Ten
“This is outrageous,” Aurora protested as the carriage came to a stop barely ten minutes later. She was going to scratch Apollo’s eyes out the moment she saw him. The nerve of the man.
“Mademoiselle can direct her grievances to the duque,” Apollo’s manservant—Jean-Louis, she’d been informed—advised as he pointed to the entrance of the building.
“I intend to,” she assured him with an aggrieved huff as she headed up the couple of steps to the door. “And I could’ve walked here,” she protested. Unlike his den of iniquity, this place was in Aurora’s neighborhood. Their meeting place, it seemed, was right in the heart of Montmartre.
She rapped twice with the door knocker and looked nervously over her shoulder while Jean-Louis stood like a sentinel a few feet away, clearly intending to personally deliver her to his overlord if she attempted to flee.
After the fourth knock, the door finally opened and a very slender, very pretty gentleman appeared in the doorway. He observed her curiously, but he didn’t seem surprised to find her at the door. This was likely another of the “duque’s” minions.
“Bonsoir, Docteur Montalban.” He bowed when he greeted her and stepped to the side to allow her in.
He was certainly not dressed as Apollo did in his bespoke suits. Loose trousers and a simple shirt and vest. His hair was very long and black, hanging down below his shoulders, and he had kind eyes that crinkled at the corners. Despite her general displeasure at her situation, she liked him instantly.
“I’ve been summoned by the duke, but I suppose you already know that.”
The man’s mouth twitched. “Indeed, we were expecting you.” He turned to the side, and she stepped through the door. “I’m Mihn.”
“Are you my instructor?”
“No.” He shook his head, still smiling as he pointed at a long hallway. “But I will take you to him.” With that they began their brisk walk through a long corridor. Mihn moved very fast, but his footsteps were light. Meanwhile she was stomping down the corridor like a bull.
The place was bigger than it seemed from the outside. She tried to take a peek as they passed empty open rooms, but they were walking too fast to take a good look.
“What is this place?” she asked, a bit breathless as they passed a room with a boxing ring.
“This is a club,” he told her, with another of those warm smiles.
“What kind of club?”
“A club to learn and practice pugilistic arts.” Of course, this would be the kind of club Apollo Sinclair visited.
“Do women belong to this club?” she asked, certain what the answer would be. To her amazement, he nodded. “There are women who practice, yes,” Mihn told her with a grin that said “you didn’t expect that did you?” She did like the man. There was something very easy about him and it was a rare man who appreciated a woman with questions. “One of the owners of the club is married to the daughter of Charles Lecour and she has a class only for ladies.” She had absolutely no idea who Lecour was, which clearly showed in her face, given Mihn’s consequent explanation. “He was one of the masters of Savate, the art of French boxing.” She had heard of Savate. She knew it came from the streets of Paris and involved punching and kicking. Not exactly her areas of interest, but she could not deny the idea of learning how to throw a proper punch intrigued her.
“Is that what I’m to learn? Savate?” she asked, as they rounded a corner.
“Not quite,” Mihn answered with an air of mystery that piqued her interest despite the situation.
As they reached the door at the end of the corridor, she thought she heard the sound of drums coming from the other side. “Are those drums?”
Mihn nodded. “There’s a sparring session in progress,” he answered vaguely, then put a finger over his lips.
She sent him a dubious look, but kept her mouth shut. She’d never heard of drums in a sparring session. “The drums are part of the background to them, but any other sudden noise could result in an accidental blow or kick.”
“Oh.” She nodded, solemnly waiting for him to open the door. When he did, she understood why he’d warned her.
She put a hand over her mouth to keep from crying out as she crossed the threshold. The sparring session, as it turned out, was not taking place in a room like the ones they’d passed. This was some kind of outdoor arena. It was a rectangular lawn lined with torchlights on all sides. Beyond it, she could see shadows of larger trees, and possibly a garden. They were standing on a concrete landing, which led down to a sunken green lawn, where two shadowed figures were circling each other in quick, graceful movements.
Both men were well-built and powerful. They were stripped to the waist, and the light of the torches turned their brown skin into a brushed gold. Her attention kept returning to one of the fighters. Her gaze hungrily roaming over his form. He wore only loose white trousers, and the sight of his broad shoulders, leading to a lean, tapered waist, stole her breath.
This display should’ve caused discomfort. Apollo bringing her here to watch him spar half-naked should’ve offended her. Offense was not what swirled and coiled hotly inside as she watched him move. Something possessive and hungry pounded through her as she took in that lithe body, his powerful form. She could not look away from the sinew and brawn on display. Brown curls bouncing as he swayed to some inner rhythm and circled his opponent. Even from a distance, she could see their skin slick with sweat. The two men crouched, bent at the waist with their feet moving almost in unison, forward and back, back and forward, as they rocked on the balls of their feet, tracking each other like a pair of fighting cocks.
“What is this?” she asked Mihn, a little breathless. She’d almost forgotten the man was there, she’d been so entranced with the view.
“It’s called capoeiragem or brincar de Angola,” Mihn explained in a hushed tone as they both watched the fighters. “It’s Brazilian. I’m told it was brought there by the men bought as slaves from Angola.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it.” As if he could sense he was being watched, Apollo’s movements intensified. He became quicker, and to her delight, the drums matched his rhythm. “It’s like a dance.” She was not certain if she was saying this to Mihn or to herself.
