“No,” he said, catching her fingers and returning them to his skin. “Don’t stop.”
Don’t ever stop.
She didn’t, smoothing over the mottled skin there. “This is a wicked bruise.”
He grunted, trying to ignore the pleasure that came with the sting.
“You should see a surgeon. Do you have a surgeon?”
“I don’t need a surgeon,” he said.
I need this. I need you.
She traced her fingers over the darkest part of the bruise. “I think you might have broken a rib.”
He nodded. “It wouldn’t be the first.”
Her brows shot together. “I don’t like that.”
Pleasure was not enough of a word to describe the way her stern reply coursed through him, untethered and electric. He sucked in a breath at the sensation, wanting to assuage her worry. “They heal.”
She didn’t look convinced, but opened the pot of salve, lifting it to her nose. “Bay,” she said softly before meeting his eyes. “You use this frequently.”
“I fight frequently.”
She winced at the words and he wished he could take them back. “Why?”
He didn’t reply as she spread the ointment over his torso, her movements smooth and sure, and gentle enough to make him ache in an entirely different way. When was the last time he’d been tended to?
Not for decades.
He found he did not want to go back, not now that he knew the feel of her hands on him. Her soothing touch. The way she awakened every inch of him as she cocooned them in lemon and bay.
“What is in it?” she asked. “How does it work?”
“Willow bark and bay leaf.” If anyone else had asked, Whit would have ended his reply there. But this was Hattie, and everything was different with her. “My mother used to make something similar. She called it suave de sauce. Rubbed it on her hands before bed.”
“They ached from the needlework.”
He hated how easily she understood something it had taken him years to work out. Hated the guilt that racked him. “I did what I could to bring money in, so she didn’t have to work so hard, but she didn’t want me on the streets. She paid for me to take lessons in the back room of a haberdasher off Saint Clement’s Lane. Insisted I learn to read. Some weeks, the candles cost more than the money from her work.” It was a lesson Whit had never forgotten. One he thought of every time he lit the candles in this room—more than he’d ever need, as though he could light that room for his mother if he tried hard enough. “Every time I told her I wanted to work, she would remind me that the lessons were already paid for. Used to say that if—”
He stopped.
Hattie’s touch didn’t waver. He focused on the smooth, wonderful strokes.
“She used to say that if it killed her, I’d grow up to be a gentleman.”
It was why he’d left her. How his father had kept him fighting for a dukedom he’d never been meant to inherit.
And it had killed her.
He swallowed the thought, letting the bitterness settle before he added softly, “What she would think of me now.”
Hattie was quiet for a long moment—long enough for Whit to think that she might not reply. But she did, because she always knew what to say. “I think she’d be proud of you.”
“No, she wouldn’t,” he said. His mother would have loathed his life. She would have hated the violence he lived daily, the filth of his world. And she would have found the way he’d betrayed Hattie unconscionable. “She’d have hated everything but the books.”
She smiled at the words, her touch unwavering. “There are a lot of books.”
“We couldn’t afford them.” He didn’t want to tell her that. It wasn’t her business. And somehow, he couldn’t stop talking. “She couldn’t read, but she revered them.” He cast a look around the room. “She couldn’t afford them, and I don’t even keep them in a bookcase.” Another way he’d failed his mother.
Hattie didn’t look up from her work. “Seems to me that the best way for you to honor her reverence is to read them. And these all look well-read.”
He grunted.
She smiled. “That meant you’d like to change the subject.” She looked up through her lashes at him, and her sweet smile was a welcome distraction. “I’m learning your sounds.”
Her fingers smoothed over his ribs, where a purple bruise bloomed fast and furious, and he sucked in a breath. “I don’t have to be a good student to know what that one meant.” She lifted her hand, her task complete. “May I bandage you?”
Another grunt, and she smiled, lifting the roll of linen at her side. “I’m taking that as a yes.”
“Yes,” he said.
She began to roll the strip around his body carefully, her touch a constant temptation. On the third pass, her lips parted, and her breath began to come more quickly. She spoke to the bandage. “Why would you do this? You’re rich beyond measure and have the respect of every man from the Thames to Oxford Street—and beyond. Why would you let them hurt you?”
Because he deserved it.
He didn’t tell her that. Instead, he said, “It’s how we survived.”
Her touch stuttered. “Your brother and sister? And you?”
He looked down, watching her long fingers roll out the bandage. Marveled at them. At her. At the way she summoned his words. “We ran from our father. And from our . . . brother.” He hated even speaking Ewan into existence with her now, as he threatened like a specter.
“Why?” This wonderful, compassionate woman, with a brother she protected even though he’d ruined everything for her.
She wouldn’t understand the truth about his past, but he spoke it anyway. “We endangered everything the old man lived for. Everything the young one had worked for. And Ewan—he was willing to do anything for my father’s love.” He gave a little humorless laugh. “Not that there was any love in the bastard to give.”
Her brow furrowed. “He was even willing to see you flee?”
“He made sure we fled.” His gaze fell to the basket of bandages and ointments. “That night, he’d come for Grace. Devil stopped him—took the knife for them both.”
