Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards #3)(48)

“He’s not anywhere near the true cargo,” Devil said.

“No?”

“Nah. He’s just hauling the last of the ice.”

“How much is the last of it?”

Devil looked to Beast. “What, eighty?”

Beast shrugged. “One hundred?”

One hundred blocks of ice, each one easily fifty pounds. And without a hook. His hands would be blistered from the ropes. His shoulders, too. He wore none of the protection that haulers traditionally wore. Her jaw clenched. “How many has he done?”

“Ten? A dozen?”

She shook her head. He wouldn’t be able to do much more. He wasn’t a hauler. He hadn’t been born with a hook in his hand.

And still, it looked like he would never stop. Something tightened in her throat, watching him in the dirt, in this part of the city that had been his before it had belonged to any of them. “So you set a duke down in the middle of the Garden, and expect him to walk away unscathed?”

“I wouldn’t say we expect that, no,” Devil said.

“Mmm,” Beast agreed. “I think we’re rather hoping he wouldn’t.”

“I thought we agreed you didn’t touch him?”

Devil looked at her and spread his arms wide. “I’m on the roof, Gracie. So far away it’s like I was never even here.”

“Still, you’re starting something, and he won’t stop till it’s finished,” she said. “You know that.”

“He started it,” Whit said.

She cut him a look. “What does that mean?”

He grunted. “He came looking to pay his debts.”

“His debts.”

“Wot, we weren’t supposed to take him up on the offer?” Devil said. “Ten thousand and some sound work in the Garden is a lot to pass up.”

Ten thousand pounds. “For the families?”

It was a fortune.

Beast turned on her, his amber eyes, usually so soft, turned hard, and his voice to match. “Five men, and it ain’t enough.” The words were clipped, tight on his tongue, and Grace felt the sting of them, like a wet lash. “He owes them, and you’d do well to remember that.”

Her face went hot with his censure, and she spoke to his profile. “You think I don’t remember?”

He did not look at her. “I think you’ve always had trouble remembering the truth of him.”

She bit back a sound of frustration, hating the way her chest tightened at the words. What did she care one way or another what happened to Ewan?

Not Ewan.

She watched him cross the yard again, his back to her. The muscles of his back were visible through his now-wet shirt. They rippled beneath the weight, and her mouth went dry.

Marwick. That was the truth of him, whether he was dressed for dukedom or not.

Grace tore her attention away from him, instead fixing on the crowd that watched in near silence. There was nothing easy about the quiet—she’d lived in Covent Garden long enough to know the difference between calm and tension. And everybody below seemed to hang in suspension, waiting for the chance to take this duke and make an example of him.

Rich, powerful, entitled.

And for no reason but birth.

Except he hadn’t had all that at birth. At birth, he’d been one of them.

But they didn’t know that. No one did. No one ever would, with the exception of the Bareknuckle Bastards. Even if someone in the Rookery did remember the blond bean of a boy, whelp of a moll on Tavistock Row, they’d never match him to the duke before them—it didn’t matter how much ice he hauled.

“They’re ready for a fight,” she said quietly. How many times had she seen them like this? On the balls of their feet, ready for a brawl.

Beast grunted his agreement.

“Of course they are. They love it,” Devil said. “A duke in the muck? It’s like watching a hound recite Shakespeare.”

“And so? You expect him to give it to them?”

“He’s smart enough to know the Garden wants its fight, and they won’t settle for less. And if he wants forgiveness—”

“He wants forgiveness?”

Devil cut her a look. “Not from us.” He lifted his chin in the direction of the yard. “From them.”

She watched as he set the ice at the feet of one of the bruisers at the warehouse door, and a whisper of memory ran through her. They don’t get what they deserve. He’d said it to her when they were children. About these people. About this place.

He turned to make his way back across the yard.

We’re going to change all that.

As though he’d heard the words, he looked up to the rooftop, his gaze immediately finding her. For a heartbeat, he stilled—not long enough for anyone to notice.

Grace noticed.

He lifted his chin in recognition, and she resisted the urge to respond.

Whatever this was, whatever his plan, it was not enough.

It would never be enough.

She tracked him back across the yard, her gaze following the lines of him, over the shirt that clung to him, revealing his broad chest and the ridges of muscle that he’d developed in the year he’d been gone, the opening at the neck revealing a wicked patch of raw, red skin on his left shoulder, and a hint of the edge of the stark white scar that had been there since they were children.