Chapter One #2
That trip had been a while ago. When he’d approached his cousin, the Earl of Dare, to help him retrieve a deed from his father’s widow. A deed that had once belonged to his mother. In the end, he’d gotten what he wanted, and he’d also taken up more than a few matches.
Had there been anyone who stood out?
Drake couldn’t recall.
“Why am I not surprised?” Reaper drawled from the doorway of the dungeon, shoulder propped against stone, a grin dragging one corner of his mouth. “Collecting secret admirers like this.”
Drake cursed. “What the devil are you doing here?” He hadn’t wanted his brothers to catch wind of this little problem. One that also only recently came to his attention after this cockchafer tried to put a knife in his gut.
“Shouldn’t you be asking how I know to be here, frère?”
Damnation. “How?”
“Followed you.”
Drake scowled at his brother and gritted his teeth. “Why? Don’t you have better bloody things to do with your time?”
“When our dear uncle Sirius is at large, and you’re behaving suspect?”
“And just how am I behaving suspect?”
Reaper didn’t hold back. “You’re sneaking around like a rat.”
“Go hang.”
But Reaper didn’t. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d be thinking you’re a spy for our uncle, just like that little arse of a surprise brother, Deveraux.”
Ah, yes.
Deveraux Peregrine. Well, Deveraux Fury, now. Or perhaps he changed back to Peregrine again. Drake didn’t want to think about him. “Kindly find someone else to plague. I’m busy here.”
“So I see.”
Drake sighed.
“You know you’re the head of business now, frère.”
The hell he did. “Maxen didn’t step down.”
“He didn’t say it, but he’s busy with his little mouse and renovating the palace he bought for her. Plus, he’s set up office at his little mouse’s candle shop.”
Good for his brother, and, “It’s a house, not a palace.”
“It’s as big and grand as a palace.”
“Have you even been in a palace?”
Reaper shrugged. “That’s not the point.” He nodded at the man at Drake’s feet. “Who is he?”
Right, that reminded him. “Name,” Drake demanded.
“Rook,” the man choked out.
Reaper made a pleased noise. “A bird. How original.”
“Your real name,” Drake said.
The fellow’s eyes flickered, then flared with stubbornness. “Just Rook.”
Spare me from fools.
“Fine,” Drake said. “You work for me now, do you understand? That or Rook ceases to exist.”
Rook’s gaze slid to Reaper, then back to him.
He inwardly scoffed. Drake might not be the broodiest of his brothers, nor the most verbal, like Reaper, but he was patient, and he did understand one thing: the upper hand.
In the pits of St. Giles, he’d learned the economy of violence.
Reveal only what breaks bone. It had been years since he’d fought for coin beneath London’s dripping rookery yards.
Before Maxen found him. But old lessons never left the body. His scars were a testament to that.
“Work,” came the croak. “I’ll work.”
Drake retracted his leg, relief flooding the man’s face. “Good. What does this rich fellow look like? Keep in mind, I’ve no patience for vermin that bite the hand that gives them a second chance at life.”
“Don’t recall much except for red hair and a bunch of freckles.”
Before Drake could respond, his brother sighed bloody dramatically.
“If we’re to play this game of vagueness all night,” Reaper said, “someone bring me a chair and a tart. Preferably one with currants.”
Drake shot his brother a hard look. “Do you like your teeth?”
Reaper flashed them. “Very much.”
Drake did not smile. An unbidden, hazy, somewhat furious face flashed in his memory. Red hair, round face, a glare that promised retribution. The Bulldog, he’d called himself. More like dog. “Ah. I seem to recall a man like that.”
Reaper arched a brow. “You do?”
Drake nodded. “Vaguely. He challenged me to a match.”
“I take it he lost?”
“Grandly.” Didn’t he knock him out with a single punch?
Drake glanced back at Rook.
The man shuffled into a sitting position. “He muttered something about wanting your hands.”
His hands, eh? “And you were going to cut them off?”
Rook averted his gaze. “Not me.”
So the man himself, then. Savage. He must have truly humiliated the man. “How did this man find you? You’re not working alone, are you?”
Reaper snorted.
Rook shook his head. “One of his men found me, but the gentleman came with him. Didn’t trust the matter to chance.”
Interesting.
“Then should we set a lure for him?” Drake wondered.
“Are you going to tell the others?” Reaper asked.
“No.”
Reaper scowled. “That’s not wise, frère.”
Drake arched a brow right back. “For a little fish like this? Do you want to bother them with this?”
“Ye—”
“Before you finish that sentence, allow me to remind you of our brother’s recent nuptials, Serpent’s recovery from his attack, Knight manning the tavern, and Saint and Dagger chasing leads on our uncle, while you,” Drake paused, “you were supposed to be keeping an eye on Deveraux. Where is that bastard anyway?”
“Manning the tavern with Knight.”
Heh. Leaving this one with too much time on his hands.
“Well then, now you can help me with this. Rook, our newfound little friend here, is going back to London with news of a Brighton knockout match.”
“How much prize money will draw your admirer here, do you think?”
The man shook his head. “None.”
“As I suspected.”
“I don’t see how that’s going to work,” Reaper muttered, rolling a coin over his fingers.
“You don’t box,” Drake said simply. “With a man such as him, if money won’t work, then he definitely wants the prestige of beating the unbeatable. Revenge. I’m willing to give him the chance.”
“So what? You spread word, and any man who wishes to take you on from here to Wales can come?”
“I’ll set up some mock matches.”
“You think he’ll step into your lure? No sane man would.”
“I’ll bet my dagger on it.” He didn’t have a reputation as King of the Pits for nothing.
Or the Brighton Brute. Or the Devil’s Fist. He didn’t box much these days for that reason alone.
No one dared to take him on. Back in London, whispers were shared, but since most there believed them to be myth or rumors, they’d gladly stepped up. He’d won every single match.
“So serious, frère. And if he takes the bait? Do you take his hands then?”
“Perhaps.” That would depend. They lived by a set of rules, one of the most important being they didn’t kill.
However, there were many ways to deal with foes.
Certainly more interesting ways. Rook’s presence, unfortunately, spoke of not just any foe.
Drake suspected a titled one. They were always the messiest, but not impossible to handle.
Whether Rook could be trusted was another matter.
“You know if it touches you,” Reaper drawled, “it touches us.”
“Ye of so little trust.”
“Maxen is going to shite if he learns of this.”
Drake doubted that.
If the “Bulldog” wanted his hands, let him come try to take them.
“Oh, by the by, the nobs staying with the little flower left today.”
Drake stilled, the shop owner’s heart-shaped face flashing before him. He shook her off just as she appeared. “Oh, them.”
“What do you mean, ‘oh, them’? Didn’t you stare at that little flower like you wanted to inhale all her sweetness?”
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
Reaper’s grin only widened. “It’s always nonsense until it isn’t, frère.”
Drake ignored him.
Hard.
Harder than he needed to. Flowers, after all, had no business growing in barren lands. And he had no business stopping to take in their beauty.