Chapter 8
Thalia stepped into the dim rooms of the club, tossing back her hood as soon as she was inside. Candlelight danced from the wooden beams across the ceiling, and the stench of spirits made her nose sting.
Behind her, one of Elliot’s manservants carried her latest sculpture under a sheet. Elliot himself would have accompanied her if he hadn’t been called away on urgent business, meaning she had to handle this on her own.
Which was fine. Of course. She preferred handling things on her own, and even though she had never felt safe here, she also felt confident that no one would actually attack her, especially with a servant in tow.
Well, perhaps the servant made very little difference, really. But he provided an illusion of safety that she clung to.
A greasy man behind a bar looked her up and down. “What do you want here, love?”
She grimaced at his blackened teeth and foul breath. “I’m looking for a Mr. Fagin.”
“Downstairs, betting on the ring. Purple waistcoat: you can’t miss him.”
“Thank you.” Beckoning to the servant, she ventured toward the stairs for the first time since coming here.
Downstairs, in the pit, was the true underground venue, where men could bet, not just on cards, but on human flesh.
Thalia had never liked boxing much. It seemed an aggressive sport, and all too often she had seen the other side of it, men beaten bloody and broken. There had been too many deaths, and even when there hadn’t been deaths, there were broken bones, bruises, and split knuckles.
Still, a promise was a promise, and she had a sculpture to deliver.
As she descended the stairs, painted girls leered at her.
She had not dressed as one of them tonight and had, in fact borrowed one of her maid’s dresses, a dull brown.
Here, she felt as though she were a sparrow among parrots, her plumage dulled when compared to the rouged cheeks and red lips of the working girls.
And there, spreading out before her in a den of depravity, was the pit.
In the center of the room sat the main attraction, and the only reason many of the men here came: the boxing ring. A rope enclosed a square space that was sectioned off from the throng. Within those confines, two men were sparring with one another.
She hadn’t intended to look, but when she did, she put a hand over her mouth.
Of the two men there, standing shirtless with rags wrapped around their knuckles, she recognized one. He was tall, dark-haired, with an arrogant bearing and a face so devastatingly handsome that she hardly knew how she had ever kept her resolution to call off the wedding.
Thin lips that had once moved so softly, so passionately, against hers. Broad shoulders. The rounded muscles worked and flexed underneath as he prowled around his opponent, his focus unwavering.
She felt as though she had intruded on something private, even though he was performing for a crowd.
Her mouth turned dry, but she couldn’t look away, even as the two men exploded in a flurry of movement.
The smaller man attempted to land punches across the Duke’s head, but he covered himself, then lashed out with his fist, aiming lower, into the man’s stomach.
Thalia sucked in a breath.
The Duke capitalized on his advantage; every movement was loaded with grace and power. The dance was brutal, yes, but it was no less a dance for all that.
When he landed a final blow to his opponent’s face, and the other man fell, a bell dinged, and everything stopped.
Thalia released the breath she had been holding, and as though in slow motion, the Duke turned around and caught sight of her.
His eyes were like twin storms as they gazed into hers, and she knew she ought to break the tension and look away, but it was all she could do to keep her calm when faced with such an overt display of power and aggression.
In a drawing room, he was civilized, but here he was something else entirely. Something raw and masculine and animalistic in a way that made her blood heat and her heart pump. Her stomach felt oddly unsettled, looping around itself.
So, this was what he did when he came here. Not to bet, but to win. She’d known it since that first time she’d met him here, but knowing it and witnessing it were two entirely different things.
The crowd shifted, and someone stepped in front of her, breaking their line of sight.
Good. Finally.
Heaving a sigh of relief, Thalia turned her attention to looking for a man in a purple waistcoat. He wasn’t hard to find, standing in the middle of the room with an expression on his face that indicated he was pleased with himself.
He was about to be more so.
Thalia reached his side, and he stopped his conversation, glancing at her. His gaze passed over her plain dress, then lingered on her face, perhaps struggling to recall if he had seen her before.
