Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards #3)(108)

“Please,” she whispered.

“We made a promise, all those years ago,” Devil said, his voice ragged. “We promised him we would keep you safe. You ain’t runnin’ into fire.”

“And how many times did he run into fire for us?” she cried. “How many times did he do it here? That night, a lifetime ago, he chased us from this building . . . and he has lived in its fire ever since.”

“Grace . . .”

There was a beat of silence, and then, like a gift, Whit grunted.

Grace seized on the sound. “Please. I would know,” she whispered to him. “I would know if he were dead.”

Recognition flared in his eyes. A knowledge that came only from someone who knew the anguish she felt. “I believe you.”

Devil’s grip loosened.

Mistake.

Grace was already turning to run, smarter now. Her brother’s wicked curse rent the darkness as she headed for the house, for the flames. For the man she loved.

And then he was there. The door of the great manor house opened, and he was there, in shirtsleeves, tall and magnificent and alive, framed by the fire behind him, like no duke she’d ever seen before.

He was alive.

Grace pulled up short at the look of him, hiccupping her relief, their last conversation playing through her. The confession he offered her. No. Not a confession.

He’d called it a fight.

His last battle for her.

Second to last.

Because when she’d pushed him away, he’d made one final choice. Thrown one final punch. And landed it perfectly. He’d come here and set this place they had all loathed so much on fire.

“Fucking hell,” Devil said softly. “He did it.”

This mad, magnificent man had burned down the past.

For their future.

She was already moving, toward him, desperate to get to him, when the wicked crack tore through the night. He looked up at the sound, and she knew what was to come.

No!

She screamed his name into the night, tearing toward the house, her brothers on her heels, as the windows blew out of an upper window and he was swallowed by flame.

No. This place did not win him.

He was hers.

And as though she had willed it, the flames parted, and he was there again, walking through fire, just as he’d promised, tall and beautiful, covered in soot and ash, the house burning like hell itself behind him.

And he came straight for her.

She flew to him, launching herself into his arms, and he caught her, lifting her high against him, and kissing her, dark and deep and perfect, pulling away eventually to look into her eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to get you. I came to tell you that I love you. I came to tell you that you’re mine, and I’m never letting you go again.”

He kissed her again, long and lush, setting their hearts to racing before he set his forehead to hers and said, “I shall allow it.”

Pleasure rioted through her at the lush words, at the promise in them. Forever. “What have you done?”

“What I should have done years ago,” he said. “I should have destroyed this place from the start. This place that threatened to destroy us every day we were here. And threatened to destroy me every day after you left.” He kissed her again, and she could taste the aching regret on his lips.

“It did not destroy you,” she said. “It made you so much stronger.”

“No. You made me stronger. Strong enough to free us. Strong enough to leave the past behind and build a new future. With you. In the Garden. If you’ll have me.”

Always.

She would always have him.

“Christ, Duke,” Devil said as he and Whit approached. “This would have really set the old man off.”

Ewan didn’t release Grace as they turned to face the house, blazing in the night, and watched as an interior wall collapsed, sending flames shooting from the empty places in the stone facade where windows used to be.

He didn’t look to his brother, not even when he answered, “Not a duke any longer.”

Understanding dawned, bright and impossible, and they all looked to him. Grace shook her head. “You cannot mean it.”

“But I do. I spent the last year restoring the estate. It thrives. Her Majesty will no doubt delight in its lucrative return.”

He’d given it all up. For her. For them.

“You do not believe me?” He looked back to the inferno. “No one could survive that blaze. Not even the mad duke Marwick."

They all followed his gaze, his words settling as they watched the house burn.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Whit spoke. “Duke’s definitely dead. Seen it with my own eyes.”

Devil’s white teeth flashed in the glow of the fire. “Aye, lost to history as Burghsey House burned—all tragic like.”

Ewan looked to Devil and Whit, watching them carefully. “And with him, all the ghosts that have haunted us.”

And that was how Robert Matthew Carrick, Earl Sumner, Duke of Marwick—the duke who had never really existed—died.

“You’re lucky you walked out of there, bruv,” Whit added. “Else Grace would’ve been in there on your heels, willing the flames away and pulling you back from hell.”

Ewan turned to her, pulling her close. “If anyone is strong enough to win that battle, it’s you.”