“It is,” her companion said appreciatively as his gaze followed the two fighters.
“I’ve heard the practice is so popular and has been used so effectively by slaves to defend themselves that the Brazilian government is in the process of outlawing it.” That did not surprise her. She could only imagine the horror of the wealthy landowners watching the men they had in bondage displaying this kind of power, this prowess, to the sound of these drums.
As she watched Apollo move and sway, she was quite suddenly overwhelmed with emotion for what she’d been invited to witness. He could be learning to fence or box or whatever his peers did in their clubs, but instead, here he was uncompromisingly himself. Apollo César Sinclair Robles might have claimed his place in the British aristocracy, but he was not theirs, he was his own. He could live in their world, but he knew what blood ran through his veins. She’d asked him to bear in mind that there was power in the world the two of them came from, in him, and tonight he was showing her he’d never forgotten.
The Duke of Annan might have his father’s blood, but he was his mother’s son.
His very existence was a rebellion.
A six-foot-tall, brown-skinned ambush on the ton. And he moved like he knew it. Limber and dangerous, prowling as he harnessed and unleashed power in equal measure. How would it be to be the one to unravel him?
Her rebellion could be this man, taking him into her body, into her bed, not out of duty, or penance, but because it pleased her to do so.
Oh yes, the two of them could be quite a revolution.
It was enough to make her forget she was supposed to be very mad at him. Just then, as if her thoughts had drifted from her head to his, he turned. His body rocking in that ancient cadence. He faced her, and she thought her heart might have actually stopped then. Collapsed against her sternum as she took in the glory of him.
I want this man , she thought, as she watched him crouch on the ground and sweep his impossibly long legs under his opponent, felling him swiftly. Apollo did not boast or crow. He simply offered his opponent a hand, helped him up, and they both went back to that constant back and forth. She’d never been particularly attached to things or money, but in that moment, she understood greed more than she had any emotion before that.
Soon he will be some gentle lady’s husband , said a shrewish voice in her head. Soon someone will be able to call that body her own. The thought made bile rise in her throat. Her body almost physically rejecting the idea. But it was the reality, she could never own this man. But she could have him for a time.
He’d brought her here, after all. A man who dragged a lioness into his lair had to know he might walk away with a few teeth marks on his person. That thought agitated her so, that her Gladstone slid out of her hand and crashed to the ground. The contact of the leather with the flagstones finally seemed to snap Apollo’s concentration. He whipped his head toward her and stood stock-still. His dark eyes boring into her. She thought she could sense the places he looked at.
After a moment, his sparring partner turned his gaze in her direction and grinned widely. Then he leaned to whisper something in Apollo’s ear that the duke seemed to not find nearly as humorous. His eyebrows dipped and he shook his head. The other man laughed then, loud and deep. Aurora noticed that he was even bigger than Apollo, and handsome. Both men turned to the drummer and bowed to him.
Apollo’s partner stayed in the pit, but the duke began walking toward her.
Apollo’s long strides covered the distance in a half dozen steps, and all the while, his eyes were locked with hers. He came to a stop a few feet from her, and she had to work hard to hold on to her earlier anger, when all she wanted to do was touch.
He was so magnificent. She raked her gaze over him freely, his broad mouth was now parted as he sucked oxygen into his lungs. There was stubble on his cheeks, which she’d never seen before. His cheekbones stood out on his face like birds’ wings. She noticed a medallion nestled in the divot between his pectoral muscles, which glistened with sweat in the dusky light of the torches. There was not much hair on him, just a trail traveling from his lower abdomen to a place she intended to see before the night was over.
She held herself very still as she watched him. Locking every muscle in her body she could. There was no way to fully conceal the effect his semi-nakedness had on her, but she was fairly certain she could keep herself from leaping at him like a trollop.
“Fiera,” he drawled huskily. “You were not easy to find.”
“You had me kidnapped, Your Grace.” To her frustration, her complaint was much too breathless to be considered a satisfactory reprimand. She might as well have complimented the man.
“I sent for you,” he told her, coming closer. Close enough to smell his sweat and the hints of vetiver on his skin. Close enough to see a drop of perspiration gathered at the base of his throat.
“I’m not yours to send for,” she countered, resorting to the safe waters of outrage.
“We had an agreement.” He was merely inches away. His body so near, in fact, that if she were to lean in, barely a centimeter, she’d be able to lap up that drop with the tip of her tongue. Demonios, but she wanted a taste. She squeezed her eyes shut and forcefully reminded herself that the man had her manhandled into a carriage.
“This is highly inappro—” she began to protest, but he put a finger over her lips and shook his head.
“Hush, Fiera.” That command, as unwelcome as it should’ve been, melted her bones. Tiny, agitated puffs of air escaped her nose as she attempted to rein herself in from the sudden contact. She should not like this manhandling. Shouldn’t feel a flutter in her chest at the thought that he’d wanted to see her. She knew Apollo hadn’t been pining. He was asserting himself. Reminding her he was a man who got what he wanted.
He was torturing her, flaunting that toned chest and flat stomach. He wanted to agitate her with his nakedness. To humble her with his carriage and his manservant. But he had no idea how reckless she could be. It seemed he’d forgotten how far she’d go to satiate her hungers.
So, she reminded him.