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It had seemed unlikely anyone would want him.
He heard the footsteps ring out down the hall. They were coming for him, to take him to the workhouse. He rolled off the side of his pallet, crouching low and collecting his things, moving to stand flat at the wall beside the door.
The lock clicked and the door opened, revealing a thread of candlelight—never seen in the orphanage after dark. He made a run for it, weaving through two sets of legs, getting halfway down the hall before a strong hand landed on his shoulder and lifted him clean off the ground.
He kicked and screamed, craning to bite the offending hand.
“Good God. This one is feral,” a deep baritone voice said, and Devil went perfectly still at the sound of it. He’d never heard anyone speak such perfect, measured English. He stopped trying to bite, instead turning to look at the man who held him—tall as a tree and cleaner than anyone Devil had ever seen, with eyes the color of the floorboards of the room where they were supposed to pray.
Devil wasn’t very good at praying.
Someone lifted the candle to Devil’s face, the bright flame making him flinch away. “That’s him.” The dean.
Devil turned to face his captor once more. “I ain’t goin’ to the workhouse.”
“Of course you’re not,” the strange man had said. He reached for Devil’s pack, opening it.
“Oi! Them’s my things!”
The man ignored him, tossing the socks and biscuit to the side, lifting the pin and turning it to the light. Devil raged at the idea of this man, this stranger, touching the only thing he had of his mother. The only thing he had of his past. His small hands curled into fists, and he took a swing, connecting with the fancy man’s hip. “’At’s mine! You can’t have it!”
The man hissed in pain. “Christ. The demon can throw a punch.”
The dean minced. “He didn’t learn that from us.”
Devil scowled. Where else would he have learned it? “Give it back.”
The well-dressed man summoned him closer, waving Devil’s treasure in the air. “Your mother gave this to you.”
Devil reached out and snatched it from the man’s hand, hating the embarrassment that came at the words. Embarrassment and longing. “Yeah.”
A nod. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Hope flared, hot and almost unpleasant in Devil’s chest.
The man continued. “Do you know what a duke is?”
“No, sir.”
“You will,” he promised.
Memories were a bitch.
Devil crept down the long upper hallway of Marwick House, the strains of the orchestra whispering through the dimly lit space from the floor below. He hadn’t thought of the night his father had found him in a decade. Maybe longer.
But tonight, being in this house, which somehow still smelled the same, he remembered every bit of that first night. The bath, the warm food, the soft bed. Like he’d fallen asleep and woken up in a dream.
And that night, it had been a dream.
The nightmare had begun soon after.
Putting the memory from his mind, he arrived at the master bedchamber, setting his hand to the door handle, turning it quickly and silently, and stepping inside.
His brother stood at the window, tumbler dangling in his hand, hair gleaming blond in the candlelight. Ewan did not turn to face Devil. Instead, he said, “I wondered if you would come tonight.”
The voice was the same. Cultured and measured and deep, like their father. “You sound like the duke.”
“I am the duke.”
Devil let the door close behind him. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant.”
Devil tapped his walking stick twice on the floor. “Did we not make a pact all those years ago?”
Marwick turned to reveal the side of his face. “I’ve been looking for you for twelve years.”
Devil sank into the low armchair by the fire, extending his legs toward the place where the duke stood. “If only I’d known.”
“I think you did.”
Of course they had known. The moment they’d come of age, a stream of men had come sniffing around the rookery, asking about a trio of orphans who might have found their way to London years earlier. Two boys and a girl, with names no one in Covent Garden recognized . . . no one but the Bastards themselves.
No one but the Bastards and Ewan, the young Duke of Marwick, rich as a king and old enough to put the money to good use.
But eight years in the rookery had made Devil and Whit as powerful as they were cunning, as strong as they were forbidding, and no one talked about the Bareknuckle Bastards for fear of retribution. Especially to outsiders.
And with the trail gone cold, the men who came sniffing always dropped the scent and left.
This time, however, it was not an employee who came for them. It was Marwick himself. And with a better plan than ever.
“I assume you thought that by announcing your hunt for a wife, you’d get our attention,” Devil said.
Marwick turned. “It worked.”
“No heirs, Ewan,” Devil said, unable to use the name of the dukedom to his face. “That was the deal. Do you remember the last time you reneged on a deal with me?”
The duke’s eyes went dark. “Yes.”
That night, Devil had taken everything the duke had loved, and run. “And what makes you think I won’t do it again?”
“Because this time I am a duke,” Ewan said. “And my power extends far beyond Covent Garden, no matter how heavy your fists are these days, Devon. I will bring hell down upon you. And not just you. Our brother. Your men. Your business. You lose everything.”
It would be worth it. Devil’s gaze narrowed on his brother. “What do you want?”
“I told you I would come for her.”
Grace. The fourth of their band, the woman Whit and Devil called sister, though no blood was shared between them. The girl Ewan had loved even then, when they were children.
Grace, who three brothers had vowed to protect all those years ago, when
they were young and innocent, and before betrayal had broken their bond.
Grace, who, in Ewan’s betrayal, had become the dukedom’s most dangerous secret. For it was Grace who was the truth of the dukedom. Grace, born to the former duke and his wife, the duchess. Grace, baptized their child despite being illegitimate in her own way.
But it was Ewan now, years later, who bore that baptismal name. Who held the title that belonged to none of them by rights.
And Grace, the living, breathing proof that Ewan had thieved the title, the fortune, the future—a theft which the Crown did not take lightly.
A theft which, if discovered, would see Ewan dancing at the end of a rope outside Newgate.
Devil narrowed his gaze on his brother. “You’ll never find her.”
Ewan’s eyes darkened. “I shan’t hurt her.”
“You are as mad as your precious aristocracy says if you think we’ll believe that. Do you not remember the night we left? I do, every time I look in the mirror.”
Marwick’s gaze flickered to Devil’s cheek, to the wicked scar there, the powerful reminder of how little brotherhood had meant when it came to claiming power. “I had no choice.”
“We all had a choice that night. You chose your title, your money, and your power. And we allowed you all three, despite Whit wanting to snuff you out before the rot of our sire could consume you. We let you live, despite your clear willingness to see us dead. On one condition—our father was mad for an heir, and though he might get a false one in you, he would not receive the satisfaction of a line of them—not even in death. We will always be on opposite sides in this fight, Duke. No heirs was the rule. The only rule. We left you alone all these years with your ill-gotten title because of it. But know this—if you decide to flout it, I will tear you apart, and you will never find an ounce of happiness in this life.”
“You think I am riddled with happiness now?”
Christ, Devil hoped not. He hoped that there was nothing that made the duke happy. He’d reveled in his brother’s legendary hermitage, knowing that Ewan lived in the house where they’d been pitted against each other, bastard sons in a battle for legitimacy. For name and title and fortune. Taught to dance and dine and speak with eloquence that belied the shame into which the three of them had been born.
