Venture Unbroken

by R. H. Russell

  Grant tilted his head forward slightly. “So this wasn’t just about Jade, then—your fighting?”

  “It’s who I am, sir. That’s why I’ll keep fighting. But I would’ve done it for Jade, even if it wasn’t.”

  Grant said nothing, so Venture pressed on.

  “Sir, Jade wants to come and see me practice and compete. She wants to be able to speak with me freely. If I’m truly no longer in your service . . .”

  Grant let out a long, tired breath. “I have no desire to be your master any longer. That was never what I really wanted for you and me. It was what your mother wanted. I knew she was concerned about her health, about you being taken care of. That was why I agreed to it.”

  Venture had to force back his overwhelming relief and surprise at Grant’s admission. He’d never known that Grant knew about his mother’s chest pains, especially before they’d come to work for him.

  Venture made himself focus on what he’d come here to do. He pushed the bag of coins forward. He could think about what Grant had just said to him some other time.

  Grant’s hand clamped over Venture’s, stopping him. “Keep your money. You sweated and bled for it.”

  Venture’s jaw tightened, and frustration reared up inside him. He didn’t want to owe his freedom to Grant Fieldstone’s “generosity.” He’d earned it, blast it! Couldn’t Grant just let him pay his debt like a man? But then Grant met his eyes. Mixed with the anger and resentment, the sorrow and the relief was unmistakable. Relief that I’m alive, Venture realized.

  Seeing what Venture was willing to go through for his freedom had shaken Grant. Grant wasn’t trying to take anything from him right now, he was trying to do the right thing. Too late, a part of Venture wanted to say.

  Venture withdrew his hand. The money stayed on the desk in front of him. He stared at it, knowing what he needed to do to ease matters with Grant, but unable to bring himself to put it back in his pocket.

  “I am perfectly aware that my daughter wants to see you. She makes that clear enough every time she refuses to look at me.”

  Venture took a deep breath and rested his hand on the bag of coins. He drew it closer to himself, though he still didn’t pick it up.

  “If I let her see you—”

  Venture looked up in spite of himself.

  “How am I supposed to know you’re not going to run off with her before I have the chance to marry her off?”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “No, it isn’t funny. And it isn’t fair, either. To assume I’d do such a thing! She’s all I have. And the two of you think I would throw that away just to save face.”

  Venture’s hand tightened around the coins. He picked the bag up and put it in his pocket. But he let the silence, thick with the heat of the day, with the energy of unspoken emotions, fill the space between them.

  “What can I do?” Grant finally said. “What choice did you leave me, in the arena?”

  “That isn’t what I meant to do. I only—”

  Abruptly, Grant waved his hand. “Jade’s out riding,” he snapped. “Take one of the horses and go catch up with her.”

  “Sir?”

  “Wouldn’t you find her anyway?”

  He didn’t want it to be like that. But what more could he expect? Grant had told him nothing belonged to him, made him feel like he was nothing to him, and he had betrayed Grant’s trust, defied him, and threatened him bodily harm, in this very office.

  “Thank you, sir.” Venture stood, offering his hand. For a moment he thought Grant wasn’t going to take it. But finally he stood and shook it.

  He looked Venture right in the eye. The look was piercing, though Grant had to tip his head up in order to give it. “You are on your honor with my daughter, Venture Delving.”

  “Of course, sir. She’s safe with me.”

  #

  Venture tucked his niece, Tory into bed in the little nook where he used to sleep. He’d found Jade and spent the afternoon with her, then come to Justice’s house for dinner.

  “Uncle Vent,” Tory said sleepily, “I want you to stay.”

  “I can’t. Chance is waiting for me.”

  “Chance can stay here, too. Like before.”

  “We’re getting too big, Chance and me. And Holly will be big before you know it.”

  Little hands reached up and clung to his neck. “I miss you when you’re gone.”

  “I miss you, too.” He kissed her on the cheek and closed the curtain around the nook.

