Brazen and the Beast EPB

by MacLean, Sarah

  “She fails,” Devil said, tapping against the floor again and looking down at Jamie. “This ends. We take the son, the father, the whole fucking family if need be. And they lead us to Ewan. And that ends, as well.” They’d been fighting Ewan for two decades. Hiding from him. Protecting Grace from him.

  “Grace won’t like it,” Felicity said, softly. A lifetime ago, Devil and Whit had made a singular promise to their sister—that they wouldn’t hurt Ewan. It did not matter that he’d been the fourth in their band or that he had betrayed them beyond reason. Grace had loved him. And she’d made them promise never to touch him.

  But Grace wasn’t a part of this. Whit shook his head. “Grace will have to suffer it. He comes for more than us now. For more than his past. Now, he comes for our men.”

  For the world the Bastards would protect at all costs.

  It was time to end it.

  Whit met his brother’s eyes. “I’ll do it.”

  The words were punctuated by a knock on the door to the building, the sound muffled in the distance. Another body, no doubt. There was always someone in need of care in the Garden—and he’d be damned if he’d let an entitled aristocrat add to the body count.

  The brothers locked eyes. “All of it?”

  “The business, the name, everything he values. I’ll bring it down.” Young Sedley had crossed the Bastards, and with it, brought destruction upon himself.

  “And Lady Henrietta?” Felicity said, setting Whit on edge with the honorific. He didn’t like her as an aristocrat. He’d preferred her as Hattie. “Do you think she is part of it? Do you think she works with Ewan?”

  No. The denial rioted through him.

  Devil watched him carefully, then said, “How do you know?”

  I know.

  It wasn’t enough.

  “She’ll give up the brother.”

  Devil regarded him in silence. “Would you give up yours?”

  Whit clenched his teeth.

  “If she doesn’t?” Felicity asked. “What of her then?”

  “Then she’s collateral damage,” Devil said. Whit ignored the distaste that came with the words.

  Felicity looked to her husband. “Isn’t that what I was, once?”

  Devil had the grace to look chagrined. “For a heartbeat, love. Just long enough for me to come to my senses.”

  “If she’s the enemy, I’ll do it,” Whit said.

  One of Devil’s brows went up. “If?”

  You’re very inconvenient.

  It’s the Year of Hattie.

  Snippets of the conversation in the carriage.

  “Even if she isn’t the enemy,” Devil pointed out, “she protects the man who is.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leveled his brother with a firm look. “Which makes her valuable.”

  It made her leverage.

  “You’ll have no choice but to show her the truth of us, bruv,” Devil said quietly. “No matter how much you like the look of her.”

  The truth of them. The Bareknuckle Bastards didn’t leave enemies alive.

  “Sort it before we have to move more product,” Devil said. A new shipment would come into port within the next week.

  Whit nodded as the door to the room opened, revealing the doctor. “You’ve a message.” He pushed the door wide and revealed one of the Bastards’ best runners.

  “Brixton,” Felicity said to the boy, who immediately preened under Felicity’s attention. All the boys in the Garden adored her—half lockpicking genius, half maternal perfection. “I thought you were headed home?”

  “To learn how to keep your gob shut, I hope, boy,” Whit said, making certain Brixton knew Whit had heard everything the boy had told Devil about Hattie.

  “Ignore him,” Felicity said. “What is it?”

  Brixton raised his chin toward Whit. “There’s reports there’s a girl in the market. Lookin’ fer Beast.” A pause, and then, “No’ a girl, really. A woman.” He lowered his voice. “The boys fink she’s a lady.”

  A rumble sounded low in Whit’s chest.

  Hattie.

  “Askin’ all sorts o’ questions.”

  Felicity looked to Whit. “Is she?”

  “Aye. No’ that we’re answerin’.” Of course they weren’t. No one in Covent Garden would give Lady Henrietta Sedley information about the Bastards. That was the first of the unspoken rules there. The Bastards belonged to the Rookery alone.

