Her Brute Most Brazen (Bastards of Brighton #2)

Chapter One

It was time.

Violet Sharpe buried her nose in a rose, allowing the sweetness to fill her whole body, as though she could inhale the entire flower if she tried hard enough. She withdrew to snip the stem at an angle, placed the rose among an arrangement of other flowers, and stepped back to survey her creation.

Perfect.

“Entirely too perfect,” her friend, Holly Tremont, Marchioness of Warton, declared, leaning opposite her against the shop counter. “If I were a flower, I should feel terribly plain standing beside one of your creations.”

“Well then, don’t stand next to one.”

Holly gave a dramatic sigh before her features turned serious. “Are you sure you will be all right without us? Pippa and I can stay a little bit longer if you need.”

Violet shook her head. “You have a life in London. Don’t let me hold you back.”

“We don’t mind Brighton, though,” Holly murmured. “I speak for Pippa as well.”

In fact, Violet wasn’t sure. It would be the first time in her life that she was alone.

But her friends had already done so much for her.

They helped her escape the nightmare that was her brother, Reginald Thickett Graves, the Earl of Barrowmere, and an equally nightmarish fiancé, Percival Horace, the Earl of Bramblewick, set up shop here under a new name, and even helped secure a plot just outside Brighton, where she could grow her plants as well as transform her small courtyard out back into a little greenhouse for some of her more delicate flowers.

She couldn’t have asked for more.

Her shop.

The Bloom Room.

It still didn’t feel entirely real.

Though the store was more for all botanicals than just flowers, she still loved the name. She loved everything about the shop.

The space wasn’t all that big. Well, big in comparison to some of the London shops, yet this humble little spot managed to feel like stepping into another world.

Clay pots lined the shelves and every corner of the shop, all in different sizes, each brimming with something green or something new blooming.

The counter divided the space, its surface scattered with stems, scissors, and scraps of ribbon.

If there was any available space, her flower arrangements filled it.

She even had several wicker baskets woven for the shop’s deliveries.

Sunlight filtered through the bow window at the front, dusting the shop with soft, wandering hues of light.

Nothing to be considered grand, but it was hers.

A place of vibrant chaos to fit into the noise of Brighton’s Lanes, and ironically, a little pocket of wild peacefulness where charm was both her trade and her refuge.

The exact opposite of the hopeless torment she’d left behind. And today, her friends, who’d been at her side since escaping London, were leaving.

“Are you worried about your brother?” Holly suddenly asked.

Violet hesitated, then shook her head. She didn’t want her friends to worry.

“With Angelica manning the shop and our delivery hands, I won’t be receiving customers, so I’m not worried.

” She’d chosen Brighton because she loved the ocean, but her brother didn’t know this.

Like with many things, her desires didn’t matter.

Besides, he rarely ever left London, and when he reluctantly did, it was no further than their country estate in Hertfordshire.

“Good,” Holly said. “Just send for us if you’re having any trouble in the future, or if you just miss us.” Her friend winked at her.

Violet nodded, smiling.

The door to her shop opened, and Pippa Avery, the Countess of Chatteris and another good friend, entered.

“You’re ready?” Violet asked, abandoning her arrangement to step up to her friends.

Pippa nodded.

Outside, their husbands were waiting, tipping their hats when she looked over. She gave a little wave. They’d already had a farewell dinner last night, and she didn’t want to keep her friends from their trip too much longer. She gave Holly a tight hug first, before hugging Pippa.

“I’m going to miss you,” Violet told them, attempting a brave face. Honestly, she probably wouldn’t get any sleep tonight. Since her move, her whole world had taken on the odd reality of a dream. She could no longer remain a spectator of her own life.

The time for drifting had ended.

“We’ll be visiting all the time,” Pippa said softly.

Holly nodded.

She smiled at her friends. Violet hoped she could make ones as good here in Brighton, friendships that could overshadow her brother’s past cruelty and her fiancé’s bloodcurdling looks. He had looked at her as though she were already a possession, something won and waiting to be used.

She could still feel his hand clamping over her wrist, squeezing until her bones protested. You belong to me now, Violet. Your brother signed the papers. You’re mine.

No. I am not.

“Stop that,” Pippa said suddenly.

“Stop what?” Violet blinked.

“That face you make when you’re thinking of him.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You were,” Holly cut in. “Your mouth twitches and your nose wrinkles, like you’ve just swallowed a glass of vinegar.”

