The Bareknuckle Groom: The Thompsons of Locust Street

by Bush, Holly

  “Are you ready for Friday?”

  James nodded. “What did you find out about him?”

  MacAvoy slouched on a stool. “He’s a leftie. His last manager told me he likes his whiskey. But he’s won pretty steadily, so he’s got to be decent in the ring. New York ain’t Philadelphia, but still, there’s plenty of fighters there, and he’s beat most of them.”

  “We’ll find out Friday whether he’s decent or not, I suppose,” James said and then looked at MacAvoy. “I owe you more of an apology than I gave you before. I didn’t have any reason to speculate on Mrs. Emory’s virtue or intentions. I’ll always treat her with the respect she deserves. It came as a shock to me, though. You’ve stepped out with more women than I can count, but this one you want to marry. Doesn’t make sense.”

  MacAvoy grinned boyishly. “That’s ’cause you haven’t met the right girl, brother. When you do, you’ll know. I feel like a babe could knock me off my feet every time I see her or that darling girl of hers. Eleanor is so beautiful, too pretty for me.”

  James shrugged. “She’s a good-looking woman. But you’ve spent time with plenty of other beautiful women. Why this one?”

  “They’re not Eleanor, that’s why. It’s not just that I want to, you know, bed her, because I do. I lay awake at night and think . . . never mind.”

  James laughed. “I know what you’re thinking about, Malcolm.” He watched in astonishment as the man blushed from his hair to his chin. “My God! You’re red in the face like this is the first time we ever talked about fucking.”

  “Well, it’s not just that with my Eleanor. She’s so clever! How she gets all the things done that she’s responsible for at Alexander’s, I’ll never understand. And she’s so kind and such a good mother! I just can’t believe she wants to have anything to do with a knockabout like myself. She could have anyone. But she picked me.” He looked up from his musings.

  “You asked her, then?”

  MacAvoy nodded, and for a brief uncomfortable moment, James thought he might start to cry. “She said yes, James. She’s going to marry me. I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

  James pulled his friend to his feet and gave him a quick hug. “We’re going to have to celebrate. Did Mrs. Emory set a date?”

  “Spring, she said. I’ve got to find a house near Alexander’s, but not too near as I’d never be able to afford one of those mansions. But she is set on staying as the housekeeper, if Elspeth and Alexander would allow her to live somewhere else.” He cleared his throat. “Unless, of course, she was with, you know, had a baby.”

  James laughed at his friend’s discomfort. “That could happen after you actually do some of the things you’ve been dreaming about at night.”

  “My God,” MacAvoy whispered. “I could have a family. My very own family.”

  James squeezed his friend’s shoulder. He’d met him shortly after he’d arrived with his family from Scotland at age eleven, and they’d been inseparable ever since. MacAvoy had never known his father; his mother scraped by doing piecework at one of the mills and spent her money on gin. She died when they were fifteen, and James had thought good riddance at the time, but maturity made him realize he would have taken any version of his mother in his life, whether a drunkard or not. Muireall had doled out the coin for the woman’s funeral, and MacAvoy lived with them for nearly a year until he got a job that paid him enough to get a room of his own over a tavern.

  “Sometimes the strangest things happen when we least expect them. Do you remember the night we met her, James? That night we got in a bit of trouble with those thugs after Elspeth? She cleaned our cuts up and fed us? From that night on, I couldn’t get her off my mind. I’d try and concentrate on what the boss was saying or if you were getting your ass handed to you in the ring, and still all I could think about was her.” He turned to look at James. “It will be like that for you too. Just wait.”

  It was on the tip of his tongue to deny what MacAvoy said, that someday he’d be hard-pressed to think straight because of a woman. But he didn’t. He didn’t admit to himself that Lucinda Vermeal’s face flashed in his mind at the oddest moments. If he did, it would confirm his fear that he was in danger of becoming obsessed with the woman. But he’d never be interested in a snob like her, thinking herself so much better than anyone else. Better than him, was what he meant. It grated on him, her superior attitude toward him. He’d like to take her down a peg or two, but every time he thought that, he could only see himself looming over her, holding both of those delicate wrists of hers in one hand and capturing her mouth with his.

