No.
Yes.
“No.”
He reached for her, capturing her face, tilting her up to him. “My fantasy is this. You, and me, here. With a collection of flame-haired babes.” She closed her eyes. “My brothers. Their children. A family.”
The last was a whisper.
“Christ. I cannot tell you how I long for a family—one built in our home. Yours and mine. The start of something new.”
A fat tear fell at the words, at the ache in them, and the twin ache they set off in her own chest. He was there to catch it, his thumb tracing over her cheek in a wide arc, brushing her tears away. “But I can’t have that. Because of that fucking title.”
Her heart pounded in the face of his anger, decades-old, finally revealed.
“But the one thing I have clung to over the years was this—one day, I would use it as we’d intended. And here is that chance. Tonight, I take that filthy, stolen title, and I claim it to save this place. For you. Tonight, I give you that fight you’ve wanted.”
She stiffened, terrified of what he would say.
“I love you.”
In her years of bareknuckle fighting, Grace had taken countless unexpected blows, but never anything like that one—which pulled the air from her.
And he did not stop.
“Yes, I loved you the moment I set eyes on you a lifetime ago, but what that was—it pales in comparison to how I love you now. You are perfect—strong and bold and brave and brilliant, and the way I ache to be near you is only made worse when I am near you, because I cannot have you. Because every time I reach for you, you slip through my fingers . . . like fucking fantasy.”
She swallowed, the knot in her throat impossibly tight as he spoke, the words an echo of her own feelings—her own desperate desires, impossible to sate.
“Yes—I asked the duchess to get you to the masque. And I stood at the edge of that ballroom, losing my mind, waiting for you to come in some kind of mad hope. And then you did, and I realized that what I felt before you arrived had not been hope, it had been fear. And when you arrived, you were hope.”
A tear spilled over, down her cheek, and he reached for it instantly, brushing it aside with his thumb. “I would do it all again. I shan’t ever not seek you, Grace. You are my beginning and end. The other half of me. And you always have been.
“Here is my fight,” he repeated, softly. “Marry me.”
She shook her head, sadness coursing through her, tears coming, hot and instant. “The story you told me. Cyrene and Apollo. He wanted her to leave with him. To live with the gods. She wanted to rule a kingdom. What happened?”
He hesitated.
“Tell me,” she said, already knowing the answer.
“He made her Queen of Libya. And the land was lush and beautiful and prosperous, and ruled by a warrior Queen.”
One fat tear fell, tracing down her cheek. “And what of him—did he rule by her side?”
He did not look at her. “Grace.”
“No. What of Apollo?”
He turned his beautiful amber eyes on her finally, and she saw the sadness in them. “He left her.”
She nodded. “Because she didn’t want idyll, married to a god, playing at power. She wanted her own kingdom. Her love. Her life. All of it. Together. Equal. Or none of it at all.”
“Was it worth it?” he asked. “A lifetime alone, when she did not have to be alone?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “But the alternative was not enough.”
He nodded. “And me? What of wanting me?”
Her throat ached at the question, painful and full with the truth of her answer. “I want you with my whole being,” she confessed. “I want you with everything I am.”
He reached for her then, his fingers sliding across her cheek and into her hair, his touch luring her closer, and she came, realizing even as she moved that it would always be like this between them. She would always come for him. Always be drawn to him.
The kiss he gave her was lush and heavy, full of aching desire and all the love that had gone unused in the years they’d been apart, and if it had been an hour earlier, a day earlier, Grace would have reveled in that caress and let it come as a gift, on a wave of future. Of hope.
But in that moment, it was not future.
It was the end.
Tears spilled down her cheeks when Ewan broke the kiss and lifted his head, opening those beautiful amber eyes and looking deep into hers. “And so my father wins.”
The words stole her breath, and fear coursed through her. Fear, and love and a keen desire that she could not deny—not even as she knew what was about to happen. Not even as she knew he was about to give her what she had sworn she wanted, only after she’d realized she was terrified of it.
Terrified of losing him.
Could it be enough?
“I want you,” he said, and she hated the way the words came, resigned. “I want you and I love you, and it isn’t first love. It’s final. And if you cannot see that—if you cannot find the courage to take it, and to revel in it, and to let me stand by your side, then it is not enough.” He shook his head. “How many tests must I pass before you believe in it? Before you trust it? Before you trust me?”
“I want to,” she said. It was true. There was nothing she wanted more than this man, with her, forever.
Silence stretched between them for an eternity, and she saw the riot of emotions play across his face. Frustration. Sadness. Disappointment. And finally, resignation. “Want is not enough,” he said. “Not for either of us.”
The words hung between them, a wicked blow. A punch he did not pull.
He left her then, and she knew, without question, that he would never return.
And Grace Condry, queen of Covent Garden, stood in her destroyed club and, for the first time in two decades, let the tears come.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The next morning, as the sun coated the rooftops of London in the bright light of a crisp autumn day, her brothers found her on the roof.
