In the Dark with the Duke by Christi Caldwell Page 0,116

. . . if Hugh didn’t . . . Dooley and his noble patrons would win. They would, when they’d already taken so very much from Hugh.

Hugh opened his eyes. “Someday, you will find a path forward. One different from this one. One not rife with revenge and the hungering for more bloodshed, more violence. But I’m afraid I cannot bring you Prendergast. Let the law have the information we’re in possession of, and let them have him.”

Exploding to his feet, Maynard erupted into a litany of black, vile curses. “Yar a bloody coward is what ya are. Ya never ’ad a family, so you don’t know anything about loyalty. Ya were always weak, and now that yar a foine toff, yar even more weak now.”

“And worse, ’e’s turning ’is back on us,” Bragger spat.

Maynard sneered. “Again.”

At last it had been spoken. That barb neither man had thrown out. Until now.

With that Maynard grabbed his folder, marched off, and slammed the door in his wake.

Once, those words Maynard had hurled would have gutted Hugh. Lila had helped him see that fairness wasn’t a weakness. Rather, it was a mark of strength. “All these years,” Hugh said quietly, “I’ve been trying to pay a debt to you.” One he now knew would never be sufficiently paid. Not to them. “I’ve been filled with regret for leaving you both behind. But nothing I do will ever be enough. You would have been content to take and take.” And if it hadn’t been for Lila, Hugh would have continued trying to atone for a decision he’d made as a boy trying to survive.

Bragger jumped to his feet. “Ya want to speak of forgiveness and justice,” he said with a calm more eviscerating than had he gone on the attack. “But the truth is? Ya don’t know anything about anything. Not really. Ya never ’ad a family. Not that ya remember. Me?” He pounded a fist hard against his chest. “Oi ’ave to think of the sister made to foight.” Bragger’s voice cracked, and through it, he glared blackly at Hugh, as if blaming him for that rare show of vulnerability. “Oi’m the one who ’as to wonder where she disappeared to after a foight. Which nob took her for ’is pleasures. Or worse . . .” Bragger inhaled slowly and then released his breath.

Hugh remained calm through that explosion of emotion. “I’ll get you the information you seek about Valerie. I’ll even help you take down the last ringleader—not for revenge, for justice for the victims.” Of which there’d been so many. “But after this? I’m done with you.” And he was done with his past.

A freeing lightness came with that vow.

Bragger’s eyes blazed with emotion. “Oi want ya to understand wot yar turning yar back on. Yar loife. This.” He jerked a chin. “It’s all charmed. Ya’ve got a foine lady yar dancing attendance on. A bloody mansion. It’s all charmed . . . until it’s not. And then? Then, yar just loike us once more. Miserable and alone.” Bragger turned quickly on his heel and, with that ominous warning, left.

Hugh stared after him at the entryway the other man had just departed through . . . and he considered his former partner’s charges.

Ya never ’ad a family . . .

In that, Bragger had been correct. Hugh had been born to a duke and duchess, but he’d no recollections of them. Whereas Bragger? Bragger’d known and remembered and would always recall the sister he’d lost.

And when Hugh left London and the memories here, there’d still be no family.

A thought slid in . . . of he and Lila and a babe. A girl, like Lila with her spirit and courage. The hungering for that proved palpable, a yearning far greater than any hungering for justice. And yet . . . that could not be. Not with who he was . . . and where he’d been on that worst day of her life.

And selfish as he was, Hugh intended to steal every moment with her like the thief he was until he was just as the other man had tossed in his parting shot—all alone.

Chapter 27

It was the day.

And perhaps that was why, as they worked side by side in her sister’s parlor, she was distracted.

Curled on a scroll sofa, Lila tapped her pencil, tip to bottom, against the top of her page; all the while she watched Hugh.

He gave no outward hint that he’d heard that absentminded staccato beat. He remained