She gasped. “His face. The scar.”
“A gift from our brother. And our father.”
Loathing flashed in her beautiful eyes. “I should like to have a word with both of them.”
“My father is dead.”
“Good.” She lifted a pair of sewing scissors and he raised a brow—she looked prepared to do battle with the tiny blades. Considering her anger, Whit might even wager on her. “And your brother?”
He shook his head. “Not dead.”
Too alive. Too close.
She finished the bandaging, tying off the ends in a perfect knot. “Well, he’d best not find me in a dark alley.” Whit might have been amused if he weren’t so irrationally unsettled by the idea of Hattie in the way of Ewan.
You’ll give her up. Or I’ll take her.
He set his hands to her shoulders, urging her to look to him. “Listen to me. If you ever have cause to meet my brother, you run the other way.”
Her eyes went wide at the words, at the seriousness in them. “How did you escape?”
“I didn’t.” Memory flashed. The dark night and Grace screaming—he and Devil breaking down a door to find their brother with a massive knife, their father at the edge of the room, watching. Pride and something else on his face—delight.
Fucking monsters.
Whit had leapt into the fray, but Ewan had been too strong. He’d always been the strong one. The perfect manifestation of ducal blood. Devil had been too hotheaded. Whit, too small. But Ewan had been strong enough to lay Whit flat, and with enough force that he couldn’t get up.
Devil had leapt in. Taken the blow meant for Grace.
And it had been Grace who put Ewan down.
“Devil and Grace dragged me away. Into the night. I’d be nowhere without them.”
“You w
ere children.”
“Fourteen. All of us born on the same day. Ewan, too.” She tilted her head, the obvious question in her eyes. “Different mothers. And Grace, the luckiest of the bunch—different father, too. She’s never had to suffer the idea of his blood in her veins.”
“So, not your sister.”
“Sister where it counts,” he said, remembering the red-haired, square-jawed girl who’d protected them without hesitation, even as she lost more than they’d ever had. Even as she’d lost the only boy she’d ever loved. “We ran. We ran, and we didn’t stop until we reached London. Once we were here we had no choice but to sleep on the street. But sleep wasn’t enough. We had to eat, too.”
She was still as stone, which was the only reason why he kept talking. “Devil thieved us some bread. I scavenged the cores of a half-dozen apples. But it wasn’t enough. We had to survive, and that would take more.”
He could still feel the bone-deep ache of the damp streets of the Rookery, the only thing that rivaled the aching loss of his mother. But he didn’t tell her that. Didn’t want to sully her with that.
He didn’t even understand why he was telling her any of it.
He didn’t want her close. Lie.
He couldn’t have her close.
Instead, he turned the conversation to the fights. “On our third night, Digger turned up.” He met her gaze. “He was another kind of bastard. Ruthless and out for no one more than himself, but he ran a dice game and a street ring and needed fighters.”
Her brows knit together. “You were children.”
Every time she said it, he was reminded of how different they were. How he could do nothing but sully her. He clung to the thought. To the hope that it would keep him from doing something mad. “Fourteen is more than old enough to throw a punch, Hattie.”
Her attention flickered to the cut on his swelling cheek. “And what of catching them?”
One side of his mouth went up in a cocky grin. “Don’ ’ave to if yer fast ’nough to get out the way.”
She smiled at the way his voice slid into the Garden. “And were you very fast?”
“I had to be. I wasn’t anything near strong. The runt of the litter.”
She made a show of assessing his broad frame. “I find that very difficult to believe.”
He lifted one shoulder and dropped it. “I grew.”
“I noticed.”
He felt the pleasure in the words keenly, and he went hard with a speed that surprised him. Before he could act on it, she said, “Go on,” and he had no choice but to obey.
“Devil and I were middling fighters. We could bob and weave, and when we landed a punch we knew how to put force behind it. We didn’t always win, but we always gave the crowd a show.” The tale should have been bleak—the story of brothers given no other choice but to fight for their beds and their supper—but it wasn’t. The fights were some of the best memories of those years.
“And now he is married to Felicity Faircloth.”
Surprise flared and faded. “I forget she was a toff.”
Hattie grinned. “I was always a bit jealous of her for being able to leave it. And for having such a good reason.” A pause, and then, “You have the same eyes.”
The Marwick eyes.
“I wish I’d spoken to him.”
“Dev?” He shook his head. “He’s not for you.”
She was vaguely insulted. “Why not?”
“He’s not good enough for you.”
Lips curved in a smile that nearly stole his breath. “And you are?”
“Not by miles.”
She lifted one hand at the words, slowly, as though she was afraid he might flee. Whit almost laughed at the idea. There was nothing that would take him from this moment. Nothing that he wouldn’t do to keep her there. To strip her bare and have her. Finally. And when her fingertips brushed his temple just barely, just enough to push a lock of hair back from his face, he held his breath, wanting her to pull him close. Wanting her to kiss him.
Instead, she said, “Bareknuckle Bastards. That’s how the two of you got your name.”
“Three of us.”
It took her a moment to understand. “Grace?”