  James looked up when he heard MacAvoy open the door.

  “See you on Friday. Beat the tar out of Crankshaw. I need my share of the prize money.”

  * * *

  James was sitting on a high padded bench, his breathing still rapid and shallow, naked other than his short drawers, a length of toweling around his neck soaking up the sweat running out of his hair, while MacAvoy looked at the cut above his eye.

  “Don’t think we’re going to have to wake Aunt Murdoch,” he said just as the door to his dressing room opened and Payden and Robert came flying in.

  “Slow down, you two,” Alexander said from behind them. “Give the man some room to breathe.”

  They’d attended tonight’s match with Alexander, his father, and the man James met at the Pendergast party, John Williams. James smiled, took another drink of the water MacAvoy had handed him, and rinsed his mouth, spitting the blood into a bucket. Payden was shadow boxing in the light of the lamp MacAvoy was holding to examine James’s face.

  “You’re going to have a blackened eye, though. What will all the women say when they see you?”

  Alexander’s father, Andrew Pendergast, laughed. “I imagine the ladies will think that only adds to his attraction. Congratulations. Another commanding bout.”

  “It was something to see,” John Williams said and shook his head. “I never saw a man move his hands as fast as you did. Thank you for the ticket.”

  James glanced at him. “I hope you placed a bet.”

  “I did.” Williams smiled.

  “You smell, James,” Payden said.

  The men laughed, and Alexander ruffled Payden’s hair. “Come on, boys. I promised I’d have you both home as soon as the match was over.”

  “Tell Muireall I won’t be long and that I won’t be needing Aunt Murdoch to stitch me up. I want a long soak in a tub and my bed.”

  “You should be glad you don’t need any stitches,” Alexander said. “Aunt isn’t the gentlest of women with an injured man.”

  James laughed, making him hold his side where Crankshaw had gotten in one of his best punches. “There’s no tender mercies from Aunt Murdoch, that be certain.”

  “I’ve been there when she’s stitched him. Instead of trying to make a man forget that she’s drawing thread through his skin, she talks about her needle likes she’s tatting a pillow. Makes me near sick to my stomach,” MacAvoy said.

  “I heard congratulations are in order, MacAvoy,” Andrew said. “Mrs. Emory is a lovely woman, worthy of a chance to start over.”

  “Elspeth and I have a suggestion for your living arrangements,” Alexander said. “Stop and see me the next time you are visiting.”

  “I will, sir,” MacAvoy said. “And thank you, Mr. Pendergast. I mean to make her a good husband, and I hope my work at the mill has been up to your expectations.”

  Alexander’s father slapped MacAvoy on the back. “You’re doing fine, son. We’ve got plans for you in a few years. Just keep at your work the way you’ve been doing.”

  “Did you hear that, James? Mr. Pendergast has plans for me,” MacAvoy said when the men had corralled the boys and left the changing room.

  “You’re deserving of it, brother.” James pulled on his clothes, only wincing once. “Let’s go get our money.”

  * * *

  “You are looking particularly lovely, Lucinda,” Aunt Louisa said when she came into her
dressing room as Giselle was putting the final touches on her hair.

  “You look very nice too, Aunt.”

  “Your father wants to see us before we leave.”

  Lucinda looked in the mirror as Giselle dabbed rose water on her neck and wrists. “I’m sure he wants to tell us how lovely we look. Thank you, Giselle. That will be all.”

  The door closed softly as the maid departed. “He is in a mood, dear. Let us go and hear his tirade and then enjoy ourselves to the fullest at the Pendergasts’ ball.”

  Lucinda would have opened the library door without knocking, but knowing that any casual behavior only irritated her father, and she would take any advantage, even if it were to wait until Laurent opened the door for her. She was quite certain what her father was going to say. There was no need to anger him further.