  The cottage door was open to the evening breeze and Justice was sitting on the doorstep, sleeves rolled up, Lightning’s head in his lap. Grace had taken baby Holly into the little bedroom to nurse her and put her to sleep.

  Venture sat next to his brother, and Lightning came to him, tail thumping.

  “She has no use for me whenever you’re around,” Justice said.

  Venture scratched Lightning under the chin.

  “What’s the matter, Vent?”

  Was it that obvious? Venture nudged Lightning aside and reached into his pocket. He pulled out the bag of coins. “This,” he said.

  All day those coins had weighed down more than his pocket. They’d sagged against every laugh, every kiss. They’d made his sister-in-law, Grace’s dinner feel heavy in his stomach.

  “Money?”

  “The money I owed Grant. For my contract. He wouldn’t take it.”

  “Ahh.”

  “I want you to have it.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t keep it, Justice.”

  Justice shook his head sharply. His expression hardened.

  “You took care of me. And I put you through a lot. Take it for the girls. Think what you could give the girls.”

  Justice stood up. “I won’t raise my girls on that kind of money. They’re not going to grow up knowing somebody took a beating so they could go to school.”

  Venture rose to his feet, too. “I earned that money.” Just like Dad earned the money for your education, Venture wanted to say. But that was Justice’s point. He’d made his money the same way their father had, and Justice didn’t see any honor in it.

  “And you’ll keep earning your money the way you see fit. I know that, and I’m not going to say a blasted thing about it, Vent, but I don’t have to profit from it either.”

  “Thanks a lot, Justice.” Venture stuffed the coins back in his pocket. “Tell Grace I said good night.”

  Chapter Four

  The next morning, Venture entered the main training room of Beamer’s Center just before warm-ups were scheduled to start. Beamer held a bunch of eager, awed young fighters back with a stern look, and he shook Venture’s hand.

  While Venture was dealing with Grant Fieldstone the day before, Earnest had come to talk to Beamer about them using one of the extra training rooms to work out, since Venture was going to be staying in Twin Rivers for a while. Beamer had agreed, and he’d invited Venture to come and do what he could with his young elite fighters while he waited for the gash on his left arm—and the more serious injury to his right arm—to heal.

  “It’s good to have my boys back. And to have Dasher Starson on my mat. You know you’re welcome here anytime.”

  Venture gave Beamer’s hand another squeeze. “Thank you,” he said. He wanted to say more. Justice still didn’t approve of him, and things would never be the same with Grant, but Beamer was proud of what he’d done, happy to be a part of it.

  Earnest and Dasher thanked him and headed for the changing room, but Beamer held Venture back. “Delving,” he said in a hushed voice, “have you seen the paper today?”

  “No,” Venture said slowly. “I saw the issue that came out the day after the Championship.”

  The Capital Crier, with its usual hastily put-together results of the tournament and recap of the big fights, had come out early the next morning. He’d found it in the wastebasket after he’d recovered. Only this time, there had been two headlines, one about his win, and the other ab
out Will Fisher’s arrest. The second article had included a few painful lines about the back-alley fighting career of Force Delving. Earnest had torn it out of Venture’s hands before he could read the opinion columns speculating about what a champion of such lineage meant for the reputation of the event, and for absolute fighting as a whole.

  “There’s another story about the Championship. This one includes a little more . . . detail. Here.” Beamer handed Venture the paper. “It came out yesterday in Founders Rock. Just showed up in Twin Rivers this morning.”

  Venture braced himself for a new rumor about his father, about Venture’s upbringing. No wonder Justice had reacted so strongly last night. He would’ve had to set the type for Twin Rivers’ printing of the Capital Crier. The print shop he managed had been contracted for the job, as well as local distribution of the paper. He’d probably spent the whole evening trying not to go through the roof.

  But it wasn’t Force Delving’s name in the paper alongside Venture’s; it was Jade’s.

  Heat and dread washed over him as he read on.

  “I have to go. I’m sorry. Can I . . ?”

  Beamer waved his hand. “Take it.”