“Between us, we’ve, what—five houses?” Devil said, coming to stand at her side where she sat on a chimney block, arm draped over one knee, looking out over the rooftops toward Mayfair. He lifted the collar of his greatcoat and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’d think we could find somewhere warmer to meet.”
Grace didn’t look at him. “We’ve always preferred the roof. What was it you used to say? This was as far as we’d ever be from the muck?”
“Mmm,” Devil replied, rocking back on his heels. “But Whit owns the southern edge of Berkeley Square, so look at us now.”
No one laughed.
Instead, Whit came around into her field of vision, leaning back against the low wall marking the edge of the roof, crossing one ankle over the other, shoving his hands deep in his pockets and hunching his shoulders against the wind. “Club’s a fucking mess.”
And it was. Broken glass, curtains slashed to bits, furniture in pieces, not a single window remaining intact. At some point, someone had tipped over a candelabrum and burned a hole in the carpet. Thankfully, that had happened before every bottle of alcohol on the main floor of the club had been smashed and let to run out, or there would be no rooftop to be found.
Grace nodded. “And you’re only talking about the inside. I’ll be lucky if we ever see another member again.”
“Nah,” Devil said. “They shan’t stay away. You promised them a circus, and didn’t you deliver?”
“It’s destroyed,” she said. “I sent everyone home.” She didn’t want to face them.
“Well, a dozen of them are inside getting a jump on the clean, so I’d say your biggest problem is mutiny,” Devil said. “Zeva and Veronique are barking orders like proper lieutenants. Maybe you ought to get them uniforms when you order new wallcoverings.”
Irritation flared. “I told them to go home.”
“It can be mended,” Whit said, ignoring her. “You’re rich and we’ve
a line into every silk spinner, furniture maker and whisky distiller you need. That is, if we’re still talking about the club.”
Devil tapped his stick on the roof thoughtfully. “Well, the rest can be mended, too, truthfully. If anyone knows that, we do.”
Grace looked to him. “The rest?”
He met Whit’s gaze over her shoulder. “She plays coy with me.”
Whit grunted. “She’s never liked to talk about him.”
Ewan.
“We hear he’s broken your heart again, Gracie.”
The words, soft and kind—kinder than anything she’d ever heard Devil say to someone who wasn’t Felicity or Helena—threatened to break her. She pressed her lips together.
“Can we kill him, now?” grumbled Whit.
“He loves me,” she said.
“He’s always loved you,” Devil said. “That doesn’t seem like it should be heartbreaking. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact.”
“He wants to marry me,” she said to the rooftops. “I’d be Duchess of Marwick.”
Her brothers were silent for a long moment, and then Whit grunted his acknowledgment.
“So. Therein lies the rub,” said Devil.
Another long stretch of silence, then Whit. “What did you tell him?”
She snapped her attention to them, irritation flaring along with something like betrayal as she looked from one to the other. “What do you think I said?”
“Ah. So he didn’t break your heart,” Whit clarified. “You broke his.”
“Who made you such an expert on hearts?” she snapped. “I thought you wanted to kill him.”
His brows shot up. “Easy, Gracie.”
“We don’t not want to kill him,” Devil said. “But we know what it’s like to be laid low.”
“I don’t much care for feeling sympathy for the bastard, truthfully,” Whit said.
“And so? What will he do?” This, from Devil.
Whit shook his head. “We’ve never been able to predict his movements.”
A long silence, and Devil tapped his cane. Once. Twice. “Grace has.”
She did not like the truth in the words, not as it was twined with the truth in her heart. The keen memory of him walking away—a new man. Changed, just as she was.
Forever.
She knew what he would do. It was over. “He’s going to leave,” she said, the ache in her chest nearly unbearable. “He’s going to leave, and he’s never going to come back.”
The irony was, he’d finally done what she told him she wanted.
And now, all she wished was for him to come back and stay.
“He’s already left,” Devil said.
The words struck like a slap. “How do you know that?”
“Because we’ve been having him followed since he returned.”
She shot him a look. “Why?”
“Well, first of all”—he turned and sat on the high ledge of the roof—“every time he’s turned up in the past . . . how long?” He looked to Whit to fill the time frame.
“Forever,” Whit supplied with a shrug.
“Right. Every time he’s turned up forever, he’s tried to kill one of us.” He paused, then added, “You were the first one of us he tried to kill, I might add. But here we are—life is a strange, mysterious thing.”
“He didn’t try to kill me,” she said.
Everything stilled on that rooftop—even the cold autumn wind seemed to pause to let the words seep in.
“How do you know?” Devil said.
“Because he told me,” she said. “The old duke wanted me dead.”
“Because you were proof of what he’d done.”
She nodded.
“Not just that,” Whit said. “He wanted you dead because he knew he’d never have all of Ewan if Ewan had any hope of having you.”
Whit, always seeing what no one else did.
“Yes,” she said. “But he never would have hurt me.”
“We all saw it, though,” Whit replied. “We all saw him come for you.”
