Brazen and the Beast (The Bareknuckle Bastards 2)

The enormous Scotsman had provided Whit’s requested invitation immediately, with a single caution. If you embarrass my wife, I’ll end you.

Whit had refrained from pointing out that the Duchess of Warnick was one of the most scandalous figures in London society—the subject of a nude painting that was currently traveling Europe on exhibition—not that anyone in the ton spoke of it, for fear of upsetting her enormous husband and taking a beating for it.

Whit had no intention of embarrassing the duchess tonight. He had other plans. Other points to prove.

I don’t care if you’re not a gentleman.

In twenty years, Whit had never angled for the descriptor. He’d resisted it at every turn. He’d claimed Beast and built himself in the image, filling his days with the Rookery and his nights with the ring. He’d taken pride in his ability to move a hold full of smuggled goods in a seamless two hours, and even more in his ability to punish anyone who got in the way of the Bastards’ work, or their people.

There was no place for gentility in the Covent Garden filth, and that was the stuff from which he’d been made—built from the muck into what he was now, a Beast.

And that was why he stood in the darkness, watching her from a distance. Because everything he intended that evening ran counter to what he was. And still, he dressed in formalwear. A cravat. The trappings of gentlemen.

And he watched her, desire coursing through him, reminding him that she was right. That he was nothing like a gentleman. That he never would be.

But he could play the part.

“Not a favor for us,” Devil said, his smirk in his tone. “Walking into a pit of aristocratic vipers is not a thing I ever intend to do.”

“You married an aristocrat.”

“No,” Devil said. “I married a queen.”

Whit resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his brother’s reply. When Devil had met Lady Felicity Faircloth outside a ball very much like the one in the house across the street, she’d been queen of the outcasts—tossed to the edge of society where she was expected to fade into obscurity. But Devil hadn’t seen an outcast; he’d seen the woman he would love, marry, and worship for the rest of his life.

They’d married, shocking society, which hadn’t mattered in the slightest to Felicity, who’d happily eschewed the world into which she’d been born, becoming more and more a Covent Garden lass each day.

“How you landed her is beyond understanding,” Whit said.

Devil’s smile was nearly audible. “I wonder at it every day.” A gust of wind blew, and he dipped his head into the collar of his greatcoat, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I’d be lying if I didn’t wish for a warm bed with her instead of whatever this is.”

Whit offered a disapproving grunt. “I did not require such an image. Christ. Go home to her then.”

“And miss watching you enter society like a fucking mark?”

He looked to his brother. “You wanted vengeance. This is part of it.”

Except it wasn’t. It was a way for him to get to her. To show her that she was not the only one who could find a needle in a haystack. He imagined the surprise in her eyes when he approached her in the ballroom. Imagined the confusion when she found him on her turf. Imagined turning her world upside down, just as she threatened every time she arrived in Covent Garden.

“I always want vengeance. But I want to carve it out with a blade. Not . . .” He waved a hand to indicate Whit’s attire. “Whatever this is.”

“You didn’t carve it out with a blade when it came to your wife.” Felicity had been an act of vengeance before she’d become an act of love.

Devil turned knowing eyes on him. “Is this a comparable situation?”

Shit. “No.”

“Whit—you haven’t been inside a ballroom since we were twelve.”

It hadn’t been a ballroom then; it had been a torture chamber. It had been the man who’d sired him reminding Whit with every misstep that his future lay in the balance. His future, and his mother’s.

It had been full of anger and fear and panic.

Whit reached into his pocket, grasping one of the two pocket watches within, running a thumb over the warm metal face. “I remember it all.”

Silence, and then, softly, “He was a fucking monster.”

Their father. Spreading his seed throughout England, not knowing that the three sons he sired on different women would become his only chance at an heir. And then his own wife made any legitimate sons impossible, putting a bullet into his bollocks just as he’d deserved, and the Duke of Marwick had come looking for them, not caring that their illegitimacy should have saved them all from the horrific tests he put them through. Thinking only of his name and his line.

Thinking only of himself and not the scars he would leave on three boys, and the girl who’d held the place before them.

Memory flashed. Of the last night at Burghsey House, the country seat of the Dukedom of Marwick. Of Grace—the placeholder—the girl baptized a boy so all of England would think the duke had a legitimate heir, her red hair in tangles, shaking, as the monster she’d always thought was her father told her the truth—that she was expendable.

Then he’d turned to Devil and Beast and told them the same. They weren’t good enough. They weren’t worthy of the dukedom. And they, too, were expendable.

But nothing had hurt more than when the old bastard had directed his attention to Ewan, the third brother, born of a fourth woman. Ewan, strong and smart and with fists like iron. Ewan, determined to change his future. Ewan, who’d once promised to protect them all.

Until their father had told him to do just the opposite.

And then they’d had to protect themselves.

Whit looked to Devil, the wicked scar down his brother’s right cheek gleaming white in the darkness, evidence of their past.

They had protected themselves that night, and every night since.

Whit didn’t speak the thought. He refused to resurrect the memory. His brother didn’t ask him to. Instead, Devil’s attention stayed on Hattie, and Whit found he couldn’t resist joining him, watching as she entered Warnick House, the swing of her wine red skirts tempting him, sweet and sinful like the drink itself.

“Here is my question.” Devil asked quietly, “In your mind, how does this end? The woman is protecting a family and a business that has come for our own, which makes her at worst the enemy, and at best a blockade between us and Ewan.”

Whit did not reply. Devil didn’t have to speak what they both knew was true. What threatened the Bastards’ business threatened all of the Rookery. All of Covent Garden. And all of the people who relied on them.

The people he had vowed to protect.

“How does it end?” Devil repeated, softly.

She was gone from view, the edge of her skirts disappeared, blocked by a new group of revelers, eager for entry. He hated that he couldn’t see her, even though her withdrawal from view made it easier for him to go after her. To straighten his shoulders and smooth his sleeves, and say, “Revenge.”

He had nearly made it to the street when Devil called out to him, soft from the darkness. “Whit.”

Whit stopped but did not turn back.

Not even when the Garden slipped into Devil’s voice. “You forget, bruv . . . I, too, have stood in the darkness, watching the light.”