It did not matter that Hattie was looking directly at her father when he spoke. It did not matter that her hearing was perfectly sound, as was her grasp of the English language.
She simply didn’t comprehend what he’d said.
She’d clearly misheard.
Was it possible he’d spoken in another language?
No—it had been English. Clear and honest, in the firm, aging voice he used with the men scurrying about around them, that he was selling the business out from under her.
“What?” Hattie looked to Augie, whose gaze was instantly clearer, the prior evening’s debauchery chased away. “Did you know this?”
Augie shook his head. “Why?”
The earl leveled Augie with a cool look. “Because if you took it in hand, you’d ruin it.”
Augie’s brows shot together as Hattie’s heart pounded. “That’s not true.”
“Och,” Cheadle scoffed, letting years on the water slide into his voice. “Ye never wanted it. Ye never cared for it. Aye, ye want the money it offers and the life it provides, but the business—” He shook his head. “You’ve never wanted the business. And I’m weary of waitin’ for you to feel different.” He waved a hand. “I’ve sold.”
“You can’t!” Augie said.
“I can,” the earl replied. “I have. It’s mine. I built it. I won’t see it driven into the sea. It goes to a man who’ll keep it thriving.”
Confusion flared. None of this was going to plan.
She looked to the wooden slats beneath her feet, the breeze from the river swirling around them. How many times had she been here, on this very dock, where she’d used to hide in the shadows of the haulers while he finished his work? “Father—”
He cut her off, raising one wizened hand. “No, Bean.” She pressed her lips flat together at the childhood name. “You’re a good girl. But it was never going to be you.”
The words, so matter-of-fact, took the air from her lungs, replacing it with hot fury. “Why not?”
He waved a hand in the air. “You know why.”
“I don’t, as a matter of fact.” She lifted her chin, hating the way he avoided her eyes. “Tell me.”
After an eternity, he met her gaze. “You know why.”
“Because I’m a woman.”
He nodded. “No one would have taken you seriously.”
She stiffened at the blow from her father. “That’s not true.”
I have no difficulty believing that you can run that business better than them. The memory came unbidden, Whit’s words in the darkness. And he’d meant them.
Or had he? He hadn’t meant the rest, obviously.
This hadn’t been the plan.
What had happened? Where was Whit? A thread of unease coursed through her. Was he unwell? Had something happened to him?
Unaware of the riot of her thoughts, the earl waved a hand in the air. “A dozen men on the docks. A handful of the customers we serve.”
Anger rose like bile. “A handful?” she said. “Do you know how much I correspond with our customers? How well I know the men on the docks? How well I know the cargo, the ships, the tide tables? I’ve been holding this business together while you’ve been ailing. While he’s been—” She pointed to Augie. Looked to him, taking in his wide eyes. While he’s been threatening it all. “It doesn’t matter. I’m good, Father. I know this business—all of it—better than anyone.”
The wind caught the words and whipped them away, along with her future. Hattie’s breath came harsh with her frustration and her desire to prove herself.
Horrifyingly, tears threatened.
No. She willed them away. She couldn’t cry. Wouldn’t. Dammit, why could men rage and riot endlessly, and the moment women felt a modicum of anger, tears came on a flood?
She exhaled, her breath ragged. “This is all I ever wanted.”
The earl watched her, assessing. “Bean.”
“Don’t call me that.”
He paused. Started again. “They know you. They like you, even. You’re a good match for them—with a clever brain and a smart mouth. But Hattie—they wouldn’t have worked with you. Not without a man to make certain the clockwork ran smoothly.”
The tears began to sting behind her nose, into her throat, where they caught in a painful knot. “That’s horseshit.”
The ancient sea captain in her father did not flinch at the curse. “Maybe . . .” he added. “If you had a husband.”
She couldn’t help the humorless laugh that came at her father’s words. “The specter of a husband was always your worry, Father. How many times have you invoked the prospect as a reason I would never be able to run the business?”
“It’s still a reason. I meant before. Maybe if you’d been able to find a husband before. A decent one. With a head on his shoulders. But that wasn’t to happen, was it?”
No. Because no one wanted to marry Hattie. No decent man with a head on his shoulders wanted an imperfect woman who spoke her mind and had a nose for business for a wife.
Too brash. Too brazen. Too big. Too much.
Too much and still . . . somehow . . . not enough.
She looked down at the dock again, where her dirty boots stood stark against the wood, bleached from decades of London rain. She still held the packet of sweets, the lading papers for the ship beyond, clutched in her ink-stained fingers. When was the last time she’d seen them without stains?
How much had she worked for this? Dreamed of it?
So much for the Year of Hattie.
A single, fat tear fell to the dock.
Augie cursed softly and spoke, surprising everyone. “Why now?”
“Because I got an offer.”
“From where?” This, from Augie.
A pause as her father seemed to consider his answer. To consider answering. And in that pause, Hattie knew the truth. She answered for him, the wind whipping around her, pulling her hair from its moorings and sending her skirts into a wild dance. “Saviour Whittington.”
The earl looked down the dock, past the empty ships and the single empty berth on the far end. “You always were the smart one.”
