And Ewan, the next in line.
Little had his father known that Ewan had never wished it.
Little had his father known that Ewan would never give him that line. That there would be no more heirs to the dukedom. Not after Ewan.
Ewan, who had never been a real heir to begin with.
He climbed up to the first floor, then the second, where the sunlight faded into the darkness of twilight, and he crossed from east wing to west.
He did not need the candle in his hand, the map of the house remained etched in his mind, navigable in the pitch black if he wished for it to be, he counted the doors as he made his way down the hallway past the first two.
Three. Four.
Watch the squeaky board.
Five.
Cross the hallway.
Six. Seven.
Eight—his fingers trailed over the door that had once been his—a door Grace had found countless times in the darkness. He pressed his hand to it, resisting the urge to try the handle. To crouch down and look through the keyhole.
He didn’t have to. He remembered every inch of that room. Every floorboard. Every pane of glass in the window. He did not have to revisit it. He was not here for the past, but for the future.
Behind the ninth door on the hall, a narrow staircase, climbing to the third floor, where the ducal chambers sat, triple the size of even the largest of the second floor rooms.
The master’s rooms.
The duke’s.
Ewan took a deep breath, turned the handle, and stepped inside to confront the enemy.
His father’s rooms had been the first to be closed off, the moment the body was cold. He hadn’t been inside them since, and he’d never imagined returning to this place—too afraid that it would be full of the man he loathed.
And perhaps, if he had returned before now, he would have found it such, thick with the memory of the man who had machinated and manipulated and threatened him again and again. The man who had stolen any hope Ewan might have had for happiness when he’d been taken from his mother’s home, and forced to turn his back on the people he loved, to keep them safe.
But everything had changed.
Darkness had fallen outside, and Ewan raised the candle as he crossed the room—past the great bed and the long-empty fireplace with the massive wingback chairs that sat unused—the silence no longer ominous as it had been in this house for so long.
Instead, it was welcoming, as though the whole room, the whole house, the dukedom itself had waited for Ewan to return. For this.
He stopped beneath his father’s portrait, a large oil painting that seemed, somehow, to have avoided the neglect and age that the rest of the manor had suffered, as though his father had sold his soul to ensure that he would forever be remembered like this—impeccably handsome and with the amber eyes he had passed onto all three of his sons.
Ewan had never liked looking at the painting; he’d never liked the similarities he saw in it. The eyes, the sweep of blond hair, the angled jaw, the long straight nose that would have been a similarity if Devil hadn’t broken Ewan’s and given him a gift in the balance.
For decades, Ewan thought that broken nose was all that set him apart from his father. The only thing that made him different—for hadn’t he made the same choices as his sire?
“You bastard.” The words were gunshot in that room that hadn’t witnessed sound in ten years. “You used to love throwing that word at us. Like a weapon. Because we didn’t belong to you. And you thought that was the pain of it. You never knew the truth, you feckless coward . . .”
Three boys, his brothers.
“You never knew that the word would knit us together. That it made us stronger than you. That it made us better than you.” He stared his father down, through the darkness and the years. “You never knew that it would be your downfall.
“But you always knew she would be, didn’t you?” he whispered, finally letting himself remember. Who he had come for. And why. “You feared her because of what she was to me, and that was before I understood what it was to love her. Before I understood what it was to stand with her, and see the future, and know that it did not have to be bleak. That it could be strong and smart and full of hope. And full of love.”
He paused, breathing in the silence. Knowing this was the last time he would stand in this room. Knowing it was the last time he would give even a moment to this man. To this place. To the name that was never his.
Knowing that he would walk away from this estate tonight, and return to London, and make good on that long-ago promise he’d made to the place he’d always loved. To the woman he loved, who had already begun making good on it.
We’re going to change all that.
Together.
Ewan lifted the candle, looked his father in the eye, and said, “You were right to fear her; but you should have feared me, as well.”
And he set the portrait on fire.
The flames took hold instantly, the frame and canvas like perfect tinder, and Ewan turned to leave as the fire crawled up the wall, consuming this room, as though it were sentient, and knew the work he required of it.
Ewan left the room and found the next, knowing he had one chance to leave everything behind and return to London. To return to her and start a new life. Together. Away from this place and the specter of it. Quickly, methodically, he set more portraits aflame, the fire chasing over plaster and the woodwork, down the stairs—moving more quickly than he could have imagined.
It was a fire that would be talked about in Essex for years.
And with every moment, every new flame, Ewan felt more free.
Free to return home.
To her.
When the fire blazed to his satisfaction, hot enough to ensure the end of this place that deserved to be reduced to rubble, Ewan made for the door, the flames making quick work around him.
Good. It was time for it to end.
He didn’t want to waste another minute dwelling on the past.
He wanted the future.
He wanted Grace.
