Winter’s Wallflower Read online

  So it was true, then. The two men before her shared blood.

  “I am not your brother,” Devereaux Winter snapped.

  “Half brother, brother, same difference, is it not?” Dominic Winter flashed a feral grin. “Our father liked to keep his prick wet, and he did not give a damn who was doing the wetting. Twelve children to show for his efforts. Quite impressive, I say.”

  Devereaux Winter’s hands balled into fists. “You are speaking in the presence of a lady, you blackguard.”

  Dominic Winter’s gaze returned to Adele, who had been watching the dialogue between the two men unfold, in shock at the revelations. “Is she a lady? Might be open to discussion, that.”

  She flinched at the insult he paid her. Yes, he was angry with her. She had spent the time since she had slipped from his chamber and his gaming hell fearing he would find out her true identity. That he would come looking for her. And that if he located her, all would be lost…

  “Leave us, Lady Adele,” Devereaux Winter told her gently. “There is no need to subject yourself to his wrath.”

  “I fear there is.” Adele took a deep breath. “I need to speak to Mr. Winter. Alone.”

  Her host looked dumbfounded by her abrupt announcement. He frowned at her, his brow furrowed. “I beg your pardon, my lady?”

  He was going to make her repeat herself.

  Her ears went hot, and the churning in her stomach increased, the knot there tightening with almost painful intensity. “I must have an audience with Mr. Winter.”

  Mr. Devereaux Winter continued to frown, her repetition of her request apparently doing nothing to quell his concern.

  Dominic Winter was quicker to respond. “There now, you did not believe I came all this way to lick your boots, did you, brother? I hate to be the bearer of ill tidings, but I did not travel to Oxfordshire to watch you playing duke with your new wife and all your fancy cove friends. I came here for her.”

  His confirmation of her fears did nothing to soothe her inner turmoil.

  “What business can an East End rat like you have with the daughter of a duke?” Devereaux Winter asked, his tone biting as the lash of a whip.

  Her ordinarily genial host’s bitterness was not lost upon Adele. The two men before her did not just dislike each other. They hated each other. And yet, if what Dominic Winter said was to be believed, they had the same father. Half brothers, so different and yet so much the same.

  “Would you care to answer that question, love?” Dominic Winter taunted her.

  For a searing moment, she remembered the way his lips felt against hers. The way he had brought her to life. The pleasure he had given her. How tender his touch had been. As if she had been fashioned of the finest porcelain. But where he once would have protected her from shattering, he was now on the path of imminent destruction, and it was Adele he meant to ruin.

  “Mr. Winter was kind enough to aid my brother,” Adele said, pleased with herself for keeping the tremble from her voice.

  “See that, brother?” Dominic taunted. “The lady says I was kind. Now shove off so I can speak with her. She has something of mine, and I mean to get it back.”

  Adele did not argue with him before Devereaux Winter, but she had taken nothing from him. All she wanted to do was meet with Dominic Winter, settle whatever debts he believed she still owed him, and then disappear into the countryside forever, as had been her original plan.

  “It will be hasty, Mr. Winter,” Adele said. “A mere ten minutes, nothing more.”

  Devereaux Winter looked from her to Dominic, his countenance reflecting his bafflement. “Ten minutes,” he allowed, reluctance edging his voice. “No more, and I will be in the hall, with the door ajar. If he dares anything, I will be here, Lady Adele.”

  Chapter Seven

  “We meet again.”

  His silken voice was deceptively calm. His eyes, however, blazed with dark fury.

  Dominic Winter was not pleased. In fact, he was furious.

  With her.

  Adele swallowed and forced herself to square her shoulders as he prowled toward her, stopping too near for propriety’s sake. She would not wilt before him. Would not bend. “I confess, I am surprised to see you at this particular country house party, Mr. Winter.”

  His sensual lips twisted into a sneer. “I go where I please, as it pleases me. I do not give a bloody shite about half brothers who think they are the quality because they are swiving the daughter of a duke.”

