“Does it have something to do with the woman at Shelton Street?”
Whit’s attention flew to Nik at the words. “What?”
“Ah, yes. The woman. We heard about that, too,” Devil said. “Apparently you were tossed out of a carriage into a group of drunks and then followed what Brixton referred to as—” He grinned at his wife. “What was it, love?”
Felicity’s mouth twisted in a wry smile. “A lady toff.”
“Ah, yes. I hear you followed a lady toff into Grace’s brothel.”
Whit did not reply.
“And lingered,” Nik added.
Dammit.
Whit met the Norwegian’s eyes. “Have you nowhere to be? We still run a business or two, do we not?”
Nik shrugged. “I shall get the story from the lads.”
Whit scowled, pretending not to notice when she brushed her hand over Jamie’s brow, whispered a few encouraging words to the boy before taking her leave.
After a long silence, Felicity said, “Are we to get the story from the lads, as well?”
“I am already in possession of one inquisitive sister.”
Felicity smiled. “Yes, but as she is not here, I must stand for both of us.”
He scowled. “I woke up in a carriage, with a woman.”
Devil’s brows furrowed. “And I assume this did not occur in the excellent way that such a scenario might?”
It was the hottest kiss Whit had ever experienced, but that was not for his brother to know. “When I exited the carriage—”
“We heard you were thrown out,” Felicity said.
He gave a little growl. “It was mutual.”
“Mutual,” Felicity repeated. “Carriage tossing.”
Lord deliver him from prying sisters. “When I exited the carriage,” he said, “she was headed deeper into the Garden. I followed.”
Devil nodded. “Who is she?”
He stayed quiet.
“Christ, Whit, you got the lady toff’s name, didn’t you?”
He turned to Felicity. “Hattie.”
Having a sister-in-law who was once an aristocrat paid handsomely at times, particularly when one required the name of a noblewoman. “Spinster?”
It wasn’t the first descriptor he’d assign to her.
“Very tall? Blond?” Felicity pressed.
He nodded.
“Plump?”
The word brought back the memory of the dips and valleys of her curves. He growled his assent.
Felicity turned to Devil. “Well then.”
“Mmm,” Devil said. “We shall come back to that. Do you know who the woman is?”
“Hattie’s quite a common name.”
“But?”
She looked to Whit, then back to her husband. “Henrietta Sedley is daughter to the Earl of Cheadle.”
The truth slammed through Whit, along with triumphant pleasure at the revelation of Hattie’s identity. Cheadle had earned the earldom—received it from the king himself for nobility at sea. I grew up on the docks, she’d told him when he’d tried to scare her with foul language. “That’s her.”
“So Ewan is working with Cheadle?” Devil said, shaking his head. “Why would the earl go in against us? It doesn’t make sense.”
And it didn’t. Andrew Sedley, Earl of Cheadle, was beloved on the docks. His business was a source of honest work and good pay, and men who worked the Thames knew him as a fair man willing to hire anyone with an able body and a strong hook, regardless of name or country or fortune.
The Bastards had never had cause to interact with Sedley, as he exclusively ran aboveboard shipments, paid his lading taxes, and kept his business clean, with nary a whiff of impropriety. No weapons. No drugs. No people. The same rules the Bastards played by, though they played in the muck, their contraband running to booze and paper, crystal and wigs, and anything else taxed beyond reason by the Crown. And they weren’t afraid to defend themselves with force.
The idea that Cheadle might have shot the first cannon at them was beyond understanding. But Cheadle and his daring daughter weren’t alone.
“The son,” Whit said. August Sedley was by all accounts an indolent lackwit, bereft of his father’s work ethic and respect.
“It could be,” Felicity said. “No one thinks much of him. He’s charming but not very intelligent.”
Which meant the young Sedley lacked the sense required to understand that going up against Covent Garden’s best known and most beloved criminals was not to be done lightly. If Hattie’s brother was behind the hijackings, it could mean only one thing.
Devil saw it, too. “Ewan has the brother doing his work, and the sister protects her family.”
Whit knew the price of that. He grunted his agreement.
“She fails,” Devil said, tapping against the floor again and looking down at Jamie. “This ends. We take the son, the father, the whole fucking family if need be. And they lead