  “Good work, Brixton,” Devil said, flipping a coin to the boy, who snatched it out of the air with a grin and was gone before Devil could add, “Seems like you won’t have to find her, after all, Beast.”

  Whit’s grunt hid the thread of disbelief that coursed through him. And the wariness. And the desire to chase her down. No, he wouldn’t have to find her.

  She’d found him first.

  Chapter Eight

  There was nothing in the wide world like the Covent Garden market.

  The marketplace was massive, fronted by a great stone colonnade that gave way inside to an endless collection of shops and stalls selling anything a body could need—laden high with fruits and vegetables, flowers and sweets, meat pies and china, antiques and fabrics.

  Hattie was full of pleasure as she picked through the interior of the market, weaving in and out of the vendors, tempted by the riotous colors of the late autumn harvest—flower stalls overflowing with reds and oranges, magnificent gourds piled next to bushels of beetroots in myriad colors, and heaps of potatoes still dark with the rich soil in which they’d grown.

  To others, the building itself was the pride of the marketplace—an architectural marvel, massive and stunning, with immense, echoing rafters and stonework and ironwork that made this, London’s largest and most expansive market, the envy of all the world.

  But the building was nothing to Hattie. For Hattie, the draw of the market was the people within. And it was packed to the rafters with people. Farmers and merchants, florists and butchers, bakers and haberdashers and tinkers and tailors, all hawking their wares for a crush of customers that ranged from lowliest maid to jewel of the ton. If one could find their way into the building, it didn’t matter where they’d come from—Covent Garden market was one of the rare places in the city where a pauper’s ha’penny spent as well as a prince’s—perhaps even better, as a pauper didn’t have qualms about raising his voice when necessary . . . which it always was in the market.

  Because beyond the color and scent of the place was the sound. A raucous cacophony of shouts and laughter, of dedicated buyers and eager sellers, of barking dogs and clucking chickens and pipes and fiddles and children laughing.

  It was a pure, magnificent commotion. And Hattie adored it.

  She had since she was a little girl, when her father would let her hang about on the company’s ships while they were unloaded—the holds taking hours to empty, even with scores of men doing the backbreaking work. And when it was over, Mr. Sedley (he hadn’t been an earl then) would fetch his eldest child and promise her a trip to the Covent Garden market for a treat of her choosing.

  She thought back on those days as she lingered in the marketplace, the sun setting in the west, its rainbow of light making London—even the forgotten bits of it—magical. She thought of them, and the way she’d revered her father, the way she’d fallen in love with the ships and the business and the docks. And the way she’d loved this market, loud and raucous and covered in sawdust to soak up the stench and the filth that never seemed as off-putting as it should.

  And just as she had as a child, Hattie took her time this afternoon. Recalling how she’d once dawdled at every stall, smiling at the merchants and chatting up the farmers in search of the perfect prize, she returned to the same strategy. Searching for a different kind of prize.

  Beast.

  She went about it methodically, finding the friendliest merchants. The apple farmer, the woman with a basket of kittens on her hip, the evenhanded seamstress embroidering a tiny pink rose on a square of linen somehow k
ept immaculate in the marketplace. She spoke to them, bought an apple, cuddled a kitten, ordered a dozen new handkerchiefs.

  And then she asked about Beast.

  Did they know him? Of him?

  Did they have any idea where he could be found?

  She had something of his, you see . . . and she wished to return it.

  It was remarkable, though, how little her friendliness mattered. How little her patronage mattered. The moment she spoke the name—that silly, fantastical name—the merchants slipped through her fingers.

  Sorry, lady, the farmer said, turning away to tempt another customer.

  Ain’t heard of him, the lady with the kittens assured her, but do ye plan to buy?

  I’m sure I would remember such a name. The seamstress’s hands hadn’t even hesitated.

  It seemed all of Covent Garden was in the market to protect the Beast.

  With a sigh, Hattie took a bite from her apple, the crisp, sweet flavor exploding over her tongue as she weaved her way through the wagons, no longer piled high after a hard day of sale. The sounds in the market had quieted as the sun crept lower in the sky—people headed back to their beds to awake early and repeat the day again tomorrow.

