Brazen and the Beast (The Bareknuckle Bastards #2)(21)

Augie stilled. “You can?”

“I can,” she said, the plan crystallizing. The path forward. And then—her path. “I can.”

“How?” It wasn’t the worst question in the world. She looked to Nora, whose brows were nearly in her hairline in a silent echo of Augie’s question.

Hattie straightened her shoulders, more certain than ever. “We make a deal for the cargo. We share the income from our shipments until he’s paid.”

“It won’t be enough.”

“It will be.” She’d make it enough. She’d promise him no more hijackings. And income. With interest. If he was a businessman, he’d recognize a good deal when he saw it. Killing Augie wouldn’t bring back his lost cargo, and it would bring the Crown down upon his head—something smugglers would not care for.

But money—money was real. She’d convince him of it.

She met her brother’s blue eyes. “You stay out of it.”

“You don’t know him, Hattie.”

“I know I made a deal with him.”

Augie froze. “What kind of deal?”

“Yes, what kind of deal?” Nora echoed, her lips curving in amusement.

“Nothing serious.”

You are in no position to make me an offer.

I get all of it.

What is mine. What is yours. And the name.

A sizzle of pleasure ran through Hattie at the memory of what he’d taken even as he’d promised that retribution. The heat of his kiss. The promise of his touch.

Augie interrupted her thoughts. “Hattie—if he agreed to see you again—whatever he said—you have to know—he’s not after you.”

She swallowed the disappointment that came with the words. Augie wasn’t wrong. Men like the one she’d met that evening—men like Beast—they were not for women like Hattie. They did not notice women like Hattie. They noticed beautiful women with small, slender bodies and delicate dispositions. She knew that.

She knew it, but still . . . the unfettered honesty about her lack of allure stung.

She covered the hurt with a laugh, the way she always did. “I know that, Augie. And now I know just what he’s after. My idiot brother.” She enjoyed the hot flush that washed over Augie’s face more than she should. “But I intend for him to keep our agreement. And in order to do that, he will have to accept our offer.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No.” The last thing she needed was Augie with her, mucking things up. “No.”

“Someone has to go with you. He doesn’t leave Covent Garden.”

“Then I shall go to Covent Garden,” she said.

“It’s no place for ladies,” Augie said.

If there were any five words that would catapult a woman into motion, they were surely those. “Need I remind you that I grew up in the rigging of cargo ships?”

Augie changed tack. “He’ll do whatever it takes to punish me. And you’re my sister.”

“He doesn’t know that. He shan’t know it,” she said. “I have the upper hand here.”

Had they not parted on a challenge? One would find the other? And now . . . she knew how to find him. Pleasure coursed through her. Triumph. Something dangerously close to delight.

“And if the Beast hurts you?”

“He won’t.” That much, she knew. He might tease her, and tempt her, and test her. But he wouldn’t harm her.

She saw Augie’s acquiescence, chased like a rabbit by relief. Of course he was relieved. She was about to clean up his mess. Like always.

He exhaled. “All right.”

“But Augie?” Her brother lifted his gaze and she paused, her heart pounding. “If I do this . . .” Suspicion crossed his face, but he did not speak. “If I save your hide . . . then you shall do something for me.”

His brow furrowed. “What do you want?”

“Not what I want, August. What you shall happily provide.”

“Go on, then.”

Now or never.

Take it.

You told the Beast that you didn’t lose, either.

Make it so.

“You will tell Father you don’t want the business.” Augie’s eyes went wide as Nora let out a low whistle that Hattie ignored, frustration and determination and triumph coursing through her all at once. “You’ll tell him to give it to me.”

It seemed today was the beginning of the Year of Hattie, after all.





Chapter Seven


The next afternoon, as the sun sank into the western sky, Whit stood in the small, silent infirmary deep in the Covent Garden Rookery, keeping watch over the boy who had been ferried here after the attack on the shipment.

The room, filled with golden light, was fastidiously clean, in sharp comparison to the world beyond—a world where filth reigned—and it should have given Whit a modicum of peace.

It didn’t.

He’d gone immediately to the Rookery after leaving 72 Shelton Street—come to check on the riders who had been with him the night before. Come to check on this boy, Jamie, who’d been on the ground when Whit had been knocked out, the street beneath him black with blood. Even as he’d lost consciousness, Whit had raged. No one hurt the Bareknuckle Bastards’ men and lived.