“Ending with drink helps. Come with us?”
Devil shook his head. “No.”
“Fair enough.” Whit clapped Devil on the shoulder, and he hissed in pain. Shocked, Whit immediately released him. “You’re going to hurt in a few. You’re soaked through with sweat. It’s a miracle you’re still standing; go home and get them to pull you a hot bath.”
Devil shook his head. “In a bit. I’ve got to finish the last of the wall and lock the hold. The men deserve the celebration.”
“You worked all day down there. You did more work than any of us. You deserve the rest.” When Devil said nothing, he added, “I’m going to send word home. They’re going to pull you a bath in one hour. Be there for it.”
He nodded, not wanting Whit to know the truth—that he didn’t want to go back to that building that was full of memories of how he’d hurt her. “Go. I shall finish up and find a bed.”
“I don’t suppose it will be a bed warm with Felicity Faircloth?”
The idea stung. “I prefer you not talking.”
“Next time you take the girl to the roofs, Dev, call off the watch.”
He cursed roundly. “There’ll never be a word about Felicity Faircloth from the watch.”
“Of course not. Besides, once they hear she decked Marwick in front of the Duchess of Northumberland, they’ll love her even more.”
“Even more?”
Whit’s eyes darkened. “There are whispers that she makes you happy, bruv.”
She does. God above, Felicity made him happy—happier than he’d ever been, if he was honest. He wasn’t the kind of man who was afforded the luxury of happiness, except in her arms. And in her eyes. “I don’t wish to discuss Felicity Faircloth. And I’ll sack anyone else who does. She’s not for the Garden.”
His brother watched him for a long moment, unmoving, before he nodded once and turned away.
The group made quick work of leaving, the first group of watchmen making their way to the roof. No one would get into the building without a bullet in him first. Not without express permission from the Bastards themselves. So Devil was alone when he lowered himself from the dark warehouse into the dark hold, where a single lantern had been left burning.
He was alone when he took the hook to the final row of ice, lifting and moving until the blocks were even in a perfect wall, topping seven feet, this exertion, on top of the rest of the day’s, was a great deal, and his breath was harsh and labored by the end of his task. He moved slowly to the door, collecting the lantern, and let himself out of the hold, setting the lamp to the floor and closing the interior steel door behind him, eager to work the locks quickly and be rid of the darkness.
As though he’d ever be rid of the darkness now.
Before he’d even touched the first lock, a voice sounded from it. “Where is she?”
Devil spun to face Ewan in the shadows. “How did you get in here?”
His brother came closer, into the dim light of the lantern, fair-haired and tall and broad—too broad to be an aristocrat. It was a miracle no one had noticed his lack of refinement—a mark of his baseborn mother—though Devil imagined the aristocracy saw what they wished to see.
Ewan ignored the question. Repeated his own. “Where is she?”
“I’ll gut you if you’ve hurt another one of my men.”
“Another one?” the duke said, all innocence.
“It’s you, isn’t it? Thieving our shipments?”
“Why would you think that?”
“The toff on the docks, watching our ships. The timing—thefts began just before you announced your return. And now . . . here you are. What, it is not enough that you threatened our lives? You had to come for our livelihood, as well?”
Ewan leaned back against the wall of the dark tunnel. “I never came for your lives.”
“Bollocks. Even if I didn’t remember the last night at the manor house, when you came at us with a blade sharp enough to end us, you’ve been coming for us for years. We met the spies, Ewan. We ran them off. We raised a generation in the rookery on one, single rule. No one talks about the Bastards.”
Silver flashed, and Devil’s gaze flickered to his brother’s hand, where he held Devil’s walking stick. His heart began to pound, and he forced a laugh. “You think to silence me? You think you’re still the killer among us? I’ve twenty years in the rookeries on you, toff.”
Ewan’s lips flattened.
Devil pressed on. “But even if there were a chance of you taking me, you wouldn’t.”
“And why is that?”
“For the same reason you let us escape all those years ago—because if you kill me, you’ll never know what happened to Grace.”
Nothing changed in the duke at the words, not the cadence of his breath or the straightness of his spine, but Devil did not need proof that he’d struck true. There had been a time when he’d known Ewan like he knew himself. And he still did. They were plaited together, the three of them. The four of them.
“I found you,” Ewan said, finally.
The words sent a chill through Devil that rivaled the ice hold. “Yes. But not her.”
“You made a mistake, Dev.” He’d made a dozen of them, and this consequence was nothing compared to the others. “You should have been more careful with Felicity Faircloth.”
Tell me something true.
“I heard she hit you.”
Ewan raised a hand to his cheek. “She wasn’t happy to discover my ulterior motives.”
“Nor mine.”
I would have given you a thousand nights. And all you had to do was ask.
“I told her she should have been with us at the manor.” The country house where they’d been trained and tested, where Ewan had won his title and their father had won his heir.
If she’d been at the manor, Devil would never have survived it. He would have been too busy protecting Felicity to protect himself. He shook his head. “I wouldn’t wish her anywhere near the manor. I’d take death before she witnessed a moment of what we suffered. I don’t know how you live there. I would have burned it to the ground.”
“I consider it every day,” Ewan replied, all calm. “Perhaps, one day, I shall do it.”
Devil watched him for a long moment. Ewan had always been like this, settled and assessing, as though he simply did not feel the emotions made for the rest of the world. As though he found them interesting in the vague way one found a cabinet of curiosities so.
Grace had been the only person able to make Ewan feel. And even then, he’d nearly killed her. Nothing stood between Ewan and what he wanted.
Nothing but Devil, it seemed. Always Devil.
“I am not the one thieving your cargo,” Ewan said after a bit, the change of topic not remotely out of character. Devil believed him. After all, everything was out in the open now, and no one had reason to lie. “Earl Cheadle is thieving your cargo.”
Devil’s brows rose. He wasn’t sure he believed the words, but Ewan had little reason to lie. “It didn’t occur to you to do something about it?”
“We’re all criminals in some way or another, Devon,” Ewan said, simply. “And besides, your drink is not what I’m after.”
“No. You’re after something far more valuable. The impossible.”
“She’s all I’ve ever been after,” Ewan said. “And Felicity Faircloth served her purpose to get me here. Close enough to find her. I will say, Lady Felicity was convenient . . . even more convenient than I imagined she would be, once I realized that you cared for her.”