“Thank you for telling me, Pen,” she told her sister. “I know what I must do.”
Finding Gavin Winter the second time had not proven nearly as easy as finding him the first time had. Caro had gone to The Devil’s Spawn but had been denied entry on account of her being female. At the rear entry, she had finally cozened the guard into allowing her inside. Within the maze of halls, she could have wandered forever. In the end, it was Gavin who found her, apparently having been alerted to her presence by the guard.
He came stalking toward her, his handsome face a frozen mask. “What the hell are you doing here?”
She took a moment to drink in the sight of him, so welcome after their days apart, before she shook herself from her thoughts. “I came to see you, Gavin.”
He held up his hands, making a sweeping gesture toward himself. “And here I am. Now go.”
He did not want to see her. She knew she ought not to be surprised, but she could not deny that his reaction hurt.
“I will not go until you listen to me,” she said, holding her ground. “I know you are angry with me for keeping the truth a secret—”
“Angry does not begin to describe it,” he interrupted, seething.
Even in his outrage, his posture so rigid and indifferent, his voice cold and cutting, he was beautiful. Beloved. She would never stop loving him. He owned her heart, and he always would.
Whether he wanted it or not.
“I never wished to deceive you,” she tried again.
“And yet you did.”
She longed to reach for him, to touch him, but she did not dare. The tender lover of several nights before had vanished, and in his place stood a cool, harsh stranger. “Will you not at least hear what I have to say?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “No.”
A dark-haired man peered around one of the doorways behind Gavin. “Chrissakes, Gav, if you’re going to have a conversation with your woman, have it in one of the private rooms instead of the damned hall.”
Caro’s cheeks went hot. She wondered just who the man was and what he had overhead, what he knew of her.
“She ain’t my woman,” Gavin snarled, glaring at Caro. “She’s a Sutton and a liar.”
“Whatever she is, I don’t want to hear the two of you bickering while I’m balancing the bloody ledgers,” the man countered, his voice calm, his tone firm.
“Fine,” Gavin growled, moving toward Caro and seizing her arm in a grasp that was not painful but would nevertheless be difficult indeed to extricate herself from. “Come with me, Sutton.”
Sutton.
She was no longer Caro to him now.
Pain howled through her as he hauled her into a small salon and closed the door behind them. Not the physical sort of pain but the sort that could crush a woman from the inside out.
He released her instantly, as if he found the very notion of touching her repellent, and with such abruptness, she nearly lost her balance. When he turned his fierce green gaze on her, her tongue refused to cooperate. For a moment, all she could do was think of the man he had been before. Was this angry man before her the true Gavin Winter? Or had she created him with her deception?
“Go on then,” he said, “tell me what the devil you are doing here.”
“I was told you intend to fight Jeremiah Jones.”
His full lips thinned. “Aye, not that it’s any concern of yours.”
Merciful saints, he intended to do it. What Pen had told her was true. Instinctively, Caro stepped toward him, closing the distance between them, reaching for him. “Gavin, please. I am begging you not to fight. You are still healing, and from what I have been told, Jeremiah Jones is a ruthless man.”
“Save your begging,” he snarled, shaking her touch from his arm.
“You will not be able to defend yourself,” she continued, fear prodding her despite the rage emanating from him. “I am told he has already killed a man.”
“You needn’t fret over me, Sutton. I know where your loyalty lies.”
She flinched, for the words possessed the force of a blow.
Because they were true. Her loyalty had not been to Gavin as it should have been. Instead, she had kept the truth from him, and she would forever hate herself for the choice she had made. An impossible choice, it was true; either way, she would have hurt someone beloved to her.
“I know you are angry with me,” she tried again, “but please do not allow that to cloud your judgment.”
“Angry doesn’t begin to describe the way I feel,” he fumed. “You lied to me. You allowed me to torment myself for weeks, all while you knew who I was. I must have amused you, thinking myself in love with a woman who has no heart.”