“Not smart enough for you to give me a chance,” Hattie snapped.
“Who is Saviour Whittington?” Augie asked.
The earl leveled his son with a cold gaze. “You really should know the names of the men you try to fleece.”
Understanding dawned. “The Bastards.”
“Goddammit, Augie!” the earl thundered, drawing the attention of half a dozen men on the docks. “I ought to turn you over to them.”
He didn’t have to. They already knew Augie’s involvement. Whit already knew. He didn’t need Augie’s name, or Augie himself. He was to have been paid in Augie’s knowledge. That was the first of the two demands.
She reached for her father, setting an urgent hand on his coat sleeve. “Wait. He doesn’t want the business. He wants Augie to tell him where to find the man pulling the strings of the hijackings.” She looked to her brother. “Do you know where to find him?”
Augie shook his head. “But Russell—”
Hattie groaned. “Yes then. We need Russell. Though I rather hate the sound of that.”
“Too late,” the earl said. “The bastard says he doesn’t require the name anymore. And so he’s made me a generous offer, with the understanding that if I don’t take it and get out of the Docklands, he’ll pauper us.”
Confusion again. None of this was what they’d agreed. Whit was to have asked the earl to pass the business to Hattie. Hadn’t he praised her skill? Hadn’t he understood her desire? Hadn’t he told her he’d help her? “No,” she said. “He promised—”
Her father and brother cut her twin looks.
“You’re in bed with them, too?” She hated the disappointment in her father’s tone.
Augie was a bit kinder. “Hattie. What good is a promise from a Covent Garden smuggler?”
It had been good.
His faith. Hi
s promise.
It had been wonderful. And a lie.
Confusion faded into another bout of anger. A new sort of anger—one she felt more than comfortable acting upon.
They’d had a deal. And he’d reneged on every bit of it.
Her teeth clenched.
“Goddammit, I don’t know which of you is worse,” the earl said, looking to Hattie. “You, for trusting a Bareknuckle Bastard’s word, or Augie, for not knowing who they were in the first place.”
“I’ve heard of them,” Augie defended himself. “Of course I have.”
“Then what are you doing stealing from them, you dankwit?” The earl scowled. “The worst bit is that Whittington didn’t have to tell me. He didn’t have to. I might be old, but I’ve a brain in my head, and I know the cargo well enough to know the difference between a hold full of tulips and one full of booze.” He pointed a finger at Augie. “That’s when I realized you’d never be good enough to run it.”
“Maybe,” Augie allowed. “But Hattie was, and you know it.”
On another day, at another time, Hattie might have been surprised by and more than grateful for Augie’s support. But at that particular moment, she was too busy being furious at him. And her father. And Saviour Whittington. Or Beast, or whatever the hell his name was.
These men, members of the only sex that was thought qualified to run a business, and not one of them doing a damn thing to protect it. Fury surged, and she clenched her fist, crushing the lading papers and the packet of sweets, not sure that she could suffer another moment with these men. Let them sort it out. Let them worry. She didn’t want it.
Liar.
Of course she wanted it. It was all she’d ever wanted.
But she couldn’t have it. So she was leaving. She was done.
She looked down the docks at the line of empty boats. The boats.
She looked to her father. “He didn’t just buy the business.”
He turned a frustrated look on her. “What?”
“The boats are empty.” She waved a hand. “He bought the boats, too. To keep us from using them.”
The earl nodded. “Aye. Ships that should have been sailing up the coast, moving our cargo. And suddenly, not one of them available to Sedley Shipping.”
“We’ve contracts with those owners,” Augie argued.
“Not with the new ones,” Hattie said, softly.
“And not with any others, either,” the earl added. “They’ve locked down every other shipping line that works the Thames. No one will do business with us. And this morning, he made his offer.”
“To buy us out.”
The earl nodded. “That was the option. Sell to him, or lose it all.”
“Not much of an offer,” Augie said.
Because it wasn’t an offer. “There’s nothing honorable about this.”
“They’re called the Bareknuckle Bastards, Hat,” Augie pointed out. “They’re not exactly honorable.”
But they were. She’d seen it in him, from the start. Whit hadn’t lied to her. In fact, he’d prized honesty between them from the start. Even when she’d refused to tell him Augie’s name—his part in the play—he’d admired her loyalty.
But more than all that, he’d believed in her. When she’d confessed her plans—her hopes for the future, her desire for the business, her plans for it. And he’d believed in her. He’d offered to help her. Had it all been a lie?
And why did it feel like such a betrayal?
Frustration and sadness stung in her throat. “He promised he wouldn’t do this.”
“Bah,” her father said. “He lied. Men like the Bastards always hit back, Bean. Why do you think I never tangled with them? And you’ve been caught.”
She refused to believe that. Refused to acknowledge it. She looked to the great ship again, her gaze going soft on the warm wood of its hull. Her mind worked, turning over the events of the last several days—playing out the possibilities. She’d spent years here, working these docks, loving them.
This was her turf, not his.
She wouldn’t let him steal it out from under her.
Bastard, indeed.
