by Mary Balogh
“Come on, Carew,” he said. “If one of us can kick, the other can, too. If you choose to fight dirty, then dirty it will be. But do not expect mercy of me. I might have spared—”
His speech was cut short when the sole of the marquess’s foot caught him on the shoulder and sent him reeling, though he managed to keep his feet this time.
Before the end of round one it became obvious that the Earl of Rushford was not going to be able to use his feet in the fight. The only time he tried it he kicked his cousin almost in the groin and received a severe warning from Jackson. He swore again about contortionists, but he had not had the hours of exercise and practice that the marquess had had in turning his body and throwing out his leg to the height of his own head. Nor had he had the training and experience of using that leg and foot as a weapon quite as powerful as a fist.
There had been little if any betting before the start of the bout. What was the point of betting when the outcome was a foregone conclusion? The only betting there had been was on how many seconds the fight would last. At the end of the first round the real betting began. At the end of round two it was as fast and furious as the round itself had been.
After four rounds the marquess was feeling sore on every square inch of his body and weary in every muscle, even muscles he had not known he possessed. He had been down twice, Lionel three times, not counting those first two falls in the first round. Lionel had succeeded a few times in grabbing his leg and twisting it, throwing him off balance and causing excruciating pain. But Jackson had warned him about holding and it had not happened in the last round.
Lord Francis was squeezing a sponge of cold water over his head and down his back. It felt delicious. Bridge was waving a towel energetically before his face.
“Keep it up, Hart,” he said. “Show him a thing or two, old chap.”
“Think of your wife, Carew,” Lord Francis said quietly.
He had begun to think of her. Of the innocent, eager eighteen-year-old who had fallen prey to Lionel’s cynical scheming. Of the heartbreak his cruel rejection had caused her and—worse—the guilt that had been left behind to blight her life for six years. Of the woman of four-and-twenty who had feared that he would still have a power over her she would be unable to resist and who had turned to him—to Hartley Wade—to protect her and keep her safe from ugly passions for the rest of her life. He thought of her last night, lashing out with her knee and her hands and even then lingering to throw defiance in Lionel’s teeth. He thought of her beside his bed last night, miserable because she thought he had rejected her, too. He had been refraining from sexual relations in order to conserve his energy for this morning.
He had promised her last night that she would never have to fear Lionel again. And there was only one way to ensure that. He knew that he had won the respect of his peers this morning, even if he was rendered unconscious in the very next round. And perhaps he had won his own respect, too, finally doing more than just enduring Lionel’s taunts, finally challenging him and facing him man-to-man.
But it was not enough. It was no longer enough merely to give a good account of himself in this fight. He had to win it.
He had to win it. And it no longer seemed an impossibility. Lionel was sitting across from him, in the opposite corner, gazing at him from one open eye and one swollen and half-closed one. His breathing was labored. And for once—and at last—he was looking with quite open and naked hatred.
“Time, gentlemen. Round five,” Gentleman Jackson said. “Begin.”
It was easier, of course, to tell oneself that one had to win than to do it. In round nine the marquess finally knew that he not only could do it, but would. Lionel was swaying on his feet. His guard was low, so it was possible to punish his face with both left fist and right foot. One of his eyes was a mere slit in swollen flesh. The other was half closed. His nose looked as if it were broken.
His own strength had all but been used up. He was proceeding on sheer willpower and determination. And on the image of Samantha’s face that constantly swam before his tired vision.
There was very little noise now in the room, though it appeared that no one had left except the unfortunate Smithers.
“Think of her, Carew. Think of her,” Lord Francis said to him insistently at the end of the round, as he had said at the end of the round before, and the round before that. He was squeezing a sponge down over his chest. “Think of her, dammit, and don’t you dare let up.”
Kneller was in love with Samantha, he thought sluggishly. He had known that all along. But Kneller was an honorable man. Well, he would avenge her for both of them.
“It has to be this round, old chap,” the duke said, still vigorously fanning as he had between all rounds. “You are close to exhaustion. You will collapse in round eleven. This is round ten. This is the one, Hart. Go to it. There is not a man here, with the possible exception of those two opposite, who is not pulling for you. This round, Hart.”
It took him two and a half minutes to do it. But finally Lionel was swaying on boneless legs, his hands in very loose fists at his sides, looking at him—though perhaps not really seeing him—with implacable hatred. He would have fallen unaided and been unconscious by the time he hit the floor. And it was tempting even then to have a modicum of mercy on him.
But the marquess saw an image of himself at the age of six, his child’s body shattered and in indescribable pain. And an image of his mother, who could not endure the sight of pain, especially when it was being suffered by her beloved only son. And of Samantha begging him to kiss her, telling him she loved him—and meaning it at the moment she spoke—because she had been frightened by Lionel’s reappearance in a life he had made unhappy for six years.
He gathered together his last remaining shreds of strength and jabbed out with his right leg. His last blow, like the first, landed squarely on Lionel’s chin, snapping back his head and sending him crashing backward.
He groaned once and then lay still.
There was noise then. Deafening noise. Men talking to him, laughing, thumping him on the back before Bridge roared at them all to keep their distance and Kneller swore at them to stand back and give Carew air or he would start laying about him with his own fists.
