Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards #3)(96)

Grace didn’t understand why he began there, but he did, and she would have lain in his arms and listened forever, if he’d asked her to.

Or, perhaps he chose to start there because it was where he started. Where they started—like strands of silk, woven together by fate.

“She went out for a walk, mistress to the Duke of Marwick, and returned home to discover that her home had been emptied of its contents,” he said, the words cool and easy, as though he’d heard them a hundred times before, and she imagined he had—a story burned into his memory by its heroine. “Everything was gone. Jewels, furniture, art. Anything of value. Gone.”

Grace’s fingers stroked over his chest, running back and forth through the dusting of brown hair there, his voice vibrating against them and in her ear. And as he spoke, she wished she had a healing balm for this—for the stories of the past that harbored anger and pain . . . and sometimes, the pain of others—always stinging, and never to be assuaged.

He gave a little humorless laugh to the room. “My mother talked about that day more than she talked about anything else. The day the duke had tossed her out. That day and the days before, with the parties and the privilege and the power she held over Mayfair—the Duke of Marwick’s impeccable mistress.” He paused, and then, “I don’t imagine she took kindly to knowing that he had been consorting with Devil’s and Whit’s mothers at the same time.”

She couldn’t help her dry, “Well, his wife wanted nothing to do with him . . . what else is an able-bodied aristocrat to do?”

He grunted, and she thought she heard real humor in it. “Not able-bodied for long, though.”

Scant months later, Grace’s mother, the Duchess of Marwick, had used a pistol to ensure that the old duke never had the opportunity to take advantage of another woman.

“The Lord’s work,” Grace said. “One of the few things I know about my mother, and the thing of which I am most proud.”

His fingers traced circles on her shoulder. “I imagine you take after her in strength and righteousness.”

“And aim,” she teased.

“And aim.” She heard the smile in his voice, turned dry as sand when he said, “I imagine that my mother would have liked to have been her second in that gunfight. She would have liked to have punished him as he punished her.” He stilled, and she did not move, except for her fingers, circling in light, languid strokes.

When he continued, he was whispering. “She hated him for betraying their contract. Ducal mistresses were to be paid handsomely in their retirement. They were to be given row houses in Earl’s Court, and two thousand pounds a year, and an open account on Bond Street. But he gave her none of those things. Instead he punished her.”

The old duke had punished every woman he’d ever interacted with. He’d been a brute. Grace opened her mouth to tell Ewan just that, to help ease the pain he clearly carried with him.

Before she could, he continued, “He punished her because of me.”

“No.” Her head snapped up as the word flew from her lips. “You weren’t—”

He stopped her. “He left her a single trunk of clothing. And do you know,” he said, not looking at her, “for years, when she would tell me this story, I thought she told me about that trunk to point to my father’s sympathy. The dresses, decorated with pearls and shot through with gold—all sold by the time I could understand what pearls and gold meant.

“I always hoped she told me that story to underscore his humanity—knowing what life he was sending her to. One that she hadn’t chosen.”

She took a deep breath. God knew Grace had seen the best and worst of the Garden, but since the Bastards had started running the Rookery, they’d done their best to ensure that people who found their way there could make their own choices.

Choice made for honest work. And safe.

And it was too rare that women were afforded it.

Ewan went on, “But now, as a grown man, I know it had nothing to do with his humanity. He was furious. And he wanted her to live every day for the rest of her life with that trunk full of aging silks, and remember what she’d given up. Because of me. He wanted her to regret me.”

She shook her head. “She didn’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” she said, forcefully, unwilling to let him win on this count. “I know it because I’ve lived in the Garden longer than you have, and I’ve seen more here than you ever did. And I know that women who don’t wish to have children don’t have to have them. I know your mother knew that—and how. And that is why I know she made a choice.”

She put her hands to the sides of his face, willing him to hear her. “The duke didn’t leave her with nothing, Ewan. He left her with you. Her choice.”

“And what good was I?” he said, anger flooding his tone. “She died here, in this place with nothing but the memory of her choice. I wasn’t even here.”

Grace nodded. “She did, and I dearly hope your father is rotting in hell for that and a thousand other things. But you didn’t die here.” She had tears in her eyes. “You didn’t die, Ewan, and that is the gift she gave you.”

He was lost to thought for an age, until finally, Grace could not stop herself from filling the silence and telling him her own story, softly. “I went looking for her, you know.”