He’d failed.
But he still remembered the fucking lessons.
And so he stood here in the dark, cravat tight about his neck, watching the ton exit their carriages and enter a ball where, but for a single twist of fate two decades earlier, he might have belonged, waiting.
“Do you have plans for the evening beyond standing in Berkeley Square in a perfectly tied cravat?” Devil paused. “Where did you even get a cravat?”
“Keep at the cravat, and I shall use it to strangle you.”
Devil’s grin flashed white in the darkness as he turned back to the town house. “So we wait for someone?”
“I wait for someone. I don’t know why you are here at all.”
Devil nodded, watching the house for a long moment before moving away, to a nearby linden tree. He leaned against the trunk, crossing one black boot over the other. Whit did what he could to ignore him.
Devil was not one to be ignored. “I assume we await Lady Henrietta?”
Of course they did. Whit did not reply.
“I only ask because you’ve gone full fop.”
“I have not.” Whit wore all black, from his boots to his hat, with the exception of his shirt and the cravat they were not discussing again.
“Sarita told me your topcoat is embroidered in gold.”
Whit snapped his attention to Devil, horrified. “It is not.”
Devil grinned. “But you’re wearing a topcoat, which has no place in the Garden, so—clearly we are trying to impress.”
“I should like to impress my fist upon your face.” Whit turned back to the house, where a new carriage had arrived, footman leaping down with a block to help its inhabitants to the ground. Out came an older man, who immediately donned his hat.
“Cheadle,” Devil said, as though he understood.
He didn’t. Whit barely understood why he was here in Mayfair, in formalwear, watching Hattie’s father. Not that he’d admit that. “I told you I’d take care of it, didn’t I?”
“Indeed you did. Are you here for the father or the son? You know you cannot knife them in a Mayfair ballroom, don’t you?”
“Don’t see why not,” Whit responded.
Devil grinned wide and tapped his walking stick against his boot. “You should have told me you were planning a show; I would have searched out formalwear, as well.”
“Nah. Someone has to keep up appearances,” Whit said, watching as the footman handed down a dark-haired woman in a brilliant orange frock, who turned to inspect the rest of the assembly, her bold smile full of confidence and lacking caution.
“Lady Henrietta, I assume?”
Whit’s brows knitted together. “It’s not her.” He took a step toward the street. Where was she?
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the inside of a ballroom, but you can’t simply walk across the street and engage the enemy, Beast.”
The name brought Whit back. He turned on Devil. “That’s not Hattie.”
One of his brother’s dark brows rose. “Ah. We wait for Hattie after all.”
The emphasis on the diminutive set Whit on edge. Irritation flared. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to,” Devil said, tapping a rhythm on the side of his boot. “Brixton told me you brought the lady toff to the Sparrow—”
“If our eyes on the rooftops don’t have enough to do, I’m happy to find them more work.”
“They have plenty to do.”
“Watching me isn’t part of it.”
Devil didn’t reply. “I might note that the last time they weren’t watching you, you were knocked unconscious and disappeared.”
A grunt. “Not disappeared.”
“No, I suppose not. Thank heavens for the lady toff.” Whit clenched his teeth. Had Devil always been such an ass? “Calhoun told me the two of you got lost in the storeroom—which, who among us hasn’t lost their head over a woman at the Sparrow—though the stockroom isn’t exactly dressed for seduction—”
Fucking hell, his brother could talk. “I haven’t lost my head.”
Devil stopped. “No?”
“No. Of course not.” She was a threat to their business—their best link to Ewan. He hadn’t even come after her until tonight. She’d found him unconscious in her carriage. She’d come to his turf. To Shelton Street. To the market square. She’d followed criminals into his darkness.
All he’d done was follow her. To learn more about the enemy.
To keep her safe.
He pushed the thought aside. It was nonsense, after all. The fact that he’d been unable to keep his hands from her once he’d reached her was irrelevant. As was the fact that he couldn’t stop thinking of the feel of her skin beneath his touch, her lips against his, the sting of her fingers tightening in his hair, the sound of her cries when she came on his tongue. The taste of her. Christ. The taste of her.
“So, you stand in the darkness for . . .”
Her.
“Her father’s business offered to repay our debt.”
One of Devil’s black brows rose. “Why?”
“I assume because the son stole from us, and they fear our punishment will be crippling.”
“And will it be?”
“That’s up to the earl.”
“What’s the plan?”
“He gives me Ewan’s location or I take his business. The son, too.”
“And the daughter?” For a moment, Whit let misunderstanding come, imagining what would happen if he took Hattie as well. If he made her his—a warrior queen. If together they ruled over the Garden and the docks. Pleasure thrummed through him for a moment before he pushed it away and shook his head. “She has nothing to do with it.”
“Not smart enough to be in on it?”
She was fucking brilliant. “Not malicious enough.”
Devil’s walking stick tapped twice against his boot, his tell, terrifying to those who did not understand it and infuriating to those who did; it meant there was something he was not saying. “Well then. I assume you’ll sort it out?”
Whit grunted.
