Chapter 18 #2
And there he was. Benedict, clad in only riding breeches, sweat-soaked and covered in bruises. The other man was faring worse, but only slightly. He thrust a fist toward Benedict’s gut and struck with a force that should have knocked Benedict over. Instead, he accepted the impact with a grunt.
Irrational anger raced through Eliza’s blood. He’d made no attempt to sidestep, to block, but merely absorbed the blow—one that would have felled another man, she was certain. His expression was dark, eyes wild. He looked… reckless.
The crowd jeered, ale sloshing and spittle flying.
This wasn’t at all what she had imagined.
It was brutal, punishing. The smooth chest she’d run her fingers along only the night before was peppered with mottling bruises.
Benedict’s lower lip—the very one that had kissed her neck—was now split open and purpled with dried blood.
His hands, the fingers that had driven her to such heights of pleasure—were swollen and bruised around the cloth wrappings.
“Ben, what the fuck are you doing?” A tawny-haired man cried from the opposite side of the ring. “You could’ve finished him ages ago!”
Benedict waved off the man. He took a hit to the ribs without raising his arm, only staggering back a step. Her stomach knotted. Why wasn’t he defending himself?
At last, Benedict feigned an uppercut, and when the man moved to block, Benedict landed a hit to the gut, which earned him a pained groan from his opponent and cheers from the crowd.
His opponent half stepped, half slumped over to one side, causing Benedict to cross step in anticipation—giving Eliza her first glimpse at his back.
A jagged breath tore from her throat. White, raised lines—half a dozen in each direction—sliced across the tendons of his back like cruel wings. Older scars, softened by time, white against the reddened, sweat-slicked skin.
His spine straightened, and he whirled around in one smooth motion. The moment his eyes locked onto hers, something feral, desperate flicked across his face before he dragged it back under control.
Seizing the opportunity, his opponent landed a punch to Benedict’s kidney, drawing Benedict back into the fight with a grunt. His stance shifted, straightened, and his fists tightened even as he cross stepped so his back was no longer to her.
“I’d forgotten,” her companion muttered at her side.
Eliza turned to her, unable to read the expression on the lady’s face. “I— Who?”
Lady Arabella shook her head.
The tide of the fight had turned. No more hesitation, no more sluggish defense—but explosive violence. Benedict drove forward with a one-two strike that seemed almost wild, forcing his opponent to scramble backward, unable to defend himself.
The man reared back, one foot catching the other. He collapsed, landing on a wrist with a sickening crack.
Benedict turned to the man from before—the one who knew him—with a hand outstretched. He didn’t bother to confirm the round was finished. Before Eliza could blink, he yanked a shirt over his head, mussing his wet hair, and halved the distance between them.
“Bella,” he growled as he reached them. “I said no.”
Lady Arabella rolled her eyes and squared her shoulders, shaking off the distress that seemed to overcome her at the sight of Benedict’s back. “I never listen to you. This should not be a surprise.”
“It’s not safe.”
“I’m perfectly capable of checking a man at my leisure.”
“In a ballroom. Surrounded by people who fancy themselves respectable. No one here fancies themselves respectable. And to bring Eliza here… If you were a man, Bella, I swear—”
“She’s quite well, as you can see,” Lady Arabella directed Benedict’s attention to Eliza.
Dark eyes trailed along her frame, not sensual, the way they had been the night before, but searching. “I am. Are you—”
His hand, damp and swollen, reached out, cupping her cheek. “You’re flushed. Are you overheated? Do you need to sit?”
“Benedict, I’m fine.”
“She’s not flushed over the temperature, you nitwit,” Lady Arabella grumbled.
“Bella…” he rumbled again.
“Ben,” the other man called from behind Benedict’s shoulder. “He’s got another round in him.”
Benedict took a deep breath, then released it sharply before dropping a kiss to Eliza’s forehead.
“Don’t move. Either of you,” he ordered, as though Eliza were capable of movement, of anything at all.
Overwhelmed. She was overwhelmed by him, that greeting, the pandemonium in the room, the bruising along his flank.
He turned to his friend, a ruddy cheeked fellow of about thirty, also half dressed. His musculature rivaled Benedict’s. Perhaps a fellow boxer. “Stay with them, West?”
The man, West, nodded, reaching out a hand for Benedict’s shirt. Instead of stripping it, he shook his head and stepped into the makeshift ring.
His opponent stood, half slumped over, clutching his wrist.
“Bella,” the man purred in a familiar greeting. “And you must be Miss Wayland.” Eliza nodded. Her expression must have been questioning because he continued. “Cannot get the man to talk about anything else. I’m afraid to say you’ve left him tangled up in knots, Miss Wayland.”
“Feel free to be elsewhere, Weston,” Lady Arabella snapped, tone frigid.
West chuckled, a bemused smile settling across his face as he turned to the match at the bell. “Charming as ever, Bella.”
“I’ve no wish to charm you.”
“And yet you manage it all the same. Now, please don’t flatter me with your smiles and coy looks. A man could get ideas.”
This West was not at all put out by the gentle lady’s cruel words and peevish tone. Rather, he seemed bemused. This was only the second time Eliza had seen Lady Arabella look anything other than precisely composed. The first having been moments earlier at the sight of Benedict’s back.
“I gave you no leave to have thoughts about me at all.”