“Well, lad,” Jackson was saying from somewhere above him—someone had pulled him down onto the stool in his corner, “I feel compelled to say that you are perhaps my best ever pupil. But if you had just remembered to keep up that right hand—how many times have I told you?—your face would not be looking quite as raw as it does. Some people are a glutton for punishment.”
Viscount Birchley was fanning Lionel, who was prone on the floor, and yelling for someone to fetch some water. No one was taking a great deal of notice.
“Go and give him a hand, Bridge,” the marquess said, not even daring yet to flex sore muscles or to try to get to his feet. His legs had turned to rubber.
The duke gave him a speaking glance, which he did not even see, and went.
Lionel was still on the floor, groaning with returning consciousness as Birchley sponged his face carefully and the Duke of Bridgwater waved the inevitable towel before his face, when the marquess finally got to his feet with Lord Francis Kneller’s help and limped stiffly from the room to retrieve his clothes and make his way back home.
There was going to be no keeping the morning’s events from Samantha as he had hoped to do, he thought ruefully. He did not think any story of walking into a door was going to convince her. Well, perhaps she would be happy to know that he had avenged her.
Perhaps she would even be proud of him.
SHE HAD SPENT A veritable fortune—far more, at least, than she had ever spent in a single day before. And she did not feel even a moment’s guilt. If he had taken her home today as she had asked, she would not have spent a single penny. He would not have had anything to grumble about. Not that Hartley would grumble anyway. She could not quite imagine him grumbling about anything.
Besides, he had told h
er to go out and buy Aunt Aggy and herself something pretty. Like a good little wife she had obeyed.
She bought her aunt a delicate ivory fan, laughing at Aunt Aggy’s protests that she was too old for such a pretty little trinket. And she bought her a pair of kid gloves, too, since her aunt had been saying all spring that she simply must buy herself new ones. She bought Hartley a snuffbox, though he never took snuff, because it was pretty and irresistible and because the silver lid was inlaid with sapphires and she had the sudden idea of giving it to him as a belated wedding present—though he was going to pay for it. It would be their “something blue” to replace the other horrid thing. She had not asked if he had kept it or given it back. She did not want to know.
She almost forgot to buy herself something, but remembered just in time and bought some silk stockings and a new bonnet so bedecked with ribbons and flowers that she half expected that her neck would disappear into her chest when she tried it on. But it was as light as a feather and looked so dashing and so very—extravagant that she had to buy it, though she was not sure if it was the type of bonnet she would wear in Yorkshire. She also visualized herself wearing it when she was huge with child and had to swallow her laughter lest she have to explain to Aunt Aggy and the milliner.
Despite herself, she was enjoying her last day in London.
And then, after they had stopped for luncheon— although Aunt Aggy had protested that it was extravagant to eat out and not quite proper without a gentleman to escort them—Samantha spotted Francis farther down Oxford Street and lifted her hand gaily and waved to him and smiled.
He came hurrying toward them.
“Samantha,” he said. “Lady Brill.” But he turned back to the former. “Were you not at home when Carew arrived?”
“Now?” she said. “Recently? Is he at home already? I thought his business was to keep him out all day.”
He took her arm and lowered his voice. “I believe he may need you,” he said.
The tone of his voice and the look on his face alerted her. “Why?” she asked fearfully. “What has happened? Lionel? Did—?”
“Yes,” he said.
Her eyes widened in terror. “Hartley challenged him last night? Is he dead?” But even as she clutched at his sleeve she remembered his just saying that Hartley might need her. Would a dead man have need of her?
“No,” he said. “Deuce take it, but I have bungled this. It was fisticuffs, Samantha. At Jackson’s. And your husband won.”
“Your timing and your sensibilities leave something to be desired, my lord,” Lady Brill said as Samantha clung to his sleeve with both hands. “She is all but fainting. Come. Help her to the carriage. I will convey her to Stanhope Gate without any further delay. Carew won, did you say? But against whom, pray? And in what cause? It will be a story worth listening to, at any rate. And I do not doubt it will be the on dit by this evening. There, dear, in you go. Lord Francis will help you.”
Samantha smiled rather wanly down at him after she was seated. “No, do not apologize, Francis,” she said. “Thank you. I might not have heard, otherwise. I might have been gone all day. Oh, Hartley.” She fumbled in her reticule for a handkerchief.
“He may be battered and bruised, Samantha,” he said, “but you may tell him from me that he is the most fortunate man in England. And more worthy of you than any other man I know. Good-bye.”
He closed the door before she could make any response more than a rather watery smile.
HE HAD BATHED AND changed, and his valet—looking quite smug and satisfied—had rubbed ointment into the rawer of his wounds. And he had limped his way downstairs to the library to sit by the fire he had had lit despite the warmness of the day outside. There was probably not a joint or a muscle in his body that was not screaming at him. Miraculously, both eyes had escaped, but they were about the only part of him that had.
He wished Samantha would come home and massage his hand.
He wished he did not have to face her for a week.
