But he didn’t close the gap. Instead, he launched a different kind of attack. One for which she had not been prepared.
He began to disrobe.
She stilled as he lifted his arms, clasping the back collar of the linen shirt he wore, pulling it out of his trousers and over his head without hesitation, and casting it to the side, forgotten in the dust. Her gaze followed the discarded shirt. “A gross mistreatment of the only clothing you have.”
“I shall fetch it later.”
When she looked back at him, it was to discover that he was closer than she would have imagined. She resisted the instinct to take a step back, refusing to reveal her response to the way he filled the ring. This was different from seeing him unconscious in a bed.
If his face had changed over the last two decades, his body had been revolutionized. He was tall—over six feet, and his broad shoulders tapered to narrow hips via a vast expanse of lean, corded muscle lightly dusted with hair. The trail of hair darkened as it descended past his navel, into the waist of his trousers. If the warm color of his skin was any indication, that athleticism had been honed in the outdoors. In the sunlight.
Doing what?
She might have asked if the scar on his left pectoral muscle hadn’t distracted her. Three inches long, a quartet of jagged, pale lines against smooth tan skin. She was transfixed by it—the proof that this man was the boy she’d once known. She’d been there when he’d taken it.
His father had put it there as punishment for protecting her. As a reminder of what was truly valuable. She could remember the bite of her fist tight against her lips, desperate to keep her cries silent as the blade had sliced through his skin. Her cries hadn’t been silent though. He’d shouted them for her as he’d taken the pain.
Days later, the letter M still fresh on his skin, he’d stopped taking it.
And he’d come for her.
The thought returned her to the present. To the fight. Her gaze flickered up over his chest and the cords of his neck, to the line of his jaw, the high angles of his cheekbones—and finally, to his eyes, watching her. Betraying nothing.
And then, the bastard smirked. “Like what you see?”
She narrowed her gaze. “No.”
“Liar.”
The single word sent a hot flush through her. Twenty years earlier, the flush might have been pleasure or embarrassment. A keen understanding that he’d seen right to the heart of her. But now, it was anger. Frustration. And a refusal to believe that he might still see through her. That she might still be the same girl she’d been all those years ago. That he might still be the same boy.
“I felt you,” he said, low enough that only she would hear. “I know you touched me.”
Impossible. He’d been dosed with laudanum. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from saying, “Not me.”
“It was. It was you,” he said, softly, advancing on her with slow, predatory grace. “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 ignored the pounding of her heart at the words. Empty. Meaningless. She steeled herself. “Since you tried to kill me, you mean,” she tossed out, lifting her chin. “I’ve a building full of decent men abovestairs; I’ve no need for a mad duke.”
A shadow crossed his face, there, then gone in an instant. Jealousy? She ignored the zing of pleasure that shot through her at the realization, instead focusing on his approach. He was within reach now.
He spread his arms wide. “Go on, then.”
Perhaps he didn’t think she would do it. Perhaps he thought back on the girl he’d known, who never would have hit him. Never would have hurt him.
He was wrong.
She let her right fist fly, packing pure power in the punch. It connected with a wicked crack, sending his head back with the force of the blow. She danced backward as he caught his balance.
Grace let out a breath, slow and even.
Devil’s walking stick pounded twice with approval in the darkness.
Ewan met her eyes. “You always could land a good blow.”
“You taught me.”
She saw the memory cross his face. The afternoons hidden in the glade on the estate at Burghsey House, when the four of them had planned and plotted against the duke who had vowed to steal their futures along with their childhoods. The afternoons when they’d made their promises—whoever won the duke’s perverse tournament would protect the others. Whoever became heir would end the line.
They’d been brought together because there was no other possible heir—no brothers or nephews or distant cousins. On the duke’s death, the dukedom, centuries old, would revert to the Crown. The trio of boys were his only chance at legacy.
And they would take it from him.
He would never win, they promised. Not in the long run.
Grace saw him remember those afternoons, when they’d worked so hard to choreograph their fights—Ewan’s idea, stolen from stage fighters his mother had known on Drury Lane—so they would survive the fights their father forced on them. He could not keep them safe from all the duke’s warfare, he knew, but he could keep them safe from each other.
And Ewan did. Until he did not.
The thought set her fist flying again. Years of fury and frustration landed the blow, and a second, at his ribs. He let the third punch push him back, toward the edge of the ring, out of the light.
And that was when she realized he was not blocking her.
She stopped. Stepped back. Drew a line in the sawdust with the toe of her boot. Lifted her fists. “Come to scratch, Duke.”
He stepped forward, toward her, but he did not lift his fists.
Anger flared. “Fight.”
He shook his head. “No.”
She stepped toward him, her voice rising with frustration. “Fight me.”
“No.”
