Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards 3)

The crowd tightened, taking up more space in the warehouse yard.

Grace swore. “This is madness.”

A clump of mud smacked Ewan on the back of the head. He stilled. Stiffened.

O’Malley approached, wiping his dirty hands on his already filthy trousers. “I said, I’m talkin’ to you, Duke.”

“He’ll take that bait,” Devil said.

Beast grunted his reply. “Can’t help it. Never could back down.”

Memory flashed, Ewan reeling from a solid punch when they were children. Turning instantly, swinging, coming back for more.

Far below, he rounded on Patrick O’Malley.

“Fifty quid says he’s down in under two.”

Grace turned surprised eyes on Devil. “You think Ewan goes down?”

He raised a black brow. “You don’t?”

She didn’t.

Beast removed two watches from his pocket, eyes still on the yard, seeing the way the people assembled fairly vibrated with excitement. The heat and the crowd making them ready for riot. “Two minutes? Or seconds?”

Devil laughed. “Be generous, bruv.”

Beast looked down at his watches, then back at Ewan, turned to face them now, scanning the crowd . . . then up, over the buildings. To the rooftops. His gaze lingered on them. On her.

Beast saw it. “Aye, alright. I’ll take your money.”

“You think ’e’s still got it?” Devil sounded surprised.

He still had it, Grace thought.

Beast nodded to Grace. “I think he’s always had it when she’s in the mix.”

She shot him a look. “I’m not in the mix.”

And in that split second, while she was looking away, hell broke loose below.

Chapter Fourteen

She’d come for him.

It had been a calculated risk—he’d known without question that whatever punishment Devil and Whit had designed for him would end with him battered and bruised, and likely by more than just his brothers.

But he’d also known that this might be the only chance he’d have of her coming to him. He’d made himself a promise, that he’d stay away from her. That he’d let her come to him. That he’d give her what she asked.

That’s what he had done. He’d gone away, and he’d rebuilt himself a better man. A worthier one. Stronger. Saner. And he would wait for her to come for him, because that was what she needed.

It did not matter that all he needed was her.

But when his brothers demanded he return to the Garden and pay his debts with sweat and blood as well as money, he’d agreed, unable to resist the invitation to this world that had once been his and was now theirs. Hers.

It was a cheat, he knew. A way around the promise he’d made to let her come to him. To let her choose him, unmasked. It might be a cheat, but he was not beyond cheating to win her back.

So he’d taken the knocks and carried the ice, feeling every inch a spectacle, the sole focus of a crowd of people who were out for blood. They didn’t know his truth—that he’d stood in countless similar crowds. That he’d watched men and dogs and bears fight, and he’d cut his teeth on the bloodlust that came from a world where cruelty was commonplace and inhumanity was armor.

He’d always imagined that his father saw that in him from the start.

The sheer want of a boy willing to do anything to survive. To thrive. To win.

And he hefted the weight for the crowd, hearing every shift in it, every quiet threat in it—the way some watched with admiration and others with anger and others with disdain, hating the fine lawn of his shirt, the polish of his boots, the clean shave of his jaw. The trappings of money and power, distributed at random. At birth.

They didn’t know he didn’t come by them randomly.

They didn’t know they’d been hers at birth.

He’d dropped the dozenth block at the door of the warehouse and turned back to fetch another, knowing that the only way out of the exercise was through—it would end with fatigue or fighting. Those were the only options, and he would never let the first happen.

He’d learned his pride in the Garden, as well as any of them.

He slowed his pace a touch—only as much as he could without attracting notice—taking the extra fractions of seconds to stretch his shoulders—only as much as he could without attracting notice. His left shoulder was on fire, rubbed raw by the rough rope he used to carry the massive blocks of ice.

He didn’t dare draw attention to the pain. Instead, he stretched his neck under the guise of perusing the crowd, first on the ground and then up, on the rooftops.

She’d come for him.

She was flanked by his brothers, who had been watching from the start, Devil smiling like an ass and Whit looking like he was ready to do murder. But Ewan had no interest in them.

He didn’t care, as long as she didn’t leave. As long as he could drink her in, the long lines of her made longer by her black breeches, tight to her legs. By her black leather boots, wrapping up over her knees, by her long black coat, billowing back in the wind, lined in a glittering sapphire silk.

He liked that lining very much—the nod to her love of color. The proof that something was left of the girl he’d loved, even if she’d grown into this woman who looked down on him like a fucking queen.

High above on the rooftops, watching her warrior.

And him, ready to do anything for her favor.

The wind lifted her hair up and back behind her and the sun caught it, turning it to flame. Turning him to flame, as it revealed her face. Unmasked.

Unmasked and perfect, her eyes on him. Everywhere. He bathed in her scrutiny, wanting to spread his arms wide beneath it, loving the way she assessed his muscles beneath his damp clothes, loving the way her gaze lingered on his burning shoulder, somehow easing the pain. Loving the slide of her gaze up his neck and over his face.

Christ, he loved it.

He saw her throat work.

Saw her lips part on a breath.

And when she met his eyes, he saw that she liked it, too.

He lifted his face to her, acknowledging her attention. Wondering what she would do if he scaled the damn wall to get to her.

She’d probably push him over the side, but the idea had merit, and for a moment he imagined an alternative—him coming up over the edge of the roof, lifting her in his arms, and stealing her away to somewhere private, where he could give her enough pleasure to make her forget all the pain he’d wrought.

“Oy! Duke!”

He was pulled from the thought by the shout from the crowd, his well-honed instincts immediately refocusing his thoughts. The bark had come from his left, and he slowed, turning his head just barely—not enough to look at the enemy, but enough to locate him.

He didn’t have to do much to see him, a big, broad bastard who seemed like he’d never refused a fight. The crowd assembled seemed to spit the bruiser out, landing him several feet into the yard, a half-dozen yards from Ewan. Finding himself with an audience, the man did what men with a little strength and far less sense tended to do.

He blustered.

Instead of listening, Ewan roped another block of ice and focused on the crowd, knowing that if the Irishman started a brawl, the Garden would finish it. And Ewan would be in the thick of it. Pleasure shot through him at the idea. He was good for the fight.