He huffed a little laugh. “A story for the ages.”
“That story makes me a queen. The woman who tamed the Beast.”
His lids lowered, and for a moment, his eyes filled with sin. And then he said, low and dark, “You like that.”
Yes. She did. But only if she was his queen.
She ignored the impossible thought. “If you relinquish your hold on these ships, your cargo is emptied tonight, as planned. And no one ever need know I locked them down. But if you don’t . . .”
“That’s blackmail,” he said.
“Nonsense,” she said. “It’s negotiation. Between rivals.”
“Ahh,” he said softly, and she realized that if she leaned in, just a bit, she would be close enough to touch him. He didn’t seem to be interested in such a thing.
Hating the thought, she added, “If you don’t like the negotiation, I also have a proposal.”
His brows rose in question. “I’m listening.”
“You’ve the power in Covent Garden, and tonight, I’ve proven mine lies in the Docklands.” She stopped.
“A partnership.”
She nodded. “Business.”
“All aboveboard,” he said.
“Well, my part of it, at least,” she replied, loving the way his lips twitched. Loving him. Wishing she could propose a bigger partnership. One that ended with them together in the evenings as well as the days.
Wishing he could love her.
Whit pulled his watches from his pocket, considering the two metal disks before returning them. He looked away, shifting on his feet, and for a moment, Hattie thought he might leave. But he didn’t. Instead, he took a deep breath and let it out long and slow. And then, as though he’d been carrying the words around for an age, he spoke. “I was born at St. Thomas’s, Southwark.”
She stilled, the shock of the words—of his personal revelation—overwhelming. His mother had been unmarried. St. Thomas’s was a lying-in hospital for unwed mothers, a miserable place. Most of the babies born there were shipped to orphanages around the city—their mothers shamed into believing that raising their families alone would place such a stigma on the babies that they were dooming them to a fate worse than the hospital itself.
As though orphanages were better than homes, poor or otherwise. As though institutions were better than families, however they came.
“Saviour,” she whispered, unable to stop herself.
Don’t ever call me that.
The echo of his anger the other night, when she’d tossed his name back into his face, was quick and unpleasant, and Hattie immediately added, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“No,” he said, a little smile on his lips, as though he was trying to put her at ease. “You’re right. Named for the place where I was born and the man who founded the hospital. My mother’s payment for a bed. There are a hundred of me. A thousand.”
Hattie itched to reach for him, knowing he would not allow it. “And your mother? What was her name?”
“María.” He looked past her, toward the dark river, where a half-dozen rowboats made their way through fog and low tide, the lanterns set inside them turning them into floating clouds. “María de Santibáñez. It’s been twenty years since I said that aloud.” He exhaled. “She used to tell me she shared the name with some ancient relative—lady-in-waiting to a queen.” His voice turned to disdain. “Like it meant something.”
“It did, to her.”
“She’d be beside herself if she knew I was here. Speaking to the daughter of an earl.”
“Daughter of an earl by luck,” she reminded him. “Once my father dies, that all goes away. And I stand on my own merit again.”
“In the short weeks I’ve known you, Henrietta Sedley, I have come to see that your merit is superior to all others. They should give you the earldom.”
She scoffed. “I don’t care about the title.”
“My father was a duke.”
Hattie’s jaw dropped at the words, spoken like they were taking a turn about a Mayfair ballroom. She shook her head as though to clear it. “Did you say . . .”
Another humorless laugh. “Twenty years since I’ve said my mother’s name, and I’ve never said that. But yes, my father was a duke.”
“And you were born at St. Thomas’s.”
“My mother’s parents came from Spain to work the estate of my father’s father.” He paused, as though, for the first time, it occurred to him—“My grandfather.” After a moment, he continued. “My mother’s father was a great horseman. He was brought from Madrid to keep the stables on the estate. My mother was born there, raised a stone’s throw from glory.”
Raised on a ducal estate in England, daughter to the stable master, she would have been happy and content—destined for a life as a wife and mother, married well. Whit would have been born into a life that was nothing like the rookeries of Covent Garden.
“What happened?”
“Her parents died young and she was given a place in the main house.”
Dread pooled deep in Hattie. She’d heard the story a thousand times. Men of means, and the way they destroyed the young women around them. “Whit—” She reached for him, but he stepped away.
“She never said a bad word about him. Used to make excuses for what he did. He was duke, after all, and she a servant, and one did not marry the other. But she was beautiful, and he was charming . . . and men were men . . .” He trailed off, and Hattie mapped the high cheekbones and full lips that had robbed her of speech when she’d first met him. She had no difficulty believing that his mother was a great beauty.
When he looked at her, there was something in those beautiful amber eyes—the ones he shared with his brother and so must have come from his father. “In my life, I have done many things. Things that shall send me straight to hell. But I have never repeated the sins of my father.”
“I know that.” Without question, she knew that.
