The Marriage Ring

by Cathy Maxwell

  He pulled back, as if he hadn’t expected her comment. “Do you trust me?”

  “No.” She crossed her arms. “Or at least, I’m trying not to.”

  Her confession was a revelation to herself.

  He was slipping past her guard, something she’d never have imagined possible—especially since he hadn’t put himself out very much for her.

  “Do you still think I’m a prig?” he wondered, that same hint of dry humor in his voice.

  “Oh, yes.” She was serious. “Does that offend you?” she asked, hesitant. She didn’t really want to insult him. He’d shown more courage downstairs facing Stone than she’d seen from any dozen men of his class in London.

  He considered the matter and then shook his head. “Of course not. The truth is, I am a prig. I’m not popular for it. Probably less so now that I’ve openly made an enemy of Stone. But I am stuffy, and also reliable and honorable.”

  Important qualities. She agreed.

  “Well, I’m not a—” She stopped. Some words were too ugly to say. “Whore” was one of them. She made herself say it. “Whore. I’m not a whore.”

  The word seemed to linger in the air. She hated it.

  “I’m a singer and I have been a dancer. I have lived on the edge of society,” she could admit. “But I’ve never sold myself. Ever. It’s a point of honor of sorts.” She knew how pitiful she must sound to him. “We all have our standards. Even actresses. That doesn’t mean…” She let her voice trail off.

  “Mean what?” he asked, hestitated, then said, “About you being the sort of woman a man marries?”

  Well. He knew how to go right to the point. “I suppose your talent for plain speaking doesn’t make you popular either?”

  He bowed his head in concession to her observation.

  Grace took a step back. If he could speak matter-of-factly, so could she. And she wanted to lay all her cards, so to speak, out for him. However she couldn’t do it looking at him. She shifted her gaze to the floor, studying the tips of her coveted kid slippers as she said briskly, “I’ve had lovers in the past, but not recently. I’ve changed. I want to change. I want to be a person I respect.”

  She lifted her gaze to see if he understood what she was telling him.

  His brows had come together as he digested her meaning. “Why are you telling me this?”

  Grace reached for her courage. “Because I want you to respect me.”

  Mr. Lynsted studied her a moment as if sensing an ulterior motive. “All because I saved a cat?”

  “Yes. And because you stood up for yourself to a man everyone cowers in front of.”

  “Some would say it is easy when you are as big as a house.”

  “It’s never easy. I know that. Besides, you aren’t that big. You are no Samson.”

  His brows rose as if she’d said something alarming…and then slowly he nodded, and she relaxed. He understood.

  “Good night,” she whispered, both relieved and pleased.

  “Good night,” he returned.

  She waited, expecting him to leave.

  He didn’t.

  Instead, he said, “Will you please hand me one of your blankets?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m staying right here.”

  Grace didn’t believe she’d heard him correctly. “Here?”

  “Yes, I’m sleeping in your room tonight.”

  “Oh no, you are not,” she informed him. “Not with the male population in London walking the halls of this inn. Rumors will be flying.”

  “On the contrary, because half the male population in London is here, including Stone, I most definitely need to stay here.”

  All good will she’d built toward him vanished, replaced by all the years of wariness. “Is it the wagers? Do you want to claim the money? Or just appear to be my lover, because you will not be in my bed.”

  “So much for trust,” he said under his breath and walked over to the bed and pulled the coverlet off it.

  Grace’s response was to grab hold of an edge of the blanket and attempt to pull it away from him.

  Chapter Eight

  For a few seconds, Richard found himself in a tug of war with Miss MacEachin. The woman was surprisingly strong for her petite size and hung on with the ferocity of a puppy who doesn’t want anyone else to have its bone.

  “Miss MacEachin, you are being ridiculous.”

  Her response was to pull harder. “Leave my room.”

  He let go. The sudden lack of resistance sent her falling back onto the bed. She bounced right back up, pulling her coverlet into her arms as if it were a shield against him.

  “I’m not leaving.” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair, and realized he was tired and going about this all the wrong way—especially after her confession.

  Actually, he found her confession unsettling. He didn’t want to think well of Grace MacEachin or identify with her. As long as she was a “tart” or “whore” or “actress” or any of the words people used to describe her, he could keep her at a distance. His attraction to her was nothing more than male instinct…and not something as personal as admiring her or finding her likable.

  He was also aware, she didn’t see him as a threat. Maybe not even as a man. Women didn’t confide in men.

  “I’m not interested in winning wagers at your expense,” he told her. “I have plenty enough money. And your virtue is safe,” he placed a slight emphasis on “virtue,” knowing she would assume the worst of his motives, but he needed the distance back. He needed his masculinity back. “After all you have your little knife to keep me at bay.”

  Her eyes widened at the insult to her favorite weapon.

  He waved any protest she could have made away. “Keep the blanket. But I am staying here. Stone is not going to quit drinking and there is the real possibility he will try something very stupid. For that reason, I’m sleeping in front of your door,” he said, taking off his jacket and throwing it on the floor in front of the door. He sat down. “If he opens even an inch, I’ll push my hand down his throat.”