She deserved his outrage. But despite what he thought of her, she loved him. She loved him more than she had ever imagined possible. And she had lost him, through no one’s fault but her own. However, she would be damned if she would allow any harm to befall him because of her actions. She could not bear it if anything would happen to him.
“Regardless of your poor opinion of me, you must know that fighting Jeremiah Jones is akin to going to the gallows. Your injury has made you weak, and you have not regained the strength in your wounded arm.”
“The only goddamn thing that made me weak was you,” he countered grimly, his voice filled with darkness and bite. “I’m fighting Jones, and there isn’t a bloody thing you can do to stop me.”
“If you will not listen to me, then surely you will consult your siblings?” she asked, desperate now. “What have they made of this decision of yours?”
Tears pricked her eyes, ready to be shed. She blinked to hold them back.
“Do not speak of them,” he said, his jaw tensed. “They are my blood. You are less than nothing to me.”
His words sank into her heart as surely as any blade. She reeled beneath the weight of them, the crushing fear he would forever hate her for what she had done.
“Despise me if you must,” she forced herself to say. “But I would far prefer to bear your hatred than for you to be killed in a prizefight. I did not nurse you back to health only to watch you throw yourself to the lions.”
His lip curled, but even sneering, he was ruthlessly handsome. “I’m the lion, Caro. I may have forgotten for a time, but I remember now. I have you to thank for that. Now get out of my family’s hell and out of my life.”
Before she could respond, he turned and stalked from the room, leaving her standing there alone. At the slamming of the door at his back, she allowed the tears to fall. She had failed him.
And this time, she feared, there would be no saving him.
Seeing Caro again had shaken Gavin.
Shaken him so badly that his hands were literally trembling as he stormed to Dom’s office. His half brother stood at his entrance, quirking a brow.
“Caro Sutton, I presume?”
Caro.
His Caro.
He had not stopped loving her. Damn it.
Gavin raked his fingers through his hair. “Aye. That is the serpent’s name.”
“Eh. Didn’t look much like a serpent to me.”
He gritted his teeth so hard, his jaw ached. “No, she doesn’t look like a goddamned serpent. But that does not mean she ain’t one.”
“You’ve been angry ever since you returned,” Dom said.
“And why wouldn’t I be? I nearly cocked up my toes, spent weeks without recalling a single damned piece of my life, my own family left me to rot at a Sutton gaming hell, and I’ve been kept a prisoner and lied to all because the lot of you thought I would be safer hiding like a damned lad behind his mother’s skirts.”
As he finished the diatribe, he became aware his voice had risen to a roar. But it felt good to unleash some more of his fury, damn it. Dom was not wrong. He had been bloody furious since his return. They had all—every last one of them, from his family to Jasper Sutton to Caro—robbed him of his right to choose what was best for him.
Dom winc
ed. “I know you do not see it as we did, but we made the decision we felt was best for you.”
“I should have been the one to make that choice.”
His half brother shook his head. “As you are now, agreeing to fight the man we believe was responsible for trying to see you killed and for nearly having Demon murdered as well?”
“A strange thing happens to a man when he has nothing left to lose,” Gavin said, meaning those words with everything in him. “He forgets what fear is, because it doesn’t matter any longer.”
“Gav, you have much to lose,” Dom countered, frowning in that way of his that suggested he was the wiser older brother, the leader of the family, and he knew better.
But not in this instance, he bloody well didn’t.
“No. I do not. I already lost everything I wanted.”
And that everything had been Caro. How dare she lie to him as she had, then come rushing here to beg him not to fight Jeremiah Jones? As if she cared. Ha! If she had truly loved him as she had claimed, she would have told him the truth when she’d had the chance. Not when it had been too late, when he had caught her in a lie.
“You are speaking of Caro Sutton, are you not?” Dom asked gently.
“I am speaking of the life I had before,” he said, though that was not entirely true. “I was the best prizefighter in England, damn it, and now I’ll never regain the strength I had.”
