Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards 3)

It didn’t make sense that she would know the wheres and hows to get herself to the rooftops here, in Mayfair, where the city was more manicured, less labyrinthine, and teeming with people who would send round to Bow Street without second thought if they saw someone skulking about on the roof.

It didn’t matter how beautiful she was, or how commanding.

Unless she’d been doing it long enough that she knew all the ways to avoid being seen. Ewan caught his breath at the idea, immediately closing the distance between them, knowing that the question was a risk. If he was right, it could scare her off.

But was this not their life? Did they not risk?

As he drew close, she deliberately did not look at him, picking at something invisible on her trouser leg. Even if there was something there, it was the dead of night—there was no way she could see it. She was avoiding him.

“How do you know the way, Grace?”

“It’s only a mile,” she replied, and he heard the caution in her tone. “It’s not like knowing the way to Wales.”

They both knew Mayfair might as well be Wales for as far away as it was from the Rookery. He was close enough to her that he could see her a bit, her face glowing gold in the flickering candlelight, and her hair shot through with silver from the moon.

“Tell me,” he said softly, moving toward her and suddenly very eager to know the truth. “Tell me how you knew this was my roof.”

She fidgeted, the movement so shocking that it set him back. Had she ever fidgeted? He reached for her, his fingers pushing a lock of her red hair behind one of her ears—how had he never noticed her ears were perfect?

“It’s Grosvenor Square, Marwick. There aren’t that many homes, and I can count chimney stacks as well as the next girl.”

He shook his head. “Not Marwick. Not now, dammit.”

Her eyes went wide at the steel in his tone. “Careful,” she warned.

Ewan didn’t care. There was something there, and he would know more. “Tell me how you know there’s an opening in my roof, Grace.”

Her gaze snapped to his, defensively. “There’s an opening in everyone’s roof. Toffs don’t know, because they don’t sweep chimneys and they don’t tar roofs, so why should they spend time here?”

“Tell me how you knew how to get inside.”

“I’ve never been inside,” she said, not liking the direction of his questions. “With the exception of the ball, I’ve never been inside.”

He believed her. But something was off. Something had happened here.

There was something else.

“What, then?” he asked.

An eternity passed while he waited for her to speak. Finally, “I used to come here.”

“Why?”

“I knew a duke who needed a good fleecing.”

He shook his head. “No, Grace. Why?”

It was his turn to wait an eternity. More.

“I came to wait for you,” she said.

The confession nearly put him to his knees. “Why?”

She looked away. “It doesn’t matter.”

It was the only thing that mattered.

“I thought I could—” She trailed off.

She didn’t need to. She couldn’t have. Whatever Grace had thought she could do if she’d seen him in those years after he’d run them off—whatever she’d thought she could convince him to do if only she’d seen him . . . she wouldn’t have been able to.

Finally, she said, “What happened after we left?”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does, though. Where did you go? You were never here.”

“School,” he said. He’d gone to school, mercifully, and there, he’d found something like solace—even as the rest of the boys thought him mad. Even as they might have been right. “Eton, and then Oxford, and then away—to the continent. Wherever I could go and be rid of him and his threats.”

“He never stopped hurting you,” she said, softly.

Of course he hadn’t. But not in the way she thought. His father had hurt him again and again by promising that if Ewan ever misstepped, Grace would suffer. Devil and Whit, too. Ewan would play the part of doting son. Of Earl.

And if he didn’t, the people he loved would pay.

Of course the whole world had thought him mad. And if he’d known she’d come here? To this rooftop, to wait for him? He would have razed the building to keep her safe.

And then, a worse thought. One that terrified him. “Did you ever see him?”

It was the only thing that mattered. Ewan did not think he could bear the idea of her coming face to face with his father—even now, even as a Covent Garden queen who could more than easily hold her own against the dead duke.

She shook her head. “No.”

She could have been killed.

“You should never have had to find your way here. You should never have had to count chimney stacks,” he said, anger flaring. “This was supposed to be—” It was supposed to be she who was the child of this home, and instead, in a wild twist of fate, it had become he. “This should have been your house. You should be the one with the coveted address, the warm bed waiting below. The servants and the carriages and the money beyond imagining.”

“I have a warm bed waiting,” she replied, her eyes dark and unreadable. “And servants and carriages and money beyond imagining. I’ve even a coveted address, as far as addresses go in the East End.” She paused. “Don’t wring your hands. I never wanted the title, the pomp, or the circumstance. And I’ve done quite well on my own.”

“Who is Dahlia?”

She smiled. “You’re looking at her.”

He shook his head. “No, I’m not. I’ve seen her. At my masquerade. In the warehouse yard, ending a riot. Downstairs, for a heartbeat, until you gave me access to Grace.” She fidgeted beneath the words and he knew he was right. “But who is she?”

She met his gaze. “She’s the queen.”

He hated that she wouldn’t tell him. Hated that she didn’t trust him with her truth.

But he couldn’t blame her.

He took a deep breath, his gaze tracing over her corset, the gold thread gleaming in the barely-there light from the candle at her feet, an echo of a memory. “Do you remember what I promised you? When we were young?”

“We promised each other a thousand things, Ewan.”

He nodded, loving the sound of his name on her lips. “You remember, though.”

For some reason, it mattered that she did, and he let out a long breath when she said, “You promised me gold thread.”

Relief shot through him and he nodded, watching her. “At the time, it was all I could think to promise you. My mother . . .” He paused, and she watched him so carefully, her beautiful eyes so full of understanding, even now, even as he’d betrayed her. Even as he’d betrayed them all. “She’d talk about gold thread like it was currency. I thought it was the most extravagant thing I could give you.”

“I never wanted extravagance.”

“I wanted to give it to you, nonetheless. I promised you—”

I would make you duchess.

She heard it. “I never wanted that, either,” she said, softly, before coming to her feet and approaching him. “I only ever wanted the world you offered me.” She stopped in front of him and looked up, her eyes black with the darkness, the light from the moon and the candle she’d left behind barely enough to see her. “Do you remember that?”