  Venture shouldered his bag and tucked the paper under his arm. He didn’t bother telling the guys where he was going. He had to get to Jade before this “news” got to her.

  #

  Beyond the open patio doors, Jade and Rose sat at an ornate cast-iron table draped in white linen, lingering over the remains of their breakfast. A crumpled napkin and an abandoned plate smeared with jam lay in front of Grant’s empty chair. Grant had taken one last cup of coffee with him to his office and gotten straight to work, no doubt.

  “Good morning, ladies.”

  “Vent!” Jade tossed the last bite of her biscuit aside.

  “Good morning, Mr. Delving.” Rose, as always, was all manners.

  “Mrs. Fieldstone.”

  “We weren’t expecting you.”

  Jade frowned at his clothes—loose pants and a light shirt layered over his tighter workout clothes—not because she cared that he hadn’t worn a suit to come and call on her, but because he was dressed for training, which was where she knew he ought to be right now. He’d handed his bag to a puzzled Frank and wiped the sweat from his jog up the hill off his face as best he could, but he still looked and felt more than a little out of place.

  “Something came up.”

  Apparently it was quite clear to Rose that he felt like an idiot. “Come, Venture,” she said kindly, “Sit down.”

  Venture gave Grant’s empty chair a glance, then took another from a table nearby instead, and scooted it in place beside Jade.

  “What is it?” Jade said.

  “I made the paper.”

  “That’s to be expected, I suppose,” Rose said a little warily, “for the Champion of All Richland.”

  Jade gave him a questioning look. He stacked Jade’s dishes on top of her father’s and slid the jam out of the way. Then he laid the Crier on the table in front of her.

  “We made the paper.”

  Venture cringed as the women’s eyes scanned the words, Rose’s growing wider, Jade’s narrowing in outrage.

  Jade didn’t look up from the page. She didn’t speak. But Rose’s eyes met Venture’s. Venture couldn’t quite figure out how Rose felt about what was happening between them. He suspected it was because she wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about it herself. But he knew that she understood the depth of the feelings that had gotten him and Jade to this place.

  “You two have much to talk about, I’m sure.” Rose got up, and Venture hurried to rise with her. She leaned over her granddaughter and lifted a lock of Jade’s hair back, out of her eyes. Rose kissed Jade on the cheek, and Jade reached up and absently touched her grandmother’s hand, still transfixed by the paper.

  “Good day, Mr. Delving,” Rose said.

  “Good day.”

  “Venture,” Rose leaned close to whisper, “don’t let my granddaughter do anything foolish.”

  Like loving me? He wanted to say. But instead he said, “I’ll try.”

  “Jadie?” Venture said once her grandmother was gone.

  Her eyes snapped up at him, full of pale green fire. She jabbed her finger at the headline. “‘The Ultimate Prize?’”

  Venture Delving was playing the role of bold renegade, and Jade his prize, to the great entertainment of all Richland. If there had been any doubts about that, the Crier made it perfectly clear with the article that followed that headline.

  “Those who dismiss Venture Delving as the drunken, blundering, brutish son of a lawless brawler, underestimate Richland’s most controversial fighter. This young man, and this controversy, are much more than first reports made them appear.”

  Reading those first lines, Venture had puzzled over the choice of the word drunken, then dismissed it as a baseless lie and dared to hope that the rest of the statement meant that the Crested conspiracy was being uncovered. That the public would stop focusing on his father and shift from questioning the character of bondsmen to asking themselves who the members of the Crested class really were, and whether they deserved their place of privilege. He’d already given up the ridiculous hope that they’d forget about the issues of class that had been brought up by his becoming Champion.

  But those hopes had been brutally dashed by the lines that followed.

  “‘The cunning young Champion wasted no time in moving to cement his place in Society. Even as the crowd gathered, still reeling from the bloody display and eager to see how the fighter fared, Delving made good use of the captive audience—and good use of a beautiful young lady standing nearby, pulling the girl into a passionate embrace.’” Jade looked up, cheeks flushed. “Use! Use!”