“You’ve never seen a fighter like Gracie. She could take down a string of brutes and not break a sweat, and when she stepped into the ring, her opponents quaked. The world thinks us Kings of Covent Garden? It’s all bollocks. We’d be nowhere without Grace. She was born to rule it.” He smiled, small and private. “She gave me my first knife. Taught me to throw it—a weapon that didn’t require me to be the biggest or the strongest.”
Admiration flared in her violet eyes. “I rescind my earlier remarks about meeting your brother. I should much prefer to meet your sister.”
“Devil would be deeply offended to hear that.” He met Hattie’s gaze. “But Grace would enjoy meeting you. Of that I have no doubt.”
She smiled, and for a heartbeat, he wondered what it would be like if he’d met this woman in a different place, at a different time. If he’d gone to his lessons like his mother had asked. If he’d refused to leave with his father and fight for a dukedom he’d never had a chance at winning. Would he have become a merchant? A shopkeep? Something simple that kept food in their bellies and a roof over their heads? And would he have convinced this woman so far above him he could barely see her that he was a worthy match?
Would he have come home each night, tired and happy, and found comfort with Hattie, read a book by the fire, shared a sack of sweets as they discussed the weather, or the noise of the market, or the news, or whatever normal people did on a normal day.
What might have been.
An ache bloomed in his chest at the thought, one that came with a desire so keen for something so impossible that he should have put an end to the evening right then. Because he was suddenly, acutely aware of the fact that he might ache forever if he let Hattie Sedley come closer.
Of course, by the time he realized that, he was too desperate to have her.
And so instead of sending her home, he leveled her with a long look—long enough to set another blush on her pretty round cheeks, and have her looking away with an embarrassed smile on her wide, welcome mouth.
He wanted her.
And she wanted him.
And tonight, that was all that mattered.
“Hattie,” he said softly, not wanting to scare her with his eagerness.
She looked up, her violet eyes enormous. “Yes?”
“Are you through tending me?”
Her attention skittered down to the bandage around his torso. “Yes.”
He reached a hand out, trailing his fingers over her cheek, the skin smooth as silk. “Do we still have a deal?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
His fingers caught a loose lock of hair, like spun gold in the firelight, and he tucked it back behind her ear. She leaned toward the touch, and he caught her face, leaning closer, lowering his head to breathe her in. “Christ, you smell sweet. You’re like cakes in a shop window.”
She huffed a little laugh. “Thank you?”
“When I was a boy, there was a sweet shop in Holborn that made the most delicious almond sponge—I only ever had it once. The baker was a proper Belgian bastard, and he’d chase us with a broom if we darkened the doorstep, but if you stood in just the right spot across the street and down a bit, you could smell those cakes every time the door opened.”
He leaned close and brushed his nose over her temple, lowering his voice to a whisper. “In my whole life, I’ve never had temptation like those cakes. Until you.” He pressed his lips to her warm skin and told her the truth. “I’ve never wanted anything like I want you.”
She put her hand to his shoulder, her long fingers curving up, around his neck, and for a heartbeat he panicked—thinking she might push him away. But she didn’t. Instead, she turned her head and kissed him, setting her ruination in motion.
And his own.
“Whit,” she
whispered, the sound soft and full of sin, and there was no question of resistance. He reached for her, unbuttoning her coat, sliding his hand beneath the warm wool to her—warmer, hotter. He reveled in the feel of her body, the swell of her waist, the round curve of her hip, her strong thighs as he pulled her closer, turning, lifting her so she straddled him.
She gasped her pleasure as he settled her over his thighs, and he leaned back, one hand in her hair, just far enough to meet her eyes as she stared down from above him. A furrow crossed her brow as she resisted giving him her weight. “I’m too—”
“You’re fucking perfect,” he said, leaning up to steal her lips and prove it.
After a long moment, he released her lips and she pulled back to look at him, her hair askew and her mouth kiss-stung, and the uncertainty that had been in her gaze entirely gone—replaced by excitement. And delight. She smiled a tiny, demure smile, her dimple flashing as she worried the plump flesh of her bottom lip.
Christ, she was beautiful.
He shook his head. “No.”
Doubt flashed. “No?”
He spread one hand over her round bottom and pulled her closer, seating her more firmly as he fisted his other hand in her hair and pulled her down to him. “That lip is not yours tonight, love. It’s mine.”
He leaned up to capture it, nipped her before running his tongue over it in one long lick. Her hands came to his shoulders and she gave herself over to the caress. Whit responded with a deep growl, stroking deep, sucking slow, loving the taste of her, sweet and tart and better than any candy he’d ever had.
How would he give her up?
Ignoring the thought, he focused on her, on her fingers tangling in his hair, holding him still as she gave in to the kiss. She writhed against him and he reveled in her unbridled desire—tightening his fingers around her hips as she rocked against him where he was already hard and made harder by the sweet sounds in her throat, the soft slide of her thighs against his, the heat of her against his cock.
He’d never give this up.
He grunted and grabbed her, stilling her, sitting her up so he could take her in, watch her above him like a goddess. Unable to stop himself, he thrust his hips into hers, watching as her lids lowered and she sucked in a breath.
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