“I know now that she ran from that hospital. That she ran so they wouldn’t take her from me.” Hattie’s chest tightened at the anguish in his voice. “They would have called it taking me from her. But it wouldn’t have been that. That would have been good for her. That would have saved her. And instead, she sacrificed herself for me.”
It wasn’t true. “She didn’t.”
“She did,” he said, lost in the memories of a woman who must have loved him desperately. “When he found us, he didn’t even look at her. He came for me.”
“He took her from you,” she said softly.
He met her eyes, something like gratitude in them, before he turned away. Hattie followed, like she was on a string. When he got to the center mast of the ship, he reached up to touch the scarred wood there, where over a lifetime, a thousand things had been nailed to the wood.
He spoke to the mast. “You left my note here.”
She did not hesitate at the change of topic. “I have a flair for the dramatic.”
He looked over his shoulder at her. “The Year of Hattie.”
“It’s going absolutely terribly.”
“Things take time,” he said.
“I’ve waited quite a bit of time already.”
He nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets and leaning back against the mast, his hat low over his brow, his greatcoat blowing about his legs, making him look the very portrait of a roguish sailor, and for a moment, Hattie wondered what it would be like if she were his. If she didn’t have to battle him. If he would simply wrap her in his coat and let her revel in his warmth and put her arms about his neck and . . .
Love him.
What if this remarkable man let her love him?
“I want to tell you the rest.”
“I want to hear it.” His gaze flew to hers, narrow and assessing, as though she’d surprised him. “It is going to be awful, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said.
She nodded. “And you’ve never told anyone else.”
“No.” He wouldn’t have.
“Let me bear some of it.”
He looked up to the mast, where the sails were tightly wrapped and tied. “Why would you want that?”
Because I love you.
She couldn’t say that. So, instead, she took a step closer, coming near enough that her skirts billowed around his legs, and said, “Because I can.”
And that seemed to be enough.
“There were four of us.”
She nodded. “All born on the same day.” He’d told her that much.
“Devil’s mother was a sailor’s wife. Mine a servant. Ewan’s was a courtesan. And Grace’s—she was a duchess.”
Hattie’s eyes went wide. “She is legitimate? But I thought you said—”
“Grace’s father was not ours, but her mother was the duchess, increasing alongside our mothers—or, at least, in time with them.” Hattie stayed silent, marveling at the madness that came with title and privilege. “The duke was desperate for an heir, and he knew his best chance at one was the babe in his wife’s belly, even though the child wasn’t his by blood.”
“Why not wait and get the duchess with child again? Try for a boy? One of his own?”
Whit smiled at that, wide and winning enough that Hattie was dazzled by it. “Because the duchess had made it impossible for him to sire more heirs.”
“How?” His smile was contagious.
“She shot him.”
“Dead?” It wasn’t possible.
“No. In the bollocks.”
“No!” Hattie’s eyes went wide, then narrowed with loathing. “Good.”
“Grace inherited her mother’s aim, if you are curious.”
“I am indeed, and I should like to come back to that, if we may.”
“With pleasure.” Hattie warmed at the way the reply made it feel as though they had a lifetime of conversation before them. He continued. “So. The duchess produced a babe, but it was a girl. And my bastard of a father baptized her the heir, claimed she was a boy, and shipped her and her mother off to the country.”
Hattie shook her head. “That’s illegal. It’s betraying the line.”
“It is, indeed,” Whit said. “And it’s punishable by death if a false heir is seated.”
She met his eyes. “That’s why you had to run. Because you knew. And he was worried you would tell people.”
“Clever girl,” he said softly, admiration in his eyes. “And he was right. I am telling you, am I not?”
But no one else. Not ever. “I don’t understand . . .” She hesitated. “Who did he intend for heir?”
“The duke was greedy and prideful. And he wanted an heir to mold in his imagine. To pass his legacy on. He had three sons. But what we did not know was that we had him. He’d been watching us. Devil in the orphanage, Ewan in a Covent Garden brothel, and . . .” He trailed off.
“And you,” she said. “With your mother.” A woman who loved him. A home that was safe. Reading lessons. Her chest grew tight.
“Not for long,” he replied. “He brought us to the country—to the seat of the dukedom. And he told us the plan. One of us would be his heir. That boy would inherit everything. Money, power, land, education. He would never want for anything.” A pause. And then, “And neither would his family.”
She had known the words would come. Known that, eventually, this mad, monstrous duke would threaten the only thing Whit held dear. His mother.
“How?” she asked, the word on a whisper. She didn’t want to know.
“We fought for it. A hundred ways. A thousand. It started easy. Footraces and dancing.” The waltz. He’d said his father had made him learn to waltz. “Tests on proper forms of address. Proper silverware. The location of the correct crystal. And then, as he sorted us out, it became clear he didn’t care about any of that. What he wanted was a strong son who would carry on his line and impress the wide world.”
If ever there was a man who could be those things—could do those things—it was Whit. “What did he make you do?”
“There is a reason that when we got to London, we were good fighters.”
Her eyes went wide. “He made you fight each other?”
He nodded. “Even that was easy. We might not have known each other, but we were brothers, and we were happy to scrap when necessary. We learned quickly how to throw a punch and make it look like it would hurt, but pull it at the last moment, so we never did real damage. Ewan was better at that than all of us,” he marveled. “You’d see it coming like a boulder, and it would land feather light.”
For a heartbeat, Hattie found gratitude for this man she knew would become the villain of the play. The one who would try to kill Grace, and take a blade to Devil’s cheek.
“We thought we were brilliant, working together to bring down our father. We didn’t know it was all part of the plan. He’d been making us a team so he could use us against each other. And he did. He started to toy with us. He’d threaten one of us to get the others to fight.” He looked away. “The threats were wild. If two of us didn’t fight until one was on the ground, the third would get the switch until we did.”