Brazen and the Beast (The Bareknuckle Bastards 2)

“I’ll say two things,” Nora added.

“Only two?”

“All right. Two for now. I shall reserve the right to say more,” Nora amended. “First, you’d better hope you are right and we didn’t accidentally murder the man.”

“We didn’t,” Hattie said.

“And second . . .” Nora continued without pause. “The next time I suggest we leave the unconscious man in the carriage and take my curricle, we take the damn curricle.”

“If we’d taken the curricle, we might have died,” Hattie scoffed. “You drive that thing far too quickly.”

“I’m in complete control the whole time.”

When their mothers had died within months of each other—sisters even in that—Nora had come searching for comfort she could not find with her father and older brother, men too aristocratic to allow themselves the luxury of grief. But the Sedleys, born common and now the kind of aristocrats who weren’t considered at all aristocratic, had no such trouble. They’d made space for Nora in their home and at their table, and it wasn’t long before she was spending more nights at Sedley House than at her own, something her father and brother seemed not to notice—just as they’d seemed not to notice when she’d begun spending her pin money on carriages and curricles to rival those driven by society’s most ostentatious dandies.

A woman in charge of her own conveyance was a woman in charge of her own destiny, Nora liked to say.

Hattie wasn’t entirely certain of that, but she did not deny that it paid to have a friend with a particular skill at driving, especially on nights when one did not wish coachmen to talk—which any coachman would do if he’d deposited two unmarried aristocratic daughters outside 72 Shelton Street. It was no matter that 72 Shelton Street did not, at first glance, appear to be a bordello.

Was it still called a bordello if it was for women?

Hattie supposed that did not matter, either, but the beautifully appointed building looked nothing like what she imagined its male-serving counterparts looked like. Indeed, it looked warm and welcoming, shining like a beacon, windows full of golden light, planters exploding with autumnal colors hanging on either side of the door and above, in boxes at every sill.

It did not escape Hattie’s notice that the windows were covered, however, which did seem reasonable, as the goings-on within were surely of a private nature.

She lifted a hand and checked the seat of her mask once more. “If we’d taken the curricle, we would have been seen.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Nora shrugged one shoulder and flashed Hattie a grin. “Well then, out of the carriage with him.”

Hattie chuckled. “I shouldn’t have done it.”

“We aren’t going back to apologize,” Nora said, waving a hand at the door. “And so? Are you going in?”

Hattie took a deep breath. This was it. She turned to her friend. “Is this mad?”

“Absolutely,” Nora replied.

“Nora!”

“It’s mad in the best possible way. You have plans, Hattie. And this is how you get to them. Once this is done, there’s no going back. And frankly, you deserve it.”

Doubt whispered, barely there and heard nonetheless. “You have plans, too, but you haven’t done anything like this.”

A pause, and Nora shrugged. “I haven’t had to.” The universe had gifted Nora with wealth and privilege, and a family that didn’t seem to mind if she used both to take life by the horns.

Hattie had not been so lucky. She wasn’t the kind of woman who was expected to take life by the horns. But after tonight, she intended to show the world just how well she intended to do just that.

But first, she was required to do away with the one thing that held her back.

And so, she was here.

She turned to Nora. “You’re certain this is—”

An approaching carriage interrupted, the clattering horses and rattling wheels thundering in her ears as it pulled to a stop. A trio of laughing women descended in beautiful silk gowns that gleamed like jewels and harlequin masks nearly identical to Hattie’s. Long-necked and narrow-waisted, with wide smiles, it was easy to tell these women were beautiful.

Hattie was not beautiful.

She took a step back, pressing up against the side of the carriage.

“Well, now I’m certain this is the place,” Nora said dryly.

Hattie looked to her friend. “But why would they—”

“Why would you?”

“But they could have—” Anyone they liked.

Nora slid her a look, a dark brow arching. “You could, too.”

It wasn’t true, of course. Men did not clamor after Hattie. Oh, they liked her fine. After all, she liked ships and horses and had a head for business, and she was clever enough to amuse during a dinner or a ball. But when a woman looked as she did and talked as she did, men were far more likely to clap her on the shoulder than they were to clutch her to them in passionate embrace. Good old Hattie, even when she’d been in her first season out and not old at all.

She didn’t say all that, though, and Nora filled the silence. “Perhaps they, too, are looking for something . . . untethered.” They watched the women rap on the door of 72 Shelton Street, a small window opening and closing before the door itself followed suit, and they had disappeared within, leaving the street silent once more. “Perhaps they, too, are looking to captain their own fates.”

A nightingale cooed above them, answered almost immediately by another, at a distance.

The Year of Hattie.

She nodded. “All right, then.”

Her friend grinned. “All right, then.”

“You are certain you don’t wish to come in?”

“And do what?” Nora asked with a laugh. “There is nothing within for me. I thought I’d take a drive—see if I can beat my time round Hyde Park.”

“Two hours?”

“I shall be here.” Nora tipped her coachman’s cap and flashed Hattie a grin. “Enjoy yourself, milady.”

That had been Hattie’s plan all along, hadn’t it? To enjoy herself on this, the first night of the rest of her life, when she closed the door on the past and took her future well in hand. With a nod to her friend, she approached the building, her eyes fixed on its great steel door and the tiny slot within that opened the moment she knocked, revealing a pair of darkly kohled, assessing eyes. “Password?”

“Regina.”

The window closed. The door opened. And Hattie stepped inside.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dark interior of the building, a jarring enough change from the brightly lit exterior that she instinctively reached for her mask. “If you remove it, you cannot stay,” came a warning from the woman who’d opened the door, tall and lithe and beautiful, with dark hair and darker eyes and the palest skin Hattie had ever seen.

She lowered her hand from the protection. “I am—”

The woman smiled. “We know who you are, my lady. There is no need for names. Your anonymity is a priority.”

It occurred to Hattie that it might be the first time anyone had ever told her that she was a priority in any way. And she rather liked it. “Oh,” she replied, for lack of anything else to say. “How kind.”