Brazen and the Beast (The Bareknuckle Bastards 2)

“Only when you were younger?”

She met his eyes. “Now I understand that girls being bad luck on a ship is a bollocks thing that people say to keep women from living the lives they wish.”

He nodded. “Tell me the rest.”

“It’s just a story,” she said. “A story designed to convince young men to take to the sea and give up their lives. A legend passed from man to man, so when they met their inevitable death, it seemed like it was just that, inevitable. And also, not so bad, because they expected it.”

“And so?”

“We believe stories, especially when they seem as though they can’t possibly be true.” She began to descend the stairs, toward him. He didn’t move. “The hijacking isn’t the stuff of legend. The knock to the head?” She waved it away. “You’ve had a thousand of those.” She landed on the final step, just high enough to bring them eye to eye. “But . . . the night the docks went silent?”

He huffed a little laugh. “A story for the ages.”

“That story makes me a queen. The woman who tamed the Beast.”

His lids lowered, and for a moment, his eyes filled with sin. And then he said, low and dark, “You like that.”

Yes. She did. But only if she was his queen.

She ignored the impossible thought. “If you relinquish your hold on these ships, your cargo is emptied tonight, as planned. And no one ever need know I locked them down. But if you don’t . . .”

“That’s blackmail,” he said.

“Nonsense,” she said. “It’s negotiation. Between rivals.”

“Ahh,” he said softly, and she realized that if she leaned in, just a bit, she would be close enough to touch him. He didn’t seem to be interested in such a thing.

Hating the thought, she added, “If you don’t like the negotiation, I also have a proposal.”

His brows rose in question. “I’m listening.”

“You’ve the power in Covent Garden, and tonight, I’ve proven mine lies in the Docklands.” She stopped.

“A partnership.”

She nodded. “Business.”

“All aboveboard,” he said.

“Well, my part of it, at least,” she replied, loving the way his lips twitched. Loving him. Wishing she could propose a bigger partnership. One that ended with them together in the evenings as well as the days.

Wishing he could love her.

Whit pulled his watches from his pocket, considering the two metal disks before returning them. He looked away, shifting on his feet, and for a moment, Hattie thought he might leave. But he didn’t. Instead, he took a deep breath and let it out long and slow. And then, as though he’d been carrying the words around for an age, he spoke. “I was born at St. Thomas’s, Southwark.”

She stilled, the shock of the words—of his personal revelation—overwhelming. His mother had been unmarried. St. Thomas’s was a lying-in hospital for unwed mothers, a miserable place. Most of the babies born there were shipped to orphanages around the city—their mothers shamed into believing that raising their families alone would place such a stigma on the babies that they were dooming them to a fate worse than the hospital itself.

As though orphanages were better than homes, poor or otherwise. As though institutions were better than families, however they came.

“Saviour,” she whispered, unable to stop herself.

Don’t ever call me that.

The echo of his anger the other night, when she’d tossed his name back into his face, was quick and unpleasant, and Hattie immediately added, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“No,” he said, a little smile on his lips, as though he was trying to put her at ease. “You’re right. Named for the place where I was born and the man who founded the hospital. My mother’s payment for a bed. There are a hundred of me. A thousand.”

Hattie itched to reach for him, knowing he would not allow it. “And your mother? What was her name?”

“María.” He looked past her, toward the dark river, where a half-dozen rowboats made their way through fog and low tide, the lanterns set inside them turning them into floating clouds. “María de Santibáñez. It’s been twenty years since I said that aloud.” He exhaled. “She used to tell me she shared the name with some ancient relative—lady-in-waiting to a queen.” His voice turned to disdain. “Like it meant something.”

“It did, to her.”

“She’d be beside herself if she knew I was here. Speaking to the daughter of an earl.”

“Daughter of an earl by luck,” she reminded him. “Once my father dies, that all goes away. And I stand on my own merit again.”

“In the short weeks I’ve known you, Henrietta Sedley, I have come to see that your merit is superior to all others. They should give you the earldom.”

She scoffed. “I don’t care about the title.”

“My father was a duke.”

Hattie’s jaw dropped at the words, spoken like they were taking a turn about a Mayfair ballroom. She shook her head as though to clear it. “Did you say . . .”

Another humorless laugh. “Twenty years since I’ve said my mother’s name, and I’ve never said that. But yes, my father was a duke.”

“And you were born at St. Thomas’s.”

“My mother’s parents came from Spain to work the estate of my father’s father.” He paused, as though, for the first time, it occurred to him—“My grandfather.” After a moment, he continued. “My mother’s father was a great horseman. He was brought from Madrid to keep the stables on the estate. My mother was born there, raised a stone’s throw from glory.”

Raised on a ducal estate in England, daughter to the stable master, she would have been happy and content—destined for a life as a wife and mother, married well. Whit would have been born into a life that was nothing like the rookeries of Covent Garden.

“What happened?”

“Her parents died young and she was given a place in the main house.”

Dread pooled deep in Hattie. She’d heard the story a thousand times. Men of means, and the way they destroyed the young women around them. “Whit—” She reached for him, but he stepped away.

“She never said a bad word about him. Used to make excuses for what he did. He was duke, after all, and she a servant, and one did not marry the other. But she was beautiful, and he was charming . . . and men were men . . .” He trailed off, and Hattie mapped the high cheekbones and full lips that had robbed her of speech when she’d first met him. She had no difficulty believing that his mother was a great beauty.

When he looked at her, there was something in those beautiful amber eyes—the ones he shared with his brother and so must have come from his father. “In my life, I have done many things. Things that shall send me straight to hell. But I have never repeated the sins of my father.”

“I know that.” Without question, she knew that.

He took a deep breath. “I was young, and I did not understand. I believed her—I believed that we’d left the estate because that was what was done, and that we should be grateful for our flea-infested mattress in Holborn and for the money we had that was not even enough to light candles for her to see properly. But now . . .” He trailed off, and she waited. Hating the story. Desperate for it.