Brazen and the Beast (The Bareknuckle Bastards #2)(25)

Whit clenched his teeth.

“If she doesn’t?” Felicity asked. “What of her then?”

“Then she’s collateral damage,” Devil said. Whit ignored the distaste that came with the words.

Felicity looked to her husband. “Isn’t that what I was, once?”

Devil had the grace to look chagrined. “For a heartbeat, love. Just long enough for me to come to my senses.”

“If she’s the enemy, I’ll do it,” Whit said.

One of Devil’s brows went up. “If?”

You’re very inconvenient.

It’s the Year of Hattie.

Snippets of the conversation in the carriage.

“Even if she isn’t the enemy,” Devil pointed out, “she protects the man who is.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leveled his brother with a firm look. “Which makes her valuable.”

It made her leverage.

“You’ll have no choice but to show her the truth of us, bruv,” Devil said quietly. “No matter how much you like the look of her.”

The truth of them. The Bareknuckle Bastards didn’t leave enemies alive.

“Sort it before we have to move more product,” Devil said. A new shipment would come into port within the next week.

Whit nodded as the door to the room opened, revealing the doctor. “You’ve a message.” He pushed the door wide and revealed one of the Bastards’ best runners.

“Brixton,” Felicity said to the boy, who immediately preened under Felicity’s attention. All the boys in the Garden adored her—half lockpicking genius, half maternal perfection. “I thought you were headed home?”

“To learn how to keep your gob shut, I hope, boy,” Whit said, making certain Brixton knew Whit had heard everything the boy had told Devil about Hattie.

“Ignore him,” Felicity said. “What is it?”

Brixton raised his chin toward Whit. “There’s reports there’s a girl in the market. Lookin’ fer Beast.” A pause, and then, “No’ a girl, really. A woman.” He lowered his voice. “The boys fink she’s a lady.”

A rumble sounded low in Whit’s chest.

Hattie.

“Askin’ all sorts o’ questions.”

Felicity looked to Whit. “Is she?”

“Aye. No’ that we’re answerin’.” Of course they weren’t. No one in Covent Garden would give Lady Henrietta Sedley information about the Bastards. That was the first of the unspoken rules there. The Bastards belonged to the Rookery alone.

“Good work, Brixton,” Devil said, flipping a coin to the boy, who snatched it out of the air with a grin and was gone before Devil could add, “Seems like you won’t have to find her, after all, Beast.”

Whit’s grunt hid the thread of disbelief that coursed through him. And the wariness. And the desire to chase her down. No, he wouldn’t have to find her.

She’d found him first.





Chapter Eight


There was nothing in the wide world like the Covent Garden market.

The marketplace was massive, fronted by a great stone colonnade that gave way inside to an endless collection of shops and stalls selling anything a body could need—laden high with fruits and vegetables, flowers and sweets, meat pies and china, antiques and fabrics.

Hattie was full of pleasure as she picked through the interior of the market, weaving in and out of the vendors, tempted by the riotous colors of the late autumn harvest—flower stalls overflowing with reds and oranges, magnificent gourds piled next to bushels of beetroots in myriad colors, and heaps of potatoes still dark with the rich soil in which they’d grown.

To others, the building itself was the pride of the marketplace—an architectural marvel, massive and stunning, with immense, echoing rafters and stonework and ironwork that made this, London’s largest and most expansive market, the envy of all the world.

But the building was nothing to Hattie. For Hattie, the draw of the market was the people within. And it was packed to the rafters with people. Farmers and merchants, florists and butchers, bakers and haberdashers and tinkers and tailors, all hawking their wares for a crush of customers that ranged from lowliest maid to jewel of the ton. If one could find their way into the building, it didn’t matter where they’d come from—Covent Garden market was one of the rare places in the city where a pauper’s ha’penny spent as well as a prince’s—perhaps even better, as a pauper didn’t have qualms about raising his voice when necessary . . . which it always was in the market.

Because beyond the color and scent of the place was the sound. A raucous cacophony of shouts and laughter, of dedicated buyers and eager sellers, of barking dogs and clucking chickens and pipes and fiddles and children laughing.

It was a pure, magnificent commotion. And Hattie adored it.

She had since she was a little girl, when her father would let her hang about on the company’s ships while they were unloaded—the holds taking hours to empty, even with scores of men doing the backbreaking work. And when it was over, Mr. Sedley (he hadn’t been an earl then) would fetch his eldest child and promise her a trip to the Covent Garden market for a treat of her choosing.

She thought back on those days as she lingered in the marketplace, the sun setting in the west, its rainbow of light making London—even the forgotten bits of it—magical. She thought of them, and the way she’d revered her father, the way she’d fallen in love with the ships and the business and the docks. And the way she’d loved this market, loud and raucous and covered in sawdust to soak up the stench and the filth that never seemed as off-putting as it should.