Page 25 of Wicked and the Wallflower (The Bareknuckle Bastards 1)

She wrinkled her nose. “You are mixing metaphors.”

“Careful, your wallflower past is showing. No darling of the ton would ever dream of criticizing a man’s grammar.”

“No darling of the ton would ever dream of clandestinely meeting a man like you.”

His lips pressed together in a firm line, and for a moment, she felt a pang of guilt at the words before he leaned back against the side of the house. “Tell me about the incident in the bedchamber.”

She went still. It shouldn’t be a surprise that he knew about it—everyone knew about it. But he didn’t know about the other scandals in her life, so why would he know about this one?

Why did he have to know about this one? She swallowed. “Which incident?”

“The one that made you a woman of questionable eligibility.”

She winced at the description. “How did you know about that?”

“You will find, my lady, that there are few things about which I do not know.”

She sighed. “There’s nothing to be said. There was a ball. And I found myself in a man’s bedchamber by accident.”

“By accident.”

“Mostly,” she hedged.

He watched her for a long moment, and then asked, “Did he touch you?”

The question surprised her. “No—he—in fact, he was quite outraged to discover me there, which I suppose I should be grateful for, as if he hadn’t been I might have—” She stopped and tried again, “I’m not the world’s greatest beauty to begin with, and to add to it—” She stopped.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

She sighed again. “I was crying.”

A beat. “In a stranger’s bedchamber.”

“Might we be finished with this conversation?”

“No. Tell me why you were crying.” There was an edge to his voice that she hadn’t noticed before.

“I’d rather not.”

“Need I remind you that you owe me for that pretty frock, Felicity Faircloth?”

“I was under the impression that the frock was part and parcel with our original arrangement.”

“Not if you’re not going to tell me why you were crying, it isn’t.”

He was an irritating man. “I’d rather not tell you, because it’s silly.”

“I don’t mind silly.”

She couldn’t help the laughter that came at the words. “Excuse me, but you seem to be the kind of person who minds silly exceedingly.”

“Tell me.”

“I was—part of a group. I had friends.”

“The vipers from the other night?”

She shrugged. “I thought they were my friends.”

“They weren’t.”

“Yes, well, you weren’t there to tell me that, so . . .” She paused. “At any rate, that was why I was . . . in a state. We’d been inseparable. And then . . .” She paused, resisting the knot of emotion that came whenever she thought of that time, when she’d been a society darling, and the world had seemed to bend to her will. “Like that . . . we were not. They still sparkled and glittered and loved each other. But they did not love me. And I did not know why.”

He watched her for a long time. “Friendship is not always what we think. If we are not careful, it often becomes what others desire.”

She looked to him. “You don’t seem the kind of man who—loses friends.”

He raised a brow. “I think you mean that I don’t seem the kind of man who has them to begin with.”

“Do you?”

“I have a brother. And a sister.”

“I should like to be your friend.” The confession shocked them both, and she wished she could take it back.

Even more so when he replied, “Felicity Faircloth, I’m no kind of friend for you.” He wasn’t wrong, but it smarted nonetheless. “Shall I tell you why your so-called friends left you?”

“How would you know?”

“Because I’m a man of the world and I know how it turns.”

She believed him. “Why?”

“They deserted you because you were no longer useful. You stopped laughing at their idiot jests. Or stopped simpering after their faded frocks. Or stopped encouraging the cruelty they directed at everyone else. Whatever it was, you did something to make them realize you were no longer interested in licking their boots. And there is nothing like the loss of a sycophant to anger gasbags like those four.” She hated the reasoning, even as she knew it was correct. Even as he added, “Every man and woman inside that room is a parasite, Faulk, Natasha Corkwood, and Lord and Lady Hagin included. And you are best rid of them, my pretty flame.”

At the words, she looked back into the ballroom, watching scores of revelers chatter and gossip and dance and laugh. They were her people, were they not? That was her world, wasn’t it? And even if she’d had the same thought earlier, though not in so many words, she should defend her world to this man—this outsider, she supposed. “Not all aristocrats are parasitic.”

“No?”

“I am not.”

; He came off the wall then, rising to his full height, and she tilted her face up to meet his gaze. “No. You’re just so very desperate to be part of it again that you’re willing to make a deal with the Devil to do it.”

What if I changed my mind?

She resisted the whisper of a thought. “I need to save my family,” she whispered, her cheeks blazing. I don’t have a choice.

“Ah, yes. Familial loyalty. That is admirable, but it seems to me that they could have told you their situation before throwing you to the marriage-seeking wolves.”

She hated him a little then. Hated him for speaking the words that she barely dared think. “I shan’t be a bad wife.”

“I never said you would be.”

“I will keep his house and provide him heirs.”

His gaze found hers instantly, hot and focused in the darkness. “Is that the dream, then? Mothering the next Duke of Marwick?”

Felicity considered the question for a long moment. “I’ve never had aspirations to ducal motherhood, but I should like children, yes. I think I would make a fine mother.”

“You would.” He looked away. Cleared his throat. “But that’s not the only dream, is it?”

She hesitated, the soft question swirling around them. The secrets it seemed to understand. The desire to be accepted by these people. To take a place among them again. “I don’t wish to be alone any longer.”

He nodded. “What else.”

“I wish to be wanted.” The truth hurt as it emerged, leaving an ache in her throat.

He nodded. “That’s why you lied at the start.”

“And why I agreed to our deal,” she said, softly. “I want it all. I told you. So much more than I can have.”

“You are worth all of them combined,” he said. “But hearing it from me is not enough, is it?”

It was more than he knew, it seemed, from the warmth that spread through her at the words. And yet, it wasn’t enough. “You don’t know what it was like. What it is like.”

He watched her for a long moment. “As a matter of fact, my lady, I know precisely what it is like to lose people you think you can rely upon. To be betrayed by them.”