“My name is Miss Partridge,” she lied baldly, “and I’m here on behalf of my master, Alessandro Rossi. Your new commission, as requested.”
She waved a hand at the manservant, who placed the sculpture on the floor beside Mr. Fagin. With a flourish, he revealed the sculpture.
Thalia stepped back, always loving this moment—when a client saw her work for the first time.
He had requested, rather uninventively, a nymph carrying a jug of water, but Thalia had even detailed the water dripping from the neck of the jug, as well as the nymph’s pretty face, soft lips, and beatific smile.
And, of course, the nymph wore a simple slip of a dress that hung off one shoulder, revealing a small, pert breast. For that, she had looked in the mirror, copying her own and changing its size and shape somewhat.
Mr. Fagin laughed, slapping his rotund stomach with delight. “Well now, this Rossi knows what he’s about, doesn’t he?”
Thalia nodded. “The debt is paid.”
“Yes, yes.” He waved an absent hand. “The debt is paid.”
Her work here was done. She didn’t linger, backing away from Mr. Fagin—
Until she crashed into something behind her. If it hadn’t been so warm, she might have believed it was a wall.
Instead, she knew better.
When she turned, it was to see the Duke glowering down at her.
He was wearing a shirt now, but she couldn’t banish the image of him half-naked from her mind, and even though the material concealed the power of his body, she pictured what was underneath.
Now, she would never be free of that image.
She felt oddly breathless as she faced him.
“Lady Thalia,” he said, reaching out to take her elbow and draw her closer to his body. When she glanced back, she saw he had tugged her out of the way of a passing group of young men. “You are here again.”
“As you see,” she said pertly, making no attempt to free herself. “Do you often come here to box?”
A muscle in his jaw flexed. “That was not something a young lady ought to have seen.”
“Why?” She tilted her head as she looked up at him. “Do you think my sensitivities are so delicate that I cannot stomach a little violence?”
“No,” he nearly growled at her.
“Then why? Because you are improperly attired? There are other places I could go if I wished to see that, I assure you.”
His eyes flashed. “And what places are those, my lady?”
In truth, Thalia had no real idea; she only knew about this place because of Elliot, and while he may have frequented more insalubrious places, he made sure never to share them with her.
Still, that didn’t mean she had to admit to such things.
“Here, I am not a lady,” she said, raising her chin. “I go by Miss Partridge.”
“At least you have some sense,” he muttered. “Although you could have chosen a name like Smith or Jones.” He led her to a corner of the room. “Why were you here?”
“Could I not be here to see you?” She fluttered her lashes, at once prevaricating and more than a little enticed by the vision of his fighting. “I had not known you were so skilled.”
“If that’s the case, then you could not have come here for my sake,” he retorted dryly, but she thought she saw a hint of a smile on the corner of his lips.
“You have flawless logic, Your Grace.”
“Then why were you here?” He glanced over in the direction of Mr. Fagin, and she knew she had to distract him.
With newfound daring, she placed a hand on his chest, right above his heart. It pounded under her palm, and the Duke froze, glancing slowly down at her.
“I must confess, seeing you like that was quite something,” she murmured, not meeting his gaze. “Very different from the man you present yourself to be in Society.”
“This is not a side of myself I let most people see,” he said shortly, but she could still feel his racing heart.
If anything, her question had made it thump faster.
She leaned closer. “Why not?” she asked. “You were magnificent in there.”
He took hold of her wrist, fingers meeting around the delicate bone. Until that moment, she hadn’t appreciated fully how large his hands were, and the sight of it made her legs feel somewhat watery. She went hot all over.
“I know you’re distracting me,” he said, bending down over her and lowering his voice.
Although they were in a room filled with people, all Thalia could see was the Duke, and the gleam in his eyes made her feel a trifle unsteady, as though she were on the prow of a boat plunging into waves.