Finally, she looked up at her father. “You shouldn’t have sold. Not to him. Not to anyone.” Silence stretched like an eternity, the only sound the shouts of the men on the ship beyond, unloading what might be the last of the Sedley Shipping freight if the Bareknuckle Bastards had their way. “You were so afraid of letting me try. So terrified that I might fail and shame you—and you lost it all anyway.”
And in that moment, Hattie realized that her father, for so long immense in her mind, was far less than she’d ever been able to see. Smaller and slighter, white-haired, and with a craggy, weathered face, and a cowardice that he’d hidden for years . . . and could hide no longer.
This man who had built a business that had fed his family and hundreds of others with his sweat and his ethic was now tired and bested, and facing the ignoble, craven end of his legacy—because he couldn’t see how his daughter might have helped to keep it alive.
Might still.
She looked to her brother, then her father.
“You may have agreed to sell, but I haven’t.”
Augie’s brows shot up in surprise and something else—admiration?
“It’s done, gel. There wasn’t a choice.”
“There is always a choice,” Hattie said. “There is always the choice to fight.”
And her father considered her for a long while, a slight gleam in his eye. A glimmer of something more than doubt. “No man has ever gone up against the Bastards and survived.”
There might have been a time when she would have heeded that warning. But Hattie found she lacked the patience for warnings just then.
What was there to lose? He’d already taken it all.
“Then it is time for a woman to do so.”
Chapter Sixteen
That night, Nora and Hattie drove to Covent Garden in Nora’s fastest gig.
“I’ve no wish to die tonight,” Hattie said over the sound of the clattering wheels, clinging to the edge of the curricle as it rocketed past Drury Lane, turning left, then right, then left in quick succession. “Nora!”
“No one is dying!” Nora scoffed. “Please. I’ve raced this beauty along the Thames walk—and you think the Garden will do her in?”
“Let’s not tempt fate, is all I’m saying,” Hattie said, holding her hat atop her head as she pointed to a curved lane twisting off to the left. “There.”
Without slowing, Nora steered the matched greys down the cobblestone street, darker than the roads they’d been on. “You’re sure?”
Hattie nodded. “There. Up ahead. On the right.”
A bright lantern hung high on the exterior of the building, illuminating the sign for The Singing Sparrow. Nora slowed the horses. “I didn’t know you’d spent so much time in the Garden that you had a favorite pub.”
Hattie ignored the dry commentary. “Stay here.”
“There is absolutely no chance of that.” Nora was down from the gig, straightening the topcoat she wore over her tight buckskin breeches before Hattie could reply. “Is he in there?”
“I don’t know,” Hattie said, her heart pounding as she landed on the street, grateful for her own trousers—donned to keep her from notice—and the freedom of movement they provided. “But it’s the best place for us to start.”
She was not leaving Covent Garden without finding him. Without confronting him.
“Do you think people will recognize us?” Nora asked.
“I don’t.” Though, to be honest, the last time Hattie had been in this pub, she hadn’t been interested in anyone but the man who’d brought her. Heat thrummed through her with the memory of the pleasure he’d wrought here, her body tightening with the anticipation of seeing him.
No. She wasn’t here for pleasure. She was here for punishment.
For confrontation.
Nora grinned. “Then I think those assembl
ed within will see what we show them. Two well-appointed—but not overly wealthy—gentlemen. In search of ale.”
Hattie cut her friend a look. “We are not here to get soused, Nora.”
“I know.” Nora’s smile turned knowing. “We’re here to find your Bastard.”
“He’s not mine,” Hattie protested. “Though he is a bastard.”
The pub was teeming with people—men and women of all walks. Hattie immediately recognized a half-dozen dockworkers, three with their wives by their sides, each ruddy-cheeked and jolly and happy to not be using his hook tonight.
Using the brim of her hat to hide her face, Hattie considered the crowd assembled, many of whom were sitting, facing an empty stage, lit by two large candelabra. No sign of Whit in the audience, but she couldn’t imagine him being interested in whatever was about to happen here.
Nora turned back to her, tilting her chin toward the far end of the room. “Is that Sesily Talbot?”
Hattie followed the direction to the dark-haired, dark-eyed woman at the bar, clad in a daringly cut, lush amethyst gown designed for anything but escaping notice. “Turns out there are toffs in here!” Nora said happily, approaching Sesily, who leaned over the mahogany bar, smiling broadly at the American who had been in the tavern when Whit and Hattie had been. It took Hattie a moment to recognize him, however, as his friendly face was gone—replaced by a dark, irritated scowl.
Nora sidled up to Sesily, who turned immediately, a flash of frustration in her eyes at the arrival, there and immediately gone when she recognized Nora. “Look at you!” Sesily said happily, her gaze sliding past Nora to Hattie, eyes widening just a touch as she took in the duo’s attire. “And you!”
Nora leaned in. “We’re in disguise.”
“Of course you are!” Sesily laughed delightedly, as though the whole thing were a lark. Sesily was the last of the scandalous Talbot sisters, the one who remained unmarried and, it seemed, perfectly happy in her spinsterhood. “You look magnificent!” Her gaze traced over Hattie’s coat and trousers. “You especially, Hattie. Though no one with a brain in their head would think you a man.”
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