  “Jade—”

  She shook her head sharply and read on, “‘Waves of shock rippled through the crowd as the news spread that this mysterious girl was not just any lady, but the jewel of Springriver County, Miss Jade Fieldstone. And that’s not all. Jade is the daughter of the late Mrs. Jewel and Mr. Grant Fieldstone. And Fieldstone is none other than Venture Delving’s master.’ My mother’s name! Look at how she uses my mother’s name.”

  “I know.”

  “Oh, but we can’t forget her description of me. ‘Jade Fieldstone, a pretty but rebellious girl, is now a trophy of his triumph over bonded servitude, a token of Delving’s place in Society, even his ability to master his master. The ultimate prize.’”

  Venture swallowed back the sour lump threatening to come up his throat. Those were new heights of nauseating wordplay, even coming from his least favorite reporter.

  “By Lacy Clearwater,” Jade added in a mocking, throaty imitation of the reporter. She batted her eyes and faked a flourish with her hand.

  Then, briskly, she rolled the pages of the Crier into a tight wand. Her knuckles whitened around it, and for an instant, Venture thought she was going to hit him with it. She brought it down with a thwack on the table instead, upsetting the neat stack of dishes he’d made.

  “Lacy Clearwater!” Jade stood and stabbed at the air with the rolled-up paper. Its end, bent from the impact with the table, flopped downward comically as she pointed it at him. “How much more do I have to hear from Lacy Clearwater?”

  Before he could check it, Venture cracked a half-smile. Jade whacked him with the limp paper, still careful to avoid his injured arms.

  “I’m sorry.” He rose and reached to cup her cheek, but she turned away, blinking back tears. “Jadie.” He slipped his arm around her waist this time and drew her close. “I’m sorry for laughing. And,” he whispered, “I’m sorry about Lacy Clearwater.”

  She tipped her head up to look into his face, questions in her eyes. Old questions. Questions he’d already answered. Questions it seemed he’d never be done answering.

  “I’ve told you everything. I promise. Everything that woman has ever written was a half-truth or less. Everything.”

  “It isn’t funny eithe
r way.”

  “You’re right. I shouldn’t laugh. It’s just . . . what else can I do?”

  Jade’s eyes glittered with determination. “You can show them. Show them who you are. And I can show them who you are to me.”

  He grinned, glanced at the open doors, and seeing no one, kissed her lightly on the lips. “What exactly do you have in mind?”

  “The Fords’ anniversary party. It’s coming up in Summer’s Third Month.”

  “A party?” He tried not to grimace at the thought of trying to make it through another evening without coming across as just a brute in a suit again. And this wouldn’t just be any party. The Fords, Twin Rivers residents and longtime friends of the Fieldstones, had known Venture as a bondsman. It would be quite the statement for Jade to bring him as her guest.

  “I promise I won’t embarrass you this time,” Jade said.

  “How could you possibly embarrass me?”

  “I don’t know, maybe by giving all of Richland the impression you were a ‘blundering drunk,’ as your friend Lacy so eloquently put it.”

  “What?”

  “You didn’t see it? They didn’t tell you about . . .”

  “They didn’t tell me about what?”

  “The other article in the Crier. About you falling down drunk.”

  Venture pushed back a flare of fury. Dasher! Earnest! He was going to kill those guys. Even Justice hadn’t said anything, but then maybe Justice thought it was true. He took a deep breath. Gently, he tipped Jade’s chin up. “What happened at that party?”

  “I might’ve tried to give you some wine. You were about to pass out. I thought it would help, and you seemed fine, and I was going to grab Dasher, and then you collapsed. You dropped the glass . . .”

  “On the floor?”

  “It broke. There was red wine everywhere.” She turned redder with embarrassment.

  He’d been a complete spectacle. No doubt ruined Dasher’s suit. And Jade thought it was all her fault.

  “Come on, it’s not that bad,” he said. “I don’t think Dasher finished a single Championship night sober.” Of course, Dasher hadn’t been falling down drunk in public—though Earnest had.