Brazen and the Beast (The Bareknuckle Bastards #2)(44)

“I always want vengeance. But I want to carve it out with a blade. Not . . .” He waved a hand to indicate Whit’s attire. “Whatever this is.”

“You didn’t carve it out with a blade when it came to your wife.” Felicity had been an act of vengeance before she’d become an act of love.

Devil turned knowing eyes on him. “Is this a comparable situation?”

Shit. “No.”

“Whit—you haven’t been inside a ballroom since we were twelve.”

It hadn’t been a ballroom then; it had been a torture chamber. It had been the man who’d sired him reminding Whit with every misstep that his future lay in the balance. His future, and his mother’s.

It had been full of anger and fear and panic.

Whit reached into his pocket, grasping one of the two pocket watches within, running a thumb over the warm metal face. “I remember it all.”

Silence, and then, softly, “He was a fucking monster.”

Their father. Spreading his seed throughout England, not knowing that the three sons he sired on different women would become his only chance at an heir. And then his own wife made any legitimate sons impossible, putting a bullet into his bollocks just as he’d deserved, and the Duke of Marwick had come looking for them, not caring that their illegitimacy should have saved them all from the horrific tests he put them through. Thinking only of his name and his line.

Thinking only of himself and not the scars he would leave on three boys, and the girl who’d held the place before them.

Memory flashed. Of the last night at Burghsey House, the country seat of the Dukedom of Marwick. Of Grace—the placeholder—the girl baptized a boy so all of England would think the duke had a legitimate heir, her red hair in tangles, shaking, as the monster she’d always thought was her father told her the truth—that she was expendable.

Then he’d turned to Devil and Beast and told them the same. They weren’t good enough. They weren’t worthy of the dukedom. And they, too, were expendable.

But nothing had hurt more than when the old bastard had directed his attention to Ewan, the third brother, born of a fourth woman. Ewan, strong and smart and with fists like iron. Ewan, determined to change his future. Ewan, who’d once promised to protect them all.

Until their father had told him to do just the opposite.

And then they’d had to protect themselves.

Whit looked to Devil, the wicked scar down his brother’s right cheek gleaming white in the darkness, evidence of their past.

They had protected themselves that night, and every night since.

Whit didn’t speak the thought. He refused to resurrect the memory. His brother didn’t ask him to. Instead, Devil’s attention stayed on Hattie, and Whit found he couldn’t resist joining him, watching as she entered Warnick House, the swing of her wine red skirts tempting him, sweet and sinful like the drink itself.

“Here is my question.” Devil asked quietly, “In your mind, how does this end? The woman is protecting a family and a business that has come for our own, which makes her at worst the enemy, and at best a blockade between us and Ewan.”

Whit did not reply. Devil didn’t have to speak what they both knew was true. What threatened the Bastards’ business threatened all of the Rookery. All of Covent Garden. And all of the people who relied on them.

The people he had vowed to protect.

“How does it end?” Devil repeated, softly.

She was gone from view, the edge of her skirts disappeared, blocked by a new group of revelers, eager for entry. He hated that he couldn’t see her, even though her withdrawal from view made it easier for him to go after her. To straighten his shoulders and smooth his sleeves, and say, “Revenge.”

He had nearly made it to the street when Devil called out to him, soft from the darkness. “Whit.”

Whit stopped but did not turn back.

Not even when the Garden slipped into Devil’s voice. “You forget, bruv . . . I, too, have stood in the darkness, watching the light.”





Chapter Twelve


“Tell me again why we are here?”

Hattie spoke over the crush of people clamoring to access the entrance to the Warnick House ballroom. She and Nora had lost the Earl of Cheadle in the wild mess of people, and were now caught like fish in a current, swept up the steps to the main floor of the house.

“Balls are a diversion,” Nora said, tossing a smile to someone in the distance. “And I like the Duchess of Warnick more than I like most people.”

“I didn’t know you knew the Duchess of Warnick.”

“There are many things you don’t know about me,” Nora said with affected mystery.

Hattie laughed. “There is nothing I don’t know about you.”

“I’m thinking of finding a thing or two, honestly,” came the reply as Nora passed her shawl to a waiting footman. “I don’t like that you’re keeping secrets about your new paramour.” She mouthed the word in an exaggerated fashion that would have allowed anyone looking to know precisely what she’d said.

Hattie didn’t blink. There was absolutely no one looking. No one looked at twenty-nine-year-old spinsters, one of whom lacked beauty and the other of whom lacked tact. “He’s not that.”

Nora smirked. “Oh, no. Of course not. He just . . .”—her eyes went wide and she lowered her voice—“in a tavern.”