Brazen and the Beast (The Bareknuckle Bastards 2)

Nora wasn’t wrong. Certainly, that had been the intent at the start of this—a quick ruination and that would be that. Just enough to ensure that her father would know that marriage wasn’t a possibility for her. That she would marry the business, and care for it ’til death did they part.

She shook her head. “I can’t. Not until I understand why he’s here. Not if he’s about to change the game.” She stopped. She was so close to getting what she wanted. Why couldn’t the man just be agreeable? “Dammit,” she whispered. “Why is he here?”

“If only there were a way you could divine that answer. By, say, asking him.”

“If he tells my father everything, then Augie shall be found out. And then I won’t get the business.”

Nora scoffed. “Augie deserves to be set on his ass. He should have to clean up his own mess. You should tell your father everything. This Beast character, too. Let them deal with Augie.”

Hattie looked to her. “He’s my brother.”

Nora narrowed her gaze, and Hattie grew uncomfortable. She knew that look. Assessing. Before she could change the topic, Nora said, “But that’s not all, is it?”

“What do you mean? Of course it is. I don’t want Augie hurt.”

Nora shook her head. “No. You want to solve it. You want to prove you can solve it. Prove you can rectify the problems with the business by yourself. You want to prove yourself worthy of it. So your father will give it to you. Because you want his approval.”

Hattie nodded. “Yes.”

“And so you’re willing to take on this man alone.”

Nora meant alone in a perfectly proper sense. In the singular. Hattie managing a negotiation and repayment of the Bastards’ stolen goods by herself, without the aid of her father. But when Hattie heard alone, she had a very clear vision of alone in the plural. Alone in a carriage. In a bedchamber. In a tavern storeroom. Alone, with him.

Either way, Hattie found her answer was the same. “I am.”

She looked over her shoulder toward the door. Afraid he might be there. Disappointed he wasn’t.

“Without help,” Nora clarified.

“Without interference.” And her father would interfere. Her father would tell her that she kept a tidy register and no one monitored the redistribution of a shipment better than she did, and yes, the dockworkers liked her, but to leave the business to men.

Hattie’s teeth gritted. How many times had she heard that horrible retort? Leave the business to men.

She loathed it. And she didn’t want to leave the business to men any longer. She wanted the business left to women. To woman. To her.

And she might be her father’s last choice, but she was the best one. And she wouldn’t have Saviour Whittington making everything more complicated by turning up here and ruining it, dammit. Not when she was so close.

She lifted her eyes to Nora’s, dark and curious and entertained in the way only a good friend could be. “This isn’t amusing.”

Nora barked a little laugh. “I am afraid it’s immensely amusing; you told me he promised you your lessons, did he not? Did he not agree to aid you in your Year of Hattie exploration?”

Hattie was grateful for the darkness covering her blush. “He did.”

And he called me fucking dangerous.

A thrill shot through her at the thought. What a delightful thing for someone to think of her.

“Then perhaps that is why he is here.”

“It’s not.”

“It should be,” Nora said. “From what you said, he rather missed out on the important bits.”

“Nora!”

“I’m only arguing in favor of equality!” Nora spread her hands wide with a laugh. “All right, then, where do we go from here?”

“I really can’t imagine how he knew I’d be here tonight. I’m never—” She stilled. Turned to Nora, who appeared transfixed by the starry sky above them. “You.”

Nora looked to her. “Hmm?”

“You said we should come here. You pushed it. I wanted to stay home and look over the books.”

“I like balls,” Nora said.

“You loathe balls.”

“Fine! The Duchess of Warnick sent a special note asking for me to attend and to bring you and your father. I don’t like disappointing duchesses.”

“You don’t care a bit about disappointing duchesses.”

“That’s true. But I quite like this one, and she did promise a wonderful time.”

Hattie pointed an accusatory finger. “You are a traitor.”

Nora gasped. “I am not!”

“You are! You should have told me it was a trap!”

“I thought it was going to be another man in need of a dowry! I didn’t know it was going to be a trap laden with your partner in erotic escapades!”

It was Hattie’s turn to gasp.

“Not that I don’t fully support said escapades,” Nora qualified with a grin.

“He is not my partner in—” She paused. “Nora. This man is all that stands between me and my lifelong dream.”

“And the escapades?”

Hattie gave a little sigh. “Obviously, those were quite nice.” Before Nora could speak, Hattie added, “But he isn’t here for that tonight. Which makes it very disconcerting to think that he’s here for something else.”

“You mean, like another woman?”

She hadn’t, but that idea sent her stomach sinking, if she were honest. “No. I mean, here for something that would impact our negotiation. I don’t know . . . information on Augie or . . . meeting my father. That cannot happen. I must convince him to leave immediately.”

“Hmm,” Nora said, the perfunctory sound drawing Hattie’s attention.

“What?”

“Well, I’m not sure that’s a reasonable plan.”

“Why not?” Hattie said. “I’ll just head back in there and . . . find him first.”

“That might be difficult,” Nora said.

A gust of cold air tore across the balcony. Hattie narrowed her gaze on her friend. “Why?”

Nora pointed past her shoulder, to the bright ballroom framed by the open doorway beyond. “Because he’s speaking to your father right now.”

Hattie spun in the direction of the other woman’s finger.

Of course he was.

She’d had such wild, wonderful plans for the Year of Hattie when it had begun. And now, here she was, prepared to take the world by storm—to spend her twenty-ninth year sorting out the past so she might begin the future. And it seemed no one had told the Year of Hattie that it should cooperate with those plans.

Certainly no one had told Mr. Saviour Whittington that he should cooperate with those plans. “Damn,” she whispered.

“Whoever he is,” Nora said softly, “he’s very good at this.”

Her fingers tightened around the silly dance card Nora had insisted she take. It was the kind of thing that women who did not worry about business, or money, or retribution, or whether the man who’d put a knife in their (albeit deserving) brothers several days earlier might recount the entire thing to their fathers, cared about. It was the kind of thing Hattie had never cared about. And still, for some reason, in that moment, all she could do was stare at Beast’s beautiful face and revel in the bite of the parchment in her palm.