Chapter 2
“How can anyone dislike Christmas, I ask you?” Laertes Ripton, Viscount Hawthorne, demanded.
Oliver let out a sigh.
He was not about to explain in every detail to his friend Laertes why, over the years, his heart had become a calcified thing whenever Christmas arose in a conversation.
Oliver was exceptionally good at all the details of Christmas, but after the death of his father, when Oliver had become the duke, his mother had chosen to carry out most of the organization for his estates on her own.
Christmas had become a thing to do, a box on a list to tick, a necessity to ensure the proper running of his estates and the well-being of his people. Over the years, he had come to understand Christmas for exactly what it was.
It was a panacea. It was a bandage. It was something that one simply put on once a year to endure the difficulty and bitterness of life.
He had realized once he had left childhood behind on that fateful day, when he had been such a fool as to think that dancing about a room in silks, ribbons, and jewels could be in his future, that the reality of life was not joyful or beautiful or full of awe.
The reality of life was people living in the gutter.
The reality of life was people plagued by disease. The reality of life was the system of government, which served the few and ruined the many. He spent most of his life fighting that system, though he directly benefited from it.
He loved Laertes, Viscount Hawthorne. Love was an extreme word, but he did not think it was inaccurate, because Laertes represented that part of himself which he had eschewed long ago, and he was bemused to see that a lord could be so…well, naive.
Hawthorne was a good man, a strong man, a capable man, but having been raised in the ridiculous softness of the Briarwood family, he was also a man who simply refused to see the reality of life.
As far as Oliver could see, all Briarwoods were touched by delusion. It had been why he’d stood up for Laertes quite often at Eton. He’d had his delusions crushed. He had no wish for Laertes to have to follow suit.
The truth was he admired the Briarwoods for their collective delusions about the world. He could even enjoy it, but he certainly could not approve of it for any length of time.
One needed to be ruled by logic and reality, not by dreams. Even the great Duke of Westleigh, patriarch of the Briarwood brood, could see the way the world really was, even if he did occasionally seem to be touched by a dream too many.
Those dreams, as far as Oliver could see, set the Duke of Westleigh on edge. He wished the Duke of Westleigh could leave them behind, just as Oliver had learned to do as a child. Westleigh would be much more content if he did.
Hawthorne’s brow shot up as they wandered through the dark back streets of the south of London.
“I will not trouble you with my thoughts on Christmas,” he said at last. “I do not stomp on other people’s joys. Now, where’s the fight you promised me? This is far from the boxing clubs I frequent.”
Hawthorne gazed at him for a long moment, clearly wishing to press the point of Christmas, but he gave a terse nod, then perked up and said quite dramatically, “Boxing clubs? That’s not fighting. That’s prancing about in pretty rooms. I have brought you for a test, if you’re game.”
His brow shot up, intrigued. He did not usually go in for slumming or wandering the dangerous streets of Southwark.
But he was in dire need of a good fight.
He felt wound as tight as a top and if he snapped, it would do no one good.
He was half convinced his current state was why his mistress and he had broken it off recently.
“A test, you say?”
Laertes waggled his dark brows. “A test of manhood,” Hawthorne said.
“I wasn’t aware my manhood was in question,” drawled Oliver.
“You’re always going on about what a great boxer you are,” Laertes replied as they dodged scum-covered puddles and broken cobbles.
“I am a great boxer,” Oliver said without humility because humility was, in his opinion, a waste of time. “But I don’t go on about it. Everyone else goes on about it.”
Hawthorne snorted. “Ah, arrogance is a duke’s primary feature. And sometimes a lack of self-awareness.”
He shot his friend a look as a group of drunken revelers passed by, singing at the top of their lungs about an incredibly flexible young woman named Nell.
“Did you just say that I don’t understand myself?”
Hawthorne gave a quick shrug. “If you think that’s what I said.”
He snorted in return. “You did not tell me we were headed to such parts. If you had, I would have dressed differently.”
“If I had told you, you might not have come.” Hawthorne’s eyes glowed with a dangerous sort of mischief. “Because I have an idea.”
“Bloody hell, Hawthorne,” he groaned. “I need a good fight and then I want to head out tonight. I had to end it with my last mistress. That was very difficult. Quite frankly, I can’t go for long periods of time without—”
Laertes rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, yes. I understand. You are a man. You have your needs. I do too. But don’t be a ridiculous sot.
You can endure a little trip to Southwark and you might just learn a thing or two.
This will be an experience unlike any you’ve ever had.
