disgust in the words. She was softness and shine—cleaner and fresher in her starched bonnet and her white shawl than this place had ever been. She was nothing like it, and shouldn’t be here. And she should be disgusted by what she’d witnessed. By the coarseness of it. By the filth.
By him.
“No, not you,” she said, and for a wild moment, Whit imagined she’d heard his thoughts. She lifted the blade, inspected it in the fast-disappearing light, and added, in a whisper, “They were afraid of the idea of you.”
“All fear is fear of an idea,” he said. He knew that better than most. Had been weaned on terror and learned to survive it. The tangible was bearable. It was the intangible that would steal breath and sleep and hope.
She tilted her head, considering him. “And what is the idea of you?”
Beast. He didn’t give voice to the word. To the promise of it. For some wild reason, he didn’t want her thinking of Beast when she looked at him.
He didn’t want her looking at him.
Lie.
“Where is your chaperone?”
She blinked. “What?”
“It makes sense you didn’t have one last night—no need for chaperoning at a brothel—but you’re a woman of means, Henrietta Sedley, and there are any number of people in the marketplace who would have cause to recognize you.”
Her lips, wide and full, opened on a surprised gasp. “You know who I am.”
He didn’t reply. There was no need.
“How?” she pressed.
Ignoring her question, he said, “You still don’t know who I am, if you thought seeking me out was a good idea.”
“I know they call you Beast.” He’d told her that. “I know your brother is Devil.” Uncertainty whispered through him. What else did she know? “Which makes me question the naming protocol in your family.”
“He’s my half-brother. We named ourselves,” he said, hating the speed with which he replied. Hating that he replied at all.
Her face softened, and he hated that, too, irrationally. “I’m sorry for that, if those were the names you chose. But I suppose the Bareknuckle Bastards deserve names that deliver a blow.”
He took a step toward her. “For someone who claims not to know anything about how I came to be unconscious in her carriage last evening, you know a great deal.”
Those sinful lips curved into a smile, the expression like a blow. “You think I would not ask questions after our encounter?”
He should have scowled. Should have pounced on the evidence that she had a close relationship with the enemy that had shot his man and stolen his shipments and knocked him out. Should have held her family and its business to the fire and promised to set it aflame if she did not give him the information he desired.
He should have. But instead, he said, “And what else did you discover about me?”
What the fuck was he doing talking to her?
Her smile turned to secrets. “I am told that once you come for someone, you don’t stop until you find them.”
That much was true.
“But I wasn’t certain you would come for me.”
Of course he would have. He would have come for her in her Mayfair tower even if she didn’t have the information he desired.
No. Whit resisted the thought—an impressive feat until she added, that punishing dimple flashing in her cheek, “So I came for you.”
He would never admit the pleasure that coursed through him at that confession. Nor would he admit to the pleasure that came when she reached for his hand, lifting it in one of hers.
“What happened to your hand?” The kidskin gloves she wore did not stop the sting of her heat as she stroked her fingers over his knuckles, red and stinging from the blow he’d put to the wall earlier. “You’re hurt.”
He sucked in a breath and removed his hand from her grasp, shaking it out. Wanting to erase her touch. “It’s nothing.”
She watched him for a moment, and he imagined her seeing more than he wished. And then, softly, she said, “No one would tell me about you.”
He grunted. “That didn’t stop you asking. Which returns us to the issue of your chaperone. Any number of toffs could have seen you. And I imagine any number of toffs would have questioned your lack of subtlety in asking for me.”
Her lips twisted in a wry smile. “I am not known for subtlety.” There was something more in her tone than humor, though—something he found he did not like.