“I am unimpressed by peerages.”
She met his gaze. “I shouldn’t have said what I said about you. I am sorry.”
He wasn’t about to allow that. “You called me handsome. You cannot take that back.”
“What would be the point? It’s empirical.”
He knew he was handsome; she wasn’t the first woman to say it to him, nor the hundredth, and yet, hearing it from her was different than hearing it from the others. As though he’d earned it from her in some way. Impossibly, heat spread across his cheeks again, and he was very grateful for the darkness. If the boys in the Garden knew that the unflappable Beast had blushed twice this evening, he’d never get another ounce of respect. He cleared his throat. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He should return her to the house, this woman who had rescued him and hadn’t asked him to explain. Hadn’t even lingered on the events inside. Instead, she’d told him about the last, miserable dance she’d had. And he’d told her nothing.
He didn’t want to bring her in. He wanted to tell her something. “I think you would like my sister.”
Hattie froze at the words. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“There are many things you do not know about me.”
“If only there were some way you could tell me such things. Some kind of verbal communication you might attempt. Turning all your growls and grunts into discernible words. A spoken language of some kind, complete with meaning.”
He grunted his amusement, and she smiled.
“Do you want to hear about her or not?”
Her eyes widened. “Absolutely.”
“My sister was born a woman into a man’s world. My father used to say she’d had a single purpose, and she hadn’t been able to achieve it.”
“A disappointment from her first breath,” Hattie said, too familiar with the idea.
“And every breath after,” Whit agreed, avoiding the full truth of the story. The bit where his father had never intended for the bastard girl not of his blood—useful only as a placeholder for his future heir—to live past her fourteenth birthday. Instead, he skipped to the midpoint of the tale. “When we were fourteen, Grace and Devil and I fled—to start our lives outside of his control. We arrived in the city and found our way to Covent Garden. I thought we could go to—”
To his mother. The only one of their mothers who had lived at that point.
He reached into his pocket, taking his second pocket watch in hand. Hattie’s gaze tracked the movement, and for a single, mad moment, he considered telling her everything. But telling her would bring her too close. And he couldn’t afford her close.
He shook his head and returned his attention to her. Cleared his throat. “Suffice to say, we couldn’t have survived without Grace. She was smarter and stronger than the rest of us, by far. Bits notwithstanding.” Grace might not have been their sister by blood, but she was their sister in spirit.
She smiled at that. “Where is she now?”
He didn’t know. Grace had left town after Ewan had returned, knowing that he had been looking for her. Knowing that the last time Ewan had seen her, he’d tried to kill her. They’d told Ewan she was dead, and he’d nearly killed Devil for the news, then left, madder than before. She was somehow keeping her businesses running from hiding, but still, she hadn’t returned.
In the silence, Hattie said, “Well, wherever she is, I am grateful that you had each other.”
Don’t be kind to me, Henrietta Sedley. I don’t deserve it.
He forced his thoughts down a new path. “Body. Business. Home. Fortune. Future.” Her eyes went wide at the echo of the night they’d met. “Body begets business. You think my ruining you will get you closer to Sedley Shipping.”
She looked back to the house, where no doubt London was agog at how she’d marched him into the gardens. “We shall find out soon enough. I’m well and truly ruined after tonight.”
“You’re nowhere near the kind of ruined you want,” he said more casually than he felt at the idea of getting her alone so he could do the deed properly. “And we’ll get to that, but first, body begets business begets fortune begets future. Assuming you get the business.”
Her attention snapped to him. “I’ll get it.”
He ignored the vow and the whisper of guilt that came with it. “And what of home? You expect your father to give you the business, but not let you stay in your family’s home?”
“Of course he would. But a woman of business requires a home of her own. Filled with a life she’s made for herself. One she’s chosen for herself.”
“Does she?”
“Don’t you?” she asked, not waiting for him to answer before she added, “I would wager you do. Some kind of lair deep in Covent Garden. Filled with . . .” She stopped, and he hung on the pause. “. . . plants or something.”
He blinked. “Plants?”
“You seem the kind of man who has plants.”
“Potted plants?”
“No.” She shook her head, as though this were all perfectly normal. “Exotic plants. Things a body could not find without a serious tour about another continent.”
He laughed at that, surprising himself with the way she made him lighter. “I’ve never been outside of Britain.”
Her eyes went wide. “Really?”
He shrugged. Where would a boy raised in the gutter go?
“Well then,” she said, waving away the moment. “Potted plants, then.”
He shook his head. “I don’t have plants.”
“Oh. You should get some.”
He resisted the urge to continue down her mad path and instead said, “And what of you . . . do you have a home in mind? In which to keep your own plants?”
She smiled. “In fact, I do.”
“Where?” He shouldn’t care. But he did—he wanted to know about this dream she had—the part that went far beyond what he’d already seen. He wanted her to share it with him. To choose him to share it with.
The pleasure he felt when she did just that was immense, filling the darkest parts of him when she reached out and clasped his hand, leading him to the far side of the gardens. It was no wonder that he followed without question.
Hattie drew him to a small stone bench several yards away, perched against the brick wall that separated the Warnick gardens from the neighbor’s. Twisting her hand in his clasp, she used her free hand to lift her skirts, and stepped up onto the bench. He instantly helped her, providing strength and balance as she gained her footing there.
“Thank you.” She released his hand, immediately reoffering it to him. An invitation.
He didn’t take it, but joined her anyway. “This is unexpected.”
She grinned, her excitement heady. “You do not spend a great deal of time standing on benches with ladies?”
He offered a little grunt in reply.
“But you’ve scaled a wall in your day.”
His brows shot up. “Are we scaling a wall tonight, my lady?”
“I would not want to ruin your handsome attire,” she teased, “but we can look.” She pointed over the wall. “Look.”