A Dangerous Proposal (Bow Street Brides Book 2) Read online

  It was a different sort of love than what he felt for their mother. It was warm. Protective. Paternal. He loved them as if they were his own blood, and if they wanted the moon he would happily drag it down for them. Compared to a celestial orb that controlled the tides, two kittens were hardly a lot to ask for.

  “A friend of mine has an entire litter, born just last week.” He slid his arms through the sleeves of his jacket and pulled it snug around his shoulders. “They’ll be ready to go by the end of the month. The children can have their pick.”

  “You really should have asked me first.” Felicity frowned at him over her knees. “Now I am going to be the one who has to disappoint them when I tell them they cannot have the kittens.”

  “And why would ye go and do a foolish thing like that?”

  “Because there is hardly enough room in my mother’s house as it is!” A lock of hair flew up in the air when she huffed out an impatient breath. “Not to mention Mr. Darcy is quite content being the only pet.”

  “Which is why the kittens are going to live here.” He leaned back against the door and slid his hands into the pockets of his trousers. Like shooting fish in a barrel, he thought smugly. This was precisely the opening he’d been looking for.

  “Why would – can you hand me a blanket, please?” Exasperation sparked in her eyes. “I cannot have a serious conversation while I am devoid of clothing.”

  “Those are my favorite sort of conversations to have,” Felix said with a wicked grin, but he went to the closet and pulled out a thin cotton blanket in soft blue. God only knew where the first one had gone. Under the bed, most likely, or it had burned up from all of the heat they’d made between them.

  The devil knew he had slept with more adventurous women. More experienced women. More daring women. But not a single one of them had ever set his blood on fire and put stars in his eyes like the way Felicity had. From the first kiss to the last he’d been a man possessed, and even their sweat was not yet dry on the sheets he wanted her again. He would always want her. And he was determined to ensure he always had her.

  Fashioning the blanket around her slender body as though it were a Grecian toga, Felicity padded barefoot to the window and peered out through the glass. “You’ve a lovely view of the courtyard.”

  “Aye,” he said impatiently. “About the kittens–”

  “If you really want to keep them here, there is nothing I can do to stop you. My parents had one once. A stray they made the mistake of feeding, thinking it would go away.” She turned away from the window with curved lips. “It lived quite happily in my father’s study for the next seven years. Although it was rather destructive on occasion. And that was just one cat. I cannot imagine what two would be capable of.”

  “I’m sure the children will keep them busy.”

  “Yes, when they come to visit. But they will not be here all of the time.” Her smile faded and was replaced by a frown. “It does not sound as though you’ve thought this out very well, Mr. Spencer. Animals, even small ones, are a very large responsibility.”

  If only she knew how much he’d been thinking about it.

  “What if Henry and Anne were here all of the time?” The floorboards creaked beneath the weight of his heavy boots as he crossed the room and gently took her hands. Squeezing, he looked down at her in earnest. “What if they lived here?”

  Felicity looked up at him blankly. “Without me? Mr. Spencer, I have no intention–”

  “You’d live here as well.” For a woman with such a quick, clever mind she could be terribly dense. “I want ye to marry me. I want ye to marry me, and live here with me, and share your life with me.”

  Her cheeks paled. “Are you – are you proposing marriage, Mr. Spencer?”

  “No.”

  “No?” she said, confused. “But you just said–”

  “I’m tellin’ ye that I am going to ask ye to marry me and live here with me and share your life with me. I thought I’d give ye time to get used to the idea first.”

  “Because you think I am going to decline?”

  Felix snorted. “Because I know ye are going to decline. Just as I know that I’ll eventually wear ye down. At least this way I’ve given myself a bit of an advantage.” He glanced out the window. The sun was rising higher by the minute. He should have left for Bow Street half an hour ago. The Captain was going to have his head. “I’ve really got to leave, love. But if ye want, I can come calling on ye this evening.”