She lowered her hands and turned from him, crossing the ring away from him. A wicked curse sounded from the darkness, nearly feral. Beast wanted in. She grasped the wall of the ring, the bite of the wooden planks welcome on her bare fingers.
How many of these rings had she claimed? How many had she triumphed in, and all because of this man? How many nights had she cried herself to sleep thinking of him? “I’ve waited twenty years for this,” she said. “For this punishment. For my vengeance.”
“I know.” He was behind her. Closer than she expected. “I’m giving it to you.”
She turned her head at the words, looking over her shoulder at him. “You think to give it to me?” She laughed, the sound devoid of humor, and turned to face him again. “You think you can give me what I want? You think you can offer me my vengeance? Your own punishment? Your destruction?” She stalked him back across the ring. “What nonsense. You, who stole everything from me. My future. My past. My fucking name. Not to mention what you took from the people I love.
“What, you think a night in the ring, accepting my blows, will win you forgiveness?” She kept at it, the spark of rage she had at his gift, flourishing into flame. Into inferno. “You think forgiveness a prize to which you have access?”
He was off balance. She could see it. Could read the wild thoughts in his eyes so clearly it was as though she had put them there. “Nah, perhaps you think that if you offer me the hits, I shan’t take them.” She shook her head. “Becoming a duke has surely addled your brain. Allow me to set you straight, Your Grace.” She let the Garden seep into her voice. “If somefin’ come free, take it.”
He stiffened, and she was there with a smart jab. “There’s one for what you did to Whit for threatening his lady.” Another. “And there’s one for the lady, who you’re lucky did not die, or I’d let ’im kill you.” A wicked punch to the gut, and he didn’t block it. Grace didn’t care. “And there’s one for Devil’s lady, whom you were read
y to ruin.” And another two in quick succession, her breath coming faster, a sheen of perspiration at her brow. And hot fury to feed her. “Them’s for Devil. One for leaving him to die in the cold last year, and the other for the gash you put in his face twenty years back.” She paused. “I ought to put one on your face to match.”
He took them all. Again and again, and she fed on his inaction, air to her flame. Another blow, this one setting his nose to bleeding. “And that one? That’s for the boys no longer in the Rookery because of you. Gone, because your henchmen were out for blood. Because you were on your own mad pursuit of your own security.”
That got his attention. He looked up, his amber gaze finding hers instantly. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.” She spat. “You fucking monster. Making us all hide from you because it wasn’t enough that we’d given you everything you ever wanted. You needed our lives, as well.” She turned away from him, crossing the ring.
“Behind!” Beast’s warning had her spinning back as Ewan came for her across the ring. Before she could resist, he lifted her by the waist and carried her to the wall, putting her back to it. Not with force—if there’d been force, she might have welcomed it. Might have taken glee in an opponent.
They froze in tableau, their breath coming hard and fast, somehow synchronized. His lips were at her ear, close enough for her to feel the ragged words he whispered. “I didn’t come for myself. I came for you. I swore I’d find you. How many times did I promise you I’d find you?”
I’ll find you, Gracie. You worry about keeping safe. I’ll find you.
A vow, whispered across decades by a boy who no longer existed.
“I never stopped looking for you,” he said, his lips sliding over skin. Into hair. She gasped. How did still he smell like leather and black tea? After days upstairs in a locked room? How did he still feel like this? After years of being the enemy?
How did he set her aflame?
“I never stopped missing you,” he whispered, his breath hot at her ear.
Making her want.
No. She wouldn’t have it.
Grace squirmed in his grip, her fists free enough to bat him about the head and shoulders, but without the angle to do proper damage.
“They told me you were dead.” She could hear the ache in the words, and for a wild, unexplained moment, she wanted to comfort him.
“The leg!” Devil shouted from the darkness, pulling her away from the mad thoughts. He’d seen what she had from the start. The weakness. A strong kick to the wound in Ewan’s thigh and she would set him to his knees. He’d release her. This would be over.
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.”
She yanked the scarf, pulling it loose from its moorings and, holding one weighted end, letting the other sail over their heads in a wide scarlet arc. She caught it with her other hand, pulling it taut. In an instant, the straight cloth was at his throat, as dangerous as a knife’s point when wielded by someone who knew how.
Grace had spent years learning how.
He reached for the scarf, a natural course, and the wrong one. With a flick of her wrists, his hands were caught in the fabric, cuffed and immobile. He had no choice but to back away, lowering his hands. “Release me.”
Instead, she knotted the silk, knowing it would make movement impossible.
“I would never have killed you,” he said. “I would never have hurt you.”
She narrowed her eyes on him. “What a lie.”
“It’s the truth.”
“It’s not,” she spat. “You hurt me.”
Was the word past tense or present?
He growled his wordless reply, the sound wrenched from low in his throat.