  “Do you really believe he would try such a thing in a crowded inn?”

  “Do you think I’d be willing to sleep on the floor if I didn’t?” he countered. “Stone doesn’t believe rules—those of the law and those of civility—apply to him. He’d walk in here and rape you. I don’t wish to sound harsh, but there is that sort of man out there, and he’s one of them.”

  Her face had gone pale at his bluntness. Richard wished he’d not been so direct. He wasn’t one for coating words, another fault she could lay at his door.

  He stretched out. The floor felt good. He was tense, keyed up by her presence, the trip, and the possibility of at last having a reckoning with Stone. He hadn’t acquitted himself very well when last they’d met…but that had been fifteen years ago. They were men now—

  The blanket fell on the floor beside him.

  He looked up. Miss MacEachin stood over him.

  “Here. Take it,” she ordered.

  For a second he was tempted to tell her to stuff it, but then that would start matters all over again. “Thank you.”

  “You can have the pillow, too,” she offered.

  “I’m fine.”

  Miss MacEachin walked over to the washstand in the corner of the room by the fire. Her shadow made movements along the wall as she took the pins out of her hair. Her curls tumbled down around her shoulders, hitting the space between her shoulder blades, right where he thought it would. She quickly braided it into one long plait and washed her face.

  Richard dragged his gaze away, focusing on the ceiling. His uncle’s warning about not being attracted to Miss MacEachin echoed in his ears. He tried to think of Miss Abigail Montross and couldn’t conjure one feature of her face…and yet the very light smattering of freckles over Miss MacEachin’s nose was burned into his memory.

  He heard the ropes of her bed creak. She’d lain down. God help him, he had to look.

  S
he rested on her side on top of the bedclothes. She was still fully dressed, her hands folded beneath her head, and she watched him. She, too, still wore her shoes.

  For a long moment their gazes held.

  He didn’t know what she was thinking, but his mind was recalling how soft and yielding her body had felt beneath him in the coach—even as she held a knife to his throat.

  Richard rolled over to face the door. He had to keep control of himself.

  “Thank you for saving that cat tonight,” she said.

  He gave a shrug. “You don’t need to stay up,” he said. “And you might want to become more comfortable than wearing your dress to bed. I won’t look. You can trust me.”

  “I already do trust you,” she murmured. “I wouldn’t have said what I did earlier if I didn’t.”

  Richard stared at the door. He was right. She didn’t see him as a man.

  “Besides,” she continued, “you might need me and my dirk to help you.” There was a pause. “Did you hear me? I was trying to make a wee jest.”

  He didn’t answer.

  Again, there was silence…and then, “So what did you break when Stone threw you down the steps in a trunk?”

  “A collar bone. Had to leave school.”

  “Did they send him home?”

  Richard gave a bitter laugh. “No one sends home a duke’s son.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Fourteen.”

  “I can’t imagine he had the upper hand on you. Usually, people back off from big men.”

  “I wasn’t big back then. I didn’t start growing until I was seventeen and finished with school.”

  “Ah,” she said as if he’d said something very important. “What was it like when you returned to school?”

  “I kept out of his way.” He’d won.

  “Did you truly take him to task over hurting an animal?”

  “And people. Stone bullied everyone. I managed to escape his notice because he liked my cousin Holburn and let me by. He and his cronies beat a boy in my level so badly, he never quite recovered. His father was stationed in India and they sent him to him. I should have faced Stone then.” Richard shifted his weight. “I felt like a coward until I saw him hurting a cat. They’d tied it by the tail from a tree and were trying to bat it with a stick. I went a little crazed and attacked him.”

  “What happened then?”

  “All of his friends jumped on top of me. But I was angry and I fought back. They weren’t used to anyone fighting back.”

  “And then?” she prodded. Her voice sounded interested.

  Richard shrugged. “And then the tutors came running out to stop the fight. I was having the worst of it, but I had bloodied Stone’s nose.” He had to smile at the memory. “He was sniveling and crying.”

  “What about you?”

  “I knew better than to cry. I’d heard what they said about the boys who cried.”

  “I know what you mean. People will offer pity to you when you cry but they won’t respect you.”

  She was right. He wondered how she knew. He was tempted to ask…but that would bring him too close to her again. He lay silent.

  “Tell me about the trunk.”

  He should ignore the request, end all chatter between them.

  “Stone and his friends surrounded my cot one night and attacked me. I was little and skinny and this time no competition for them since they were ready for me. They folded me up in a trunk and tossed it down the stairs.”

  “Does Stone always travel in a pack?”

  “Always.”

  “The coward.”

  Richard had to smile. His sentiments exactly.

  “You are good with your fists,” she said. “I noticed that last night.”

  In spite of wanting to keep his defenses up where she was concerned, Richard couldn’t help but be flattered. “I train with Bill Richmond at his academy.” He heard the eagerness in his voice. Embarrassed, he fell silent.

  “Richmond is one of the best,” she agreed. “I thought most gentlemen preferred Gentleman Jackson’s boxing saloon.”

  “I’m not playing at this,” he answered. “I want to know the sport.”

  “Why?” she asked. A simple word that no one had put to him before.

