Brazen and the Beast

by Sarah MacLean

“My what?” he asked, coming instantly to his feet.

  Hattie increased the speed of her dressing. “That’s what it was, wasn’t it? I mean, you didn’t even . . .” She waved a hand at his erection, still evident.

  “Hattie—” He started toward her, then stopped. Collected himself. “I didn’t want you pregnant.”

  She turned to him, her mouth opening, then closing. And it was her turn to say, “What?”

  “You wanted a ruined reputation. Not a ruined life,” he said. “I didn’t want you with child.”

  With child.

  A vision flashed, a little boy with dark hair and amber eyes. A little girl with a wide smile and a dimple in her chin. “A child wouldn’t ruin my life,” she said. “I would never think such a thing.” The words surprised her—somehow never imagined and then fully formed, as though they’d been there the whole time.

  As though she’d been dreaming of a life with this man since birth.

  But it didn’t matter.

  And even if it did, there were other ways to prevent pregnancy and still find pleasure. French letters. A method she’d heard about in the ladies’ salon at a ball once which, at the time, had sounded rather messy, but tonight would have been something rather more . . . exciting.

  If Hattie had heard of such a solution, she expected Whit had used it.

  “A child would have tied you to me,” he replied. “And I can’t let that happen.”

  The words stung. She hadn’t even thought of that. A child came with a child’s mother. And he didn’t want that. It made sense. Why would he? With a woman he’d thought of as nothing more than an agreement. An arrangement. A woman he didn’t want.

  He didn’t want her.

  Hadn’t he just proved it?

  “I grew up without a father,” he added. “I know how difficult it is for a mother to provide alone. I would never do that to you. Or to a child.”

  She shook her head. “I never would have imagined you would.”

  He seemed to cast about for something to say. “Girls like you don’t marry boys like me, Hattie. Boys raised in the Rookery muck, living every day with the stink of it.”

  “What proper horseshit,” she said, the words out of her mouth before she could stop them, startling them both. But she was furious. “There are a thousand reasons why I wouldn’t marry you, and where you were raised doesn’t even rank,” she said, and it was the truth. She’d met men born far above him in station and living far below him in character. She pulled on one boot. “There’s nothing wrong with your past.”

  “There’s everything wrong with it. Look at my face, Hattie. The shiner’ll be bigger tomorrow.”

  “And you got it by choice, not by chance. Don’t for a second think I pity you, Saviour Whittington.”

  He stilled. “Don’t ever call me that.”

  “Why?” she snapped, pulling on the second boot. “Are you afraid you’ll have to come out from behind the Beast and face the world as a man?”

  His gaze narrowed on her. Good, let him glower. She wasn’t about to fear him. How dare he ruin her and then ruin her night? “I can’t keep you safe,” he said, the words sounding like they were tortured from him. “I can’t love you.”

  The words were a cold slap, doubling down on the shame she already felt. She knew it, of course. She wasn’t for loving. She wasn’t even for sex.

  Good old Hattie.

  “I’ve never asked you to keep me safe.” She had to get out of this place before she died of embarrassment or found one of his famed blades and stabbed him. “I never asked you for love,” she said, grateful that he wouldn’t see the lie. She held up a hand before he could speak. “None of this matters, anyway. You made certain it wouldn’t. I am happy one of us was able to remain disconnected from the events of the evening.”

  He ran his hands through his hair in fury and frustration, and Hattie tried very hard not to notice how all his muscles bunched and rippled with the movement. She almost succeeded. “I wasn’t disconnected.”

  “No. Of course not,” she said, donning her coat, grateful to be covered up, finally. “Everyone knows that men deeply engaged in coitus often fail to complete the task.”

  Anger and shock warred in his narrow gaze. “I completed the task, Lady Henrietta. Three times, by my count.”

  “But I didn’t!” she cried, feeling like a proper failure. Dear God—all that pleasure he’d delivered her and she couldn’t do the same for him? Was she that undesirable that he could simply ignore the pleasure that had nearly destroyed her?

