Brazen and the Beast (The Bareknuckle Bastards #2)(47)

“It wasn’t six hours.”

“Wasn’t it? It felt like sixty.” Nora drank. “Point is, Hattie, that man has never been in society, and until this week, he’d never kissed you, either.”

Hattie’s eyes went wide. “The two are not in any way correlated.”

One of Nora’s dark brows rose in a smug arch. “Of course not.”

Hattie straightened, telling herself she’d just have a peek—just a quick look to see if she could find him in the crowd. The moment she did, letting herself come to her full height, her gaze found his. It wasn’t even as though he’d been looking about. She simply put up her head, and there he was. Like magic.

She immediately ducked again. “Damn.”

Nora snickered. “You do realize that you cannot hide from him.”

“Why not? You successfully hid from the Marquess of Bayswater for a full season.”

“That’s because Bayswater couldn’t find an elephant if it were hidden in a doll’s house. Your gentleman is rather more an even match.”

He was a perfect match. That’s what Hattie enjoyed so much about him—the sense that at any moment, they might spar, and either one of them could win. That’s what made her heart pound. It’s what fueled her desperation to head back into Covent Garden and seek him out. It’s what had kept her awake all the previous night, tossing and turning in her bed and thinking about what he meant by the fights and what kind of trouble she might get into if she crept from her home and went to find out.

Imagining herself in his world was one thing; his actually turning up in hers was entirely different.

She grabbed Nora’s hand and pulled her down the line of refreshment tables, eventually leading her out a large, open door and onto the balcony beyond. After heading away from a particularly raucous group, Hattie eventually put her back to the stone balustrade overlooking the Warnick gardens and said, “We shouldn’t have come here.”

“I don’t know why not,” Nora said. “I’m having a delightful time.” When Hattie groaned, she added, “Besides, Hattie, wasn’t the whole reason for your time in the”—she tossed a look over her shoulder to be certain they weren’t being overheard—“brothel to begin the Year of Hattie with your own ruination? Wasn’t it all to avoid the possibility of marrying?” She paused, then added, “This is your chance! March up to him and get yourself unmarriageable!”

Nora wasn’t wrong. Certainly, that had been the intent at the start of this—a quick ruination and that would be that. Just enough to ensure that her father would know that marriage wasn’t a possibility for her. That she would marry the business, and care for it ’til death did they part.

She shook her head. “I can’t. Not until I understand why he’s here. Not if he’s about to change the game.” She stopped. She was so close to getting what she wanted. Why couldn’t the man just be agreeable? “Dammit,” she whispered. “Why is he here?”

“If only there were a way you could divine that answer. By, say, asking him.”

“If he tells my father everything, then Augie shall be found out. And then I won’t get the business.”

Nora scoffed. “Augie deserves to be set on his ass. He should have to clean up his own mess. You should tell your father everything. This Beast character, too. Let them deal with Augie.”

Hattie looked to her. “He’s my brother.”

Nora narrowed her gaze, and Hattie grew uncomfortable. She knew that look. Assessing. Before she could change the topic, Nora said, “But that’s not all, is it?”

“What do you mean? Of course it is. I don’t want Augie hurt.”

Nora shook her head. “No. You want to solve it. You want to prove you can solve it. Prove you can rectify the problems with the business by yourself. You want to prove yourself worthy of it. So your father will give it to you. Because you want his approval.”

Hattie nodded. “Yes.”

“And so you’re willing to take on this man alone.”

Nora meant alone in a perfectly proper sense. In the singular. Hattie managing a negotiation and repayment of the Bastards’ stolen goods by herself, without the aid of her father. But when Hattie heard alone, she had a very clear vision of alone in the plural. Alone in a carriage. In a bedchamber. In a tavern storeroom. Alone, with him.

Either way, Hattie found her answer was the same. “I am.”

She looked over her shoulder toward the door. Afraid he might be there. Disappointed he wasn’t.

“Without help,” Nora clarified.

“Without interference.” And her father would interfere. Her father would tell her that she kept a tidy register and no one monitored the redistribution of a shipment better than she did, and yes, the dockworkers liked her, but to leave the business to men.

Hattie’s teeth gritted. How many times had she heard that horrible retort? Leave the business to men.

She loathed it. And she didn’t want to leave the business to men any longer. She wanted the business left to women. To woman. To her.

And she might be her father’s last choice, but she was the best one. And she wouldn’t have Saviour Whittington making everything more complicated by turning up here and ruining it, dammit. Not when she was so close.