She ignored it. “And even if it were true, you hurt them. Whit with a half-dozen ribs broken and Devil with a gash that could have killed him, if not from blood loss, then from fever. Do you forget that I was there? That I saw you turn into this?” She looked him up and down, the way one might look at a rat or a roach.
“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.” She paused, refusing to let him look away. Wanting him to hear it. Needing to hear it herself. “You can never have her back. Because she is dead.”
She saw the words strike.
Saw the truth of them course through him.
Saw him believe her.
Good.
She turned away, focusing on the ache in her knuckles, the proof that she’d finally taken the vengeance she’d wanted.
Refusing to acknowledge the other aches—the ones that were proof of something else.
Her brothers stood sentry beyond the ring, two men who would protect her without hesitation. Two men who had protected her for years.
They told me you were dead.
The desperation in his words echoed through her.
“Grace!” he shouted from the center of the ring, and she turned back to look at him, bathed in golden light, impossibly handsome even now, even wrecked.
Veronique materialized from the shadows behind him, flanked by two other women with muscles that rivaled those of any Covent Garden strong arm. They approached and took hold of him, and the touch made him wild, fighting to be free even as he refused to look away from Grace.
He had no chance. The women were stronger than they looked, and he was not the first man to be exited from 72 Shelton Street.
Nor would he be the last.
Ewan cursed and shouted her name a second time.
She ignored the sound of it on his lips. Ignored the memory of it there. “You should have chosen us.”
She meant the three of them—Beast and Devil and her—didn’t she?
He stilled at that, his gaze somehow finding hers in the darkness. “I chose us,” he said. “You were to be duchess.”
We’ll marry, he’d promised her a lifetime ago, when they were too young to know that such things weren’t in the cards. We’ll marry, and you’ll be duchess. Pretty promises to a girl who no longer existed, from a boy who had never existed in the first place.
The memory of them should have made Grace sad, but she had wasted enough sadness on Ewan for a lifetime. And so she let the past make her cold.
She spun on him—all present. No longer Grace. Only Dahlia.
“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.
Chapter Seven
72 Shelton Street
One Year Later
“You’re going to want to see this.”
Dahlia paused as she passed through the kitchens of 72 Shelton Street to inspect a platter of petits fours headed to one of the club’s upstairs rooms. “In my experience, very few good things come introduced with ‘You’re going to want to see this.’” With a nod of approval for the perfectly turned out cakes, she turned her attention to Zeva.
“This one does, believe it or not,” the factotum said, passing Dahlia a ledger sheet. “Congratulations.”
She looked to the bottom row of figures, curiosity, then surprise filling her as she scanned the entire document, calculating a long column of numbers to be certain she was reading correctly. One of Zeva’s dark brows rose in amusement. “The club’s most profitable month ever.”
“God save the Queen,” Dahlia said qui
etly, passing through the door to the oval salon, the magnificently appointed centerpiece of the club, checking the numbers once more.
Queen Victoria had been coronated only months earlier, and the crowning of a female monarch had done more than keep London in season for longer than usual—through the summer and into the autumn. It had given the city’s finest ladies the belief that they could have anything they desired, which made Dahlia fortuitously lucky, in that she was in the business of providing women just that.
“Yes, well, I shan’t go that far,” Zeva said. “I’ve no doubt she’ll be as invested in growing the Empire as her uncles, and without thought.”
“Without question,” Dahlia said. “Power at any price is the only certainty for a leader.”
Zeva gave a little huff of agreement as they crossed the large oval room, her rich eggplant skirts shimmering in the light as they brushed against Dahlia’s dark blue trousers, shot through with silver thread.
The oval salon of 72 Shelton was one of the lushest in London, appointed in rich blues and greens and boasting champagne and chocolates at every turn—and that was before the clients received what they actually came for.
Dahlia cast a discerning look around the salon, designed to serve several purposes. Members were brought there while rooms abovestairs were prepared, filled with requested food, drink, and various desired accoutrements. While waiting, the ladies had their pick of refreshments—the 72 Shelton Street kitchens were known for a wide variety of delicacies—and Dahlia made certain that the cupboards were stocked with regular clients’ preferences.
Every comfort was recorded and replicated, and with the utmost discretion. One lady preferred the green chaise by the window; one had an aversion to nuts; one sat in the darkest corner—terrified that she might be recognized, and still unable to resist the pull of the club.
Not that recognition was easy. Even on the quietest of days, club members were required to wear masks to ensure anonymity. Newer members often selected less complicated masks, some as simple as a black domino, but many were magnificently elaborate, designed to showcase a woman’s power and wealth without revealing her identity. There were currently six masked women in the salon, each enjoying the third purpose of the room.
Daring and the Duke EPB Page 6