You’re always going on about how good you are with your sword, your fists. You are a great man.”
“Stop that,” Oliver retorted. “That’s not true. You’re making me sound like a—”
Laertes’s brows shot up, daring him to finish.
Oliver ground his teeth. Was this accurate? Did he do these things? “Fine. What is it that you want of me?”
They stopped in front of a rather creaky door with chipped paint on a side street, and he looked up at the dark brick wall. He glanced left to right.
“Are we going to be robbed?” Oliver demanded. “Is this the experience you’ve arranged for me? I already understand the plight of the working man. I know you Briarwoods are quite odd, but—”
“I have a wager for you.”
A wager. He quite liked a wager. “Go on.”
Hawthorne hesitated for a single second as if he was standing before some great abyss and trying to decide if he should jump back or throw himself in. “You’re so good at boxing, Crestfield. But I have a friend that I want you to fight.”
“Right. That’s not a wager,” he pointed out.
Hawthorne cleared his throat. “If you lose, you have to come home with me for Christmas.”
Oliver laughed, a dry, disbelieving sound, which boomed down the narrow side street. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Hawthorne,” he said. “First, I won’t lose. Second, I’m not about to—”
But then the door opened, and a man of about sixty years old, with grizzled features, tousled hair, and a cocky stance greeted them. “Right, lads. Who’s the one I’m supposed to beat up? Is it you, Laertes, or is it this one?”
“‘This one’?” Oliver echoed, rather astonished to be addressed thus. “I am the Duke of Crestfield, sir.”
“And I’m Hartigan Mulvaney, Irishman and retired soldier,” the man returned in his lilting, defiant accent. “I hear you’re halfway decent with your fists.”
Oliver tensed. “Halfway is not the correct word.”
“Not at all then, is it?” Mulvaney taunted.
“Hartigan,” Hawthorne said with a low note of warning, “you don’t need to rake him over the coals.”
“This pretty one?” Mulvaney queried, jabbing his fierce words at Oliver. “I clearly do if he thinks he can fight.”
Mulvaney tsked as if Oliver was a lost cause.
“Mr. Mulvaney, I have spent years training and sparring—”
“For hours upon hours, at a ridiculous place and at a ridiculous price,” Mulvaney cut in without apology.
“Are you trying to be offensive, sir?” Oliver demanded.
“Trying?” Mulvaney’s lips twitched. “I hope I’m succeeding. Laertes has suggested that you need a bit of roughening up to help you see exactly where you actually are.”
“You did what?” he said to Laertes. “Why would you do that?”
“Because it’s true,” Hawthorne rushed. “You’ve gotten into a terrible rut, my friend, and I’m worried about you.”
Oliver sucked in a breath. “Your worry is kind but unneeded.”
“Oh no. It’s definitely needed,” Hawthorne said. “Besides, you think that you’re good at fighting. You’re not. You’re going to get yourself into a bad situation one day.”
“I am not good at…” Oliver ground his teeth, closed his eyes, then said, “I’m excellent at boxing. My father paid for lessons for years and now I box at—”
“Gentlemen Jackson’s, is it?” Mulvaney asked, leaning against the doorframe as he folded his incredibly strong arms over each other.
“Yes. Why do you ask?” Oliver asked.
“Because that’s not real fighting, Your Grace. And most of the real fighters in there know it.”
“How do I make this man cease his nonsense?” Oliver gritted.
“You can just agree to come home with me for Christmas. Or you can fight him and come home with me for Christmas.”
“Or I could walk away now, with no mention of Christmas.”
“So, you could, Your Grace, but you’d always know you avoided a proper fight…because you didn’t have the training.”
Oliver tensed. “I’m being manipulated,” he said.
“Yes,” Hawthorne returned. “Isn’t it fun?”
“Not really,” he replied before he narrowed his eyes at his friend. “I’m not going to go home with you for Christmas.”
“Right. I understand.” Hawthorne shook his head sadly before winking at Mulvaney, then glancing back to Oliver. “You’re afraid of him.”
“That’s not going to work,” Oliver drawled. “I’m not that easily pushed into a situation.”
Mulvaney started to laugh. “He is afraid. It’s fine. I’ve got other things to do this night than stand here talking about fighting.”
Afraid?
Oliver Lansford was over six foot three. He spent an hour and a half every day building his physique because, well, that’s what a great man did, wasn’t it? Not only had he spent hours devoted to his mind, but he had also spent hours devoted to his physicality, so that no one might ever…
He swallowed.