He had won. He set his head back and closed his eyes, but the euphoria built in him like an expanding balloon of excitement. He had won. He had set the score right. He had avenged her—and himself, too. He allowed himself a smile of pride. He had never realized that a smile could physically hurt.
And then the door crashed inward. He turned in time to see a little whirlwind rush inside, the yellow flowers on its straw bonnet nodding violently. But she snatched the bonnet from her head even as he watched and hurled it to one side without even checking to see that there was somewhere other than the floor for it to land. Someone closed the door quietly from the outside.
“I could kill you,” she said. “With my bare hands. Hartley! You did not even tell me. Business indeed. Business to attend to. He might have killed you. I could kill you.”
“Perhaps it is as well,” he said, “that a man can die only once.”
“Hartley.” She came to stand in front of him and then went down on her knees and rested her hands on his knees. “Oh, Hartley, your poor face. Why did you do it? Oh, I know why. You did it for me. You should never have done anything so foolhardy. But thank you. Oh, thank you. I do love you so.”
“For those words alone it was all worth it,” he said, smiling carefully. “It was partly for me, too, Samantha.”
“Because in insulting me he insulted you?” she asked, gazing up at his shiny, reddened face.
He was never a handsome man, he thought, but now he must look grotesque. And yet she was gazing with something that looked almost like adoration in her face.
“Yes,” he said. “And because of this, Samantha.” He held up his right hand. “And my foot. He was the cause of both. It was no accident. He pushed me—a child of six.”
Her eyes brightened with tears. “Oh, Hartley,” she whispered. “Oh, my poor love. Francis said that you won. Does Lionel look worse than you?”
“Considerably,” he said. “He will spend the rest of his life with a crooked nose, and I would wager his eyes will be invisible and blind for at least the next week.”
“How delicious,” she said, grinning unexpectedly. “I am so glad. Well done, sir.”
“Bloodthirsty woman,” he said.
“Hartley.” She rested her chin on his knees and continued to gaze up at him. “I have been terribly foolish. I have realized it only during the past few days, and only last night and today has it become fully apparent to me. I have been mistaking the meaning of a word.”
He chuckled. “Foolish indeed,” he said. “What word?”
“I think you are in terrible pain,” she said. “Would it be quite impossible to sit on your lap?”
He was in pain. Even the pressure on his knees hurt. He reached his arms down to her. She curled up against him, her head on his shoulder.
“It is the word ‘like,’ ” she said. “I did not know that what I had always thought was liking was really love. I have been very foolish.”
He felt rather as if someone had just punched him in the stomach again. He felt robbed of breath.
“Give me an example,” he said, risking further pain by lowering his cheek to the top of her head.
“When I met you at Highmoor,” she said, “I liked you so terribly much, Hartley. After each meeting I lived for the next time, and when I had to leave early with Aunt Aggy, there was a dreadful emptiness in my life where you had been. I thought you my best friend in the world, and I thought I would never know such friendship again. Town and the Season were flat because I did not have my friend to share them with. And then when I saw you again, I was so happy that I thought I would burst. I wanted you to kiss me and I wanted to say what I said to you afterward and I wanted to marry you—because I liked you so much. After we were married, for those three days, I—I have never been so happy in my life. I was delirious with happiness. Because I liked you so much. And afterward I wanted to die, I wanted the world to end because I thought you did not like me any longer.”
“Ah, love,” he said.
>
“Have I given you enough examples?” she asked. “Do you see what I mean?”
He swallowed and rubbed his cheek against her hair.
“You see,” she said, “when I went through that horrid experience during my first Season, I called it love. I thought that was what it was, that horrible obsession, the dreadful guilt, the—oh, everything. And all I have clung to since is the conviction that I wanted nothing more to do with love. I saw Jenny and Gabriel together and other people, too, but I did not believe in it for myself. So when I met you, I think I was afraid to call my feelings what they were. I thought everything would turn ugly. I wanted to like you and you to like me so that we could be happy together.”
“I like you, sweetheart,” he said.
“And I love you,” she said. “You see? I have said it and no thunderbolt has fallen on our heads. Hartley, you are everything in the world to me. Everything and more. You always have been, from the moment I first saw you. You put sunshine back into my life.”
He swallowed again, and then, without thinking of the pain he was going to cause himself, he moved his head, found her mouth with his own, and kissed her.
“It is not too late?” she whispered.
“It is never too late,” he said. “I love you.”
She sighed and reached for another kiss. But she broke off after a few moments and smiled at him. “I have a gift for you,” she said. “I bought it and have had the bill sent to you.” She laughed gaily. “And it is not even something you use, Hartley. But it was so pretty that I could not resist it. And it is blue. Something blue. A belated wedding gift.” She leaned down from his lap and retrieved the reticule she had dropped to the floor.
“I have a gift for you, too,” he said. “It was the first matter of business I spoke of at breakfast this morning.” He chuckled. “It is something blue. To help you forget the other.” He had slipped it into a pocket before coming downstairs. He reached for it now.
“Oh,” she said, looking at her sapphire ring a few moments later. “Oh, Hartley, it is beautiful. Oh, my love, thank you.” She held out her hand to him and he slipped the ring on next to her wedding band. She held the hand farther away, fingers spread, to admire the effect.