Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards 3)

Cold, unpleasant surprise washed through him and he straightened, looking over his shoulder at his enormous brother—the handsomest man London had ever seen, despite his moniker—then down at the mahogany desk, which generations of dukes had called their own. He tracked the grain of the wood—perfectly straight, to a heavy, dark knot that had been unable to be hidden beneath the stain that finished the desk.

Staring at that knot, he said, “What blunt?”

“What blunt,” Devil said, disdain in his voice. “You know what blunt. The case of coin you sent to buy forgiveness in the Garden. It ain’t every day ten thousand pounds turns up at our warehouse.”

Ewan’s head snapped up. “I didn’t send it to the warehouse.”

Amber eyes gleamed. “It doesn’t matter where you sent it, bruv. Money like that turns up in the Garden, it lands at our warehouse.”

Ewan clenched his jaw at the words. “It’s not for you.”

Devil was insulted. “You think we’d take your blood money?”

Blood money.

He ignored the words, and the way they carved space in him. “I think that ten thousand pounds is enough to tempt better men into worse things.”

Beast cursed softly. “We ought to put him into the ground for that alone.”

Devil’s gaze narrowed on him. “First things first, Duke—we’re rich as kings. Why, Beast alone owns half of Berkeley Square. We don’t need your money. And even if it weren’t tainted with the past, we wouldn’t take it.”

“Good, as it wasn’t for you.”

“Nah. It’s for the boys you killed.”

Ewan forced himself to remain still. He’d sent the money to the Rookery doctor, after having heard that the man had saved two of the boys harmed in the dock explosion that had been the final act of violence perpetrated against his brothers at his directive. He’d sent it via three layers of emissaries, not wanting the money to be tracked back to him. Not wanting to attract attention. Never wanting this conversation.

It seemed that three layers had not been enough.

“You weren’t supposed to know,” he said.

“We know everything that happens on our turf,” Devil said.

“What do you want—you want me to apologize for wanting to help?”

Devil laughed again, the sound without humor, his gaze flickering past Ewan to Whit, behind him. “You hear this?” He returned his attention to Ewan. “This bastard blows up the Garden, comes for our men—kills five of them and maims another half dozen during two years of mayhem, and thinks a few ’undred quid is enough to wave it away?”

Five.

He closed his eyes, the number vicious in his mind. He’d been desperate to find her, then desperate to avenge her. But it didn’t matter. Those were lives. Snuffed out. He hadn’t pulled the trigger but he’d hired the men who had, and he hadn’t thought twice, because he’d been after bigger game—his brothers.

He’d wanted them dead, thinking of nothing but their destruction for years. Mad with fury and grief and a desire for vengeance that rotted him from the inside.

They’d told him Grace was dead, and he’d spiraled away from morality and ethics, with no sorrow and less intent of ever coming back.

But she’d been alive.

And with that discovery had come another—the return of his humanity.

So, yes, he’d sent the money and asked for it to be distributed to those he had harmed. He’d grown up in the poverty of the Garden—he could still remember it. The stench of the offal shops and dogs fighting over scraps and the fights in the darkness. Hungry bellies and empty eyes. His mother’s silent tears in the quiet moments when the men left, and the sky turned pink with dawn.

Death of a child, of a partner, of a friend—it could destroy a future. A whole batch of futures. And these bastards thought to keep the money from those who suffered? To what, punish him? For what, pride?

Fury rioted through him. “What do you think you do? That kind of money changes lives,” he said, staring down first Devil and then Whit. “It could buy food, let homes, give children education. A life. A fucking future! Think of what we could have been if we’d had a few hundred pounds.”

“Nah. A few hundred pounds wouldn’t’ve made you a duke, though, would it?” Devil smirked, and Ewan wanted to tear him apart.

In the past two years, he’d learned everything he could about the Bareknuckle Bastards and how they operated—how they’d done everything they could to bring up Covent Garden. Doctors. Schools. Running water. His brothers—who would never claim him again—had made good on his long-ago promise. And in the dark of night, when he allowed it, Ewan was grateful for it.

So this—whatever it was—didn’t make sense. “You toy with their lives to toy with me?”

“No,” Whit said, the fury in his voice matching Ewan’s. “You toy with them by thinking you can pay them for their sorrow and sleep well at night.”

“I haven’t slept well in twenty-two years.”

Beast grunted at that.

“You’re not fools. You know as well as I that money can help.”

“Aye,” said Devil. “And it will.”

Confusion furrowed his brow. “You’re keeping it.”

“Course we’re keepin’ it!”

Fucking hell. “Then why—”

“’Cuz it ain’t enough,” Beast growled from behind. “We’ll give them your money, but they deserve more. They’ll be gettin’ more.”

He did not pretend to misunderstand. “But not money.”

“Not only money,” Devil corrected him.

“What, then? My head on a pike in Seven Dials? Are we back to who gets to kill the duke?”

“It still ain’t the worst idea,” Whit said, looking very much like he was sizing up Ewan’s head for a strong stake.

“These aren’t aristocrats, Marwick. These are real people, with real lives and real memories. And they don’t want you paying them to leave off their anger and grief. And if you ever thought a moment about your life before you became a toff, you’d know that.”

A memory flashed at the words. Grace, inside the copse of trees on the western edge of the Burghsey estate. Their place. Devil and Whit had been playing in the distance, shouting and tilting at each other, inseparable like they’d always been, and Grace had asked him for the thousandth time to tell her about London.

He’d told her about the Garden—the only part of the city he’d known. The only part that had mattered. He’d told her about the people. About how they fought for everything they had. How they did it with pride and determination, because they couldn’t afford anything less.

They don’t get what they need, and not what they deserve, neither, he’d said. But we’re going to change all that.

He hadn’t made good on that promise.

But she had.

He looked to his brothers, knowing, instinctively, that they understood what Grace hadn’t the other night. They weren’t here to keep him from taking a debutante bride and carrying on the family name. They knew he’d sooner drown himself in the sludge of the Thames than touch a woman who wasn’t Grace.