  “Good evening, Papa. Aunt Louisa said you wished to speak to us before we left?”

  Henri Vermeal stood at their entrance to the room and trained his eyes on his daughter. He waited until the door had closed behind the two women. “I trust that you will conduct yourself in a manner befitting your family’s place in society. And your aunt will make sure that all the proprieties are observed. I do not want to hear of you making a spectacle of yourself with that . . . that street ruffian. Am I understood?”

  “Of course, Papa. I understand everything you have said,” she replied. She walked to his chair and stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. “I will see you tomorrow. Sleep well.”

  The two women climbed into the Vermeal carriage and were seated side by side for the short ride to Nathan and Isadora Pendergast’s home.

  “I don’t know what game you are playing, child, but your father is not a fool.”

  “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, Aunt.” Lucinda turned to look out the window as the streetlights were beginning to shine.

  But she did know what her aunt meant. She understood everything her father had said, but that did not necessarily mean she would abide by it. She intended to have a conversation with James Thompson. If he attended. If she did not lose her nerve. She would tell him exactly what she thought of him and his comments about her. Her stomach rolled over with the thought of confronting him. But she chided herself. She was not the daughter of Henri Vermeal for nothing. She would put that man, that street fighter, in his place.

  * * *

  James looked at the crowd of people surrounding him at the Pendergast ball. Word had gotten out about his fight a few nights ago, and he’d been shaking hands with the men and had been the subject of some fluttering debutantes’ lashes and a few direct looks from some married women, too, since he’d arrived. He scanned the room occasionally for one woman in particular, the one who seemed to have lodged herself in his brain. He was glad she wasn’t there.

  There were plenty of willing women, and if his instincts were correct, especially a voluptuous brunette with plenty of curves to dig his fingers into. There were men, many of them, surrounding her, all wealthy and well-bred. He was guessing she was a widow, as there was nothing virginal about her. She conversed with them all but did not favor one over another, except for the alluring glances she was casting him. Maybe he would meet her later over drinks or in her bedroom. But when he pictured a bedroom with yards of lace at the windows allowing the moonlight to filter in onto a bed with a sturdy headboard, it wasn’t the dark-haired, buxom woman who had just licked her lips in his direction, it was a willowy blond with bones as delicate as the lace his mother made in the old country.

  “An introduction to James Thompson?” he heard from behind him and glanced in that direction to Alexander’s Aunt Isadora.

  “James?”

  He turned. “Mrs. Pendergast. Thank you for inviting me this evening. Your party seems to be quite a success.”

  “Aunt Isadora, if you please, James. Yes, everyone who had replied with their acceptance is here and a few who hadn’t!” She looked around at the crowd. “And it appears that you won your latest match just so you could hold court this evening.”

  “I win all my matches with your happiness in mind,” he said with a wink and a grin while the men nearby chuckled.

  “You flirt!” She slapped his arm with her fan. “My husband was very upset he couldn’t attend with Alexander and Andrew, but he was told about every punch you threw over breakfast the following morning. It sounded gruesome.”

  “It was gruesome. Especially for my opponent.”

  “The reason I came over to see you, other than to make sure you were still in one piece, was to introduce to you Miss Edith Fairchild. Miss Fairchild, Mr. James Thompson, my dear niece Elspeth’s brother.”

  James had been watching the young woman—spectacularly beautiful and well of aware of that fact—the whole time he conversed with Isadora. She gazed at him boldly, though she gave a few surreptitious glances to a man at the edge of the crowd, who was glaring at her. She tilted her head coyly and held out a gloved hand.

  “Oh, Mr. Thompson. How brave you are to enter a match to the death with another man!”

  He kissed her hand, turned it palm up, and kissed her wrist. He smiled indulgently at her when he lifted his head. “Hardly a fight to the death, Miss Fairchild. My opponent still lives.”

  He turned his head to answer a question from another man. He didn’t want any part of some spoiled debutante’s plan to make the man now scowling at him jealous.