Admitting as much to Dom was far easier. His pride was too strong to allow Caro to know he believed she was right, that fighting Jeremiah Jones was a damned stupid thing to do. Jones was taller, with a more muscular body than Gavin had possessed even before he’d spent weeks first as an invalid and later chasing after Caro Sutton’s skirts.
In the wake of his return to the bosom of the family he loved, Gavin had made a realization. If Jeremiah Jones had indeed paid to have him murdered to avoid their match and be named the best prizefighter in England by eliminating Gavin as his competition, that meant the man would only try again. And that also meant the stupid bastard could hire more dimwitted criminals who attacked the wrong men instead of him.
He would not put his family in danger. Instead, he would face the problem. Let Jeremiah Bloody Bastard Jones meet him in a match he knew he would win. As he’d said to Dom, Gavin had nothing left to lose. What was one more bout, for the safety of his family?
“Sodding hell, Gav.” Dom’s oath shook Gavin from his troubled thoughts. “If you know you don’t have the strength you had before, then why the devil have you goaded Jones into accepting this fight?”
He met his brother’s gaze, unwavering. “Because Gavin Winter rose from the grave, and I’m either going to put Jones in his, or die trying. Either way, my family will be free. I’ll not have another of you harmed because of me.”
“I do not like it, Gav.” Dom’s expression was hard. Concerned. “Not one damned bit. It’s dangerous, and Jones was doing everything in his power—including hiring assassins—the last bloody time you were going to fight him.”
“You don’t have proof it was Jones who wanted me dead, and you don’t have to like my choices, Dom. I’m doing what I must. You made decisions on my behalf when I was weak and wounded, but now, it’s my turn. I’ll face Jones, and that is final.”
Chapter 13
Caro had decided that if she wanted to keep Gavin from putting his life in danger, she would have to take action. To that end, she found one Mr. Jeremiah Jones at a tavern in the rookeries, surrounded by dangerous-looking men, a tankard of ale in his meaty paw of a fist. Drury Lane vestals—women in various states of undress, some with their breasts on display like the wares on an apple cart—were strewn about. The floor was sticky with years of spilled drinks and blood, and the room was rife with tobacco smoke, raucous laughter, and curious stares.
The moment she had crossed the threshold, entering the dank, forbidding den of thieves, the air seemed to freeze. She was uncomfortably aware of all the curious eyes upon her, for she was a new face in what would be a sea of the familiar, especially the women who frequented the Beggar’s Purse. Thank heavens Randall was awaiting her in the carriage on the street; if he had not accompanied her, she would have feared what would become of her in such an establishment.
Her discreet inquiries, coupled with the passing of coin, had led her to a mountainous man with a buxom blonde in his lap, his hand down her bodice, another up her skirts.
“Is that him?” she asked the man who had volunteered the information she sought in exchange for two guineas.
“Aye.” The man nodded. “That is ’imself.”
“Excellent.” Though the sight of the man she would need to confront hardly felt excellent in that moment, she knew it was what she must do. She swept across the disgusting floor, skirting tables and debauchery in varying degrees, until she reached Jeremiah Jones.
Randall awaited her, she reminded herself as her courage faltered, and he would protect her with his very life, though she hoped this night would not come to that. Still, they were in a particularly ugly, mangy part of the rookeries. One never knew what was going to happen.
“Jeremiah Jones?” she asked.
He cocked his head, eying Caro rudely as he squeezed the bare breast of the woman on his lap, making her giggle. “Who wants to know?”
The woman’s giggle sounded forced, and Caro tried to thrust that, and the blatant nudity, from her mind.
“Caroline Sutton,” she said, lifting her chin. “Jasper Sutton’s sister.”
Jones raised a pale brow. “I know ’im. Can’t say as I like ’im much.”
Caro remained undeterred. “I’m sure the feeling is mutual, sir. But I didn’t come here to speak with you about my brother.”