  She’d never been so humiliated.

  He didn’t respond, and Hattie used the silence to transform her frustration into anger. Fury coursed through her and she reveled in the way it incinerated her embarrassment. “You know, I wish I’d known it would be this way. I would have returned to the brothel.”

  He growled. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “At least there, I would have known precisely what the arrangement entailed.” She paused. “At least there, I could have paid for the privilege of not being made to feel like a chore.”

  The muscle in his jaw ticked again and again as he watched her. “Nothing about tonight was a chore.”

  She’d never wanted to believe anything more in her life.

  Her lips began to tremble. No. She would be damned if she’d show him how hurt he’d made her. She reached into the pocket of her coat and extracted the packet of sweets she’d taken from the shipment earlier that day. “Well, it’s over now.” She tossed the pouch to the settee. “I thought you might like those.”

  He did not look at it.

  “Right then,” she said, betrayal running through her once more. Hotter. Angrier. “Rivals it is.”

  Silence.

  She nodded, and headed for the door.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Beast.”

  Whit looked up from his quiet sentry on the rooftops high above the offices of Sedley Shipping to find Devil standing several feet away. His brother had clearly said more than his name, and was waiting for acknowledgment, but Whit had been too focused on the street below, where a steady stream of dockworkers entered and exited the building—no doubt to receive their final payment from the business—all while a dozen Sedley employees hurried in and out of the warehouse, boxes and bins and paperwork in hand, preparing it for its new owner.

  Not knowing that he stood high above, observing his recent acquisition.

  Loathing himself for acquiring it.

  “How did you find me?”

  “You’ve put every available lookout we have to work searching for signs of Ewan. You think I would not know you would be here? Watching over her?”

  Hattie.

  It had been three days since she’d left him alone in his home, having destroyed it with the specter of her presence. He couldn’t do anything in the house—not eat or bathe or light a fucking candle—without thinking of her. Without reliving her, smelling like almond cakes and looking like sin.

  So, he hadn’t gone home in three days.

  Instead, he kept watch over her. He’d followed her at a distance from the moment she’d left him three nights earlier—to her home in Mayfair, to the Docklands, to the warehouse, in Nora’s curricle.

  He watched as she kept her shoulders straight and her head high, as though he hadn’t hurt her. As though he hadn’t destroyed the Year of Hattie unequivocally, for no reason she could divine, but because he was a monster.

  Because he couldn’t tell her the truth. If he did, Whit had no doubt his brazen warrior would seek Ewan out herself. And he couldn’t have that.

  So, he watched without her knowing—ensuring her safety. Ensuring that Ewan couldn’t make good on his threat.

  And it was devastating punishment, because he knew he’d hurt her. And that was worse than the loss of her. Almost worse than the memory of her smooth skin and her low laugh and the taste of her, and the feel of her coming apart beneath him, and the enormous feat of strength req
uired not to stay inside her and share in her pleasure and take his own.

  And somehow, in that act—an act that had ensured that he gave her only what she wished and nothing more—the act that ensured that she obtain ruination, but not regret, Whit had been the one pummeled with regret.

  Because the moment he’d had Hattie Sedley naked before him, all he’d wanted was to keep her there forever.

  But he couldn’t. He couldn’t protect her.

  Devil came to his side at the roof’s edge. “Is she in there?”

  Whit didn’t reply.

  “The boys tell me you’ve been here all day.”

  “So has she.” She’d come early this morning, looking like sunshine. She’d entered the building and not exited, and so he’d waited, stillness and uncertainty a wicked test, like Orpheus walking out of hell. “Have we found him?”

  Devil shook his head, sadness in his eyes. “No. But the rooftops are watching. If he turns up here or at the docks, they’ll get him.” He straightened. “And you’ve got eyes on your lady.” Not mine. “He shan’t hurt her.”

