Brazen and the Beast (The Bareknuckle Bastards #2)(67)

“Not with the new ones,” Hattie said, softly.

“And not with any others, either,” the earl added. “They’ve locked down every other shipping line that works the Thames. No one will do business with us. And this morning, he made his offer.”

“To buy us out.”

The earl nodded. “That was the option. Sell to him, or lose it all.”

“Not much of an offer,” Augie said.

Because it wasn’t an offer. “There’s nothing honorable about this.”

“They’re called the Bareknuckle Bastards, Hat,” Augie pointed out. “They’re not exactly honorable.”

But they were. She’d seen it in him, from the start. Whit hadn’t lied to her. In fact, he’d prized honesty between them from the start. Even when she’d refused to tell him Augie’s name—his part in the play—he’d admired her loyalty.

But more than all that, he’d believed in her. When she’d confessed her plans—her hopes for the future, her desire for the business, her plans for it. And he’d believed in her. He’d offered to help her. Had it all been a lie?

And why did it feel like such a betrayal?

Frustration and sadness stung in her throat. “He promised he wouldn’t do this.”

“Bah,” her father said. “He lied. Men like the Bastards always hit back, Bean. Why do you think I never tangled with them? And you’ve been caught.”

She refused to believe that. Refused to acknowledge it. She looked to the great ship again, her gaze going soft on the warm wood of its hull. Her mind worked, turning over the events of the last several days—playing out the possibilities. She’d spent years here, working these docks, loving them.

This was her turf, not his.

She wouldn’t let him steal it out from under her.

Bastard, indeed.

Finally, she looked up at her father. “You shouldn’t have sold. Not to him. Not to anyone.” Silence stretched like an eternity, the only sound the shouts of the men on the ship beyond, unloading what might be the last of the Sedley Shipping freight if the Bareknuckle Bastards had their way. “You were so afraid of letting me try. So terrified that I might fail and shame you—and you lost it all anyway.”

And in that moment, Hattie realized that her father, for so long immense in her mind, was far less than she’d ever been able to see. Smaller and slighter, white-haired, and with a craggy, weathered face, and a cowardice that he’d hidden for years . . . and could hide no longer.

This man who had built a business that had fed his family and hundreds of others with his sweat and his ethic was now tired and bested, and facing the ignoble, craven end of his legacy—because he couldn’t see how his daughter might have helped to keep it alive.

Might still.

She looked to her brother, then her father.

“You may have agreed to sell, but I haven’t.”

Augie’s brows shot up in surprise and something else—admiration?

“It’s done, gel. There wasn’t a choice.”

“There is always a choice,” Hattie said. “There is always the choice to fight.”

And her father considered her for a long while, a slight gleam in his eye. A glimmer of something more than doubt. “No man has ever gone up against the Bastards and survived.”

There might have been a time when she would have heeded that warning. But Hattie found she lacked the patience for warnings just then.

What was there to lose? He’d already taken it all.

“Then it is time for a woman to do so.”





Chapter Sixteen


That night, Nora and Hattie drove to Covent Garden in Nora’s fastest gig.

“I’ve no wish to die tonight,” Hattie said over the sound of the clattering wheels, clinging to the edge of the curricle as it rocketed past Drury Lane, turning left, then right, then left in quick succession. “Nora!”

“No one is dying!” Nora scoffed. “Please. I’ve raced this beauty along the Thames walk—and you think the Garden will do her in?”

“Let’s not tempt fate, is all I’m saying,” Hattie said, holding her hat atop her head as she pointed to a curved lane twisting off to the left. “There.”

Without slowing, Nora steered the matched greys down the cobblestone street, darker than the roads they’d been on. “You’re sure?”

Hattie nodded. “There. Up ahead. On the right.”

A bright lantern hung high on the exterior of the building, illuminating the sign for The Singing Sparrow. Nora slowed the horses. “I didn’t know you’d spent so much time in the Garden that you had a favorite pub.”

Hattie ignored the dry commentary. “Stay here.”

“There is absolutely no chance of that.” Nora was down from the gig, straightening the topcoat she wore over her tight buckskin breeches before Hattie could reply. “Is he in there?”

“I don’t know,” Hattie said, her heart pounding as she landed on the street, grateful for her own trousers—donned to keep her from notice—and the freedom of movement they provided. “But it’s the best place for us to start.”

She was not leaving Covent Garden without finding him. Without confronting him.