  Richard rolled over.

  She lay on her side, cradling her head with her arms, watching him. She smiled. “Why boxing? Why not fencing?”

  “I’m too clumsy for fencing. In boxing my height is an advantage. As is my strength. And there is grace to it. A formality.”

  “Not the boxing I’ve seen,” she said. “Men double their fists and start hitting.”

  “Then you haven’t seen it done right. I’ve studied it. I’m learning from a master. There is no one better than Richmond. Even Jackson will say it is so.”

  “The boxing lawyer,” she murmured, and then yawned. “That’s why you believe there are rules. Stay out of the rings at the country fairs, Mr. Lynsted. For your own safety.”

  “I have never planned on fighting for sport,” he assured her.

  “No, you’ve been planning on taking on Stone.”

  He opened his mouth to deny her statement…and then realized she was right. He could have said that every gentleman needed a sport and that Richard, being the big, clumsy ox he’d become, didn’t have the grace or talent for many—but he would have been lying. That beating at Stone’s hands had weighed heavily on his mind all these years. He’d failed to defend himself.

  And now, he might have a chance to make that right—

  Booted steps sounded in the hall, followed by drunken, schoolboy giggles.

  Miss MacEachin sat up. She’d heard them, too.

  Richard motioned to her to be quiet and earned a face from her at his impertinence for thinking she would give away they were awake. He had to smile.

  Quietly, he came to his feet and placed his ear to the door.

  “Which room is it?” one of the men in the hallway asked in a whispered slur.

  “On the left,” was the answer.

  “No, right,” another corrected.

  “Keep your bloody voice down,” another warned. “Lynsted is across the hall.”

  “That bloody bastard.” It was Stone speaking now. “I’ll crack his head open. How did he end up with a woman like that?”

  Richard placed a light hand on the handle so he would feel it the moment it turned.

  One of the men started to make a bawdy statement about Miss MacEachin but Stone shut him up with a furious, “Keep your voice down. If he finds out what we are up to, he’ll be mad as a bear.”

  “He is a bear,” someone muttered. “He’s huge. Remember when he was so skinny we called him Straws?”

  “Lynsted may be big, but he can’t take on the lot of us,” another man reasoned.

  “I’d rather take on Grace MacEachin,” was Stone’s sly reply and he was seconded by a round of more male giggles.

  The only light setting the scene was an oil wall sconce in the hallway and the hearth light in the room. Shadows appeared at the crack beneath the door.

  The handle started to turn.

  Richard stepped aside and raised one clenched fist.

  In the hall, there was shushing all around. The door cracked open. A man peeked in.

  Stone.

  Grabbing the door and throwing it open, Richard let the man have it. Flesh hit flesh and bone. Stone grunted and fell to the floor.

  Who knew the man had a jaw of glass? He was out cold.

  Richard didn’t waste a beat. He stepped over Stone’s body and went out in the hallway, his fists ready.

  There were three men out there, all so drunk they wove back and forth. They took one look at him, hiccupped, and then went flying down the stairs.

  “You forgot your friend,” Richard yelled. He picked Stone up by the jacket, and carried him over to the staircase.

  Stone’s companions were nowhere to be seen.

  Richard sighed and turned back
to Miss MacEachin’s room. That’s when he realized he had an audience. Besides Miss MacEachin, several other guests had stuck their heads out in the hall to see what the fuss was.

  And here Richard was with a comatose Lord Stone over his shoulder.

  All but Miss MacEachin pulled their heads in and shut their doors.

  “What happened?” Miss MacEachin asked from her doorway.

  “They ran.”

  “Well, what shall you do with him?” she said.

  Richard grinned. “I’m taking him to the stables.”

  “Ah, where they keep the asses,” she observed, and he had to laugh.

  The door across the hall to his room opened. A very sleepy Herbert peered out. “Hello, sir. I was wondering when you would be coming in.”

  “Not yet, Herbert. Go back to sleep.”

  “Yes, sir. Very well, sir. By the way, well done, sir. One blow. Good job.” He shut the door.

  “I was starting to believe he hadn’t noticed the man unconscious on your shoulder,” Miss MacEachin mused.

  Richard found himself grinning. Miss MacEachin tilted her head as if she’d found something curious. “What is it?” he asked.

  “You. I haven’t seen you smile.”

  “I smile.”

  “Not like that. Usually it is tight as if it hurts your muscles to move.” She considered him a moment. “You should smile more often, Mr. Lynsted. You are a handsome man when you smile. Good night. I’ll see you in the morning.” She shut the door.

  Richard stood still, staring at where she’d just stood, uncertain he’d heard her correctly. She’d called him handsome. Him.

  He was tempted to shake Stone to consciousness to see if he’d heard her say as much, too.

  And this is what his uncle had feared. Miss MacEachin knew her way around men. With one word she made him light-headed, giddy even.

  Richard turned on his heel and started downstairs. All was quiet. There was a large number of sportsmen without rooms who’d chosen to spend the night sleeping, or passed out, in chairs or curled up on benches. Again, Stone’s cronies were not in sight. So much for camaraderie, although it pleased Richard to think he had them quaking in their very expensive boots.