantage to destroy their competition—decisions she once would have wholeheartedly supported. Never, however, would she have urged ruination by fire. There was too much that could go wrong from the flicker of a flame: lives lost, excruciating suffering, expansive damage. No, what held her rooted to her examination was a genuine intrigue.
It was a glimpse into the gaming hell world that she so loved, and in this instance, it didn’t matter that this was Adair Thorne’s club, a rival establishment whose failure she should be more fixed on. Instead, it was an essential thread connecting her to the familiar. Now damning the fact that she’d snuffed one of those candles, Cleopatra leaned over the sheet, squinting at the meticulous drawings.
She trailed her fingertip over the charcoal markings where the faro and hazard tables were arranged. Wrinkling her brow, she compared the plans drafted here to another, laying them side by side. Why in blazes would—
The faint click of a pistol screeched across the quiet.
“Drop the page.”
Adair’s low baritone emerged coated in ice. She swallowed hard, damning herself for making a faulty misstep. Her fascination with the Hell and Sin’s building plans had compromised her focus. Her fingers trembled slightly, and she now gave thanks for the cover of dark that hopefully concealed that faint quavering.
“I said, drop the—”
“I heard you clearly, Adair,” she said in forced bored tones, laying possession to his name in a bid to assert herself in the precarious situation.
“If you heard me, hellion, then do as I said,” he commanded on a steely whisper.
Cleopatra released those plans, as instructed.
“Now turn and face me, Cleopatra.”
Not Cleo . . . Cleopatra. She’d always adored the name chosen by Broderick for her, for the power it implied. And yet, she hated that her brother and those in their employ insisted on shortening it as they did, lessening its relevance. Not Adair. His whispered mastery of those four syllables was heady stuff, indeed.
She quirked her lips in a smile and faced him.
He narrowed his eyes. “Is there something amusing about this?”
“Actually, yes.” In a bid to stir his ire, she drew herself up onto the edge of his desk.
“Y—” He faltered in his reply, moving his gaze up and down her person, before settling once more on her face.
Her skirts rucked about her ankles in a way that would have earned embarrassment from a proper lady. She did not, nor would she ever, fit into that category—no matter how much her brother sought to stuff her into that mold. “Am I expected to believe you’ll shoot me here in Ryker Black’s home?”
Adair eyed her carefully for a long moment, and then, not taking his gaze from her, he tucked his pistol inside his waistband. “Is that why Killoran chose to send you? To learn our plans and bring them back?”
She was torn between flattery that he thought her capable enough to be the one sent as a go-between, and . . . frustratingly hurt that he saw the inherent silliness in her being the sister to make a match. It didn’t matter that she was in complete agreement on the matter of her form and face. Knowing his disdain, however, rankled.
“They’re rubbish,” she countered.
He stitched his eyebrows into a single warning line.
“Your plans,” she clarified.
His jaw worked, and she braced for him to order her on to hell. “There’s four of them there,” he said gruffly, unexpectedly engaging in a discussion on his club. And they were drawn up by several builders and quickly. He’d not mention that point.
“All right, then. I’ve looked through two of them, and these ones”—she indicated the pages in question—“are rot.”
“You had no more than six minutes to study them,” he challenged.
Cleopatra widened her eyes. He’d been there the entire time?
The hint of a smile curved his lips. “I heard you in the hall.”
“Impossible.” Her fingers made contact with the thick sheets, and they wrinkled noisily in the room.
“Do you make it a habit of wandering the halls of another man’s home and snuffing out candles?”
Shame at having been discovered, and against her knowing, brought her toes curling so tight her arches ached. “I thought the room had been left vacant and the flame was left lit,” she groused.
There was a mocking edge to his grin, belied by the hardness in his eyes.
“And you were worried because you know the danger posed by an errant flame?”
A memory slid in of a beloved figure she’d made herself forget.
Joan. The closest Cleopatra had ever come to a true mother. Another fire. One set by the Devil himself.
Leave me . . . you need to leave . . . And coward that she’d been, she’d not hesitated before gathering her sisters and abandoning the decrepit building. Unable to meet his gaze, she briefly contemplated that sconce in question. “I know about it,” she gruffly admitted. Just not for the reasons he believed—the ones having to do with his burned club. Hopping down from her perch, she wandered several steps, presenting him her back. Cleopatra drew in several slow, quiet breaths.
“Is that a concession of guilt?” Adair’s whipcord body went taut, bringing her attention to the previously escaped detail about the towering figure. Having discarded his jacket at some point, he stood in his bare feet, with his cravat gone, and only his shirtsleeves and breeches. It was a familiar state of undress she’d witnessed countless men in before. Only the tufts of dark curls peeking out from the opening at his neck and the olive hue of his muscled chest were so very different from the gents caught in dishabille at her family’s hell. Her pulse kicked up.
He moved fast, like a tiger she’d once witnessed pounce in the royal menagerie. “I asked you a question.”
Cleopatra retreated until the backs of her legs collided with the desk. Her heart hammered a wild beat that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the heat pouring off his chiseled frame. “My family didn’t torch your hell,” she got out, her voice far too faint to merit any respect or authority. Nonetheless, she surged on the balls of her feet, going toe-to-toe with him. “Ya were destroying it enough without any of ours bringing you to ashes.”
His nostrils flared. “Yet you spoke about the power of a blaze—”
“Because I do,” she snapped out, annoyance making her careless in all she revealed. “Not everything is about you and your ruined club.” Cleopatra pressed her palms against his chest to shove . . . but the heat of his skin pierced his shirt, the feel of his muscled physique burning her as sure as any of the blazes they now fought over. She curled her palms into the lawn fabric.
“You know about it, then,” his melodic voice washed over her.
She nodded slowly. “Oi do.”
Run . . . you need to take your sisters and . . .
Cleopatra pressed her eyes briefly shut. More than a foot shorter than he was, she’d have cursed and lamented the staggering difference that weakened her. Now she fixed her gaze on his chest, giving thanks that he could not see her.
Adair brushed his knuckles over her jaw, forcing her neck back to meet his gaze. His quixotic touch muddled her senses as his intense, piercing green eyes sought hers. “Your parents?” he ventured.
Her parents? What was he . . . ?
Why, he assumed she was just another whelp taken in by Diggory. Numbly, Cleopatra dropped her arms to her side.
“My parents and sister were also claimed by a fire,” he said gruffly, a surprising confession that let her into his world.
Then the significance of that loss, coupled with the one he’d recently suffered, penetrated her shock. He’d lost not only his family but his club. Cleopatra dipped her eyes once more. Despite the horrors that gripped her nightmares still of that long-ago day, she’d not allowed herself to think of Adair’s club being consumed in a similar way. Of the terror he and the men, women, and children inside would have known. The smell of burning flesh—
“Oi’m sorry about your club,” she said hoarsely.