Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards #3)(77)

And she would absolutely not be able to avoid thinking of the Duke of Marwick himself, who was no longer the Duke of Marwick in her mind. It had taken her years to stop thinking of him as Ewan, and mere days for her to return to it.

Ewan.

And that change, barely anything to the rest of the world, was enough to send Grace into internal chaos.

Who am I without that hate?

Who are you?

The questions had echoed for a week, as she’d lived her life and run her business and planned the October Dominion. And for a week, the answers had eluded her.

Still, she attended the dinner, entering the house, shucking her coat, and accepting a gurgling Helena from her smiling nurse, grateful to have the baby as a shield for what she suspected was to come.

She wasn’t the only one in Covent Garden with spies. She merely had the best. And it didn’t take the best of spies to notice when a duke came kissing Dahlia in broad daylight with a bevy of washerwomen looking on in delight.

Her cheeks warmed as she entered the dining room of the home—one-half long, elaborately set table, already laden with platters of game and veg, as though Hattie had prepared for the queen herself, and one-half sitting room. It was a design choice that Grace had always rather liked, stemming from the fact that Hattie abhorred the trend of ladies and gentlemen separating after meals, and she prevented it by making the dining room comfortable for more than eating.

Grace had barely stepped into the room—was still having a nonsense chat with Helena, in fact—when Devil turned from the sideboard where he’d poured himself two fingers of whisky and said, “Ah, we wondered if you’d be too busy to join us tonight.”

Ignoring the tightening in her gut at the words, Grace tossed a quick smile to her sisters-in-law, Felicity, by the high windows on one end of the room, and Hattie, perched on the arm of the large chair where Whit sat, and said, brightly, in a singsong voice to Helena, “Why would I be too busy to join you?”

“I don’t know,” Devil said, approaching her with a second glass. “We thought perhaps you’d be too busy catting about with Marwick.”

“I see we’re getting right to it, then.” Grace’s heart threatened to beat from her chest, and she wondered if others could hear it over the only other sound in the room—a babbling Helena, her little fist clapping against Grace’s cheek.

She took the drink from Devil and looked into it. “Is it safe to drink?”

He smirked, his scar pulling tight on his face. “I’m not the one with a history of trying to kill you, Gracie.”

Devil had never in his life pulled a punch.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Felicity came over from her place by the window, the bright pink skirts of her gown rustling against the plush carpet. “Stand down, will you? Would you listen to this one,” she scoffed. “As though he’s lived the life of a saint.”

“I haven’t tried to seduce a woman I’ve nearly killed,” he said.

“No,” Felicity retorted, “you only tried to seduce a woman in an attempt to ruin her life.”

Hattie coughed a laugh, and Whit and Grace’s brows rose in the kind of unison that proved that siblings didn’t need to share blood to share affect.

“That’s different!” he declared. “I was going to get you sorted, proper spinster-like.”

“Ah, yes. A widow’s cottage in the Hebrides or some such.” Felicity cut him a look before returning her attention to Grace. “So. Tell us.”

“I don’t know what you are asking.”

Lie. But Felicity was not easily waved off. “We know he kissed you after—this part seems very strange—helping Alice with the wash?”

There was no point in denying it. It had been in broad view of half the Rookery. “It’s true.”

Silence again, and Grace felt four sets of hot looks on her as she pretended to be riveted to Helena, her only ally. The baby blew a bubble and laughed, completely unaware of her surroundings.

Devil turned to Whit. “Do you have anything to say?”

Whit shrugged. “I told you.”

“As though we needed a fucking oracle to see it.”

Grace turned to him. “To see what?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “That he was back for you.”

The reason I have done everything from the start, he’d said. For you.

“Not just that,” Whit said. “You’re back for him, too.”

“I’m not.” She shook her head. And then, at the quartet of disbelieving looks, she said, “I shouldn’t be.”

“Damn right,” Devil said.

“Devil,” Felicity said, censure in her tone.

He turned away, grumbling, “She’s not wrong.”

“But what if she is?” Hattie interjected as she stood, crossing the room and selecting a turned carrot from a platter there. “I’m assuming we are not sitting down to dinner, right?” She took a bite of the vegetable and after chewing thoughtfully said, “What if he’s back and he’s changed?”

Grace ignored the thrum that went through her at the question. At the idea that Hattie might think it possible. “Men don’t change,” Grace said. “That’s the first rule of surviving as a woman in the world. Men don’t change.”