Chapter 3 #2
She smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “The threat of what happens if I don’t marry Lord Howden. My sister’s godchildren are in want of a new governess.”
For one uncomfortable moment, he imagined her wild and windswept. “You can’t write for The Sentinel if you live in Yorkshire.”
Yet she’d be a fool to marry Howden.
There was no time to discuss her options. The carriage drew up outside Fortune’s Den, the street thick with men straining for news of the fight below, breath smoking in the cold. Two penny boys raced out of the gaming hell to give those without tickets a gruesome commentary.
“The Bristol Bull split Sawyer Sam’s lip with a right hook that left him staggering,” the lad called before darting back inside.
“Some green gent in the front row spewed in a bucket,” said the older boy. “Odds are on Sawyer to go down next round.”
“We’re late.” Miss Vane seemed more troubled about missing the action than the lurid details.
“I thought we’d skip the first bout. Make sure everyone is settled in their seats.” He hadn’t accounted for her eagerness. It would draw every man’s eye. Including his.
“They’re not letting anyone else in.”
“We have tickets.” And if not, money would have served just as well.
He alighted and helped Miss Vane to the pavement. His gaze dropped briefly to where her high-buttoned boots met an inch of silk stocking. Did she not think to wear wool?
Rowton sat atop his box, unaware his composure was about to be rattled for the sake of Miss Vane’s disguise.
Hugh removed his hat. “I need your tricorn.”
Rowton looked from him to Miss Vane and frowned.
“You may take mine in exchange.” He knew her offer to bake a tart would fall on deaf ears. “I doubt we’ll be long. You’ll have it back in an hour.”
Rowton eyed her cravat and waistcoat, and handed over the tricorn as a mother might hand a babe to a debt collector.
“Miss Vane is an Original,” Hugh muttered, as though that explained his urge to take his man’s hat.
She put the tricorn on and grinned. “How do I look?”
He didn’t say ridiculous and slightly deranged. That wasn’t true. “Like a woman who doesn’t care what the rest of the world thinks.”
Her brows knitted, as though she couldn’t decide whether he’d complimented her. He had, though he would sooner admit to reading Byron.
The boy’s cry that the Bull had gone down swept them into the cheering crowd.
His hand slipped around her waist. The costume was not the only concession she would make tonight. “Forgive the familiarity, but I need to keep you close.”
She met his gaze and nodded. “I shall try not to injure you with the tip of my tricorn.”
He was still chuckling to himself when he handed their tickets to the brute at the door and led Miss Vane below.
Candles in iron sconces lit the arena, leaving the audience in shadow. She gripped his coat sleeve as they pushed past spectators lining the stairs. Men and a handful of women filled the benches, crammed into every space like herrings in a barrel.
“We’ll stand on that platform at the back,” he said close to her ear, almost poking his eye out with the point of her hat. “Search the crowd for Bellingham.” With a wager on McCaffrey, he’d be watching the ring with a hawk’s focus.
The next fight began: The Silent Northman against The Gamecock. The Gamecock was small and aggressive, his punches landing like quick nips of a beak. The crack of knuckle on bone split the air.
Miss Vane flinched. She threaded her arm through his, squeezing and turning away when The Northman won with a single blow to the chin.
He watched her clap when she knew it was over, her eyes wide and alight as if the victory were hers.
She should have looked out of place. Instead, the room seemed altered by her presence. It wasn’t just her perfume he found potent. This woman was a lesson in ruin.
“Is it wrong to cheer?” she said over the din.
“No.” It was wrong to hike her skirts with a pin. Wrong to ride together in his carriage. Wrong to enter a gaming hell and cling to his arm as though they were lovers.
The sooner he found Bellingham, the better. He scanned the sea of heads. There must be fifty people packed into the small space. The smell of sweat and liquor was enough to make a man choke.
“Do you see him?” she said while men mopped blood and spittle from the ring. “All faces look the same in this light.”
He saw the Earl of Berridge leaning against a wall, arms folded, as the next contenders approached. Most men on the benches turned to look. He identified a few, none of them Bellingham.
“Are you sure he’ll attend?” She craned her neck, surveying the crowd. “He’d be easier to find in a pew at St Mary-le-Bow.”
It would have been easier to come alone. He had the letter; he could have forced the truth from Bellingham.
The night dragged on: wagers made, men falling, the room gripped by a boxing fever. Miss Vane an unwelcome distraction at his side.
“I’m quite exhausted,” she said, her shoulder pressed so tightly to his he could feel her every breath.
“But not shocked?” He knew the answer. She’d worn men’s clothes while wielding a pistol.
“Little surprises me, sir. My parents invented a velocipede. A dandy-horse with a gunpowder charge capable of propelling the rider.”
That explained everything. “Perhaps your second article could be about interesting inventions.”
Her smile guttered like a snuffed candle. “There’s nothing interesting about two reckless people creating pointless things.”
He’d opened a wound he hadn’t meant to. “They died while pursuing their passion?”
“In a flotation device off the Dorset coast.”
He swallowed hard. Even he had no dry remark for that. Around them, men roared for blood. Beside him, Miss Vane looked suddenly alone.
Her need for a secure future made sense. As did her hope of proving Lord Howden wasn’t a villain. It did not make him like the man any better.
He glanced at her tricorn and jaunty cravat. Did she know some traits were inherited? And impossible to outrun.
“I’m sorry.” He meant it. He carried his own disappointment. His parents had been careless with other people’s hearts, too.
“They’re together. That’s all that matters.” Her attention shifted to a tussle on the benches. “Love like that is extremely rare. I’ve heard it can make people a little mad.”
Their eyes met amid the cries and jeers, and for once neither reached for a retort.
He might have considered how alike they were. In intellect. In conviction. In their refusal to retreat from difficult truths. But every man jumped to his feet, pointing and cheering as McCaffrey stepped up to the ring.
Miss Vane gripped his sleeve. “He’s smaller than I expected. I’m at least a head taller.”
“Size rarely determines the outcome. Ask anyone McCaffrey has flattened.”
“Perhaps we should have made a wager.”
“I don’t bet on pantomime.”
An argument erupted to their left, one man adamant that McCaffrey’s last opponent was paid to fall. Hugh drew Miss Vane in front of him, his back to the wall, one arm braced before her. She fitted into the space as though she belonged there. Woe betide the fool who touched her.
He’d be glad when this was over.
“I’ve only seen Mr Bellingham a handful of times, and he’s always worn a red waistcoat.” She gestured to the only man in red heading for the stairs, barging through the rowdy spectators. “I think that’s him. He seems in a hurry to leave.”
Bellingham glanced back as he mounted the steps, panic tightening every muscle.