Brazen and the Beast (The Bareknuckle Bastards 2)

Our company. Whit had spent enough time in the world to know that daughters were too often overwhelmed with filial loyalty when it came to their fathers—but there was something more than that in Hattie’s words. She did not merely defend the integrity of her father . . . she defended the integrity of a business about which she knew a great deal. Of herself.

And once Whit saw that, he did not hesitate. “I know.”

“Never,” she repeated, before realizing what he’d said. “You know?”

“I do. Shall I tell you what else I know?” She did not reply, and he added, “Someone made a mistake, didn’t they, Hattie?”

The briefest of hesitations. “Yes.”

“I believe it wasn’t him. And I believe it wasn’t you. And I believe you don’t want me to know who it was, because you are afraid of something else.”

Losing.

She shook her head. “No, because we had a deal.”

That deal, the one that would kill him if he let it—the one that ended with her naked in his bed. “We did have that. And still do. But I told you that I couldn’t just let it all go back to normal. There is too much on the line.”

“It won’t,” she said, all certainty. “You shall be repaid. My father would never risk crossing you. And I only want—”

He hated the way she stopped, the words she refused to entrust to him. Clever girl. You shouldn’t trust me. It was good that she didn’t finish the sentence. If she had, he might have decided to give it to her, whatever it was she wanted.

Instead, in the wake of her silence, he said, knowing he was about to change everything, “Your father wouldn’t risk it, Hattie. But your brother did.”

She froze for an instant, just long enough for him to see the words strike like a blow—one he had tried to deliver softly, even as he knew the sting it would bring. She hid her surprise almost instantly, and he could not ignore his admiration.

“How long have you known?”

He didn’t want her to know he’d known from the start. “Does it matter?”

“I suppose not,” she said. “You promised you would discover everything.”

“I did.”

“Do you plan to . . .” She hesitated, and he wondered at the question—the urgent panic in it, but somehow, devoid of fear. Why had she been protecting her brother so thoroughly?

My girl Hattie is smart as a whip, the earl had told him earlier, pride in the man’s rheumy eyes. Always fancied herself heir—which was my fault for enjoying her company. The boy was never so smart. But Hattie needs to find herself a good man and have herself a good son.

Hattie was smart—keen and clever and would make a magnificent heir to her father’s business. Was it possible that that was tied up in her frustration that he’d sorted out her brother’s involvement in the attacks on the Bastards’ shipments?

Before he could follow the thought, her frustration flared, and she narrowed her eyes on Whit. “You negotiated in bad faith. You toyed with me. You’ve known all along.”

“It wasn’t difficult to put it all together, Hattie. I assume your brother thought he could make some quick money off us and impress your father.”

“It wasn’t quite so simple.”

He’d known she’d been hiding it, but the halfhearted defense of her brother drove the point home, and Whit found that the tacit admission in the words was more frustrating than expected.

“No, it wasn’t simple. Because he’s not working alone.” She stilled, surprise in her eyes. Surprise that Augie was working with someone else? Or surprise that Whit knew?

“Who is he working with?” she asked.

He didn’t want her anywhere near Ewan, who would hurt her without hesitation if he knew it would punish Whit. And it would.

“How do you know?” she pressed.

That was an easier question. “I went looking for information about your brother the moment I learned your name, and by all accounts, he isn’t very clever.”

She did not reply. He was right.

Whit pressed on. “From what I hear, Augie Sedley doesn’t have half the business sense of his father or a quarter of the brains of his sister.”

A little twitch at the corner of her lush mouth. He’d pleased her with that. And pleasing her pleased him. But now was not the time for pleasure. “From what I hear, he has a valet who is equally unintelligent, but bears a heavy fist and is willing to double as young Sedley’s personal gorilla.”

She grimaced. “Russell.”

He stiffened at the name. At the shudder of disgust she gave as she spoke it. Anger shot through him as he considered all the possible reasons for that disgust. Not anger. Fury. Rage. “Has he touched you?”

“No.” She shook her head quickly, and the truth made him light-headed with relief. “No. He’s just a brute.”

“That, I believe. He packs a hell of a wallop.” He lifted a hand to the back of his head, to the whisper of tenderness that remained from the night of the hijacking.

“I’m sorry,” she said, as though she were responsible for the blow.

He ignored the pleasure the soft words wrought. “If this were a year ago, I’d not be worried in the slightest, because the Bastards are smarter and savvier than your brother and his thug on their best day. But four shipments have been compromised in the last few months. On three different routes. I know who is behind it, and I intend to destroy him. But I need your brother in order to do it.”

There was a pause as the words fell between them, his logic clear and infallible. She nodded, seeming to understand that he wasn’t asking her for help. Understanding that he couldn’t allow another slight. That he wouldn’t allow the ones that had already been committed, not if they were from a real enemy. From one he had to worry about more than her brother and his muscle.

“So, you went to my father,” she said, softly. Of course he’d gone to her father. His business was in peril. The world he’d built. The people who lived in it. And Hattie didn’t know enough to keep it safe. “You told him about Augie.”

He heard the devastation in the words. The betrayal. And damned if it didn’t sting. “I did.”

She nodded, but did not look to him. “You should have told me you were going to do that.”

“Why?”

“Because that would have been fair.”

He wished he could see her eyes in the darkness. Was grateful that he couldn’t. Because he had no choice but to disappoint her. “Fairness does not win wars.”

A pause. “And this is war?”

“Of course it is. It has to be.”

“With me,” she said.

Not if you fight on our side. Where the hell had that thought come from? He pushed it aside. “With our enemies.”

“Augie is my brother.”

He didn’t reply. What could he say? He, too, had a brother. A sister. Hundreds of people who relied upon him. People he had vowed to keep safe. All threatened by Ewan. And by Hattie’s brother. This was his only path to meting out vengeance.

She spoke in his silence. “I thought we had a deal.”

He deliberately misunderstood. “You’ll get your deflowering.”