  She hesitated. Bit her lip. Looked down at her bare toes peeking out beneath the hem of the blanket. “Yes,” she said softly, and Felix released the breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. “Yes, I should like that very much.”

  Hands diving into her tangled mane he kissed her, hard and fierce and long. The sort of kiss that would carry them both through the day until they saw one another again. When it was finished he cupped her jaw and drank in every blessed, beautiful inch of her flawless countenance. “Tell the little ankle biter’s to mind their mother.”

  “I will,” Felicity said dazedly.

  Knowing if he lingered another second longer he wouldn’t be able to leave, Felix gave her one last kiss before he left his bedroom, and the woman he loved.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Felicity took her time getting dressed. Humming a little ditty, she smoothed out the wrinkles in her gown the best she could, combed her hair with her fingers, and used the washbasin to clean her face and hands.

  There was a small looking glass above the basin hanging from a leather string and her reflection caught her off guard. Gone was the carefully polished debutante with nary a single curl out of order. In her place was a heavy lidded siren with swollen lips and flushed cheeks and a gleam in her eyes that only came from being thoroughly loved.

  The things Felix had done to her… She trembled just to think of them. He had played her body as if it were the finest of instruments, and he a grand musician. He’d pulled on strings no other man had ever touched. Pressed down on keys she hadn’t even known existed. He had loved her thoroughly. Completely. And not once, not a single time, had she felt a stab of ice in her belly or fear in her heart or panic in her breast. It had been perfect. He had been perfect. And now he wanted to marry her.

  Felicity would be lying if she said the thought had not crossed her mind. There were things to consider, of course. There always were. But the short of it was she did want to marry him. To live here with him. To raise Henry and Anne with him. To maybe, one day, have a child with him.

  “Yes,” she said aloud, and the single word filled her with so much bubbling elation that she actually jumped in the air and clapped her hands together. “Yes, Felix Spencer, I will marry you.”

  That’s what I shall say, she thought giddily as she made her way downstairs. That is exactly what I shall say when he asks me.

  Tempted by a healthy dose of curiosity, she snuck a peek into every room she passed. Surely it wasn’t prying if the doors were open and most of them were, affording her brief glimpses at a side of Felix she’d not yet had an opportunity to see.

  The townhouse was sparsely decorated and the furniture a tad masculine for her taste, but everything was sturdily built and impeccably clean with just enough personal touches to give her an idea of what caught his eye. Things would have to be rearranged, of course. The cabinet in the front parlor would need to be moved and she simply could not abide velvet curtains. But the townhouse had all the makings of a wonderful home. A home where she and Felix and Henry and Anne could love and live and grow as a family.

  She drew her cloak over her shoulders before she opened the front door. Fog had overtaken the sun, and a few drops of rain hit the top of her head as she hurried out to edge the street where a lone hackney was waiting.

  “I am sorry to have kept you,” she apologized to the driver, a nondescript man with a long face and lanky build. He had a cap pulled down low over his eyes so only the lower half of his face was visible.

 
“Not a problem, mum.” He waited until she’d settled herself on the bench seat before he asked, “Where is it I’m takin’ ye?”

  “Gracechurch Street and West, please.”

  She hoped they arrived before the children woke, for she did not know how she would explain her absence. Although if she was being truthful, it was not Henry and Anne she was the most concerned about. It was Mrs. Atwood.

  How did one explain to their mother they’d spent the night in the arms of a man? Some things, she decided as the carriage lurched forward, are better left unspoken.

  Given the hour and the rain, traffic was heavy in the middle of Town, and so when the driver turned the hackney left instead of right she presumed he was taking a shortcut. It wasn’t until they emerged on the edge of the textile district that she felt the first stirrings of alarm.

  Bordering the East End, the textile district was comprised of sprawling brick factories with dingy windows and enormous chimneys that continuously spewed out thick streams of black smoke. It was a filthy, disease-ridden place with broken glass in the streets and a gin bottle on every corner. Felicity had read horrible stories and seen heart-wrenching drawings of the working condition women and children were forced to endure in the factories. In short, it was not somewhere she wanted to be.

