Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards 3)

Chapter Twenty-Five

The next morning, as the sun coated the rooftops of London in the bright light of a crisp autumn day, her brothers found her on the roof.

“Between us, we’ve, what—five houses?” Devil said, coming to stand at her side where she sat on a chimney block, arm draped over one knee, looking out over the rooftops toward Mayfair. He lifted the collar of his greatcoat and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’d think we could find somewhere warmer to meet.”

Grace didn’t look at him. “We’ve always preferred the roof. What was it you used to say? This was as far as we’d ever be from the muck?”

“Mmm,” Devil replied, rocking back on his heels. “But Whit owns the southern edge of Berkeley Square, so look at us now.”

No one laughed.

Instead, Whit came around into her field of vision, leaning back against the low wall marking the edge of the roof, crossing one ankle over the other, shoving his hands deep in his pockets and hunching his shoulders against the wind. “Club’s a fucking mess.”

And it was. Broken glass, curtains slashed to bits, furniture in pieces, not a single window remaining intact. At some point, someone had tipped over a candelabrum and burned a hole in the carpet. Thankfully, that had happened before every bottle of alcohol on the main floor of the club had been smashed and let to run out, or there would be no rooftop to be found.

Grace nodded. “And you’re only talking about the inside. I’ll be lucky if we ever see another member again.”

“Nah,” Devil said. “They shan’t stay away. You promised them a circus, and didn’t you deliver?”

“It’s destroyed,” she said. “I sent everyone home.” She didn’t want to face them.

“Well, a dozen of them are inside getting a jump on the clean, so I’d say your biggest problem is mutiny,” Devil said. “Zeva and Veronique are barking orders like proper lieutenants. Maybe you ought to get them uniforms when you order new wallcoverings.”

Irritation flared. “I told them to go home.”

“It can be mended,” Whit said, ignoring her. “You’re rich and we’ve a line into every silk spinner, furniture maker and whisky distiller you need. That is, if we’re still talking about the club.”

Devil tapped his stick on the roof thoughtfully. “Well, the rest can be mended, too, truthfully. If anyone knows that, we do.”

Grace looked to him. “The rest?”

He met Whit’s gaze over her shoulder. “She plays coy with me.”

Whit grunted. “She’s never liked to talk about him.”

Ewan.

“We hear he’s broken your heart again, Gracie.”

The words, soft and kind—kinder than anything she’d ever heard Devil say to someone who wasn’t Felicity or Helena—threatened to break her. She pressed her lips together.

“Can we kill him, now?” grumbled Whit.

“He loves me,” she said.

“He’s always loved you,” Devil said. “That doesn’t seem like it should be heartbreaking. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact.”

“He wants to marry me,” she said to the rooftops. “I’d be Duchess of Marwick.”

Her brothers were silent for a long moment, and then Whit grunted his acknowledgment.

“So. Therein lies the rub,” said Devil.

Another long stretch of silence, then Whit. “What did you tell him?”

She snapped her attention to them, irritation flaring along with something like betrayal as she looked from one to the other. “What do you think I said?”

“Ah. So he didn’t break your heart,” Whit clarified. “You broke his.”

“Who made you such an expert on hearts?” she snapped. “I thought you wanted to kill him.”

His brows shot up. “Easy, Gracie.”

“We don’t not want to kill him,” Devil said. “But we know what it’s like to be laid low.”

“I don’t much care for feeling sympathy for the bastard, truthfully,” Whit said.

“And so? What will he do?” This, from Devil.

Whit shook his head. “We’ve never been able to predict his movements.”

A long silence, and Devil tapped his cane. Once. Twice. “Grace has.”

She did not like the truth in the words, not as it was twined with the truth in her heart. The keen memory of him walking away—a new man. Changed, just as she was.

Forever.

She knew what he would do. It was over. “He’s going to leave,” she said, the ache in her chest nearly unbearable. “He’s going to leave, and he’s never going to come back.”

The irony was, he’d finally done what she told him she wanted.

And now, all she wished was for him to come back and stay.

“He’s already left,” Devil said.

The words struck like a slap. “How do you know that?”

“Because we’ve been having him followed since he returned.”

She shot him a look. “Why?”

“Well, first of all”—he turned and sat on the high ledge of the roof—“every time he’s turned up in the past . . . how long?” He looked to Whit to fill the time frame.

“Forever,” Whit supplied with a shrug.

“Right. Every time he’s turned up forever, he’s tried to kill one of us.” He paused, then added, “You were the first one of us he tried to kill, I might add. But here we are—life is a strange, mysterious thing.”

“He didn’t try to kill me,” she said.

Everything stilled on that rooftop—even the cold autumn wind seemed to pause to let the words seep in.

“How do you know?” Devil said.

“Because he told me,” she said. “The old duke wanted me dead.”

“Because you were proof of what he’d done.”

She nodded.

“Not just that,” Whit said. “He wanted you dead because he knew he’d never have all of Ewan if Ewan had any hope of having you.”

Whit, always seeing what no one else did.

“Yes,” she said. “But he never would have hurt me.”

“We all saw it, though,” Whit replied. “We all saw him come for you.”

“No.” This time it was Devil who interrupted. “He didn’t come for her. He came for me. I always wondered why he looked me dead in the eye beforehand. I thought it was because he wanted the fight.”

“He did,” Grace said. “He wanted the fight with you, to give us all time to run.”

Silence fell between them as they were all lost to the memory of that fateful night, when everything that had happened had somehow not happened at all.

“Christ.” Whit was the first to speak. “He gave himself over to Marwick. To keep us safe.”

“The old man had to have known where we’d gone,” Devil said.

He knew where you were, Ewan had told her, but he’d never told me.

Grace nodded. “We were young and scared and no doubt left a dozen signposts along the way. But he never came for us.”

“That doesn’t mean he didn’t threaten it,” Devil said, understanding the manipulation instantly. How had they not seen what their evil father would have been willing to do? “God knows he’d used each of our safety to keep the others in line a thousand times before.”