He took a deep breath. “I was young, and I did not understand. I believed her—I believed that we’d left the estate because that was what was done, and that we should be grateful for our flea-infested mattress in Holborn and for the money we had that was not even enough to light candles for her to see properly. But now . . .” He trailed off, and she waited. Hating the story. Desperate for it.
“I know now that she ran from that hospital. That she ran so they wouldn’t take her from me.” Hattie’s chest tightened at the anguish in his voice. “They would have called it taking me from her. But it wouldn’t have been that. That would have been good for her. That would have saved her. And instead, she sacrificed herself for me.”
It wasn’t true. “She didn’t.”
“She did,” he said, lost in the memories of a woman who must have loved him desperately. “When he found us, he didn’t even look at her. He came for me.”
“He took her from you,” she said softly.
He met her eyes, something like gratitude in them, before he turned away. Hattie followed, like she was on a string. When he got to the center mast of the ship, he reached up to touch the scarred wood there, where over a lifetime, a thousand things had been nailed to the wood.
He spoke to the mast. “You left my note here.”
She did not hesitate at the change of topic. “I have a flair for the dramatic.”
He looked over his shoulder at her. “The Year of Hattie.”
“It’s going absolutely terribly.”
“Things take time,” he said.
“I’ve waited quite a bit of time already.”
He nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets and leaning back against the mast, his hat low over his brow, his greatcoat blowing about his legs, making him look the very portrait of a roguish sailor, and for a moment, Hattie wondered what it would be like if she were his. If she didn’t have to battle him. If he would simply wrap her in his coat and let her revel in his warmth and put her arms about his neck and . . .
Love him.
What if this remarkable man let her love him?
“I want to tell you the rest.”
“I want to hear it.” His gaze flew to hers, narrow and assessing, as though she’d surprised him. “It is going to be awful, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said.
She nodded. “And you’ve never told anyone else.”
“No.” He wouldn’t have.
“Let me bear some of it.”
He looked up to the mast, where the sails were tightly wrapped and tied. “Why would you want that?”
Because I love you.
She couldn’t say that. So, instead, she took a step closer, coming near enough that her skirts billowed around his legs, and said, “Because I can.”
And that seemed to be enough.
“There were four of us.”
She nodded. “All born on the same day.” He’d told her that much.
“Devil’s mother was a sailor’s wife. Mine a servant. Ewan’s was a courtesan. And Grace’s—she was a duchess.”
Hattie’s eyes went wide. “She is legitimate? But I thought you said—”
“Grace’s father was not ours, but her mother was the duchess, increasing alongside our mothers—or, at least, in time with them.” Hattie stayed silent, marveling at the madness that came with title and privilege. “The duke was desperate for an heir, and he knew his best chance at one was the babe in his wife’s belly, even though the child wasn’t his by blood.”
“Why not wait and get the duchess with child again? Try for a boy? One of his own?”
Whit smiled at that, wide and winning enough that Hattie was dazzled by it. “Because the duchess had made it impossible for him to sire more heirs.”
“How?” His smile was contagious.
“She shot him.”
“Dead?” It wasn’t possible.
“No. In the bollocks.”
“No!” Hattie’s eyes went wide, then narrowed with loathing. “Good.”
“Grace inherited her mother’s aim, if you are curious.”
“I am indeed, and I should like to come back to that, if we may.”
“With pleasure.” Hattie warmed at the way the reply made it feel as though they had a lifetime of conversation before them. He continued. “So. The duchess produced a babe, but it was a girl. And my bastard of a father baptized her the heir, claimed she was a boy, and shipped her and her mother off to the country.”
Hattie shook her head. “That’s illegal. It’s betraying the line.”
“It is, indeed,” Whit said. “And it’s punishable by death if a false heir is seated.”
She met his eyes. “That’s why you had to run. Because you knew. And he was worried you would tell people.”
“Clever girl,” he said softly, admiration in his eyes. “And he was right. I am telling you, am I not?”
But no one else. Not ever. “I don’t understand . . .” She hesitated. “Who did he intend for heir?”
“The duke was greedy and prideful. And he wanted an heir to mold in his imagine. To pass his legacy on. He had three sons. But what we did not know was that we had him. He’d been watching us. Devil in the orphanage, Ewan in a Covent Garden brothel, and . . .” He trailed off.
“And you,” she said. “With your mother.” A woman who loved him. A home that was safe. Reading lessons. Her chest grew tight.
“Not for long,” he replied. “He brought us to the country—to the seat of the dukedom. And he told us the plan. One of us would be his heir. That boy would inherit everything. Money, power, land, education. He would never want for anything.” A pause. And then, “And neither would his family.”
She had known the words would come. Known that, eventually, this mad, monstrous duke would threaten the only thing Whit held dear. His mother.
“How?” she asked, the word on a whisper. She didn’t want to know.
“We fought for it. A hundred ways. A thousand. It started easy. Footraces and dancing.” The waltz. He’d said his father had made him learn to waltz. “Tests on proper forms of address. Proper silverware. The location of the correct crystal. And then, as he sorted us out, it became clear he didn’t care about any of that. What he wanted was a strong son who would carry on his line and impress the wide world.”