  “Excuse me.” Half standing out of her seat, she wrapped her fist against the small window separating herself from the driver. From this angle she could only see his back, and he did not so much as turn around. She raised her voice. “Excuse me! I believe you’ve taken a wrong turn!”

  There was no response.

  Wide-eyed, Felicity sat back and gripped the edge of her seat. What was the driver doing? Better yet, where was he going? Gracechurch Street was at least ten blocks in the opposite direction. He had not brought her here by accident.

  The hackney turned down a narrow alley and came to a sudden stop. She breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe the driver was new to London and he’d merely gotten confused by all the different streets and thoroughfares. But he did not look very confused when he yanked open the door.

  “Get out,” he snarled.

  Instinctively moving to the furthest edge of the seat, she shook her head. “No. Absolutely not. You’re supposed to take me to my mother’s.”

  “Plans ‘ave changed.” He braced his hands on either side of the door. “Now ye are goin’ to get out, or I’m going to pull ye out.”

  “I am not moving from this carriage,” she said stiffly.

  He shrugged. “Have it yer way, then.”

  Felicity’s screams ricocheted off the walls of the alley when she was dragged from the hackney, but if anyone heard they did not care. The East End was a place where cries for help went unanswered, and there was no hope to be found for the hopeful.

  “You’re goin’ to give me a bleedin’ headache.” Easily overpowering her – the driver was surprisingly strong for someone so lanky – he shoved a foul-smelling gag in her mouth and tied her wrists behind her back with a rough piece of twine. Her eyes teared, nostrils flaring as she struggled to draw in enough air to satisfy her burning lungs. Grabbing her by the arm, he marched her to a cast iron door at the far end of the alley. Withdrawing a key from his pocket, he inserted it into the lock and the door swung open.

  Felicity caught only a glimpse of the small, windowless room before he shoved her inside with so much force that she fell to her knees. By the time she managed to right herself he had slammed the door shut, and she screamed into the gag when she heard the distinctive click of the lock falling into place.

  She was trapped.

  Felix sipped from a mug of coffee long gone cold and listened intently while the Captain assigned new areas of London for them to hunt for the Slasher. Or at least he pretended to listen intently. His body may have been at Bow Street, but his mind was still in his bedroom.

  “…searched the docks to no avail…”

  By now Felicity was at her mother’s, but for the sake of his imagination she was still sprawled on his bed, the blanket he’d given her riding high on her hips, revealing the creamy swell of one buttock and the tops of her breasts. She looked up at him when he entered the room, a catlike smile curving her lush mouth as she beckoned him towards her with a sultry crook of her finger. Her lips parted…

  “We need to start concentrating our efforts on Mayfair.”

  Mayfair? There was nothing the least bit sensual about Mayfair.

  “Hargrave and Brentwood will take Grosvenor Square,” the Captain continued. “The people there will be more willing to talk to their fellow peers. I want Hawke and Ferguson to do another patrol of White’s. Someone there has to know something.”

  “Which one?” Colin and Ian said together.

  “Ian,” the Captain decided after a pause. “Colin, you’re with Spencer.

  “And where is it we’re going?” Felix drawled, setting down his coffee and tipping back in his chair.

  “Harper Street.”

  Grant snorted. “You’re sending him to the financial district? Might as well tell the banks to empty their coffers now.”

  “Sod off, Hargrave.” Felix slanted the second-in-command a narrow-eyed glare. “It’s too early in the morning for your shite.”

  “Late night at the theater?” Grant queried, lifting a brow.

  “That’s none of your bloody business.”

  Grant just grinned. “Touchy, are we? Wouldn’t have something to do with a certain brunette now, would it?”

  Felix stiffened. “I said sod off.”