  “Flowers, lady?” A girl, no older than seven or eight, with dark skin and eager eyes, met her as she exited toward the church of St. Paul. Her black hair was tucked up under a cap, a few curls unmoored by the long day, and she wore a dress and a shawl that had seen a lifetime of mending. A shabby basket dangled from her arm, handle splintered, holes worn into its base, five lone dahlias at the bottom, wilted from a day out of water in the market square.

  Hattie met the girl’s dark brown gaze, recognizing the uncertainty and resignation there. The girl knew her flowers weren’t what they might have been hours earlier. Knew, too, that she couldn’t go back to wherever she’d come from without having sold them.

  Hattie knew it, too. So she bought them, tuppence for the flowers, and another penny for the girl, who made to leave, no doubt thinking that if she didn’t Hattie might change her mind. But when Hattie said, “Wait,” the girl hesitated. Hattie leaned down to meet her wary eyes. “I’m looking for someone. Perhaps you could help?”

  Wariness narrowed into distrust. “Don’t know anyfin’ ’bout anyfin’, lady.”

  “I’m looking for a man,” Hattie pressed on. “His name is Beast.”

  Recognition. There, in the girl’s rich brown gaze. There, then gone. Hidden as the girl looked about, taking in the people lingering in the fast darkening square. Looking for someone? For spies?

  “I don’t wish to hurt him,” Hattie added.

  The girl’s smile was unexpected, as though Hattie had made a wonderful joke. “No one ’urts Beast,” she said before she realized she’d given away a piece of information that she shouldn’t have. Her eyes went wide, but before Hattie could press for more information, she said, “Nah, lady. Can’t help ye,” and scurried off with impressive speed, as though she’d never been there in the first place.

  Hattie sighed her frustration and watched the girl go, pulling her shawl tight around her as the late September air lost the warmth of the sun. Did the man have all of Covent Garden on his balance sheet?

  She’d have to leave soon—once it grew dark, it would be harder to hail a hack, but she had to find him, dammit. He was the key to everything—to her desires, to her plans, to her future. If she could convince him to call off his search for Augie, if she could finagle a deal with him to return what her idiot brother had taken, if she could convince him that she had the power to put an end to these severely misguided attacks . . .

  If she could just find the ruddy man, she had a chance at everything.

  Not to mention the fact that he’d made her a promise.

  The thought sent fire through her, pooling deep and speeding her pulse and setting her lips to tingling with the memory of his kiss the night before. He’d promised to make good on that kiss. To make good on the rest.

  And she intended him to keep it.

  “Try your luck, lady?”

  She turned at the sound, to where a man sat several yards away at a makeshift table of an ale cask and a wooden plank. He shuffled a deck of cards slowly and methodically, barely paying attention to the movements, his blue eyes shining bright beneath the brim of his cap, a wide, friendly smile focused on her.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  The soft rhythm of his next shuffle teased her. He fanned the cards across the wood, then picked them up in a single smooth motion.

  She shook her head. “I don’t play cards.”

  “Neither do I.” The man winked. “Awful habit.”

  She laughed, moving closer. He reminded her of a fox, sly and wily, bred of Covent Garden. He was like a weed sprung from the cracks in the stone slabs of the marketplace, with strong, hardy roots that were sure to regrow no matter how many times they were pulled. A man bred in the Garden would know the king of it, no doubt. She moved closer. “Then what is it you do play?”

  He spread the cards again. “Choose your three, milady.”

  She raised a brow and he laughed, spreading his hands wide. “Such mistrust!”

  “Whyever would I think you were planning to fleece me?”

  He put a hand to his chest and feigned affront. “Like an arrow in me heart.”

  He was absolutely planning to fleece her, but Hattie hadn’t grown up around sailors for nothing, and she had plans of her own. She reached down and slid three cards from the spread, leaving them facedown on the table. The gamer collected the rest of the deck, setting it to one side, lifting the card from the top of the pile with a wide smile. “Nothing below board.”

