Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards 3)

Dahlia swore softly and cast a look over the shadowed crowd—packed several deep. By the entrance to the room, a notorious countess finished a filthy joke for a collection of admirers. “. . . the carrots go in the rear garden, darling!”

Peals of delighted laughter rang out and Dahlia turned back to Zeva. “Christ, they’re not here, are they?”

“No, but we can’t keep them out forever.”

“We can try.”

“They’ve a point—”

Dahlia cut the other woman off with a sharp look and a sharper retort. “You let me worry about them.”

Zeva lifted her chin toward the hidden door, and the stairs beyond. “And what of that?”

A hot wash came over Dahlia—something that might have been a blush if she were the kind of woman who blushed. She ignored it, and the pounding of her heart.

“You let me worry about that, too.”

A single black brow rose above Zeva’s dark eyes, indicating that she had legions more to say. Instead, she nodded once. “Then I shall hold the floor.”

She turned away and pushed back through the crowd, leaving Dahlia alone.

Alone to press the hidden panel in the door, to activate the latch, and to close it tight behind her, shutting out the cacophony of sound beyond.

Alone to climb the narrow stairs with quiet, steady rhythm—a rhythm at odds with the increasing pace of her heart as she passed the second floor. The third.

Alone to count the doors in the fourth-floor hallway.

One. Two. Three.

Alone to open the fourth door on the left, and close it behind her, cloaking herself in darkness thick enough to erase the wild party below, the world distilling to nothing but the room, its single window looking out over the Covent Garden rooftops, and its sparse furnishings: a small table, a rigid chair, a single bed.

Alone, in that room.

Alone, with the man unconscious in that bed.

Chapter Three

He’d been rescued by angels.

The explosion had sent him flying through the air, knocking him back into the shadows of the docks. He’d twisted in flight, but the landing had dislocated his shoulder, rendering his left arm useless. It was said that dislocation was one of the worst pains a body could experience, and the Duke of Marwick had suffered it twice. Twice, he’d staggered to his feet, mind reeling. Twice, he’d struggled to bear the pain. Twice, he’d sought out a place to hide from his enemy.

Twice, he’d been rescued by angels.

The first time, she’d been fresh-faced and kind, with a wild riot of red curls, a thousand freckles across her nose and cheeks, and the biggest brown eyes he’d ever seen. She’d found him in the cupboard where he hid, put a finger to her lips, and held his good hand as another—larger and stronger—had reset the joint. He’d passed out from the pain, and when he woke, she’d been there like sunlight, with a soft touch and a soft voice.

And he’d fallen in love with her.

This time, the angels who rescued him were not soft, and they did not sing. They came for him with strength and power, hoods low over their heads keeping their faces in shadow, coats billowing behind them like wings as they approached, boots clicking on the cobblestones. They came armed like heaven’s soldiers, blades at their sides turned flaming swords in the light of the ship that burned on the docks—destroyed at his command, along with the woman his brother loved.

This time, the angels were soldiers, come to punish and not to save.

Still, it would be rescue.

He had pushed to his feet as they approached, prepared to face them head-on, to take the punishment they would deliver. He winced at the pain in his leg that he had not noticed earlier, where a shard from the mast of the destroyed hauler had seated itself in his thigh, coating his trouser leg in blood, making it impossible to fight.

When they’d been close enough to strike, he’d lost consciousness.

And that’s when the nightmares had come, not the stuff of beasts and brutality, not full of sharp teeth and sharper terror. Worse than all that.

Ewan’s dreams were full of her.

For days, he dreamed of her touch, cool at his brow. Of her arm lifting his head to drink bitter liquid from the cup held to his lips. Of her fingers, running over the aches in his muscles, easing the sharp pain in his leg. Of the scent of her, like sunshine and secrets, like the smile of that first angel, all those years ago.

He’d nearly woken a dozen times, a hundred. And that, too, made the dream a nightmare—the fear that the cool cloth at his brow was not really there. The terror that he might lose the gentle care for the wound in his thigh as the bandage changed, that the taste of the bitter broth she fed him might be fantasy. That the slow spread of salve over his wounds was nothing but fever.

And always, he dreamed the touch remained long after the salve was gone, soft and lingering, tracing over his chest, smoothing down his torso, exploring the ridges there.

Always, he dreamed her fingers on his face, smoothing over his brows and tracing the bones of his cheek and jaw.

Always, he dreamed her lips at his brow. On his cheek. At the corner of his mouth.

Always, he dreamed her hand in his, their fingers tangled, her palm warm against his.

And the dreaming it made it a nightmare—the aching knowledge that he’d imagined it. That it wasn’t she. That she wasn’t real. That he couldn’t return the touch. The kiss.

So he lay there, willing himself to dream, to live the nightmare again and again, in the hope that his mind would give him the last of her—her voice.

It never did. Touch came without words, care without voice. And the silence stung worse than the wound.

Until that night, when the angel spoke, and her voice came like a wicked weapon—a long sigh, and then, soft and rich, like warm whisky, “Ewan.”

Like home.

He was awake.

He opened his eyes. It was night still—night again? Night forever?—in a dark room, and his first thought was the same he’d had upon waking for twenty years. Grace.

The girl he’d loved.

The one he’d lost.

The one for whom he’d spent half a lifetime searching.

A litany that would never heal. A benediction that would never save, because he would never find her.

But here, in the darkness, the thought came harsher than usual. More urgent. It came like memory—with the ghost of a touch on his arm. At his brow. In his hair. It came with the sound of her voice at his ear—Ewan.

Grace.

Sound, barely there. Fabric?

Hope flared, harsh and unpleasant. He squinted into the shadows. Black on black. Silent now. Empty.

Fantasy.

It wasn’t she. It couldn’t be.

He ran a hand over his face. The movement produced a dull ache in his shoulder—an ache he remembered from years earlier. His shoulder had been dislocated and reset. He made to sit up, his thigh twinging—bandaged tight, already healing. He gritted his teeth against the lingering twinge of pain even as he welcomed it, and the way it distracted him from the other, far more familiar pain. The one that came from loss.

His head was clearing quickly, and he recognized the dissipating haze as an effect of laudanum. How long had he been drugged?

Where was he?

Where was she?

Dead. They’d told him she was dead.

He ignored the anguish that always came with the thought, reached for the low table near the bed, feeling for a candle or a flint, and knocked over a glass. The sound of liquid cascading to the floor reminding him to listen.