“Oh, well now that I know I do not have permission... no more lascivious thoughts.”
“No thoughts at all—it should be an effortless task as it’s your natural state.”
His chuckle was unimpressed as he turned to Eliza. “Do you know the rules, Miss Wayland?”
“More or less.”
Benedict dodged a weak fist and landed a hit on the man’s shoulder, but it was a glancing blow.
“This round, he’ll finish it. He’s been off tonight. But he has new motivation…”
Off. Distracted. Because of her?
“He’s not throwing many punches,” Eliza noted.
“Ben isn’t the strongest, but he has stamina.
Usually, he’s fast enough to evade most strikes—a bit sluggish tonight—but takes the ones that get passed like no one I’ve ever seen.
Don’t suppose you know why he’s off tonight, Bella?
” There was a pointed note to his question that Eliza couldn’t quite parse.
Bella sniffed, turning her attention pointedly to the match.
Eliza winced when the other man landed a hit on Benedict’s side. He showed no reaction other than to step back with that foot. The man stumbled at the unexpected shift.
“Hook him, Ben! Finish it!” Weston shouted before turning to Eliza. In a more sedate tone, he added, “If it were me, he’d have been down fifteen rounds ago.”
Benedict had endured more than fifteen rounds of this? Boxing was a brutal sport; she understood that intellectually. But such barbarity… It was cruel.
“This is— Is it always like this, Mr. West, was it?”
He nodded. “Miles Weston, but you can call me West, everyone does—save Bella. Ben is… distracted tonight.”
“Not over…”
West chuckled, offering her a bright smile. “Don’t worry your pretty head over it. It’s Ben’s problem to sort out.”
“Leave her alone, Weston. She didn’t come here to have you flirt at her,” Lady Arabella interjected, still facing the makeshift ring.
“No, but you did,” West turned to face her.
“Had I known you would be here, you can be assured I would be anywhere else.”
“Have I ever been anywhere else when your brother was fighting? No, and you wore that pretty little frock with me in mind. I thank you for it.”
That remark finally provoked her enough, compelling her to face him. “The day I do a singular thing with you in mind is the day the devil repents.”
“It’s a very pretty frock,” he said, ignoring her remark entirely. “I particularly appreciate the neckline.”
Eliza hadn’t truly believed he would cease any lascivious thoughts, but nothing in the way West surveyed Lady Arabella could have been termed polite.
Another grunt echoed from the ring, cheers rising with it and drawing Eliza’s gaze. Benedict had gotten a hit somewhere on his opponent’s body—it was difficult to tell where.
“Are you not supposed to be advising my brother? I very much doubt he requires assistance in objectifying his sister.”
“Nah, not with Miss Eliza here. He’s sorted it now. Your brother doesn’t need my help. You, on the other hand, need to be admired.”
“I need nothing from you.”
Eliza shifted her focus to the fight and left them to their bickering.
West was right. Benedict was close to finishing, if not the match, then the round.
He allowed a glancing strike to his shoulder before twisting away and returning with a left hook to his opponent’s jaw.
The man reeled back before falling to his knees while Benedict flexed his hand, shaking away the blow.
His gaze was fixed on the other man until he flopped to the ground. His comrades peeled him off the floor and dragged him back to a seat.
“Shouldn’t have gone for the jaw,” West said to Benedict as he approached.
“He needs to learn when to stay down.”
“You never did.”
“I don’t fall in the first place,” Benedict said before turning to Eliza. “Are you well?” he asked, voice tender and eyes soft, fretting as though she were the one bruised and battered.
“I… Your hand?” She reached for it and brushed her fingers across the bruised and torn knuckles.
“I’m fine, little violet.” The endearment falling so easily off his lips set her heart fluttering.
“You could have a broken bone.”
He shook his head. “Didn’t hit him that hard—just enough to give him an excuse to forfeit.”
“And the rest of you?”
“You don’t need to worry about me.”
A quick glance behind him showed two men trying and failing to stand their defeated friend upright. Before she could blink, a gentleman reached out for Benedict’s free hand and pulled him from Eliza’s side. He lifted their joined hands over his head.
Benedict’s demeanor was disinterested when he reached out to shake his flopped-over opponent’s hand.
Task completed, he returned to Eliza and tucked a loose curl behind her ear with his bruised hand.
“West, can you—”
“Wait here and retrieve your prize on your behalf?”
“Yes, that,” Benedict said without looking at his friend.
“Yes, but I’ve a finder’s fee—ten percent.”
“That is not what a finder’s fee is,” Lady Arabella insisted.
“I’m not aware of a term that means ‘the fee one earns from waiting around for your friend’s prize because he wants to go make eyes at a pretty girl far away from this sweat-soaked shack.’ Have you a better suggestion?”
“Ten percent is absurd. You may have an as-yet-unnamed favor,” Benedict offered, preventing more verbal bloodshed.
“Done,” West said. “Best get them both out of here before Bella’s neckline causes an unexpected brawl.”
“I told you—”
Benedict grabbed his sister’s elbow, silencing her with a spin toward the door before catching Eliza’s lower back with his other palm. She handed the dregs of her drink to West as Benedict guided them out.
“Benedict—”
“Leave it, Bella. I don’t want to hear a single word out of you. Let’s go.”
He urged Eliza along until they spilled out a back entrance into the night.