He crossed the massive entryway toward the door, even as the flames licked over the first floor banister. Through an open door, he saw how they’d already chased through into the conservatory. Fast like fury. Hot like freedom.
Ewan set his hand to the door handle and pulled the door open, the cool air a welcome respite to the blazing heat inside. Before he could step through to the outside, an ominous creak sounded from above. He looked up to the first floor, where an overhang jutted out over the entryway, now swallowed by flames.
The hesitation was a mistake.
With a horrendous roar, the balcony peeled from the wall, and somehow, in the sound, he heard her voice.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Grace and her brothers rode the hours to Burghsey House in silence, the air inside the carriage thickening with memory as they returned to the place that had shaped them—Devil’s vengeance and Whit’s fury and Grace’s power. And as the wheels clattered and the miles stretched into hours, they all lost themselves to the past.
Three hours into the ride, Devil cursed harshly in the waning light. “Christ. I don’t remember it being so far.”
“It took us two days to get to London,” Whit said, rubbing a hand absently over his torso, an echo of the broken ribs he’d had on that interminable walk.
Thirty minutes later, Devil’s fidgeting was nearly unbearable, his cane in constant motion against the toe of his boot. “I don’t remember it being so fucking empty.”
“I remember that,” Grace said, softly, looking out the window, the sun setting in the distance in a blaze of yellows and oranges. “I remember how lonely it was, before you came.” And then once they’d arrived, it was as though someone had lit the lanterns at the estate. “Though I suppose I should not say such a thing, considering what came of you being there.”
“What came of us being there was finding each other,” Whit said, his voice low and graveled, alway
s sounding like he’d just begun to use it that moment. “What came of being there was the Bareknuckle Bastards.” He met Grace’s eyes in the waning light. “Grace, there are a thousand things I would change about that godforsaken man and that godforsaken place, but I would not change being there. None of us would.”
Devil’s cane tapped again.
“Though I would gladly change Devil’s choice of a cane sword right now.”
The tapping stopped. “Fuck off.”
Ignoring their bickering, Grace turned back to the window, the sunlight barely there now, the darkness stealing any possibility of tracking their progress. How far were they from the house? How long before she could see him, and tell him the truth—that she loved him. That she wanted to be with him.
And that they would sort out the rest.
It had been twenty years without him, and she was through with it.
Grace stared into the darkness, lost to her thoughts as Devil and Whit squirmed and sniped at each other, the back-and-forth a comfort as she grew more and more desperate to see Ewan, playing over every moment they’d been together since he’d returned to London.
The club. His rooftop. The alleyway with the laundresses.
The fight in her Garden.
The kisses in his.
The masks they’d worn.
“How did he know?” she said softly.
Devil looked up. “How did he know what?”
“That it was me. In the darkness on that night when he woke up. In the ring, with the sack over his head. The night of the masque.”
This time, it was Whit who replied. “He’ll always know you, Grace.”
I shan’t ever not seek you, Grace.
And still, she’d pushed him away.
You are my beginning and end. The other half of me. And you always have been.
In twenty years, she’d convinced herself it wasn’t true. That whatever they’d been—whatever she’d longed for—had been fantasy. A figment.
And she’d been half right. It had been fantasy.
But she should have known better than anyone that fantasy was often more real, and more powerful than reality.
And tonight, she wished to make it reality, full stop.
If only this carriage would go a touch faster.
She looked out the window again, the sunset still blazing red in the distance. It was only then that she realized that it was impossible. That it was far too late for sunset.
She wasn’t looking at the sun.
No.
“No.” She sat up and put her hands on the window. “What has he done?”
It wasn’t sunset.
It was fire.
Burghsey House was engulfed in flames.
The carriage came to a stop one hundred yards from the inferno, as close to the flames as the coachman was willing to get, the gig rocking with his weight coming down from the driving block even as Grace scrambled for the handle and flung the door open, flying from the carriage.
What had he done?
Where was he?
“What has he done?"
“He’s always been mad . . . but this . . .”
Whit and Devil were on her heels as she made her way past the horses, already running, headed for the manor, ablaze in the night.
He was burning it all down. For her.
“Grace!” came Devil’s shout behind her. “No!”
She didn’t listen, tearing through the darkness toward the flames.
A great steel arm came around her, and she screamed, writhing against it. Whit. “Get the fuck off me!” she yelled as he hauled her back.
“Stop,” he growled.
Frustration and fury came hot and angry, and she struggled against her brother’s grip, wild with the need to get free. To get to Ewan.
She turned back, her hand already fisting, already flying, already landing directly on his nose and setting his head back. “Christ!” he growled as he took the blow . . . and she took off once more.
“Grace! Stop!” Devil shouted as he caught her, this time.
“I have to get to him!” she screamed, struggling against his grip. “I’ll take you out, too!”
