Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jonathan feared something was distracting Genevieve. Normally, she moved purposefully and with grace. But for the first three rounds, she’d been heavy on her feet. Clumsy even. Meanwhile, her gaze darted between the spectators and her opponent.
For the second time since the mill began, Jonathan closed his eyes so that he didn’t have to watch her struggle.
He was not ashamed of her; the opposite was true.
He was exceedingly proud that she would soon be his viscountess.
But she was not performing to her potential.
He knew her well enough to understand that since she took immense pride in her athletic abilities, she’d be disappointed in herself when the mill ended.
Her ensuing lack of confidence would be his fault.
Well, his and Griffendale’s, because she was much too inexperienced for them to have put her in this position.
Jonathan’s gaze slid to Griffendale, who stood with Franny, right outside of Genevieve’s corner.
Jonathan was too far away, and it was much too noisy to tell, but the duke seemed to be giving Gen directives.
Well, dip Jonathan in whale oil, and light a match—Griffendale must be offering up advice so that she could better fight his champion.
Shocking but true, lately, the duke’s actions proved that he genuinely cared about women excelling in athletics.
The bell dinged, signifying the start of the fourth round.
“Go, Ghost, Go,” Jonathan cheered despite wanting to leap into the ring and beg Bear to stop the fight.
“Bah. Heard The Ghost was good,” an arse beside Jonathan said to another bloke.
“’Tis a shame because she’s bloody beautiful,” the second man said. “But she won’t stay that way for long, fighting like a namby-pamby. Thorny Rose would make minced meat out of her in a legitimate, untimed bout.”
Jonathan gave the bloke closest to him a good hard shove. “That is my fiancée you are berating.”
The man pulled back his fist. His gaze slid over Jonathan, then his eyes widened. He dropped his arm. His hand hung limply by his side. “I’m sorry, my lord. I didn’t know.”
Since Jonathan wanted to punch these men in the face, but could not disturb Gen’s fight, his aristocratic arrogance was his only defense. “Well, now you do,” he said with a cultured sneer and his nose in the air.
That seemed to quiet the two men, but the rest of the crowd continued heckling the woman he loved.
“This ain’t a bloody promenade in the park,” a man off to the side yelled.
“I think she’s afraid of ’er own shadow, she is,” someone else called.
“Puddin’ on legs,” a reprobate shouted.
“Puddin’ on legs. Puddin’ on legs,” a couple dozen spectators chanted.
Jonathan couldn’t threaten everyone in the room. Or maybe he could, since he was a bloody viscount.
He sighed. Unfortunately, even a viscount in love couldn’t take on the entire bloodthirsty crowd. “Shite,” he growled to himself. Her movements were too haphazard. She was going to get hurt. “I need to stop this,” he told Nicolas.
Nicolas grabbed his arm, anchoring him in place. “No, Davenport. If you love her, you need to let her finish her fight. Just be here for her when it is over.”
Since he respected Nicolas’s opinion, he needed to calm down. Staring at the ceiling, he composed himself.
“Look.” Nicolas tapped his shoulder. “I think Gen caught her second wind.”
Jonathan snapped his attention to the ring, where Gen had cornered the larger woman and was hammering on her midsection.
“Bravo, Ghost!” Jonathan yelled as the bell clanged.
*
By the beginning of the eighth round, Genevieve’s endurance gave her a slight advantage, and she seemed to have gained energy.
Conversely, Roseanna’s footwork had slowed, and her punches were not packing her earlier power.
Jonathan, realist that he was, knew if the rounds had not been timed, Roseanna would have knocked Gen out early on, and then Gen could not have rallied to tire out her opponent.
He briefly wondered if their lovemaking had weakened her legs, but immediately tossed that thought to the cobbles since her endurance now shone.
His best guess was that Gen had been suffering with a case of the jitters.
She’d come a long way for a woman inflicted with voice-stealing anxiety.
Still, if she were to continue competing, she would have to come up with strategies to temper her nerves.
Muscle massa? Swiving until his thick rod was all she could think about? Even better. He grinned.
The final bell rang—not a second too soon for Jonathan. If anyone cared to ask his opinion, he would emphatically declare that watching someone punch the woman he loved was brutal.
“Thank fucking hell,” Jonathan whispered under his breath. “Bravo, Ghost,” he yelled.
“See, you just needed patience,” Nicolas said. “Gen redeemed herself.”
“Indeed.”
Nicolas patted Jonathan’s shoulder. “I am going to go tell Josie what a wonderful job she did coaching.”