If ever there was a man who could be those things—could do those things—it was Whit. “What did he make you do?”
“There is a reason that when we got to London, we were good fighters.”
Her eyes went wide. “He made you fight each other?”
He nodded. “Even that was easy. We might not have known each other, but we were brothers, and we were happy to scrap when necessary. We learned quickly how to throw a punch and make it look like it would hurt, but pull it at the last moment, so we never did real damage. Ewan was better at that than all of us,” he marveled. “You’d see it coming like a boulder, and it would land feather light.”
For a heartbeat, Hattie found gratitude for this man she knew would become the villain of the play. The one who would try to kill Grace, and take a blade to Devil’s cheek.
“We thought we were brilliant, working together to bring down our father. We didn’t know it was all part of the plan. He’d been making us a team so he could use us against each other. And he did. He started to toy with us. He’d threaten one of us to get the others to fight.” He looked away. “The threats were wild. If two of us didn’t fight until one was on the ground, the third would get the switch until we did.”
“You wanted to save them.”
“Yes,” he said. “Of course.”
Saviour. Not just his name. His whole being.
“He’d give us treats, then take them away. Gifts. Toys. Animals. Anything we liked. He loved forcing us to beg for what we loved.” Whit looked to her. “You tease me about my lemon sweets? They’re because of him. Thank you for the raspberries.”
“Of course.” She nodded. She wished she could keep him in sweets forever. She wished she could pull him close and hold him tight, but he wouldn’t allow it, this proud, wonderful man.
“I couldn’t keep up after a while, and I started making plans to escape. I knew that if I could make it back here—back to Holborn—I could find my mother. And we could run. That was my plan. To get back here and run.”
Hattie would have given anything she had. Business, boats, fortune, future—all of it—to change what he was about to say. But still, it came. “He told me that if I stayed, he would keep her alive. It became clear I wasn’t there to win. That I was never in the running to be duke. He hated that I took after my mother. Raged that I was too small. Too dark. He brought me to train the others. I was there for Devil and Ewan to fight, and if I did it well, if I took the beatings, if I lost the competition, I would be able to go home to my mother, and with money to save her from the life into which she’d been forced.”
He went quiet for a long time, and Hattie ached in the silence for the beautiful boy he’d been, and the magnificent man he’d become.
“I would be able to save her.” It had been a lie. Hattie didn’t need the confirmation. She knew in her soul that it had been a lie.
“He was a monster,” she said. “A fetid, rotten, coward of a man.”
Whit looked surprised. “You’re angry.”
“Of course I am! You were children! And he was a grown man with money and power. What kind of a person manipulates children! His own children!”
“One who wants an heir.”
“Heirs are nothing once you are a corpse,” she snapped before realization dawned. “Wait. Heirs. You ran. With Devil. And Grace.”
He nodded.
“Ewan became heir. A duke. He betrayed you.”
Another nod.
“And now? Where is he?”
“I don’t know.” The words were full of frustration.
Understanding flared. “But he’s here. Close.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I won’t let him hurt you. I will keep you safe.”
> And there it was. Her answer. “That’s what this is; you keep me safe from him.”
He met her eyes. “Until my dying breath.”
She shook her head. “I am not afraid of him.”
“You should be. I am.”
“It is he who should be afraid of me,” she vowed, fury coming hot and powerful. “I should like to have a good go at him with my bare hands.”
His eyes went wide, and he huffed a little, surprised laugh. “You are very angry.”
“Don’t you dare laugh. This isn’t amusing. Don’t you see? They have taken enough from you. I shan’t let him take from me, too.” She was vibrating with rage, unable to control herself or the tears that came around the wicked knot in her throat. “I should like to find them and destroy them. I should like to take one of your very sharpest knives and seat it directly into their black hearts.”
He reached for her. “Love, don’t cry. It’s in the past.”
“It’s not,” she said, batting his hand away. “You’ve carried this for years. You’ll carry it forever. And I loathe it. I loathe them. You cannot possibly think I would hear this story, about the man I love and the people he loves, and not wish to do severe bodily harm to everyone who thought to cross him.”
He stilled. “Hattie.”
She didn’t notice. She was too far gone. “Ruining the lives of children? For a goddamn title? What utter nonsense. My only consolation is that your father, I am happy to say, is rotting quite miserably in hell.”
“Hattie,” he said, low and tight, as though he had something urgent to say.
“What?” she asked, her breath fast and furious.
“You love me?”
Heat flashed through her, followed by cold, and then pure panic. “What? No. What?” She paused, her breath coming harsh. “What?”
His beautiful eyes lit in amusement. “You said you loved me, Hattie. Do you love me?”
“I didn’t say that.” She hadn’t. Had she?
“You did, but that’s not the relevant issue at this point.”
Brazen and the Beast EPB Page 30