“And well?”
What did that mean? Had they not come up together from the muck, built a business from the filth, and become kings together? Had Whit not always chosen their history over all else? “Yes.”
“And quick? We’ve another shipment arriving—”
“I know when the shipment is arriving,” Whit growled, unreasonably irritated by the reminder. “It’s my business as well as yours. You needn’t be such a fucking nag.”
A long silence. Then, entirely casual, “And so you meet him here, dressed for dancing, instead of at his offices, dressed for damage, why? Because you love Mayfair so very much?”
Whit didn’t reply. He loathed Mayfair. Loathed the excess of it and the performance of it. Loathed the people of it—this place that might have been his if his father hadn’t been such a monster.
Devil leaned in close and said, “Your lady has arrived.”
Whit spun back toward the house, where the carriage that had deposited Cheadle drove away. The woman in orange was still there—Hattie now by her side. Hattie, tall and blond and bright-eyed, her hair up to reveal her long neck and her curved shoulders, bare above the line of her lush, wine-colored dress, the golden glow of the house turning the silk to embers. She carried a dark shawl in one hand, but didn’t seem to mind standing before all London without it artfully draped around her. She never tried for artfulness.
Which, he supposed, was why she seemed so much like art. Like a mosaic tile that took up a courtyard, every bit of it worthy of inspection. Like music, filling every crevice of a room. Impossible to ignore.
Magnificent.
She shook out her skirts, the bending movement tightening her bodice, making her breasts more prominent. Whit’s gaze tracked to the perfect swell, his mouth suddenly dry. He wondered if her skin had pinkened in the cool air—she was so easy to flush, he couldn’t imagine it hadn’t. He had a wild
vision of stripping off his coat and crossing to her, wrapping her in its warmth. Stealing her away. Warming her.
Instead, he watched her—taller than her father, her companion, and the others assembled outside the house. Bigger, yes, and more open. More honest. Too authentic for Mayfair. He remembered her in the Garden, teasing the broad-tosser, brandishing a throwing knife, cuddling a damn puppy, seeming to blend in with the world.
Here, though—she didn’t blend in. She stood out.
She was focused on her friend—he’d have laid money on them being the best of friends for the ease between them and the way the dark-haired woman smiled without artifice, listening as Hattie talked.
And, of course, Hattie was talking. Whit focused on her mouth, watching those beautiful lips move with fascinating speed. Wondering what she was saying, hating the distance between them and the way it kept him from hearing her.
Her friend laughed raucously, loud enough to carry, and Hattie relaxed into a broad grin of her own, the dimple in her right cheek flashing. Whit’s cock woke as he watched and he growled his irritation, a thread of jealousy coursing through him. He wanted those words. The full force of that smile. Those violet eyes on his.
He wanted her.
He stilled at the thought. Of course he wanted her. What man wouldn’t after time with her? What man wouldn’t want another sweet taste? Another lush touch? Another cry of her delicious pleasure?
But that was it. He wanted the woman’s body, and her father’s business.
Not her.
“She’s not my lady,” he said.
“Do you know what you are doing?”
No. “I have a plan.” He stiffened, straightening his coat. “And an invitation to the Duchess of Warnick’s ball.”
Devil cursed his surprise. “How in hell did you get that?”
“Warnick was happy to give us a favor.” The Duke of Warnick owned a distillery in Scotland that made a fortune aging whiskey in American bourbon barrels, provided to him at a premium by the Bareknuckle Bastards’ overland transport business. Of course, getting bourbon from the States into England beneath the usurious taxation of the Crown was not as easy as one might think, and moving empty barrels was an added risk for the smuggling operation—something Warnick knew.
The enormous Scotsman had provided Whit’s requested invitation immediately, with a single caution. If you embarrass my wife, I’ll end you.
Whit had refrained from pointing out that the Duchess of Warnick was one of the most scandalous figures in London society—the subject of a nude painting that was currently traveling Europe on exhibition—not that anyone in the ton spoke of it, for fear of upsetting her enormous husband and taking a beating for it.
Whit had no intention of embarrassing the duchess tonight. He had other plans. Other points to prove.
I don’t care if you’re not a gentleman.
In twenty years, Whit had never angled for the descriptor. He’d resisted it at every turn. He’d claimed Beast and built himself in the image, filling his days with the Rookery and his nights with the ring. He’d taken pride in his ability to move a hold full of smuggled goods in a seamless two hours, and even more in his ability to punish anyone who got in the way of the Bastards’ work, or their people.
There was no place for gentility in the Covent Garden filth, and that was the stuff from which he’d been made—built from the muck into what he was now, a Beast.
And that was why he stood in the darkness, watching her from a distance. Because everything he intended that evening ran counter to what he was. And still, he dressed in formalwear. A cravat. The trappings of gentlemen.
And he watched her, desire coursing through him, reminding him that she was right. That he was nothing like a gentleman. That he never would be.
But he could play the part.
“Not a favor for us,” Devil said, his smirk in his tone. “Walking into a pit of aristocratic vipers is not a thing I ever intend to do.”