“Oh? And aren’t you a bold one? Did you come looking for me this evening, love?” He leered at her even as he plucked at the nipple of the unfortunate woman in his lap.
The blonde’s head lolled back, and Caro wondered if the woman was hopelessly soused, or if she had merely numbed herself to her surroundings. Likely, a combination of both.
“I did,” Caro confirmed. “I need to speak with you.”
“Speak?” The giant’s hand moved rudely beneath the blonde’s gown. “Is that what you’re callin’ it?”
The men at his table guffawed. The woman on his lap squirmed, then let out a moan that sounded quite rehearsed.
“That is what I’m calling it because that is what it is, Mr. Jones,” she said coldly, reminding herself that confronting this despicable man was what she needed to do to help Gavin.
And to keep him from becoming Jeremiah Jones’s next victim.
Jones grinned, revealing a chipped tooth she had no doubt had been damaged in one of his bareknuckle matches. “We can talk all you like. The three of us.” He squeezed the breast of the woman on his lap once more. “Isn’t that right, pet?” he growled into the woman’s ear.
The woman ogled Caro. “She’s a small one. Tiny bubbies, Jerry. Wot do y’want with ’er? I’ll make you ’appy, I will. No need for ’er.”
Caro tried not to grimace at the suggestion she join Jones and the woman in his lap in something carnal in nature. “My business is with you, Mr. Jones. No one else. Is there a private room we can visit so we may better converse?”
“What’s in it for me?” he asked, swilling his ale.
“Balsam,” she told him, hoping the money she could promise him—every last ha’penny she possessed for her part in running The Sinner’s Palace—would be enough to persuade Jones to cry off the match with Gavin.
“Jasper Sutton’s sister offering me coin. I’m curious, I am.” Jones winked, then unceremoniously shoved the blonde woman from his lap, delivering a sound slap to her rump as he did so. “I’ll be back, Mary. Wait for me.”
The woman tugged at her bodice, barely gaining her footing before being hauled into the lap of one of the other men about the table. “The name’s Margaret, lovey,” she called toward Jones.
But the great, hulking beas
t had already risen from his seat. And he was looming over Caro now with a predatory smile curving his lips. “Come with me, sweeting. I’ll ’ear what you ’ave to say.”
She swallowed down a lump of fear, telling herself that she was a Sutton. She had come of age in the rookeries. There was nothing she had not seen, done, or heard. And yet, she could not shake the inexplicable sense of dread filling her, curling its icy fingers around her heart.
There was something about Jeremiah Jones… The man radiated evil.
Still, if it meant keeping Gavin safe, she would face any demon, fight any battle.
Because she loved him, and because she owed him that much and more.
She followed Jeremiah Jones through the boisterous rabble in the Beggar’s Purse, to a private room.
Gavin had an aching back and head, a mouth that tasted of sour arrack, and a dim recollection of what had happened the night before, beyond all the spirits he’d swilled with his brothers Demon, Blade, and Devil. Strange how consuming too much of the poison could decimate his memory, same as the beating he’d taken to the idea pot.
He groaned as his eyes fluttered open, taking in his surroundings. It appeared to be a drawing room. Quite fine, too. Gilt and polish everywhere, oil paintings hanging on the walls, a vase of fresh-cut flowers on a gleaming table for Chrissakes. But it wasn’t the room that troubled him so much as it was the sight of his arms and legs lashed to a gilt chair.
God’s blood, he couldn’t move.
On a roar, Gavin thrashed, attempting to free himself. But the knots held tight.
Frantically, he sifted through his mind for memories of the night before.
After his interviews with Caro and Dom, Gavin had thrown himself into the one solace he’d always had before he’d been attacked—physical exertion. He had challenged one of the guards to a match and had found himself rusty but not as weak as he had supposed he would be. The moment fists were moving, that part of himself returned, even if the strength of his wounded arm had yet to be regained.
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