Brazen and the Beast (The Bareknuckle Bastards #2)(116)

Something about trauma.

Trauma, Whit remembered, as it coursed through him, too, as he stared at her, as he came to his knees by her bedside and took her cool hand in his own, bringing it to his lips to kiss it, memorizing the weight of it. The feel of it, the softness of it.

Someone brought him a chair, but he didn’t use it. Whit had never thought much of God—but he knew what prayer looked like, and if staying on his knees would bring Hattie back, he’d stay there forever. And he did pray, in those moments, kissing her knuckles one by one, and willing her strong. Willing her fingers to tighten.

He prayed to God, yes, but mostly, he prayed to Hattie. And he prayed out loud, using all the words he could find, as though in giving them to her, he might keep her alive. It was a mad thought, but the only one in Whit’s head, and so for the first time in his life, he talked . . . without thought, without knowing when he would stop.

Because he would talk forever if it meant he could keep her there, with him.

Kneeling by her side, looking down at her perfect, beautiful face, made gold in the candlelight, he told her all his truths.

He began with the most important one. “I love you.”

Regret thrummed through him, opening a wide space between them, and he clung to her hand and refused to take his eyes from her as he repeated himself. “I love you, and I should have told you that before. I should have told you the night at the fights.” He swallowed, fighting for words. “I should have told you before then—in Covent Garden when you went after my best broad-tosser and found the queen.”

He paused, then, the words catching in his throat. “I found the queen that night, too. I found you, and I should have told you that I loved you. I should have told you how beautiful you are. I should have told you how I am laid low by your impossible eyes and your wide, wonderful smile.” He closed his eyes and set his forehead to her hand. “I should like to make you smile again, love. I should like to make you smile every minute of every hour of every day for the rest of our life until you tire of it and I have no choice but to kiss it from your lips and give you respite. And I should like very much for that life to be so long that we grow old next to each other, rattling about in our home, with our children and grandchildren coming and going and rolling their eyes at how I never stopped being a fool over you.”

His gaze tracked her face for movement, running over her full cheeks and her long nose and the twin slash of her brows—which rose and fell with every excitement she felt—a barometer of her emotion, now unmoving. Whit rubbed a hand over his face, panic and anguish running through him. “My brother nearly had to die before he realized how much he loved his wife . . . But this . . .” He didn’t think he could bear it.

“I’d die a thousand times over to prevent this. To prevent you, here . . . I’d trade places with you in a moment. The world doesn’t need me like it needs you. Who will buy up all the extra flowers in the market at the end of the day? Who will hold the loyalty of the London docks like you? Who will—” He swallowed around the knot in his throat. “Who will teach my daughters to tie a decent knot?” His voice cracked on the last, and he bowed his head to the bed, broken by the moment. “Christ, Hattie. Please don’t leave me. Please don’t go.”

People came and Whit barely noticed—Devil and Felicity first, filled with concern, Felicity instantly going to her knees beside him, her strong hand firm on his arm. He didn’t look at her. He couldn’t look into the face of her worry. Instead, he stared into Hattie’s face and said, quietly, “She’s locked away.”

Felicity’s fingers squeezed his arm, strong and sure, but he heard the tears in her voice when she said, “No lock is unpickable.”

But Hattie wasn’t clockwork and steel. She was flesh and bone and love, and if Whit knew anything, he knew those were the most fragile of things, there and gone in an instant.

His brother approached, settling a hand on his shoulder. “The crew is outside, standing guard. Twenty of them, more by the minute.”

Keeping vigil.

“They should be moving cargo.”

“You let me worry about that. They should be here. With you.”

“They don’t know her.” He turned to his brother. “You don’t know her.”

Devil’s eyes flashed. “They know you, Beast. They know the man who has cared for them from the start. And they cannot wait to know the woman he loves.” He cleared his throat. “Neither can I.”

Whit looked away, back to Hattie, racked with emotion. “I do love her.”

Felicity’s grip tightened.

She didn’t say, And you shall have her.

She didn’t say, And love is enough.

Because it wasn’t true. None of it was a guarantee.

“I’m giving her the business.”

“Of course,” Devil said.

He did not look away from her hand in his, on her bare fingers. He lifted them to his lips, pressing kisses on her knuckles again, bribing her. “Wake up, love. I’ll give it all to you. I’ll prove it to you. Just wake up and let me love you.”

Silence fell in the wake of the whispered words, stretching for long minutes until Devil said, “And what of you? Will you give yourself to her, as well?”

“I’ll never not be hers.”

Felicity pressed a kiss to his shoulder at that and stood, Devil coming forward to help her up, to pull her into his arms and hold her tight, as though he could ward off whatever evil had come for Hattie that night.