Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards #3)(80)

Hattie shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe it needn’t be complicated. Maybe he wants another chance. Maybe he wants hope.”

Hope.

Helena offered a little, slobbery coo, and Grace looked to the babe, who had happily traded her rattle for one of her father’s knuckles. She spoke to the child. “He’s the reason there’s a bill in Parliament to help the Rookery.”

Silence. And then Beast knocked back his whisky. “It is to fail. He tilts at windmills.”

Didn’t they all?

“Grace,” Felicity said quietly. “What do you want?”

What do you need?

The words echoed, over and over.

Come and see me when you know.

She looked up at her brothers. “Perhaps I want hope, too.”

“Goddammit.”

“Fuck.”

Felicity grinned at the men’s united response. “Well, then. Isn’t this exciting.”





Chapter Twenty


There was a fire-eater outside 72 Shelton Street.

She’d said she was an expert at parties, Ewan thought, watching the flames dance in the night as his driver trundled off down the narrow cobblestone street. And this is a party, if ever there was one.

If he’d given it much thought, he might have expected the raucous laughter, and the windows lit up like the sun, pouring golden light into the street, turning the cobblestones to gold. He might have expected the crush of masked women in elaborate dress, all reveling in the freedom of being far from Mayfair and recognition, but when she’d boasted her skill, he’d never imagined it was the kind that came with fire-eaters.

There was a fire-eater, however, flask on his hip and torch in his hand, surrounded by wide-eyed children from the Garden and flanked on both sides by men on stilts that lifted them nearly to the first floor of the building beyond—a building Ewan had been inside only once before, when Grace had brought him here to end his attacks on her brothers, and deliver him a lesson he richly deserved.

One he remembered with crystal clarity.

You can never have her back.

He had left, that lesson firmly in hand. And returned, hoping that the reverse was not true—that she might one day decide to have him back.

He’d made himself a better man, and there had been moments in the past weeks, fleeting ones, when her lips had curved and her guard had dropped, and he’d thought perhaps she warmed to him. And when she kissed him. When she came apart in his arms and she cried his name in pleasure.

Then, he was almost certain that she warmed to him.

And then came the night on the rooftops, when he’d gone too far—revealed too much—and she’d run from him. And he’d been certain that he’d ruined it all. He’d gone to Lady Henrietta the next day, having decided that if he could not win Grace, he could at least pay his Garden debts, beginning with her. With the ships she’d lost due to his anguish and grief. With the docks she’d had to rebuild, and the men who’d worked alongside her.

He’d apologized, and miraculously, she had accepted.

Ewan had spent a week tarring decks and hauling crates, and going home to Mayfair to collapse into his bed, sleeping well for the first time since he could remember. He told himself it was the physical exhaustion that helped, but he knew the truth. It was the knowledge that he was building, and not destroying.

It was the hope that with enough penance, he might be forgiven.

If not by Grace, then by her people.

And then, a week later, he’d received the package, a thin ebony box, wrapped all in black, with a gold 72 on the outside. He’d known instantly that it was from her.

Inside, on a bed of white silk, lay a black domino, like the one he’d worn at his masquerade. He lifted it to discover a card, bearing a single line of text.

Come see me.

The back had indicated a precise date and time, and an address: 72 Shelton Street. Below, at the center of the ecru card, a pink dahlia.

Her signature.

Come see me, he thought. The same words he’d used with her after he’d left her in the Garden. But she’d left off the bit he’d included.

He knew what he needed. Did she?

Was that what this was?

Whatever it would be, he was not about to lose an opportunity to be with her. Especially here, in her element. He’d asked her to tell him about Dahlia, and now, she offered to reveal her secrets.

But he had not expected a fire-eater.

The man in question took a swig from his flask, held out his torch, and lit the night, the column of flame easily four feet high. The children who crowded the performer let out a collective wild cheer that became even more cacophonous as the stilt walkers lit their own torches and began to toss them back and forth, the performance creating the illusion that the door to 72 Shelton sat under an arc of fire.

Ewan slowed his approach, waiting for the performance to end, but the fire-eater had already seen him. “Welcome, milord!” He doffed his high hat and bowed with a tremendous flourish. “Please! Go right in.”

When Ewan returned his attention to the stilt walkers with their torches, the fire-eater laughed a great laugh and said, “They’re perfectly safe, good sir. And if they interest you, just wait until you discover what’s in store . . . inside!”

On another night, at another time, for another man, the words would have piqued his curiosity enough to propel him through the door, but Ewan did not need the prom ise of extravagant performance and feats of strength. The knowledge that Grace was inside was enough.