  It was an empty promise. Ewan was wild with grief and anger, and every movement he made was out of passion, not sense. Whit was beginning to understand. “Not once we find him,” he said. “I’ll kill him myself.”

  “And claim your lady?”

  No. He would destroy Ewan for threatening Hattie. But it wouldn’t change anything—there would always be an enemy. Always a threat. And he would never be able to keep her safe. He looked back to the street, watching as a pair of dockworkers left the warehouse, hooks on their shoulders and smiles on their faces.

  Envy coursed through him. Had they seen her?

  Devil leaned back on the low wall that marked the edge of the roof. The brothers stood in silence for long minutes, and from a distance, an observer would have marveled at the strength of them, one long and lethal, the other a broad bruiser. “You cannot watch her forever, Beast.”

  But he could. He could watch her until she found herself a new life, in Mayfair, far from him. He could watch her until she found another path to a different future. One with another man.

  He clenched his fists at the thought, loathing it even as he knew that it was best.

  That another man would save her from the danger that Whit could not help but bring down upon her.

  He swallowed, watching a pair of men exit the building below, boxes in hand, to deposit them in Hattie’s father’s coach. “What do you want?”

  Devil tapped his stick against his boot. “Jamie has received a clean bill of health. The doctor has cleared him to work. He wants onto a delivery rig.”

  “No.” The boy had been shot in the side and was at death’s door the last time Whit saw him; he couldn’t possibly be at full health, no matter how good the doctor was. He’d let Jamie return to the rigs once he’d seen for himself that Jamie was at full capacity. “He works the warehouse until he’s ready for the rigs.”

  Devil nodded. “That’s what I told him. He doesn’t like it.”

  “Tell him to come see me.”

  “Ever the protector,” Devil said dryly, flipping up his collar. “Christ, it’s cold.” When Whit did not reply, he added, “Tonight’s wagons are ready.” They had a ship in harbor, filled to the brim with ice and alcohol, playing cards and glass—everything waiting to be moved to the warehouse, then parceled out overland to the rest of Britain. A half-dozen wagons would run to and from the docks tonight to empty the hauler.

  Whit extracted his watches from his pocket. Half past six. He looked over the rooftops toward the dock, where a line of ships sat quiet, gilded in the late afternoon sunlight. “And the ice moves when?”

  “Nik’s checking the melt, but it’s been draining for two days, and we’ve booked every available hook for half-nine.” Devil pointed across the river, where clouds loomed grey and ominous. “Looks like we’ll have some cloud cover. We hold it for a week.” A pause. “Assuming you think it’s safe to move it.”

  The question was in the words—would Ewan come for it?

  “He isn’t after the goods. He never was.” Devil remained silent, but tapped his infernal stick. Whit looked to him. “Whatever you’ve got to say, say it.”

  “I’m not only worried about Ewan.”

  Whit growled. “What does that mean?”

  “They’re saying the Bastards have gone soft, because Beast has found a lady.”

  I did find a lady. And then I lost her.

  “If they worry I’ve gone soft, they can come find me.” He looked back to the Sedley warehouse. “I diversified our business.”

  “For business? Or personal?”

  “Both,” Whit said, knowing the words were a lie. “It keeps her safe. And now we can ship . . .”

  Devil raised a brow. “What?”

  “I don’t know. Tinned salmon. Or tulip bulbs.”

  “What horseshit. What in hell do you know about tulip bulbs?”

  Whit’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I’m getting a bit tired of being told I’m talking horseshit.”

  Devil’s brows shot up. “Oh? Who besides me is speaking truth to you?” His eyes lit, and a smile split his long face. “I’ll tell you what, bruv, I do like her.”

  Whit shot him a look. “Don’t like her. She’s not for liking.”

  “Is she for loving?”

  Memory flashed, unpleasant. I can’t love you, he’d said to her, as she’d dressed with all possible speed, desperate to leave his house after he’d ruined the night they’d had. What kind of an imbecile of a man said such a thing to a woman after making love to her?

