Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards #3)(110)

The dukedom had returned to the Crown after the fire, the old duke’s plans for legacy fully thwarted. The land and tenants in Essex still thrived, and the staff in Mayfair had been snatched up by myriad aristocratic households—the mistresses of which were all members of a certain Covent Garden club.

The responsibilities properly handled, Ewan had never looked back to his title, too focused on his work, his love, and his future.

In the years since his return, 72 Shelton had been restored, the clientele growing along with the space—Ewan and Grace now lived in a handsome row house not far from Drury Lane, connected to the rest of the Bastards’ homes by rooftop. Their daughters grew in the sun and shade of Covent Garden, surrounded by hard working men and strong, smart women, and a world that their parents worked to make better every day.

“I will never grow tired of that word on your lips,” he said, pulling her tight against him and pressing a kiss to her temple.

“You’re missing the festival, husband,” she said as they turned back to the edge of the roof, and looked down on the Covent Garden market square, where the barkers and hawkers of the day had given way to musicians and pie sellers and a fire eater who looked more than a little familiar. They watched as Felicity and Devil danced in a whirlwind to a wild fiddle, around and around until they were tangled in each others’ arms and out of breath.

“I’m not missing it. I was just watching for a bit before I came down.” After a day in the Garden, arguing about fresh water piping and the plans for new housing for the workers in the Rookery, he’d come to watch the rooftops turn gold in the setting sun and cast the market in gold.

And yes, he’d come to watch his wife as she reigned queen over it.

“I know,” she said. “I’ve been watching you watching us.”

“Oh?” he said.

“It’s hard to miss such a handsome voyeur.”

He grinned at the words, pulling her tight to him, again. “I see the girls are happy.”

On the far corner of the square, beneath a torch that had been lit as the daylight faded, a half-dozen girls—cousins—crowded around Whit and Hattie. Felicity and Devil’s Helena and her younger sister, Rose, each as clever as their mother and cunning as their father, were joined by Hattie and Whit’s brilliant Sophia, who could happily take control of the shipping business at the age of nine. And with them, three flame-haired girls—seven, five, and four, each with a riot of curls to match their mother’s, and amber eyes like their father.

“Whit’s been doling out sweets all day,” she said. “Lemon drops, raspberry drops, strawberry, his pockets appear to be bottomless.”

“Hattie brings them in by the case,” he said.

“She spoils him.”

He looked to her. “He deserves it.”

She grinned. “So do we all, I say.” She paused, and then tilted her head and said, slyly, “Is there something sweet I can provide you, husband?”

The question sent a lick of heat through him. “I think I can imagine one or two things.”

“Only one or two?” she said. “I’m disappointed.”

He kissed her again, long and deep, until they both came away breathless. “I confess,” he said, “I feel spoiled every day I am with you and the girls. I feel spoiled every day I stand with my brothers, in this place. I feel spoiled every night when I come home to you.”

She leaned up to press a kiss to his beard-roughened cheek as he added, “Sometimes feeling so spoiled makes me wonder if it’s all real.”

“I’ve an idea,” Grace said, pulling away from him, her fingers tangling in his. “Come down and play. Laugh with me and dance with me, and spend an outrageous amount of blunt, and let the broad tossers give you a good fleecing, and let Devil challenge you to a bout, and let Whit convince you to buy the girls a hound.”

“No hound,” he said, firmly.

His gorgeous wife grinned. “There’s a little brown pup who might win your heart yet, husband . . . but I’m not finished.”

“By all means,” he replied. “Go on.”

She approached again, pressing her long, lush body to his and wrapping her arms about his neck. And then she pressed kisses to his face and jaw and cheeks. “Come and play, until our feet are tired and our hearts are full . . . and then let’s go home and tumble into bed. Happy. Just as we deserve.”

And because they deserved it, that is precisely what they did.





Author’s Note


Covent Garden holds my whole heart, even now, two hundred years apart from the world of the Bareknuckle Bastards. In the last few years, I’ve been lucky enough to spend days of research time in and around Covent Garden and the London Docklands; this series would not exist without the extensive collection of the Museum of London (particularly its magnificent work with Charles Booth’s Life and Labour of the People of London), The Museum of the London Docklands, the Covent Garden Area Trust, the Foundling Museum, and the British Library.

A quick note on the raids that play a pivotal role in Grace’s story. It would take time for the new young Queen to usher in the period of rigid morality with which her name has become synonymous—in those early years, there was a rise in social freedoms for women at all levels of society. But, as is too common in situations in which marginalized groups gain social ground, there was an enormous backlash. Between social disdain, political vitriol, and physical violence, the expanding role of women of all classes was hotly contested for the remainder of the nineteen century, resulting not only in commonplace raids like the one on 72 Shelton Street, but also in laws that criminalized sex work, refused women the vote, and widely set women back—all while Queen Victoria held the throne.