  Dom’s rough words took her aback. “Mr. Devereaux Winter is married to Lady Emilia.”

  Dom shrugged. “Married or not, he is still swiving her.”

  She frowned at him. “You are being deliberately crude.”

  “No, love. I am being deliberately dismissive.” His lip curled even farther. “Because I don’t give a damn about Winter or his ladybird. I came here for you, and you know it.”

  Yes, she did.

  Adele suppressed a shiver. His words both filled her with anticipation and dread, all at once. She did not know how to manage a Dominic Winter who was this angry. Particularly not one who had ventured to the countryside in the midst of frigid winter, leaving London and his empire of crime behind.

  Surely he could not suspect. There was no reason for him to know the truth of her carefully guarded secret. He had chased her here because he had discovered her lie and he was angry about it. That had to be the answer. Imagine, a well-bred lady fooling the devilish Dominic Winter, the most feared man in London.

  “Why would you come here for me?” she dared to ask.

  His eyes were stormy and intent upon hers. “You know why, Duchess.”

  “You discovered who I am and it displeases you,” she guessed.

  He laughed, the sound bitter. Cutting. “I did indeed. Lady Adele Saltisford. Sister to Lord Sundenbury. Not mistress.”

  She hated the way he was looking at her now, the wrath lacing his voice. “I am Lady Adele, yes. However, I never suggested to you that I was anything other than myself. If you presumed—”

  “If I presumed,” he bit out, interrupting her, “and you did not correct my presumption, then you lied to me, Lady Adele.”

  “I did not lie,” she argued quietly, also despising the manner in which he referred to her, as if her title and name were an epithet that tasted bitter upon his tongue.

  “You allowed me to believe you were Sundenbury’s mistress,” he hissed. “That was a lie.”

  “I never said I was his mistress.”

  But even as she offered her protest to the contrary, she knew how hollow it sounded. Because Dominic Winter was right, of course. She had misled him. And she may as well have lied to him. But her reasoning had been sound, her motivation pure.

  “You also never said you were not,” he said coolly.

  The way he was watching her made her want to flee. Oh, what this man did to her. He undid her. Without fail.

  “I came to you with the express hope of seeing to my brother’s safety,” she forced herself to counter. “If you drew erroneous conclusions, I cannot be blamed for them. My objective was in making certain no more of your ruffians hurt my brother. I accomplished my aim, and I will not apologize for it.”

  “And I have made certain Sundenbury has been safe, have I not?” He cocked his head, surveying her, his eyes sweeping over her form in a way that made her feel uneasy and scorching hot all at once.

  Her brother was safe. Adele, however, was not. She had never been more certain of that than she was now. There was no one here to save her. Oh, she could raise a cry and Mr. Devereaux Winter, not far, would rush to her aid. But nothing stopped a man like Dominic Winter from getting what he wanted.

  “I paid dearly for it,” she countered. “I owe you nothing now, Mr. Winter.”

  “Once, you called me Dom,” he reminded her, his perusal taking on a far more sensual quality. “You moaned it, in fact. While you were in my bed. Do you remember?”

  Her ears went hot. She was flushed, from head to
toe. Of course she remembered. She had thought of nothing else since. The memory of his touch haunted her. She longed for him. Ached for him. But she was no fool. There could be no future between Lady Adele Saltisford and London’s most dangerous crime lord.

  “You are vulgar, sir, and I need not subject myself to more of your taunts.” She moved to leave, but he stayed her, catching her elbow in a firm grasp.

  “I can be much more vulgar than this, love.”

  His voice was laden with dark promise and wicked intent.

  The same part of her that had been drawn to him before burst into flame. Adele wanted to kiss him and run from him, all at once.

  “Did you truly journey to Oxfordshire in the midst of winter to take me to task for misleading you?” she demanded, cursing herself for the breathlessness in her voice.

  For her reaction to him, the awareness flaring to life like a slow and steady flame bound to consume her. Why had she ever believed she could bargain with a man like Dominic Winter?