  “That is enough.” Owen’s sharp voice reverberated around the room, and everyone instantly fell silent. “We have enough to worry about without squabbling among ourselves. Not to mention the brunette to whom you are referring, Hargrave, is a close personal friend of mine. I will not have her name brought up here again. Are we clear?”

  “As a crystal,” Grant said easily, but the amused glance he slid at Felix revealed the ribbing between them was far from over.

  “Good. Now there is one last order of–”

  “Excuse me.” As if conjured by magic, Dorothea Atwood appeared in the doorway. “I knocked, but the only one who answered was this cat.” Purring loudly, Mrs. Wadsworth slid past her skirts and jumped onto the table.

  “Mrs. Atwood.” Felix stood up quickly as did the rest of the runners, the legs of their chairs scraping loudly on the floorboards. “Is everything all right?”

  “Oh good, I was hoping you would be here.” Waving a fretful hand in front of her face, she drew a deep breath and said, “It’s Felicity. She has gone missing.”

  Felicity did not know how long she sat in the dark and the damp. Long enough for her tears to dry on her cheeks and her arms and legs to go numb. Long enough for her to imagine a hundred ways she was going to be killed. Long enough to grow thirsty, and hungry, and cold.

  She jumped at the sound of a key turning in the lock. Then cringed and closed her eyes when a man carrying a bright lantern stepped through the door.

  He closed it behind him. Took care to lock it. Fearing the worst she trembled when he approached her and tried to turn her head to the side when she felt the brush of his gloved hand against her chin, but the only thing he did was rip her gag out before backing away.

  Working her jaw, she waited for her eyes to adjust to the influx of light. And when she was finally able to see who was towering over her she couldn’t contain her gasp of shock.

  “You. You are the one behind this? You are the reason I am here? Why?”

  “I think it should be obvious.” Setting the lantern down on the floor, Ezra straightened and looked down at her with the same vaguely disapproving expression he’d worn for the majority of their marriage. “Your recent antics have brought my wife and I a great deal of embarrassment.”

  Even though her legs screamed in protest, Felicity forced herself to her feet. She’d be damned if she cowered before anyone, least of all her spineless excuse for a husband.

  “So you had
me kidnapped?” she said incredulously.

  Ezra frowned. “Do not be dramatic, Felicity. It is unbecoming.”

  How, she wondered as she stared at him in disbelief. How had she ever married him? How had she ever loved him? Had she truly be so blind? Or just naïve?

  “I was brought here against my will!” she cried. “I had my hands tied behind my back and a foul-smelling rag stuffed in my mouth and I have been locked in here for God only knows how long. That is not being dramatic. That is abduction!”

  “I apologize if you have suffered needlessly.”

  “You can hang your apology,” she said, borrowing one of Felix’s favorite phrases. “I do not want it and I do not need. What I need is for you to open that door and release me. Well?” she said expectantly when Ezra just continued to stand there, looking ridiculously overdressed for a kidnapping in his top hat and white cravat and long tailcoat. “What are you waiting for?”

  “I am sorry, Felicity.” His gaze lowered. “Truly I am.”

  “Ezra, open the door.”

  “Why couldn’t you have remained in the country? If you’d remained in the country, none of this would have had to happen. I have a reputation to uphold. And I will not allow you to besmirch it with your wanton ways. Not this time. Not again.”

  “Ezra.” She felt the bitter, familiar taste of panic on her tongue when she saw his hand slide into the inside pocket of his waistcoat. “Ezra, please open the door.”

  He lifted his gaze and looked her straight in the eye as he pulled out a small silver pistol. “I think we both know I am not going to do that.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “I want London torn apart. I want that bloody hackney found. Now!” More savage wolf than man, Felix stormed out of Bow Street with Owen hot on his heels. Helpless to do anything but wait, Mrs. Atwood stayed behind, hands clasped to her breast as she sent up a fervent prayer for her daughter’s safe return.