Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards #3)(103)

Terrified of losing him.

Could it be enough?

“I want you,” he said, and she hated the way the words came, resigned. “I want you and I love you, and it isn’t first love. It’s final. And if you cannot see that—if you cannot find the courage to take it, and to revel in it, and to let me stand by your side, then it is not enough.” He shook his head. “How many tests must I pass before you believe in it? Before you trust it? Before you trust me?”

“I want to,” she said. It was true. There was nothing she wanted more than this man, with her, forever.

Silence stretched between them for an eternity, and she saw the riot of emotions play across his face. Frustration. Sadness. Disappointment. And finally, resignation. “Want is not enough,” he said. “Not for either of us.”

The words hung between them, a wicked blow. A punch he did not pull.

He left her then, and she knew, without question, that he would never return.

And Grace Condry, queen of Covent Garden, stood in her destroyed club and, for the first time in two decades, let the tears come.





Chapter Twenty-Five


The next morning, as the sun coated the rooftops of London in the bright light of a crisp autumn day, her brothers found her on the roof.

“Between us, we’ve, what—five houses?” Devil said, coming to stand at her side where she sat on a chimney block, arm draped over one knee, looking out over the rooftops toward Mayfair. He lifted the collar of his greatcoat and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’d think we could find somewhere warmer to meet.”

Grace didn’t look at him. “We’ve always preferred the roof. What was it you used to say? This was as far as we’d ever be from the muck?”

“Mmm,” Devil replied, rocking back on his heels. “But Whit owns the southern edge of Berkeley Square, so look at us now.”

No one laughed.

Instead, Whit came around into her field of vision, leaning back against the low wall marking the edge of the roof, crossing one ankle over the other, shoving his hands deep in his pockets and hunching his shoulders against the wind. “Club’s a fucking mess.”

And it was. Broken glass, curtains slashed to bits, furniture in pieces, not a single window remaining intact. At some point, someone had tipped over a candelabrum and burned a hole in the carpet. Thankfully, that had happened before every bottle of alcohol on the main floor of the club had been smashed and let to run out, or there would be no rooftop to be found.

Grace nodded. “And you’re only talking about the inside. I’ll be lucky if we ever see another member again.”

“Nah,” Devil said. “They shan’t stay away. You promised them a circus, and didn’t you deliver?”

“It’s destroyed,” she said. “I sent everyone home.” She didn’t want to face them.

“Well, a dozen of them are inside getting a jump on the clean, so I’d say your biggest problem is mutiny,” Devil said. “Zeva and Veronique are barking orders like proper lieutenants. Maybe you ought to get them uniforms when you order new wallcoverings.”

Irritation flared. “I told them to go home.”

“It can be mended,” Whit said, ignoring her. “You’re rich and we’ve a line into every silk spinner, furniture maker and whisky distiller you need. That is, if we’re still talking about the club.”

Devil tapped his stick on the roof thoughtfully. “Well, the rest can be mended, too, truthfully. If anyone knows that, we do.”

Grace looked to him. “The rest?”

He met Whit’s gaze over her shoulder. “She plays coy with me.”

Whit grunted. “She’s never liked to talk about him.”

Ewan.

“We hear he’s broken your heart again, Gracie.”

The words, soft and kind—kinder than anything she’d ever heard Devil say to someone who wasn’t Felicity or Helena—threatened to break her. She pressed her lips together.

“Can we kill him, now?” grumbled Whit.

“He loves me,” she said.

“He’s always loved you,” Devil said. “That doesn’t seem like it should be heartbreaking. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact.”

“He wants to marry me,” she said to the rooftops. “I’d be Duchess of Marwick.”

Her brothers were silent for a long moment, and then Whit grunted his acknowledgment.

“So. Therein lies the rub,” said Devil.

Another long stretch of silence, then Whit. “What did you tell him?”

She snapped her attention to them, irritation flaring along with something like betrayal as she looked from one to the other. “What do you think I said?”

“Ah. So he didn’t break your heart,” Whit clarified. “You broke his.”

“Who made you such an expert on hearts?” she snapped. “I thought you wanted to kill him.”

His brows shot up. “Easy, Gracie.”

“We don’t not want to kill him,” Devil said. “But we know what it’s like to be laid low.”

“I don’t much care for feeling sympathy for the bastard, truthfully,” Whit said.

“And so? What will he do?” This, from Devil.