  Two long months of scouring London to find her. An equal amount of time spent ensuring his plan would succeed. One treacherous journey to the country. An unpleasant interview with his arsehole of a half brother. It had all led Dom to this moment. Victory would soon be his, in more than one sense. The first was here and now; the second would come later.

  Lady Adele Saltisford was close enough to touch.

  Her scent wrapped around him. Her lips tempted him. Soon, he promised himself. Cling to your anger. Show her what happens when you make a fool of Dominic Winter.

  “Of course I did not come all this way to take you to task.” He could not resist reaching out and touching her.

  Just a skim of his bare fingers on her jaw. The contact between them gave him the same rare jolt it had two months ago.

  Curse her.

  “I am here because your brother has once again been plagued with ill luck at the tables,” he drawled. Never mind that he had made certain of it. She was not the only one who excelled at keeping secrets. “He is in a great deal of debt, and his safety is in jeopardy.”

  She went pale. “How much debt?”

  “Twenty thousand pounds.”

  “I cannot repay you as I did before,” she rushed to say. “I should never have done so then.”

  “I did not ask for your services now did I, Duchess?” He was being cruel and he knew it. But a man who had mercy on the streets was a man who had nothing. “Before you deny me, mayhap you want to hear the cost.”

  “There can be no cost.” She stepped away from him, severing their connection at last. “I have nothing left to say to you, Mr. Winter.”

  The hell she did not.

  They had only just begun, Dominic Winter and Lady Adele Saltisford.

  Dom chased her, catching her elbow once more and staying her when she would have fled the room. “A handsome cove, your brother. Do you think the ladies will still fancy him if he has but one eye instead of two? Or one hand? Fingers are easily broken or cut off. Toes, now those are a deuced thorny proposition. Cut off the wrong one, and a man loses his balance forever. Left Leg Louis has never been the same since it happened to him, not even after the cobbler fixed him special crabshells.”

  Her eyes widened. “Crabshells?”

  “Shoes, Duchess.” He flashed her a slow, grim smile. The one he gave to the men who betrayed him just before he ground them to dust beneath his boot heel.

  “Y-you would not do my brother such violence,” she protested. “You would be arrested.”

  “I don’t do violence,” he purred, leaning nearer to her. So near, their lips almost brushed. “I have men who do it for me. And as for me being under arrest…I own the streets and all who govern them.”

  He recognized the swell of fear in her lovely countenance. Ordinarily, terrorizing his opponent was the source of eminent joy. This enemy, however, was different. All he felt was a hollowness inside his chest, a gaping chasm threatening to swallow him whole.

  And still, she remained stoic. Brave and defiant. Here was the same lady who had dared to enter his lair, who had stood before him and made a bargain he had failed to realize involved the surrendering of her innocence.

  She did not flinch, nor tear her eyes from his. “You cannot own everyone, Mr. Winter. You are not above the law.”

  How little she knew of the world. Her naiveté was almost charming.

  He cocked his head, studying her, wishing her beauty did not affect him. “I reckon I could make Prinny dance a jig if I asked nicely enough.”

  Dom had risen to power through might, determination, violence, money, and blackmail. Not necessarily in that order. He felt no guilt for the sins in which he had engaged. The world was corrupt; he was merely using that corruption to benefit himself, his family, and his men.

  “I do not believe you,” she insisted. “No man is that powerful.”

  “Wrong again, Duchess. Not every man is that powerful. But I am. You would do well to remember it, because when I am your husband, if you dare to betray me, you will suffer the consequences.”

  Her eyes, fringed with sooty lashes that were longer than he had recalled, widened even more. “Husband?”

  Not quite the manner in which he had intended to announce his price for her brother’s continued safety. The next part of his strategy, about to unfold. But he had already blown the gaff. No undoing it now.

  “Why else did you suppose I would come all the way to Oxfordshire to collect you?” he asked coolly. “Sundenbury is all cleaned out; you have reached your majority. Your hand in marriage is the price I am demanding to cancel his debts.”