Because his desire to hold Gen in his arms was immediate and overwhelming, Jonathan finally understood his friend’s constant need to be near his wife. They parted ways, heading in opposite directions.
As the crowd cheered, the lady fighters met in the center of the ring and hugged.
Jonathan reached the ropes, caught Gen’s gaze, and grinned. Her lips turned downward, and her brow furrowed in an unsettling expression that did not depict a woman who had accomplished a difficult goal.
She was probably exhausted. Or perhaps just disappointed that it had taken her so long to find her legs. “I love you,” he mouthed, hoping to make her smile.
Instead, her gaze slid to a man standing a few feet from him. It lingered there for a moment before she again looked at Jonathan, her eyes pleading. There was not a doubt in his mind; she was trying to communicate that this man was trouble.
The hair on the back of Jonathan’s neck rose as he prepared to climb into the ring and stand between Gen and whoever this bloke was. But someone grabbed his shoulder from behind, startling him. Jonathan whirled, intending to shove his assailant backward.
“Whoa, my lord.” Robinson raised his hands in surrender. “’Tis just me.”
Jonathan blinked in confusion. “What are you doing here?”
“I traveled all night,” Robinson said. “We need to talk.”
We need to talk usually meant one was about to receive horrible news, and Robinson’s visage screamed, we’ve got a problem. Perhaps his investigation had uncovered something troubling. More than likely, he’d discovered Gen’s identity and that her father was a murderer.
And then the truth cuffed Jonathan so hard it knocked the wind from his lungs.
“Christ Almighty!” That is what Gen had been trying to tell him.
Her father, the murderer, must be the man she’d just pointed out.
What if he’d been among the spectators watching her the entire time?
No wonder she’d struggled early on. Griffendale and his damnable handbill!
Meanwhile, Jonathan had stood there like a dolt, not a clue in his thick skull that the woman he loved was in danger.
He spun toward the ring with every intention of grabbing a rope and hoisting himself onto the platform. His plan was thwarted when a massive body slammed into him. He toppled forward, crashing into the man beside him, and then Jonathan’s face smashed against the floor.
As a heavy body landed on top of him, the cracking sounds of fist against flesh and the discordant, bellowing crowd rose to a deafening roar.
All he could see while he was being flattened like a griddlecake was the cold gray ground.
From above him, a chorus of blasphemies worthy of Satan himself flew freely.
“Everyone settle down,” Griffendale hollered into the speaking trumpet. “The fights are supposed to take place in the ring.”
It sounded as if a brawl had broken out, and if he didn’t get up Jonathan would be trampled to death. That is, if the elephant on top of him didn’t smother him first.
Jonathan lifted his forehead and turned his head to the side to growl at whoever was smashing him. “Get the hell off me!”
Whale’s big face was so close to Jonathan’s that his eyes and nose appeared elongated and blurry. His bacon-scented breath blew across Jonathan’s cheek. “He took her. I tried to stop ’em, I did. He pushed me.”
If Jonathan’s instincts were correct, Whale had tried to intervene as Gen’s father abducted her from the ring.
Whale had toppled into the crowd, landing on Jonathan, in turn, starting an out-of-control melee.
If this were the case, a dangerous man had stolen Genevieve in public, with Jonathan a few feet away.
He’d failed to protect her as he’d promised.
Someone stepped on Jonathan’s fingers. Another person kicked his head. “Bloody hell, Whale, get up!” he bellowed.
Whale’s body weight shifted forward and back, and then forward and back again. It seemed the behemoth couldn’t gain purchase.
At last, Robinson freed Jonathan from Whale’s crushing bulk. Then, the lawman grabbed him from beneath his shoulders and hoisted him onto his feet. Even as Jonathan steadied himself, someone knocked into him from behind. All around him, fists flew and men swore.
At first, Jonathan couldn’t see into the ring with the tumult surrounding him, but he shoved people out of his way until he could see Griffendale.
Their host stood in the ring, the speaking trumpet to his mouth as he yelled something muted and indecipherable.
Josie, Franny, Bear, and Roseanna surrounded him, their eyes wide. Gen was nowhere to be seen.
“Gen?” Jonathan yelled over the uproar. “Where in the devil is she?”
“We have to go,” Robinson hollered over the clamor. “Whale, clear us a path.”
“Gotta save Ghost,” Whale declared as if it were a battle cry.
Jonathan grabbed hold of Whale’s shoulder and held on tightly as the avenging leviathan swatted men out of his way as easily as if he were a tidal wave cutting through a shoal of minnows.
*