“Aye?”
“There’s a house in Berkeley Square. Next to Warnick’s. It’s empty.”
“Yeah?”
“Buy it. Put it in her name.”
His brother did not hesitate over the request. He nodded. “Done.”
Whit brushed her hair from her face, ran his fingers over the impossibly soft skin of her cheeks. “You see, love? We’re buying your house. You’ll have to wake to live in it, though. And I’d like very much to live in it with you.” He reached to touch her, to brush the hair from her brow. “The Year of Hattie is shaping up.”
She moved.
It was barely there, the movement. A flicker behind her eyelids. He wouldn’t have noticed if he weren’t so focused on her. He came up off his knees, leaning over her on the bed. “Hattie?” He moved closer, taking her hand in his again, trying not to squeeze too hard. “Hattie. Please, love.”
Another flicker. “Yes. That’s it, love.”
The air in the room shifted, everyone coming closer, the whole assembly on a knife’s point, except for Whit, who was talking again. “You have to open your eyes, Hattie. You have the most beautiful eyes. Have I told you that? I’ve never seen eyes like yours—so expressive. And when you told me you loved me earlier, you nearly put me to my knees. Wouldn’t you like a chance to do that again? Open your eyes, love.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Open your eyes so I can tell you how much I love you.”
And she did.
Her lids opened and her gaze focused on his, and—impossibly—she smiled, as though she hadn’t just been on death’s door. And she did put him to his knees, because he found he did not have the strength to hold himself up.
Nora gasped, and Nik was out the door for the doctor, and Hattie tightened her hand in his, and said, “That was a very tempting offer.”
He laughed at the words, unable to keep the tears from spilling down his cheeks. “I’m very happy to hear it.”
Her hand came to his head, her fingers tangling in his hair, weak, but there. “Tell me,” she whispered.
“I love you, Henrietta Sedley.”
Her smile broadened, dimple flashing. “I like that.”
He barked another laugh. “As do I, now that you’re awake enough to hear it.” He paused, then looked over his shoulder to the door. “Where’s the damn doctor?”
She shook her head, “No doctor. Not yet,” she said. “Not before I say this: I set out to claim myself—body, business, home, fortune, future. But you own it all.”
“We don’t have to marry,” he said. “You want the business. It’s yours. I’ll have the papers drawn up now. The fortune you’ll no doubt make with your sharp mind and your charm. Have all of it to yourself. But . . .” A plea edged into his words. “Let me share your future. Not as your husband. Not as your protector. As your partner. As your equal. However you like. I’ll take whatever you’ll give, as long as we’re together.”
She shook her head with a little wince that had him looking for the doctor again. “No, Whit. You misunderstand. You own it all. Every bit of me. And I give it, freely.”
He pressed a kiss to her knuckles and then to her lips, to her cheeks and forehead and then back to her mouth. “I own nothing. Everything of mine is yours, nothing if it is not shared. My business, my life, my world, my heart.”
She smiled, small, but there. “I am your protector.”
He closed his eyes at the words. At the pleasure that rioted through him with them. “Yes. Christ, yes.”
“Tell me again.”
And he did, low and sweet against her lips. “I love you.”
The doctor came and went, pronouncing her on the mend but requiring observation for several days in the infirmary. Their assembled guests left with proper introductions and relieved kisses and promises to visit daily, and moments later, a cacophonous cheer sounded from outside, shaking the windows in their seats.
Inside, Hattie’s eyes went wide, and she lifted her head from where it rested on Whit’s chest, as the moment they were alone, he’d climbed into bed with her and vowed not to leave the place until she did. “What was that?”
“The Rookery, cheering their lady on the mend.”
She smiled at that. “Their lady?”
“My lady.”
“My Beast.” A pause and then, “Kiss me again.”
He did, first gently, and then, when she pulled him closer, deeper. When he finally lifted his head, she sighed. “Tell me again.”
“I love you.”
Pink washed over her cheeks—a mark of her pleasure, and of her health. And then she closed her eyes and said, “Now tell me all the other things. All the things you said when I couldn’t hear them.”
And Beast settled in, his lady in his arms, content to spend the rest of his life doing just that.
Epilogue
One Year Later
Hattie stood at the helm of the ship, taking in her city.
The sun set over the rooftops, the whole of London burning amber in the light, the river gleaming like gold. She could hear the shouts of men and women up and down the docks, chattering and laughing and calling out to each other, late afternoon on the Docklands bursting with life. A half-dozen other ships were berthed along the quay, all owned by Sedley-Whittington Shipping, all crawling with dockworkers hauling product, all aboveboard.
But not this one. This one quiet, left only to her.
This one belonged to the Bareknuckle Bastards.
“There you are.”
Hattie turned at the dark, satisfied words to find her husband crossing the deck, greatcoat billowing out behind him as his long legs and sure strides consumed the oak boards. She lifted a hand as he approached the steps leading up to where she stood. “Wait.”
He did, instantly, looking up at her with a smile on his lips and a question in his eyes—eyes that glittered amber as the setting sun. His face bronzed from a summer of work on the ships—he remained breathtakingly handsome. “What is it?”
She smiled down at him. “I just like to look at you.”
Whit’s smile turned wolfish. “As I like to look at you, wife.” He took the steps two at a time, meeting her halfway across the raised deck, taking her into his arms. “I like to touch you, as well.”
He caressed down her arms, over the turquoise dress she wore. “I like this pretty frock.” Lifting one hand to her hair, pushing a long lock behind her ear. “I like your beautiful eyes.” And then he set his hand possessively to her belly, round and full with their first child. “And I like this more than I can say.”
She blushed at the low, sinful words, at the memory of how well he had proved the last the night before. She tilted her face up to his. “And what do you think of kissing me?”
He growled low in the back of his throat and showed her just how well he liked that, too, kissing her long and lush, stroking deep until she was lost to it, giving herself up to him. Only then did he break the caress with a second, soft and sweet, and a third on her cheek, and the last in her hair as he pulled her close and breathed her in. “I love you,” he whispered, the words stolen by the wind before Hattie could hear them.