  “You want to marry me?” If possible, more color leached from her cheeks. Her breath was a hot, tempting fan over his lips.

  Christ, even her breath was sweet. Like honey.

  He wanted to devour her.

  “I am going to marry you, Duchess,” he corrected.

  “No.”

  He must have misheard her. No one told Dominic Winter no. “I beg your pardon?”

  “No, I cannot marry you,” she repeated.

  Foolish Lady Adele. There was no choice. From the moment she had willingly placed herself within his grasp, she had sealed her fate.

  He raised a brow. “You are already married to another?”

  She frowned. “No, of course not.”

  “Then you can and will marry me. Problem solved, Duchess.”

  Devereaux Winter chose that moment to return, barreling through the door with the grace of an invading army. There was no love lost between Dom and his half brother, but the arsehole could have selected better timing. Lady Adele all but tripped over her own hems in her effort to put some distance between herself and Dom.

  “Your ten minutes is over,” Devereaux announced acidly.

  Dom was going to have far more than ten minutes.

  But there was time enough to execute his plan. And for now, he would settle for ruffling the protective feathers of brother dearest, who did not like an East End gutter rat sniffing so near to his pristine sisters and fine guests.

  He slapped his strapping half brother on the back as if he were a lad. “One more mouth to feed shouldn’t be trouble for a man with your blunt, brother. I’ve been wearing the bands all day, I have.”

  Dom relished the way Devereaux Winter stiffened and frowned at his use of cant. It pleased him to displease brother dearest.

  “Wearing the bands?” Devereaux repeated, his lip curling.

  “Hungry,” Dom translated. “Looked like a wedding breakfast I interrupted. Just the thing. Don’t fret over me. I’ll be quiet as a thief filching the family silver.”

  An apt description, that. The expression on both his half brother and Lady Adele’s faces told him so.

  “You cannot remain here,” brother dearest said.

  Predictably.

  “Aye, I can.” He tapped his walking stick on the floor as a pointed reminder of what was hidden within. “And I will. You’ll not turn out your own blood when I
have newly arrived. Besides, I am thinking you will want to celebrate my betrothal to Lady Adele.”

  The arsehole’s scowl was instant and thunderous. “What the devil?”

  “We are not betrothed,” Lady Adele protested simultaneously.

  “A mere formality,” he said, giving her a wink. “We cannot keep the secret to ourselves forever, love. May as well share the good news.”

  “Mr. Winter,” she snapped, her mouth a disapproving line.

  He was pushing her. Prodding her. It was almost entertaining, toying with the woman as he was. She deserved everything he was giving her and more. So much more, damn her. The effrontery of the chit, a bloody duke’s daughter, deceiving the feared Dominic Winter. If the East End ever discovered the fool she had made of him, one of his enemies would topple him from his throne in a goddamn stroke of the clock.

  “You are not engaged to Lady Adele,” brother dearest countered then, as if his decree would make it so.

  “What?” He clucked his tongue the way his ma had done whenever he had done something naughty as a lad. “You do not think you are the only Winter who can marry himself a duke’s daughter, do you?”

  Color tinged Devereaux Winter’s cheekbones. It was the shade of rage.

  Floating hell, how good it felt to nettle this steaming pile of donkey shit.

  “I have no proof you are a Winter,” Devereaux bit out curtly.

  When Winter had first discovered the existence of Dom and his five siblings at the reading of their father’s will, he had been shocked. He had also been skeptical. And that, more than any other reason, had been why Dom had told brother dearest to shove the inheritance where the sun did not dare shine.

  Up his lily-white arse.

  Dom shrugged at him now, grinning. “Don’t need to prove anything to a nib.”

  “You are not attending my sister’s wedding breakfast,” his half brother growled at him.

  “And why not? She is my sister too.” As if Dom gave a bloody damn. They were not true family, nor would they ever be.

  Which was fine by him. The bastard Winters did not need the fancy Winters. They never had. Their worlds were far too different.