  “The orchestra is starting up again, James. Be a dear and partner with Miss Fairchild,” Isadora said.

  There was no way he could graciously get himself out of that request. He turned to the young woman. “I’d be honored to dance with you, Miss Fairchild, if you are free.”

  “With me? How kind you are, sir!”

  James led her to the dance floor and placed his hand on her waist, holding her as far from his body as he could, which made him think about a willowy blond whom he’d held closer than polite manners dictated. Miss Fairchild smiled up at him and glanced at the man still watching her from the edge of the dance floor.

  Lucinda had been watching him from behind a group of matrons that included Aunt Louisa. She didn’t believe he knew she was there, as one of the women wore huge yellow plumes in her hair that Lucinda had been able to stand behind and not been seen by most in the room. Aunt Louisa had looked at her strangely when she did not join her friends as the dancing started, many of whom were congregated around James Thompson, who was, in her opinion, the very epitome of conceit.

  Lucinda had watched Edith approach Mrs. Pendergast and gesture to Thompson with a shrug and some tittering. She could just imagine what Edith was saying. But Thompson was not taken in by Edith, she didn’t think, even as he smiled at her and kissed her gloved hand for an overly long time, earning a sharp look from Mr. Kingley at the edge of the crowd. No, Mr. Thompson was not interested in Edith. But there was a woman he was interested in.

  Mrs. DeLuca. The young widow had been left piles of money by her elderly husband when he passed, Edith had told her. She was dark-haired and mysterious and had a sultry air about her that, combined with her vast wealth and abundant cleavage, had men of every age panting at her heels. She was signaling Thompson with little subtlety. Perfect, she thought to herself and went to find a willing—and bribable—servant after telling her aunt she was going to join with her friends gathered in the music room.

  James turned when there was a discreet touch to his elbow and looked at the servant.

  “Mr. Thompson?”

  “Yes?”

  The man handed him a folded note. He could smell its perfume without even bringing it to his nose—some expensive fragrance, as he had little doubt who had penned it. He turned away after thanking the man, but not before catching the eye of John Williams, who lifted one brow and grinned.

  He read the note, winked at Williams, excused himself, and made his way across the room, avoiding those he knew as anticipation began to thrum in his veins. He would not allow a haughty virgin to interfere with his pl
easure by lodging herself in his head while he prowled toward the door of the room and his target. She would stay right where she should. Far away from him.

  James walked past the open door to the music room, where someone was playing the piano and several were singing with the tune. There were a few men in the library he passed, talking softly and seriously, about some pressing government matter, no doubt. He continued down the hallway and turned right as his instructions had said, down a quiet and dimly lit corridor to the next to last door. He looked right and left, straightened his tie, and ran a hand over his hair before turning the knob and letting himself into the room. It seemed deserted at first glance, a sitting room for the lady of the house, most likely. He turned when he realized there was someone else in the room. It was not whom he had expected.

  Lucinda Vermeal slid into view from the shadows and leaned back against the closed door.

  “Miss Vermeal. This is undoubtedly a situation neither of us would like to be caught in,” he said. “Excuse me. I’m meeting someone and must have the wrong room. My apologies for disturbing you.”

  “No, Mr. Thompson. You do not have the wrong room. Mrs. DeLuca will not be joining you.”

  James narrowed his eyes and walked toward her. To her credit, she did not flinch or in any way alter her expression of disdain—and perhaps anger. What in the world could she have to be angry about?

  “What is this about, Miss Vermeal? I do not appreciate deceptions.”

  She stared at him, the only hint of emotion the slight widening of her nostrils, as if she was preparing herself to face a foe.

  “Please step aside,” he said with less courtesy.

  “I will not,” she replied.

  “Then it will be a long evening without refreshments or friends. I will climb out the damn window, if necessary, before your chaperone comes charging in to save you from my evil wiles and you both disparage my name.”

  He turned and strode toward the window, fully intending to somehow escape the room, and his captor, even if he had to shimmy down a tree to do so. His hand was on the sash to lift it when she spoke.