Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards, #3)

by Sarah MacLean

It never did. Touch came without words, care without voice. And the silence stung worse than the wound. Until that night, when the angel spoke, and her voice came like a wicked weapon—a long sigh, and then, soft and rich, like warm whisky, “Ewan.” Like home. He was awake.

A woman in shadow. Tall. Lean and strong, wearing trousers that clung tight to impossibly long legs. Leather boots that ended above the knee. And a topcoat that could easily have been a man’s, if not for the gold lining, somehow gleaming in the darkness.

The only person he’d ever loved. No longer gone. Alive. The thought—and the peace that came with it—altered him at his core.

He sat back on his heels, his jaw slackened like he’d just taken a blow. For twenty years, he’d dreamed of her, the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He’d imagined how she might have aged, how she might have grown and changed, how she would have gone from girl to woman. And still, he was not prepared for it. Yes, twenty years had changed her. But Grace had not gone from girl to woman; she had gone from girl to goddess.

“You think I would forget your touch? You think I wouldn’t know it in the darkness? I would know it in battle. I would walk through fire for it. I would know it on the road to hell. I would know it in hell, which is where I’ve been, aching for it, every day since you left.”

She dropped a hand to the scarf at her waist. Wrapped her fist in it. “What they told you is true. The girl is dead. Killed by a boy she trusted, who came at her with a knife, willing to do anything to win.”

“I watched you, Ewan. I watched you become this. I watched you turn duke.” She fairly spat the word. “I watched you choose the fucking title over us—who were supposed to be your family.” A pause. He met her eyes. Before he could speak, she did. “You chose it over me. And you killed me then. The girl I was. Everything I dreamed. You did that. And you can never have it back.”

“Why would I settle for duchess?” she asked, the night cloaking her in fury and vengeance. “I was born the duke.” She saw the words strike. “Don’t return,” she said. “You will not find such a warm welcome next time.” And with that, she turned her back on the past, and walked away.

Lady S__, a notorious scandal who enjoyed Covent Garden more than Mayfair; Miss L__, a bluestocking who routinely said the wrong thing and landed herself in peril with the ton; Lady A__, a quiet, aging spinster whose keen eye was worth that of a half dozen of Dahlia’s rooftop spies; and finally, Lady N__, daughter of a very rich, very absent, very accommodating duke, and lady love to Dahlia’s brothers’ second-in-command.

He’d known it was her from the moment she’d stepped into the ballroom, in a dress that fell in lush emerald waves to the floor, despite the mask covering everything but her beautiful kohled eyes and the dark wine color staining her lips, and the wig that stole her flame-colored curls from him. He presumed she was trying for disguise, as though he’d ever not sense her. Not feel her. As though there would ever come a time when she walked into a room and his whole body did not draw tight like a spring.

“You are a queen,” he whispered. She closed her eyes at the words. At the impossible promise in them. And then he added, “Tonight, I am your throne.”

“Are you here to nursemaid me?” She did not reply, instead reaching up to lower her hood, letting her mass of red curls loose like an inferno. Christ, he loved her hair. It was a force of nature, threatening always to lay him low. Like the woman herself.

They were planets, drawn to each other. No. He was a planet. She was the sun.

“I want you to take from me,” he said. “I want you to know that whatever you want, whatever you need, I can provide it. I will provide it.”

He put his forehead to hers and closed his eyes, and said the words that had haunted him every day since the day she’d left. “I’m sorry.” He’d never meant anything so much. They crashed together like thunder, the kiss robbing them both of breath and threatening to rob Ewan of far more.

“I love,” she replied, defensively. When her brothers looked to each other, she said, “I do! Against my will, I love the two of you. And your wives. And Helena.”

“Let me share it with you. Tonight.” She was still for a long moment, not breaking his gaze, their breaths still coming fast and harsh, mingling together. Finally, she nodded. “No masks.”

Men are curious beasts, are they not? They at once wish to keep us out of their spaces and also loathe the idea of us making space for ourselves.”

“I’ve got you.” She caught her breath, not at the sensation, but at the words, unable to resist her own. “I know.” He searched her eyes for a long moment. “Do you?” he whispered, lifting a hand to her hair, pushing a wild lock behind her ear. “Do you know that I will always have you? If you’ll let me?” She went warm with the words. “I will always be what you need,” he said.

“I missed you too much,” he whispered, the words so soft that if they hadn’t been entwined, she wouldn’t have heard them. But she did, along with the truth in his voice. “Every day, every hour. I missed you.” A pause, and then, “To say I have missed you—it’s not enough. The word . . . it implies a natural occurrence. It suggests that if only I’d been home the day you called . . . if only you’d been on St. James’s the last time I bought cravats . . . then I’d have had a chance not to miss you. But what do we call the aching emptiness that I feel for you? All the time? Every day?”

“I would have fought for you, Ewan. We all would have.” “I know. And he would have taken everything from you.” He paused, his hands coming to her hair, toying with it as he said, “And in that, he would have taken everything from me. I could not be the reason he punished another person I loved.”

“Yes, I loved you the moment I set eyes on you a lifetime ago, but what that was—it pales in comparison to how I love you now. You are perfect—strong and bold and brave and brilliant, and the way I ache to be near you is only made worse when I am near you, because I cannot have you. Because every time I reach for you, you slip through my fingers . . . like fucking fantasy.”

A tear spilled over, down her cheek, and he reached for it instantly, brushing it aside with his thumb. “I would do it all again. I shan’t ever not seek you, Grace. You are my beginning and end. The other half of me. And you always have been. “Here is my fight,” he repeated, softly. “Marry me.”

“I do not want to be Your Grace ever again. All I want is for you to be my Grace.” He kissed her again. “It’s always been you. Every day. Every night. Every minute. Since the beginning. This is the sum of my ambition: To be worthy of you. Of your love. Of your world. To stand by your side and change it.”