“You married an aristocrat.”
“No,” Devil said. “I married a queen.”
Whit resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his brother’s reply. When Devil had met Lady Felicity Faircloth outside a ball very much like the one in the house across the street, she’d been queen of the outcasts—tossed to the edge of society where she was expected to fade into obscurity. But Devil hadn’t seen an outcast; he’d seen the woman he would love, marry, and worship for the rest of his life.
They’d married, shocking society, which hadn’t mattered in the slightest to Felicity, who’d happily eschewed the world into which she’d been born, becoming more and more a Covent Garden lass each day.
“How you landed her is beyond understanding,” Whit said.
Devil’s smile was nearly audible. “I wonder at it every day.” A gust of wind blew, and he dipped his head into the collar of his greatcoat, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I’d be lying if I didn’t wish for a warm bed with her instead of whatever this is.”
Whit offered a disapproving grunt. “I did not require such an image. Christ. Go home to her then.”
“And miss watching you enter society like a fucking mark?”
He looked to his brother. “You wanted vengeance. This is part of it.”
Except it wasn’t. It was a way for him to get to her. To show her that she was not the only one who could find a needle in a haystack. He imagined the surprise in her eyes when he approached her in the ballroom. Imagined the confusion when she found him on her turf. Imagined turning her world upside down, just as she threatened every time she arrived in Covent Garden.
“I always want vengeance. But I want to carve it out with a blade. Not . . .” He waved a hand to indicate Whit’s attire. “Whatever this is.”
“You didn’t carve it out with a blade when it came to your wife.” Felicity had been an act of vengeance before she’d become an act of love.
Devil turned knowing eyes on him. “Is this a comparable situation?”
Shit. “No.”
“Whit—you haven’t been inside a ballroom since we were twelve.”
It hadn’t been a ballroom then; it had been a torture chamber. It had been the man who’d sired him reminding Whit with every misstep that his future lay in the balance. His future, and his mother’s.
It had been full of anger and fear and panic.
Whit reached into his pocket, grasping one of the two pocket watches within, running a thumb over the warm metal face. “I remember it all.”
Silence, and then, softly, “He was a fucking monster.”
Their father. Spreading his seed throughout England, not knowing that the three sons he sired on different women would become his only chance at an heir. And then his own wife made any legitimate sons impossible, putting a bullet into his bollocks just as he’d deserved, and the Duke of Marwick had come looking for them, not caring that their illegitimacy should have saved them all from the horrific tests he put them through. Thinking only of his name and his line.
Thinking only of himself and not the scars he would leave on three boys, and the girl who’d held the place before them.
Memory flashed. Of the last night at Burghsey House, the country seat of the Dukedom of Marwick. Of Grace—the placeholder—the girl baptized a boy so all of England would think the duke had a legitimate heir, her red hair in tangles, shaking, as the monster she’d always thought was her father told her the truth—that she was expendable.
Then he’d turned to Devil and Beast and told them the same. They weren’t good enough. They weren’t worthy of the dukedom. And they, too, were expendable.
But nothing had hurt more than when the old bastard had directed his attention to Ewan, the third brother, born of a fourth woman. Ewan, strong and smart and with fists like iron. Ewan, determined to change his future. Ewan, who’d once promised to protect them all.
Until their father had told him to do just the opposite.
And then they’d had to protect themselves.
> Whit looked to Devil, the wicked scar down his brother’s right cheek gleaming white in the darkness, evidence of their past.
They had protected themselves that night, and every night since.
Whit didn’t speak the thought. He refused to resurrect the memory. His brother didn’t ask him to. Instead, Devil’s attention stayed on Hattie, and Whit found he couldn’t resist joining him, watching as she entered Warnick House, the swing of her wine red skirts tempting him, sweet and sinful like the drink itself.
“Here is my question.” Devil asked quietly, “In your mind, how does this end? The woman is protecting a family and a business that has come for our own, which makes her at worst the enemy, and at best a blockade between us and Ewan.”
Whit did not reply. Devil didn’t have to speak what they both knew was true. What threatened the Bastards’ business threatened all of the Rookery. All of Covent Garden. And all of the people who relied on them.
The people he had vowed to protect.
“How does it end?” Devil repeated, softly.
She was gone from view, the edge of her skirts disappeared, blocked by a new group of revelers, eager for entry. He hated that he couldn’t see her, even though her withdrawal from view made it easier for him to go after her. To straighten his shoulders and smooth his sleeves, and say, “Revenge.”
He had nearly made it to the street when Devil called out to him, soft from the darkness. “Whit.”
Whit stopped but did not turn back.
Not even when the Garden slipped into Devil’s voice. “You forget, bruv . . . I, too, have stood in the darkness, watching the light.”
Chapter Twelve
“Tell me again why we are here?”
Hattie spoke over the crush of people clamoring to access the entrance to the Warnick House ballroom. She and Nora had lost the Earl of Cheadle in the wild mess of people, and were now caught like fish in a current, swept up the steps to the main floor of the house.
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