Devil was stronger than he looked. “And I’ll take it,” he said, in her ear. “I’ve taken worse for you, Gracie. We all have.”
She turned back, ready to do more damage, but Devil was also ready, blocking her fist with one of his heavy hands. “Grace,” he said again, calm and even, as though they were anywhere but here, on the ancestral lands of his father, where they’d all been through hell.
“Grace,” Whit repeated from Devil’s shoulder, where he’d caught up with them, nose bloodied, the red-gold glow of the fire making the worry on his face clear.
The worry on both their faces.
It was the worry that broke her. The softness in their eyes, those eyes that were part of a set. A trio. Her heart pounded. “He’s inside.”
“You don’t know that.” Devil.
She looked to him. “I do,” she said, panic flaring even as she looked to Whit. “I do. He’s in there, and he’s alone, and I have to get to him.”
She would be damned if she let this place have him.
Not after all they’d been through.
“Please,” she whispered.
“We made a promise, all those years ago,” Devil said, his voice ragged. “We promised him we would keep you safe. You ain’t runnin’ into fire.”
“And how many times did he run into fire for us?” she cried. “How many times did he do it here? That night, a lifetime ago, he chased us from this building . . . and he has lived in its fire ever since.”
“Grace . . .”
There was a beat of silence, and then, like a gift, Whit grunted.
Grace seized on the sound. “Please. I would know,” she whispered to him. “I would know if he were dead.”
Recognition flared in his eyes. A knowledge that came only from someone who knew the anguish she felt. “I believe you.”
Devil’s grip loosened.
Mistake.
Grace was already turning to run, smarter now. Her brother’s wicked curse rent the darkness as she headed for the house, for the flames. For the man she loved.
And then he was there. The door of the great manor house opened, and he was there, in shirtsleeves, tall and magnificent and alive, framed by the fire behind him, like no duke she’d ever seen before.
He was alive.
Grace pulled up short at the look of him, hiccupping her relief, their last conversation playing through her. The confession he offered her. No. Not a confession.
He’d called it a fight.
His last battle for her.
Second to last.
Because when she’d pushed him away, he’d made one final choice. Thrown one final punch. And landed it perfectly. He’d come here and set this place they had all loathed so much on fire.
“Fucking hell,” Devil said softly. “He did it.”
This mad, magnificent man had burned down the past.
For their future.
She was already moving, toward him, desperate to get to him, when the wicked crack tore through the night. He looked up at the sound, and she knew what was to come.
No!
She screamed his name into the night, tearing toward the house, her brothers on her heels, as the windows blew out of an upper window and he was swallowed by flame.
No. This place did not win him.
He was hers.
And as though she had willed it, the flames parted, and he was there again, walking through fire, just as he’d promised, tall and beautiful, covered in soot and ash, the house burning like hell itself behind him.
And he came straight for her.
She flew to him, launching herself into his arms, and he caught her, lifting her high against him, and kissing her, dark and deep and perfect, pulling away eventually to look into her eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to get you. I came t
o tell you that I love you. I came to tell you that you’re mine, and I’m never letting you go again.”
He kissed her again, long and lush, setting their hearts to racing before he set his forehead to hers and said, “I shall allow it.”
Pleasure rioted through her at the lush words, at the promise in them. Forever. “What have you done?”
“What I should have done years ago,” he said. “I should have destroyed this place from the start. This place that threatened to destroy us every day we were here. And threatened to destroy me every day after you left.” He kissed her again, and she could taste the aching regret on his lips.
“It did not destroy you,” she said. “It made you so much stronger.”
“No. You made me stronger. Strong enough to free us. Strong enough to leave the past behind and build a new future. With you. In the Garden. If you’ll have me.”
Always.
She would always have him.
“Christ, Duke,” Devil said as he and Whit approached. “This would have really set the old man off.”
Ewan didn’t release Grace as they turned to face the house, blazing in the night, and watched as an interior wall collapsed, sending flames shooting from the empty places in the stone facade where windows used to be.
He didn’t look to his brother, not even when he answered, “Not a duke any longer.”
Understanding dawned, bright and impossible, and they all looked to him. Grace shook her head. “You cannot mean it.”
“But I do. I spent the last year restoring the estate. It thrives. Her Majesty will no doubt delight in its lucrative return.”
He’d given it all up. For her. For them.
“You do not believe me?” He looked back to the inferno. “No one could survive that blaze. Not even the mad duke Marwick."
They all followed his gaze, his words settling as they watched the house burn.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Whit spoke. “Duke’s definitely dead. Seen it with my own eyes.”
Devil’s white teeth flashed in the glow of the fire. “Aye, lost to history as Burghsey House burned—all tragic like.”
Ewan looked to Devil and Whit, watching them carefully. “And with him, all the ghosts that have haunted us.”
Daring and the Duke EPB Page 32