“No.” This time it was Devil who interrupted. “He didn’t come for her. He came for me. I always wondered why he looked me dead in the eye beforehand. I thought it was because he wanted the fight.”
“He did,” Grace said. “He wanted the fight with you, to give us all time to run.”
Silence fell between them as they were all lost to the memory of that fateful night, when everything that had happened had somehow not happened at all.
“Christ.” Whit was the first to speak. “He gave himself over to Marwick. To keep us safe.”
“The old man had to have known where we’d gone,” Devil said.
He knew where you were, Ewan had told her, but he’d never told me.
Grace nodded. “We were young and scared and no doubt left a dozen signposts along the way. But he never came for us.”
“That doesn’t mean he didn’t threaten it,” Devil said, understanding the manipulation instantly. How had they not seen what their evil father would have been willing to do? “God knows he’d used each of our safety to keep the others in line a thousand times before.”
“And my safety, most of all,” she said.
“Mmm,” Whit agreed. “And no one was more susceptible to threats against Grace than Ewan.”
Devil’s cane tapped against the roof in an even, pensive rhythm. “Fuck,” he finally whispered, awe in his tone. “He gave you up. Into our keeping. No wonder he was ready to blow up half of London when he thought we’d let you die.”
“He gave up everything,” she said, to herself as much as to them.
The brothers he’d just found.
Her.
I loved you the moment I set eyes on you a lifetime ago, but what that was—it pales in comparison to how I love you now.
“He gave us each other,” she said, watching the rooftops.
For twenty years, she’d traversed this city from up on high, believing that the rooftops were the place she’d stolen from him. Claimed for herself. But they weren’t stolen. They’d been gifted. He’d given her this place.
“All those years, we thought he chose the title over us,” Whit said. “When he actually chose the title for us. It was a sacrifice for us.”
“Not for us,” Devil said. “For Grace.”
He’d come to them for penance weeks ago. Vowed to make amends. When in actual fact, Ewan had been paying penance for twenty years.
“You said he left.” Grace looked to Devil, tears in her eyes. “Where did he go?”
“Northeast.” Toward Essex.
Back to the estate. To that place they all loathed, because it had stolen so much from them. And from him most of all. The answer made her want to scream. Instead, she came to her feet, looking from one of her brothers to the other. “He shouldn’t be there.”
“He’s Duke of Marwick; where else should he be?” Devil asked.
Anywhere else. “He hates the title. Hates the house. It destroyed him,” she said. “That place that was his ruin as much as it was ours.”
More.
She looked at them. “He doesn’t want it.”
“The house?”
“Any of it,” she clarified. “But he hasn’t a choice, has he?”
I want you, he’d said. I want you, and I love you, and it isn’t first love.
He could be happy with her.
They could be happy together.
It seemed at once impossible and like everything she’d ever wanted.
“He wants me,” she said, softly.
“Then why would he go back?” Devil asked.
“Because—” she started, then stopped, hating the end of the sentence. Not wanting to finish it. Because I was afraid to take what I wanted.
Whit spoke. “Because he has nowhere else to go.”
Because she’d pushed him away, again. She’d run from him, again. And this time, he hadn’t deserved it.
Regret coursed through her—regret and som
ething even more powerful.
Need.
She needed him. And there was no shame in it. Only promise. Only hope.
She came to her feet. “He shouldn’t be there,” she said again. “He should be here. With me.”
She didn’t know how it would work. But it would work. If the choice was a lifetime with him or a lifetime without him, there was no choice. Not one worth considering.
She was queen of Covent Garden, and she’d spent a lifetime making the impossible possible.
“I made a mistake. I have to go after him.”
Devil’s gaze snapped to hers. “Don’t say it.”
She did. “I love him.”
“Fuck,” he replied.
“I love him, and I have to save him.”
Whit grunted. “I suppose we won’t be able to kill him now.”
“Pity, that.” Devil heaved a dramatic sigh. “I shall get the carriage.”
Hours later, Ewan entered Burghsey House to face his past.
No one had been inside the manor house in a decade—since Ewan had assumed the dukedom and banned the staff from the main house, knowing that even if everything he intended went to plan, and he did find Grace and convince her to marry him, he would never again live inside these walls that had brought him nothing but pain.
The setting sun streamed through the western windows as he lit a long-forgotten candle and walked the halls of the massive house, along dust-covered, threadbare carpets and around furniture that had faded in a decade without use.
Ten years of dust and disrepair, and still, the house was the same: the massive entryway, rich mahogany and stonework covered in tapestries that had hung since the dawn of the dukedom; the familiar scent, of candlewax and history; the heavy quiet that had settled once Devil and Whit and Grace had left, slowly stripping him of his sanity.
Standing there, inside the house, Ewan was cast back with the force of a scarred fist on a filthy Covent Garden street.
He climbed the stairs, the map of the place a pristine memory. Passing portrait after portrait, the lines of dukes and marquesses and earls and lords whose identities had been drilled into him as a boy. All the venerable men who made up the unimpeachable line of Marwicks.
Daring and the Duke EPB Page 31
