Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards #3)(64)

She sucked in a breath and shot him a warning look.

He lowered his hand, and returned to his inspection, taking in the stitching of her coat and the rich sheen of the silk of her corset—which should have scandalized but instead set a body back with its strength.

“Do you ever wear gowns?” he asked, knowing it was a risk.

She hesitated. Then, “I’m familiar with the concept,” she replied, the corner of her mouth twitching, making him want to kiss the spot.

Her fingers traced over his skin, passing from one shoulder, marked with a bruise, to the other, red and angry. She returned to the pot of salve, and when she touched him again, the cool balm soothed more than his shoulder.

“You wore one to my masquerade.”

It was a risk, revealing what he knew, and she stilled, her fingers on his shoulder pausing. He could hear the calculations in her mind—could she convince him it hadn’t been she?

No masks, Grace. Not tonight.

“How long have you known?”

He waited for her to look up at him. “I will always know you.”

“You do not search for a wife.”

He shook his head. “No.”

“The mothers, throwing daughters in your path?”

“Unsuccessful.”

She watched him for a long moment, and then, “The masque was not for Mrs. Duke of Marwick. A woman who liked mossy earth and towering trees. It was for me.”

One and the same.

He was keenly aware of her fingers on his shoulder, stroking over the markings of his past. Of theirs. And as they stroked, he heard his brother’s words.

You broke her heart, Whit had said.

She did not trust him. And all he could do was trust her, instead.

“I heard you liked elaborate parties.”

Her fingers stuttered as she painted the salve over his skin in wide sweeps, around and around, avoiding the place he knew she watched. The scar his father had put in his shoulder the night he’d discovered that Grace was the only thing that mattered to Ewan. "I am not available for the position,” she said, softly.

“I know.” But it didn’t make him want her any less.

“I would die a thousand deaths before I’d let that monster win.”

The old duke, who had only ever cared about the line. He gave a little, humorless laugh at her anger. “And you think I feel otherwise?”

She met his eyes, and he let her see the full force of his anger for his father—that man who had made the continuation of the Marwick line a singular goal. And then, when Ewan had become duke, it had fallen to him to ensure his father never received that which he had deemed so paramount.

Which meant no children for Ewan, ever.

Not even beautiful, red-haired little girls.

Oblivious to his thoughts, Grace spoke again. “You came back despite my telling you to stay away.”

I will always come back.

“But not for a year. Where did you go?”

“I went back.”

To Burghsey, where he’d found an estate in ruin—one he’d left to crumble when he’d inherited and walked away. An estate he’d resurrected as he’d resumed his place there, restoring the lands and attending to the tenants, even as he took his place in Parliament and attended to an end he’d promised her a lifetime earlier.

He’d rebuilt himself, as well, into a new man. A man healthier and stronger and better than the one he’d been; worthier, too, even as he knew that he would never be worthy of the woman she had become—a woman who was strong and brilliant and powerful and so far above him he didn’t deserve to look at her, let alone reach for her.

Nevertheless, he looked. And he reached.

“And why are you back now?” she asked, no longer touching him, and he could hear the edge in her words—anger. Frustration. “Do you think to convince me you regret it?”

“I do regret it. I regret turning my back on my brothers,” he said. “And Grace, there is not a moment I don’t regret turning my back on you.”

Years of practice kept her from revealing that she was moved by the words, but he was watching her intently, his gaze riveted to the pulse point at the base of her neck, and he saw her heart race.

She did look at him then, her beautiful brown eyes wide and glittering in the candlelight. “And so? You thought a masquerade and a Garden brawl would make good on the past?”

“I have been to battle every day since I chased you away,” he said, wanting her to hear it. “What is one more fight? What are a thousand of them?”

He would suffer the blows of Covent Garden every day if there was a chance for forgiveness there. For it here.

She ran a thumb over his scar, finally, and he went cold with the sensation, not knowing what she would do in the face of his words.

Another risk.

“Why did you come here, tonight?” he asked again.

She pointed in the direction of the chairs at the far end of the room, where a fireplace might have been lit if the night wasn’t so warm. “Sit.”

He did, lowering himself into the chair, wincing as he did so, hating to show her his weakness even as he reveled in the intimacy of it. In the history of it.

All the times when they were children, and the days after the explosion on the docks—she had cared for him, then. He knew it. He’d felt her there, even as she’d prepared to send him away forever.