Brazen and the Beast (The Bareknuckle Bastards 2)

Twenty years of a dukedom should have evened the score.

But it hadn’t.

The last time the brothers had faced Ewan, Devil had been left for dead. If not for Felicity, Whit would have been left to battle the Duke of Marwick alone.

As he might do tonight.

“I’ve a boy fighting for his life in the Garden because of you.” Whit let his fist fall to his side, weapon in hand. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t take my revenge right now.”

“Killing a duke is a hangable offense.”

“We both know you’re not a duke,” Whit replied, enjoying the way Ewan stiffened at the words. “Augie Sedley won’t be doing your bidding anymore, bruv.”

“I don’t care about that; I never cared about that,” Ewan said, drawing closer. Whit tightened his fist on the knife’s hilt, the emotionless words unsettling. “I only cared about coming for you.” His gaze tracked over Whit’s shoulder, to the house. “And now I see how to do it.”

To Hattie.

Something hot and terrifying coursed through Whit. “You look at me, Marwick.” If he came within ten feet of Hattie, Whit would destroy him. “I’m here, and spoiling for the fight you want to give me.”

It was time to punish him. For what he’d done to them as children. For what he’d done to Devil. For what he’d done to their men.

“I want to. I want to see you bleed out in this fucking garden. But I can’t.” Whit held his silence. “Because of her.”

Grace. The girl Ewan had loved and lost.

When they’d run, she’d made Devil and Whit vow they wouldn’t hurt Ewan. She’d begged them for it. You don’t know all of it, she’d sworn. And for two decades, they’d kept their vows. But now? With Ewan’s cold gaze on the spot where Hattie had disappeared?

Protect her.

If there was to be a battle, it would be tonight.

“Grace isn’t here to hold us to our promises.”

Ewan’s jaw turned to stone. “You don’t say her name.” Whit didn’t respond, noting the way Ewan’s wild eyes threatened something worse. Something Whit didn’t want anywhere near Hattie. “You let her die. I gave her up. I let her run with you—and you didn’t keep her safe.”

It wasn’t true. Devil and Whit had been hiding Grace from Ewan since they’d left—knowing that he would come for her, unable to keep himself from doing so. Grace, the child who had been born to the Duchess of Marwick—sired by a man who was not the duke. Falsely baptized a boy and heir. Announced a boy and heir. A placeholder for the future heir to the Dukedom of Marwick.

Grace, who, if she were discovered and revealed, could bring the whole dukedom crashing down, and Ewan with it. Falsely claiming a title was punishable by death.

Not that Grace would ever do it.

Because Grace and Ewan were forged from the same fire. The first either had loved, and the first either had betrayed. And Grace would never see the boy she’d once loved killed. Not then, after Ewan had left Whit broken on the floor and come for her at their father’s bidding. Not after Ewan had raised the knife and struck nearly true. Not after he would have killed her if Devil hadn’t intervened—earning the wicked scar on his cheek for the trouble.

Devil and Whit and Grace had run that night, but not before Whit had seen the reckless panic in Ewan’s eyes—the fury and frustration and fear that had propelled him to come for them in the first place. The desperation to win the dukedom. To be their father’s heir. All else be damned.

Whit and Devil had done all they could to keep Grace hidden—to hide her in Covent Garden and keep her from the brother who’d searched for them since the moment he’d reached adulthood, with funds and determination. The Garden’s loyalty—beyond measure—had kept them all a secret until months ago, when Ewan had found them, half mad with his unending search.

They’d lied when he asked for Grace.

They’d told him she was dead.

And they’d broken him.

“You let her die,” Ewan said again, coming at Whit like a rabid dog, taking hold of his lapels and pushing him back, into the darkness. “I should have killed you the moment I found you.”

Whit used the momentum to turn them both, propelling Ewan into a tree trunk with a heavy thud. “I’m not the runt anymore, Duke.” He raised the knife and pressed it to his brother’s throat, hard enough for Ewan to feel the sharp bite of the blade. “You took the lives of three others. Innocent, working men. To what, toy with us? They had names. Niall. Marco. David. They were strong boys with bright futures and you snuffed them out.”

Ewan struggled, but decades in the Rookery had made Whit stronger and faster. “Tell me why I shouldn’t fucking destroy you.”

He could. He could slice the bastard’s neck right there. Ewan deserved it. For the betrayal years earlier and the attacks now.

Ewan raised his chin. “Go on then. Saviour.” He spat the name. “Do it.”

They stood in wicked tableau for a heartbeat. A minute. An hour, their breaths coming harsh and furious in the dark, in the shadow of the world they’d wanted so keenly that the promise of it had pitted them against each other.

Ewan’s amber eyes narrowed in the dim light from the ballroom beyond, the only outward manifestation of their brotherhood. Where Whit was dark-haired and olive-skinned—the product of his Spanish mother—Ewan was a near copy of their father, tall and fair-haired, with a broad shoulder and a broad chin.

Whit stepped back. Released Ewan. Delivered a different blow. A worse one. “You look like him.”

“You think I don’t know that?” A pause. “What would you have done to kill him then?”

The truth came instantly. “Anything.”

“Why not me, now?” Ewan said.

A dozen answers, none of them enough. Grace, begging them not to hurt him as a girl and then, as a woman, threatening them if they did. The threat of prison for killing a peer. The threat to Devil and Whit. To Grace. To the Rookery.

Whit watched his half brother for a long moment, taking in the hollows of his cheeks, the dark circles under his frenzied eyes. “It would be a gift,” he said. “If I took it from you. The life. The memories. The guilt.” Ewan’s gaze grew haunted. And then, from nowhere, Whit added, “Do you remember the night in the snow?” The other man flinched. “It began with that massive dinner—yeah? Meat pies and game and potatoes and beets drizzled with honey and cheese and brown bread.”

Ewan looked away. “That was the first clue. Nothing good ever came of comfort at Burghsey House.”

After the meal, the three boys had been marched outside with nothing more than their regular clothing—no coats or hats, scarves or gloves. It was January and bitter cold. It had been snowing for days, and the three of them had shivered together, as their father had meted out their punishment for sins unknown.

No. The sin had been clear. They’d banded together. Allied against him. And the Duke of Marwick feared it.

You aren’t here to be brothers, he’d spat, his gaze full of unwavering fury. You’re here to be Marwick.

It wasn’t new. He’d tried to break them apart a dozen times before. A hundred. Enough that they’d tried to run on more than one occasion, until they’d discovered that being caught was inevitable, and their father’s punishments grew worse with each infraction. After that, they’d stopped running, but they’d remained together, knowing they were stronger together.