  Surely, there’d been another way to keep her safe. Something other than insulting her. Christ. He should run himself through as punishment.

  It didn’t matter that it was the truth. “Another man would be lucky to love her.”

  “Why not you?”

  He leveled Devil with a look. “Ewan threatened her, Devil. Outright.”

  Devil watched him for a long minute, tapping that infernal walking stick against the toe of his outstretched boot. Then, “If we’re diversifying, we’re going to have to have a conversation about the ships.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, first, we’d better learn a bit about tinned salmon and tulips, but besides that, they’re sitting empty in the berths, which is bad for them.”

  “What do you know about what’s bad for boats?”

  “I don’t know a damn thing, but now that we own a fucking fleet of them, I think one of us ought to start, don’t you? Seems like we might need to seek out a boat expert.” A pause. Then, “Do you know anyone with a love of boats?”

  Whit turned on his brother then. “What do you want from me?”

  “You cocked it up,” Devil said.

  “You think I don’t fucking know that?” Whit resisted the urge to put a fist in his brother’s face for no good reason. “He threatened to kill her.”

  “And you stole her business out from under her. You punished her for the sins of men—it’s familiar.” It was the plan Devil had implemented before he fell in love with Felicity. “Christ, the things we do to women.”

  “It’s bollocks,” Whit said. “But how else do I keep her safe?”

  “You don’t,” Devil said. “Keeping her safe requires locking her up. And if I know one thing—it’s that women don’t care for locks.”

  “She’s brilliant. And she should be running the business. She should have been running it from the start, but her father wouldn’t give it to her.”

  Devil nodded once. “Then let her husband give it to her.” The meaning slammed through him, even before his brother added, “Marry her.”

  There was an irony in the way the words came, as though marriage were a neat solution that Whit simply hadn’t considered. As though he hadn’t been consumed by the idea of marrying her. As though he hadn’t imagined that marriage would keep her close.

  But it wouldn’t keep her safe. “I seem to recall recommending
such a thing to you not long ago, and you taking the suggestion . . . poorly.”

  Devil leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest with the calm certainty of a man well loved. “Once I came around to it, it worked out very well.”

  Whit shook his head. “Marriage isn’t an option.”

  “Why? You might as well marry her if you’re going to follow her around like a guard dog for the rest of your days. You want the girl, Whit. I saw you go for her at the fight the other night. I saw the way she strung you tight.”

  Of course he wanted her. Christ. Any man in his right mind would want her. She was brilliant and bold and strong and beautiful, and when she came, she moved against a man like sin.

  But how could he bring her into this world? Put her in danger?

  Devil raised a black brow. “Do you wish to know what I think?”

  “No.”

  “Does she want you?”

  There are a thousand reasons why I wouldn’t marry you, and where you were raised doesn’t even rank.

  He could still hear Hattie’s anger in the words.

  “No.” Not anymore.

  His brother’s brows shot together. “Why not? You’re rich as sin, strong as an ox, and nearly as handsome as I am.”

  Whit raised a brow. “That’s all it takes?”

  “Well, if she’s as brilliant as you say, she’s definitely too good for you, but that didn’t stop Felicity from marrying me.”

  “Felicity made a mistake.”

  “Don’t you ever tell her that,” Devil said, a stupid smile flashing before he grew serious once more. “Answer me. Does she want you?”

  Silence.

  “Ah. So that is why you bought the business—and the boats.”

  “No!” Whit said, resisting the niggling truth in the back of his mind. “I bought them to keep her safe. Like we discussed.”

  “At the risk of repeating myself: horseshit.” Devil smirked. “You bought the business—and the boats—for Henrietta Sedley. Like the time when we were boys when you tried to get that girl’s attention by buying the teacake she’d been eyeing all afternoon.” He paused, distracted by the memory. “What was her name?”

  “Sally Sasser,” Whit said, immediately on the defensive. “And I gave that teacake to her!”