  It was all below board, but Hattie was willing to follow.

  Using the card he’d selected as a tool, he flipped the three Hattie had chosen: the three of spades, the eight of clubs, and then . . . the queen of hearts. He raised wide eyes to her. “Well, the lady chose you, it seems.”

  Hattie inclined her head. “And what do I receive for such a favor?”

  That smile again. “The chance to play your luck, of course.”

  “How much?”

  “Sixpence.” It was an exorbitant amount—enough to prove to Hattie that he thought he had her.

  And so she let him, digging into her pocket and pulling out the coin in question. She set it on the table. “And if my luck holds?”

  “Why then I double it, of course!”

  “Of course,” she said. This man didn’t lose. His entire livelihood was made here, on the edge of the market square, fleecing those who thought themselves above him. “What now?”

  “It’s no trouble.” He smiled, turning the three cards over, returning their faces to the table. The queen’s card was curved more than the others, domed to the table. “Where’s the lady?”

  Hattie pointed to the queen. He flipped the card, revealing her, then flipped her again. “Yer already a natural,” he said with a wink. “That’s all it is . . . watch the lady.”

  And then he began to move the cards, tossing them over and under each other, in broad arching throws at the start, so Hattie could follow the queen, then faster and faster, until the cards were moving in a near blur. A novice would be following the cards on the table, of course, watching carefully, tracking the queen.

  Hattie wasn’t a novice.

  When the man stopped, the cards finally settled into another line of three, he turned his wide face up to Hattie and said, “Find the lady, lady.”

  Hattie reached into her pocket and extracted a gold crown—more money than this broad-tosser would make in a week here at the market. “Shall we sweeten the deal?”

  Greed flashed. “I’m listening.”

  “If I lose, it’s yours.”

  Then triumph.

  “But if I find the lady . . . you tell me where I can find the Beast.”

  Surprise, then doubt, as though he perhaps shouldn’t make the deal. But arrogance won out, as it so often did with me
n. To deny the offer was to admit he might lose.

  He did not realize that Hattie played a much bigger game.

  “A’right, lady. Ye drive a hard bargain.” He waved a hand over the table. “Where’s the queen?”

  He expected her to choose the middle card. It was the card any good mark would have chosen if they’d been watching the cards on the table, not to mention having the domed middle they would be looking for. But Hattie hadn’t been watching the cards on the table. She’d been watching the ones in his hand.

  She put a finger on the card to the left.

  That broad smile again. “Let’s see, shall we?” He picked up the card furthest to the right and with it, flipped the card in the middle, revealing the three of spades—the card he would have let her turn over herself if she’d chosen it. “One step closer.”

  But he was prepared. He would ask her to move and let him flip the card for her, and in the process, he’d perform the same sleight of hand that had put the queen on the table in the first place. He waved his hand to indicate she should move away.

  Instead of moving, she turned the card herself, revealing the queen.

  His eyes flew to hers.

  “It seems the lady did choose me, after all,” she said. She lifted the crown from the table, returning it to her pocket. “According to our deal, you owe me. Sixpence and some information.”

  His eyes narrowed to slits as he reconsidered her, seeing beyond the bonnet and shawl that had quickly labeled her a novice. “Yer a ringer. ’At’s a cheat, that is.”

  “Nonsense,” Hattie said calmly. “I merely evened the odds. And if anything’s a cheat, it’s the fact that you were going to perform a buccaneer’s turnover and switch my queen for the eight of clubs in your hand.”

  The man scowled and collected the cards in a smooth motion, quickly disappearing any hint of impropriety. “I don’ deal wi’ ringers.”

  “Please don’t be disappointed,” Hattie said. “I’ve never seen a better tosser. But fair is fair, and we did make a bet.”

  “Aye, but ya didn’t play fair.” He slid the deck of cards into his pocket and stood, revealing his small frame—at least six inches shorter than her own, and reed-thin. Still, he had no trouble lifting the tabletop and tucking it under his arm. “No deal.”