Daring and the Duke: The Bareknuckle Bastards Book III

“I want you,” he said, and she hated the way the words came, resigned. “I want you and I love you, and it isn’t first love. It’s final. And if you cannot see that—if you cannot find the courage to take it, and to revel in it, and to let me stand by your side, then it is not enough.” He shook his head. “How many tests must I pass before you believe

He’d known it was her from the moment she’d stepped into the ballroom, in a dress that fell in lush emerald waves to the floor, despite the mask covering everything but her beautiful kohled eyes and the dark wine color staining her lips, and the wig that stole her flame-colored curls from him. He presumed she was trying for disguise, as though he’d

“What do you need, Grace?” he whispered. She leaned in, and he ached beyond reason. Two taps, sharp and insistent, from the darkness, instantly recognizable as Devil, his brother by blood.

“Truly, it is a miracle you two lived to adulthood. And found women to marry you,” she said softly.

Ewan had never allowed himself the liberty of imagining children. But now—his brothers—they had children, and he wondered about them. If they had the amber eyes they all shared. If Devil’s daughter had a wide smile like her father. If she was as clever as her mother. If Whit’s child would grow as loyal as its father was.

“I didn’t even know cursing existed before you three.” Boys who came into her life like a riot themselves, rough and tumble and foul-mouthed and wonderful.

“Are you interested in the position?” He forced teasing flirt into the words, when he wanted to rip their masks off, pack her into a carriage, and take her directly to a vicar. To make her duchess, as he’d promised all those years ago.

“He told me you were dead,” he said, turning back to her—keen for her nearness. “But you’re not dead. You’re alive,” he said once. Then again, unable to hide the relief from his voice. The reverence. “You’re alive.”

“That’s the first rule of surviving as a woman in the world. Men don’t change.” “That’s true,” Devil said. “Bollocks,” Felicity replied. “You changed.” “You changed me, love,” he said instantly. “That’s different.” “Of course, I did,” she said, “just as you changed me.”