Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards 3)

She looked down at him. “I must go.”

He nodded. Was he not going to stop her?

She didn’t want him to, did she?

This made it easier, did it not?

It did. But it didn’t make it better.

Swallowing around the knot in her throat, Grace turned away to collect her coat from where she’d tossed it to the floor, interested only in the pleasure he offered, every part of her wanting to stay. Wanting him to ask her to stay.

And then he did. “How did you get past the servants?”

Knowing she asked for trouble, Grace turned her head, giving him her profile as she said, “I do, in fact, always travel by rooftop.”

He stood at that, slow and deliberate, and her heart began to pound. “I wanted to follow you today. Up that wall.”

She turned to face him. “It’s not as easy as it looks.”

He gave her a half smile. “I believe that.”

She watched him for a moment and then said, “Instead you left me.”

“And you came to see me.”

The echo of his words from earlier. Come see me. She was supposed to have come to see him to tell him what she needed and instead she’d simply come to see him, this man she did not know, so different from all the other hims he’d been. So different, and so much more dangerous.

“Show me,” he said, interrupting her thoughts.

She shouldn’t. It was a mistake to spend any more time with him than this. To spend any more time learning him than this.

She shouldn’t. But she wanted to. She wanted to bring him to the roof and give him a taste of the freedom she had claimed for herself.

To make a new memory.

An idea teased through her.

She crossed the room to his wardrobe in silence, opening it to pull a fine white shirt from inside. Holding it to her chest, she turned back to find him buttoning his trousers, his amber gaze glittering in the candlelight.

Shamelessly, she watched him work the fastenings, and immediately she missed the ridges and shadows before the buttons were even seated. There were members of 72 Shelton who requested their consorts in full, elaborate dress simply to watch them take the clothes off and put them back on, and though Grace rarely questioned the desires of her clientele, she had never quite understood the pleasure of watching one’s lover disrobe.

But right now, as his strong arms worked and the muscles of his forearms flexed, her mouth dried, and she found she was coming to see its merits. She could watch him work at his trouser buttons for hours.

He finished. “Are you going to dress me now?”

She tossed him the shirt, admiring the speed with which he snatched it from the air before pulling it over his head in a smooth movement that belied what she knew were the protesting aches and twinges in his muscles. There was an intimacy to it, the idea that she’d just held the soft linen that was now sliding over his skin like a caress.

Once he was wearing the shirt, the tails hanging loose around his narrow hips, he raked his gaze over her, taking in her corset and trousers, his gaze lighting with interest.

At another time, with another man, she might have been amused by the rapt attention, so soon after they’d both found release. But here, now, she was not entertained by the desire in his eyes. Instead, she reveled in it.

He was hers.

How far would he follow her?

Tomorrow, day would come, and with it the truth of their past and their present, and the impossibility of their future. But there was tonight, and if coming of age on the streets had taught Grace anything, it was that planning was for business and not for pleasure.

Decision made, she lifted a candle and extended her hand to him. “Come with me.”

Chapter Eighteen

They climbed the dark back stairs to the roof of the Marwick ancestral home as though they were in the wilds of Scotland, miles from the nearest person, and not in Grosvenor Square, where any number of London’s most revered aristocratic families could see them.

And perhaps Ewan should have cared about that, but he’d never cared about the dukedom and that night . . . all he cared about was Grace.

Grace, topcoat in one hand and his hand in the other as she led him up, past the second floor, the third, until the stairs grew dark for lack of wall sconces and narrow enough to fit only one person. Once at the top, she turned and pressed herself to the wall, lifting her chin to indicate the door inlaid above their heads. “Go on, then,” she whispered. “Open it.”

He reached up, surprised to find that his heart was pounding. Hesitated.

“Nervous, Duke?”

He met her eyes, the candle between them bathing her face in flickering light, and gave a little self-deprecating laugh. “I don’t know why—it’s not as though we shall find a collection of critical aristocrats on the other side.”

She grinned. “Ah, but imagine if we did. We’d empty London of smelling salts. Though, to be honest, I’m not sure what they’d be able to critique,” she said as he pushed the door up and open, sending it slamming down on the roof. “My bottom looks superior in these trousers.”

Leaving him with that incontrovertible fact, Grace climbed up and through the hatch, that same bottom full and beautiful, making him want to pull her back inside, take her to bed, and show her all the ways it was superior—roof be damned.

But she was already gone, climbing through to the outside and turning back, the silver thread of her corset gleaming in the candlelight as she made a show of looking about. “You are safe. Not a single roving aristocrat with a discerning eye.”

The teasing warmed him—and he loved it even as he knew better than to believe this more than a heartbeat of happiness. Wasn’t that always the way with him and Grace? Always chasing happiness, never catching it?

He climbed out onto the roof, following her into the unseasonably comfortable autumn night. She was already headed to the southern face of the house, where it bordered the square. He watched her for a moment, amazed by her ease here, above the city.

“Someone might see you.”

She turned on him with a smile. “Afraid the Marquess of Westminster has a spyglass in the window across the way?”

“Good God. I wasn’t, but now that you’ve said it . . .”

“Westminster isn’t a voyeur. He’s far too austere for such a pastime,” she said casually, as though it were perfectly common for a girl who’d kept a roof over her head by bareknuckle fighting to know the personality traits of one of the wealthiest aristocrats in Britain. She kept going. “And even if it weren’t too dark to see anything worth seeing, the only things he’d be looking at through his spyglass are your horses.” She looked to him. “Do you have horses?”

The question took him aback. “I do.”

She waved a hand. “Not carriage horses or the grey you’ve been known to ride in Hyde Park. I’m talking about racing horses. That’s what Westminster is interested in.”

“How did you know I ride in Hyde Park?”

She shrugged, returning her attention to the square below. “The same way I know Westminster likes horses.”

“What way is that?”

“It’s my business to know things.”

“Such as affinity for horses.”

“Such as whether or not Westminster’s affinity for horses has anything to do with an affinity for gambling. Such as why Earl Leither is lobbying for looser penalties for opium traffic. Such as why the publisher of the News of London is so devoted to the idea of women’s suffrage.”