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

by Sarah MacLean

“When I am duke, then.” The words were a whisper, as though if he spoke them in truth, he’d curse them all. “When I am duke, I shall keep us all safe. Us and all of the Garden. I shall take his money. His power. His name. And I shall walk away and never look back.” The words circled around them, reverberating off the trees for a long moment before he corrected himself. “Not his name,” he whispered. “Yours.” Robert Matthew Carrick, Earl Sumner, heir to the Dukedom of Marwick.

“She would have named you for what you were. For what you deserved. She would have given you the title.” Understanding dawned. And then he whispered, “Just as I would do.” Everything stopped. The rustle of leaves in the canopy, the shouts of his brothers in the stream beyond, the slow creep of the afternoon, and she knew, in that moment, that he was about to give her a gift that she’d never imagined she’d receive. She smiled at him, her heart pounding in her chest. “Tell me.” She wanted it on his lips, in his voice, in her ears. She wanted it from him, knowing it would make it impossible for her to ever forget him, even after he left her behind. He gave it to her. “Grace.”

“I hear you tore my door off the wall,” she said; her voice, low and liquid and magnificent. “I’ve brought London to its knees searching for you,” he replied. “You think a door would keep me away?” Her brows rose. “And yet here you are, on your knees, so it seems something has kept you from me after all.” He lifted his chin. “I’m looking at you, love, so I don’t feel kept from you at all.”

Grace had been born that same day. That same hour. To a different man, but to the same fate. Did they think he didn’t know? Did they think he didn’t think of that fate every damn day? That she wasn’t first in his mind in the morning and last in it at night and present in every dream that came in between? Did they think he did not ache for her? He wanted her. And he wanted them gone so he could go back to wanting her.

You are a queen. Tonight, I am your throne.

“He owes them, and you’d do well to remember that.” Her face went hot with his censure, and she spoke to his profile. “You think I don’t remember?” He did not look at her. “I think you’ve always had trouble remembering the truth of him.”

“He wants forgiveness?” Devil cut her a look. “Not from us.” He lifted his chin in the direction of the yard. “From them.” She watched as he set the ice at the feet of one of the bruisers at the warehouse door, and a whisper of memory ran through her. They don’t get what they deserve. He’d said it to her when they were children. About these people. About this place. He turned to make his way back across the yard. We’re going to change all that.

“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.”

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.

Another round of sparring pulled him away from the rooftops, a half-dozen fighters coming from all directions. Fighting dirty. A hand grabbing his hair, another at the waist of his trousers. A third with a club of some sort. He raised a brow. “Unsportsmanlike, that.” The brute grinned—revealing a handful of missing teeth, and took a swing.

Ewan pulled loose and turned. It was the original Irishman. No. A different one, but with the same face. The same meaty arms. Brothers? How must that feel? he thought as he stumbled back, gasping for breath. To have brothers who stand with you?

Grace ignored how the exaggerated movements underscored the angle of that jaw. The beauty of it. The fact that a body could draw a straight line with it. She didn’t care. She had a perfectly functional ruler in her office.

It was different from the kisses the other night—when she’d been masked and wigged and kohled beyond recognition. When he’d given her private pleasure for the sake of just that—pleasure. No past, no future, just present. Of course it was different. Because this kiss was all time. This kiss was promise and threat, history and speculation. And it was the summation of twenty years of wanting him even as she knew that she would never have him. It was aching and sweet and delicious and awful and it laid her bare there, in the golden light of the setting Covent Garden sun, where she’d never been bare before. Where she’d never been safe enough to be bare. But now, as his arms came around her, collecting her against him, he was home. And she was safe. At least for as long as they kissed. Don’t ever stop.

“Whatever monster I have become . . . It is not you who made me.” She heard the anguish in the words and hated it. And then she hated the confusion that came with the realization that she was beginning to think, perhaps, that he was not the monster they had all believed him to be.

Devil turned to Whit. “Do you have anything to say?” Whit shrugged. “I told you.” “As though we needed a fucking oracle to see it.” Grace turned to him. “To see what?” He ran a hand through his hair. “That he was back for you.” The reason I have done everything from the start, he’d said. For you. “Not just that,” Whit said. “You’re back for him, too.”

“What if Grace changed him?” She paused, then said, “The man who came for you, for Whit, for Hattie . . . for me . . . he was all anguish. No hope.” They told me you were dead. Felicity shrugged. “Hope changes a person.” Grace went still at the words. What if he finally had hope? What if she did?

“Hear, hear!” Hattie roundly agreed. “They haven’t any idea what they’re on about.” “It took them both near-death experiences to know what they wanted.” “That’s not true!” Devil said. “I knew what I wanted.” “You did not,” Whit said. “Grace and I had to knock actual sense into you to get you to see that Felicity was far better than you could ever dream of having.” He turned a smile on his sister-in-law. “You know that, don’t you, that you settled?” Felicity smiled happily. “In fact, I do.” “I, on the other hand, knew I wanted Hattie from the first moment I saw her.” Hattie’s brows shot up. “You did, did you?” He flashed a grin at his wife. “From the moment you pushed me from a moving carriage, luv. How could I not?” Hattie turned back to Grace. “A glutton for punishment.” “Yes, well, I’m beginning to think it’s a family trait,” she said, dryly.

“I’ve never bought that argument,” Devil grumbled. “Never?” Grace’s brows rose. “Is this a discussion that is had often?” “It’s Hattie’s theory,” Whit grumbled. “I don’t like it”—he turned his attention to his wife—“as he exploded her.” “Again,” Hattie said quite happily, “I was only slightly exploded.” Grace looked to Hattie, feeling a bit like she’d been given too little laudanum and was hallucinating instead of sleeping. “Slightly exploded?” Whit grunted his irritation. Hattie waved a hand through the air. “And only because he didn’t get to me in time.”