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After checking on the men who’d been sent to the Rookery infirmary, Whit had collected a heavy iron box hook and set to work on the line of men who were working in unison, heaving crates up and passing them from man to man, until they’d saved as much cargo as they could. The men had come quickly from the taverns along the docks, forgetting that Hattie had paid them not to work that night—knowing that there was a difference between a deal made for rivalry and a tragedy requiring assistance.
When he’d assessed the hold, finally, he’d acknowledged a bit of loss—several cases of brandy had been smashed in the reverberations of the explosion, but Whit had been impressed with the security of the cargo.
He’d heard a second explosion in the distance while below deck, the sound tearing a wicked curse from him. The report had come quickly. Another boat. An empty one. Nothing that required his attention. Tonight, this hold required his attention, and quickly—before the ice, which had been carefully packed and cared for on the Oslo end of the journey, melted enough to make it difficult to move the contraband.
The Bastards smuggled inside ice, so as not to risk discovery—not even on a night like tonight, when it seemed every alternate plan should have been in play.
Instead, Whit worked at the head of the line, slowly and methodically, deciding which blocks were moved, which stayed, and which cargo left the hold when. He’d be damned if he’d see their carefully imported, untaxed product suddenly compromised by too much fear and the same amount of speed.
He hooked two crates of bourbon in quick succession, passing them along the line before collecting a block of ice, and then a second. The man working alongside him groaned under the weight of the heavy blocks.
“Those are clear enough to sell,” Whit said of the ice blocks, raising his voice to make sure Nik heard him from her place deep in the hold. “And there’s a half dozen here that are the same—untouched by the explosion.”
The Norwegian nodded, then smirked in his direction. “And would you like them to be sold?”
“No.”
She grinned. “You save them for raspberry ices. How sweet.”
The children of the Rookery got sweets when there was ice in port. Whit saw no reason why that should change because of the evening’s disaster.
“Tell me, Nik,” he intoned as he hefted another block. “Does the Lady Nora have a sweet tooth?”
The men on the line laughed at the question, especially when Nik threw Whit an insulting hand gesture. Whit smiled and returned to his work, letting the rhythm of the line lull him into calm. Into thoughts of Hattie. He wondered if she preferred lemon or raspberry ice; imagined the sounds she would make if he fed her the sugary treat. If he dropped a spoonful of it between her breasts. How long he’d be able to resist the urge to lick it from her skin.
He grunted as he moved a cask of ale, passing it down the line.
I want it all.
Hattie’s strong, sweet voice, demanding everything she desired. Everything she deserved. Insisting that he be her equal partner or nothing at all.
Christ, he wanted it, too.
But tonight this world had almost killed her, and he hadn’t been able to protect her. Ewan had come for them—Whit had no doubt his brother was behind the explosion—but even if the lookouts tracked him and found him, threats would keep coming. The threat was the wide world. And Whit knew, without question, that though he could barely conceive of a life without Hattie, he absolutely could not live without her safe.
He’d been right to push her away. To put her in the hack.
Don’t do this. Believe in me.
He resisted her words, still echoing through him.
You don’t have to protect me.
Of course he did. He had.
“Beast!”
The call came from a distance, from above the hold, and he didn’t reply, not wanting to leave his work, the strain of the casks and crates burning his muscles and keeping the pain of sending Hattie away at bay.
Devil dropped down into the hold behind him nevertheless, pushing his way through the line. “Beast,” he repeated, and that’s when Whit heard the strange tenor of his brother’s voice. Familiar. Unsettling.
Something had happened. Something had gone terribly wrong.
He turned to face Devil, the taller man’s lean face all angles in the lamplight, cheeks shadowed, eyes focused in the darkness. Devil was in shirtsleeves—as was Whit—but he was missing his cane sword. The loss of it was like the loss of a limb, and Whit noticed instantly. He stayed his movement, coming to his full height in the low-ceilinged space. “What’s happened?”
A moment, then Devil shook his head.
Whit cursed in the darkness. “Goddammit.” It could only be news of the men they’d sent to the infirmary earlier. “Abraham? Mark? Robert?” They’d all been conscious—none of them with wounds that had struck Whit as terminal. But things did not always work out the way they seemed. “Did someone not make it? Which one?” He stepped toward his brother. “I shall tear London apart by the bricks until we find Ewan. He dies.”
It never got easier. How many had they seen die? Dozens? A score? A hundred? When one grew up on the streets of Covent Garden, death was a part of life, like violence and illness, but it never got easier.
“Who is it?” he asked again.
Devil shook his head, his eyes filled with something awful. Something Whit didn’t understand. What then? What else could it—
“Whit.” Devil wasn’t angry. It wasn’t frustration in his words, thick with the accent of their past. Thick with sorrow. “Bruv. It’s Hattie.”
Whit stilled, his brother’s face coming into sharp focus. Full of sadness. Fear, too. Fear of what might happen when Whit understood everything. And something else—fear that it might one day happen to him.
And that fear—tinged with the hot, panicked relief of a man who had dodged a bullet—brought the truth. Whit froze, understanding crashing through him. A third explosion. One that did more damage than the others.
Nik came toward him, horror on her pale face. “Beast,” she said softly. Entirely un-Nik-like.
He dropped the hook to the floor of the hold, his step toward Devil the only movement, no one working, everything stopped, like time. Like his heart. “No.”
Devil nodded. “The boys found her on the docks, a hundred yards from here.”
Whit looked over his shoulder to where Nik stood sentry, several feet away, her brow furrowed. He shook his head. “It’s not her. I put her in a hack.”
He’d paid the driver. Sent her to Mayfair.
Sent her away, not wanting her here. In danger.
Protecting her.
And she’d begged him to stay. Believe in me.
If he had—she would have been with him. Safe.
“She came back,” his brother said. “The second explosion must have—”
Whit slid a hand into his pocket, running a thumb over the pocket watch within. His warrior wouldn’t have waited half a block before finding a way back if she wanted to be here.
She’d found a way back. To stand beside him. His equal.
Would you know if she were dead?
Ewan’s question the night he’d threatened Hattie. The night he’d promised to take her from Whit if he didn’t give her up.
