Brazen and the Beast (The Bareknuckle Bastards 2)

The fights. She pounced. “Where?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s a moving ring. If they don’t want you to find it, you won’t.”

Frustration flared, and she reached into her pocket, extracting tuppence and setting it on the bar. Calhoun waved it off. “On the house.”

The kindness in the American’s eyes was a comfort. “Thank you.”

Sesily looked up from her conversation with Nora. “Caleb, you’re never so nice to me!”

The bartender growled in response, turning away, even as Sesily watched him, and if Hattie didn’t know better, she would have thought it was longing on the Talbot sister’s face. Longing and something like frustration.

Lord knew she understood that.

Nora nodded in Hattie’s direction. “Ready?”

Indeed. They had a fight to find.

She flashed a wide smile at Sesily before inclining her head in a formal farewell. “Duty calls.”

They pushed through the crowd, thicker and more raucous than it had been when they’d arrived. Hattie had never been so grateful for the cool air in the street beyond. When they reached the curricle again, she stopped and took a deep breath. Where was he?

This man, whom she hadn’t known, whom she hadn’t wanted to know, and who had somehow turned her whole life upside down with his presence and his vengeance and his damn kisses. Hattie couldn’t even be certain that she wasn’t after more of those, and that was exceedingly exasperating.

Where was he?

She had things to say to him.

“Hattie?” She looked up. Nora was on the box, ready to go, looking down at her. “Where to?”

Hattie shook her head. “I don’t know.” And then, because she couldn’t stop herself . . . “That damn man is ruining everything!”

Hattie’s frustration echoed off the buildings around them.

When silence fell once more, Nora nodded. “We’ll find him.”

And the certainty in the words—the we there—might have made Hattie cry. Would have done, if it weren’t for the words that immediately followed it, spoken from the darkness behind her. “Would you care for some help?”

Hattie spun toward the question as three women stepped from the background, each wearing a long, fitted coat over trousers and high boots, hair tucked up under caps. And there, beneath the outerwear of the tallest—the one who was nearly Hattie’s height and whom she would have identified as their leader on sight—was the flash of a weapon.

Sliding her hand into her pocket, fingering the blade there, Hattie took a step back. “What sort of help?”

There was no malice in the smile the woman flashed. “Lady Henrietta, I’m more than happy to point you in the direction of Beast.”

How did she know . . .

Hattie’s brow furrowed. “Have we met?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know my name?”

“Does it matter?”

“I suppose not, but I’d like to know anyway.”

The woman laughed, low and lush. “I make it my business to know what women are looking for, and what will give them satisfaction.”

“That’s handy,” Nora said from her place in the curricle.

The mysterious woman did not look away from Hattie as she cautioned, wryly, “Tonight is Lady Henrietta’s night, Lady Eleanora. You’ll get your turn.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Nora said, as though this were all perfectly ordinary.

It wasn’t at all ordinary. But had anything been so since she’d met Whit? Since she’d found her way into Covent Garden and this wide world had been unlocked for her? Hattie would not deny the thrill of it. The woman was right—it didn’t matter how she knew Hattie. What mattered was that she was willing to help. “You know where he is?”

An incline of the head.

“And you’ll take us there?”

“No,” she said, sending disappointment through Hattie like a shock. “But I’ll tell you where to go.”

Relief flooded. “Please.”

Red lips smirked. “So polite. He doesn’t deserve you, you know.”

Hattie matched the dry tone. “I assure you, madam, he deserves precisely what I intend to deliver.”

The woman’s laugh was full and honest, and Hattie imagined that she was the kind of person who might make a wonderful friend if she weren’t so mysterious. “Fair enough. You’ll find Beast at the granary. Follow the roar of the crowd. He’ll be the one winning.”

Hattie nodded, a sizzle of excitement flaring as she looked to Nora.

Her friend nodded. “We’ll find it.”

Hattie climbed up onto the box and looked back to the woman. “Shall I give him your regards?”

“They’ll be delivered along with you, my lady,” came the reply from the shadows, the women already out of sight, as the gig set in motion.

It took them less than a quarter of an hour to reach the granary, with its half-dozen silos dark and ominous in the riverfront cold. The October wind whipped up the Thames, honing its blade as it wove through the uninhabited buildings. On another such night—the lack of moon making it impossible to see—there would have been no entering the space, but a half-dozen yards from the road, tucked against the corner of a building, a lit torch flickered.

“There,” Hattie said, climbing down from the curricle and pulling her coat around her to block the sting of the wind. “That way.”

“Now, Hattie, you know I’m always game for an adventure,” Nora said, on a loud whisper, “but are you quite sure about this?”

“Not quite sure,” Hattie allowed.

“Well. I suppose you get points for honesty.”

“Fury lends itself to fearlessness,” Hattie said, turning the corner by the torch, noting another one at the edge of the first silo. She headed for it.

Nora followed. “You mispronounced stupidity. I think we should turn back. There’s no one here. We might as well summon the murderers to us.”

Hattie cut her friend a look. “I thought you were the brave one.”

“Nonsense. I’m the reckless one. That’s a different thing entirely.”

Hattie laughed—what else was there to do? “What does that make me?” The question was punctuated by a roar in the distance. Follow the roar of the crowd. Hattie looked to Nora.

“The brave one.” There was no humor in it. Only truth. Truth and the kind of love that comes from one’s dearest friend. “The one who knows what she wants and will do whatever it takes to get it.” Nora squared her shoulders. “Well then, lay on.”

Heading past a second silo, Hattie saw an orange glow around the edge of a third. Without thinking—there was no place for thought in this particular exercise—she pressed on. “You know Macduff kills Macbeth after that bit, don’t you?”

“Now is not the time for literary truths, Hattie,” Nora replied. “And besides, you are not the murderer I am worried about this evening.” Hattie pulled up short, and Nora nearly collided with her. “Good God.”

It was a fair assessment of the view ahead.

Beneath the largest of the silos, forty-odd feet in diameter and raised off the ground on massive iron legs, a huge crowd stood in an enormous circle, hands in pockets and collars turned up against the wind that searched for passage between them.