“I meant every word I said,” she told him, somewhat breathlessly. “You were marvelous, Your Grace. Truly.”
His gray eyes searched hers, and his fingers relaxed slightly at the truth he must have read there.
“I should go,” she said, wiggling free of his hold. “After all, this is not a particularly safe place for me to be. Goodbye!”
She waved a hand and darted back through the crowd before he could stop her.
At the top of the stairs, she paused and pressed both hands to her cheeks. His bound hands came back into her mind. The violence with which he had battered his opponent in the ring, and the gentleness with which he had touched her, were curiously contrasting.
He had listened to her about Lydia, and she even thought he might have taken her advice.
Shocking.
And heavens, the way he had looked was misted with sweat.
She hurried out of the building before she could expire with what she thought might just be unresolved desire.
“Just admit it,” Anna said as she sat beside Thalia in Elliot’s studio the next morning.
“Mm?” Thalia frowned, slicing at the wood with her knife as she rounded the edges.
“You fancy the Duke.”
“Fancy him? Don’t be ridiculous.”
Anna sighed, propping her chin on her hands. “I hardly think I am the one being ridiculous here.”
“I knew you would get the wrong idea when I told you about the boxing.”
“The boxing is not the issue, dearest. Many gentlemen box, and although most ladies do not have the privilege of watching, the act itself means nothing.”
“Well, then.”
“It’s how you have responded.”
“I’ve not responded at all,” Thalia said, turning away from her latest creation and frowning at Anna. “In fact, I’ve not seen him since.”
A deliberate ploy, though with the Duke chaperoning Lydia everywhere—and Thalia’s father insisting she marry at the first available opportunity—not one she could maintain for long.
“Perhaps not,” Anna said with a small smile, motioning at the sculpture set on the plinth before them, “but you must admit that you have felt things.”
Thalia opened her mouth to object, then closed it again.
Now she looked at it objectively, the young man perched contemplatively on a rock, which was attached seamlessly to the plinth, bore a certain resemblance to the Duke.
It was in the hard line of his jaw and the rather unforgiving light in his eyes.
How had she captured that?
Her hands stilled as she assessed the piece all over again. “Oh no,” she said.
“Oh yes,” Anna said.
“But—”
She didn’t even like him. Seeing him at the club had, admittedly, made her wonder a little about him. Why did he do such things, at least, and why did no one there seem to recognize him as being a peer of the realm?
He had seemed so shocked by her genuine admiration.
“I admit I find him attractive,” she said after a long moment, when it became evident that she had to say something. What could justify this? “But I’m hardly a foolish girl mooning after a man she can’t have. This doesn’t have to mean anything.”
“What it means is that you like him,” Anna said. “Denying it is pointless now. Look at the way you’ve sculpted this statue’s arms.”
“Those don’t belong to the Duke,” Thalia said instinctively.
“No? Then whose arms are they?”
“No one’s!”
Anna sent her a pitying look. Thalia had seen arms before, and she had studied anatomy in order to be able to make her sculptures, but now, as she looked at the sculpture more closely, she could identify that this unnamed man had the Duke’s body.
His shoulders, his arms—she had seen them so very clearly.
The Duke’s arms bunched just like this when he had his fists raised before him.
Heat stained her cheeks, and she had the absurd urge to throw the sculpture at the wall.
“He’s truly not so bad,” Anna said sympathetically, patting Thalia’s shoulder even though her eyes brimmed with laughter. “If you get to know him better, perhaps you will think so too.”
“I don’t know what you hope will come from this.” Thalia dashed her fingers in the water, washing away the wooden splinters.
She hadn’t told Anna about the kiss, and it was a good thing, too, or Anna would have become ridiculously convinced that they would marry.
As though one kiss was the foundation on which to build a life together.
“We cannot all have your luck,” she added. “Be happy with your choice of husband and leave me to my devices.”
Anna’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “Well, then, I hope your devices will shortly include the Duke.”
Thalia had a nasty suspicion they would.