Violet shook her head, schooling her features better. “Perhaps I was thinking of my brother instead.”

“They are one and the same, where I’m concerned,” Pippa said dryly.

“Both of them are poison,” Holly agreed, grabbing Violet’s hands in hers. “We did not help you build a new life only for you to spend your days reliving their cruelties. You are free, Violet. Breathe it. Claim it. And try to have some fun, all right?”

Violet nodded and said softly, “Of course.”

“You just wonder sometimes how long your freedom will last.” Pippa said what she could not. “It will take some time, but you are so much braver than you think, Violet.”

Violet wanted to believe her. She wanted to sink into that truth and let it hold onto her forever. However, if life had taught her one thing, it was that peace never lasts. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try to hold onto it for as long as she could.

“I’ll be fine. Don’t forget I made an acquaintance thanks to you, Holly. Calliope is quite pleasant.” She also had a shop—of a candle shop—and evidently, they shared a landlord.

The Furys.

Men Violet would rather not think about. Holly and Pippa might think them handsome and dangerous, but they were hard, lethal men. They had the literal scars on their faces to prove it. Especially the one with the jagged scar running from his eyebrow to his jawline. He was particularly frightening.

And intriguing.

But only in so much as how he got that scar. Quite frankly, she couldn’t begin to imagine how it might have hurt. For some reason, he reminded her of Hades, king of the underworld.

It was most certainly best to keep those landlords at a safe distance.

However, Calliope had just married her landlord, so she was a Fury as well.

They couldn’t be all that bad, could they?

She’d learned the hard way that when a person’s nature is revealed, it is wisest to accept it at once.

And their natures were all . . . brutes.

“It’s fine to befriend Calliope,” Pippa said. “Just don’t get caught up with the business of the men she keeps company with. That path leads only to danger.”

Holly nodded. “Just look what happened to Calliope.”

“Didn’t her family in London kidnap her back?

” Violet asked, remembering the sequence of events all those weeks ago that led to Calliope’s kidnapping.

A truly shocking event, given that it also happened to be Violet’s biggest fear.

Their situations were slightly different, but one thing was remarkably similar—they’d both run away from home and opened a shop in Brighton, renting from a ruffian family.

She didn’t mind the last bit so much, so long as their troubles didn’t become her troubles.

“Be careful,” Pippa urged.

“I will,” Violet reassured. “Plus, I have no reason to cross paths with them except to visit Calliope, or she me, and then I’ll be with her, not them.”

“Right,” Holly said. “There’s danger and handsome, then there’s handsome and deadly. They, I believe, fall into the latter category. Let us know if they stir any trouble.”

“I will.”

“Then we shall be off,” Pippa said.

Violet walked her friends to the door. “Have a safe trip. Send word when you arrive home.”

“Oh, we shall send so many letters you will get sick of us,” Holly chirped.

“Oh, I doubt that.”

She waved them off, watching the four disappear down the road toward the broader thoroughfare, bound for their waiting carriage.

Ah, yes. It’s time.

Time to face her new life by herself. Violet stepped back into her shop, eyes skipping over all the plant life.

I can do this.

Perhaps fate would be kinder this time around.

A new name.

A new life.

Freedom.

This was her world now. At least . . . for as long as she could keep her hard-won independence. And she intended for that to be a very long time.

*

Some things never left a man.

Drake Fury inhaled the comforting stench of gutter. Familiar as blood. He had lived with it all his life. Had been born in it. Sobering how a torn face and vicious beating could change a man’s priorities.

“Enough. Please,” the unwilling beneficiary of his attention rasped.

Drake looked down. The man’s hand lay clutching his arm, fingers crooked at unhappy angles beneath the weight of Drake’s heel.

Sweat slicked the fellow’s temple. He had the pasty look of a wastrel who lived on pipe and bad outcomes.

The kind of man who kept one eye on exits and the other on who might be gullible enough to pay for information not strictly his to sell.

“Who is your boss?” Drake demanded, lifting the pressure of his heel. The man’s mouth worked. He would talk. They always did. The only question was how long he wanted the talk to hurt.

“Some rich fellow in London,” he gasped. “I don’t know his name.”

“What else do you know?” He applied pressure again, causing the man to cry out. “Surely that’s not all?”

“I don’t know anything! Just that you offended the man in a boxing match.”

Boxing match?

London?