Fighting For His Lady

by Christi Caldwell

  Help. As in a handout like they were beggars in the street. Patience cringed. “We’re not asking him for money,” she said, her tone coming sharper than she’d intended. Their father had been a rotted businessman. How many fighters had he taken on and trained and not seen a pence for? Powerful nobles. Wealthy merchants. He’d been so enamored of the prestige that came with it, he’d ultimately let his family suffer in his passing. She sighed. “He offered funds.” A fortune. Godrick had offered a fortune three weeks earlier. She’d kept that detail from her sister.

  The floorboards groaned, indicating her sister had moved. “He offered funds.” Ruth gripped her by the shoulder, forcing her around. “And you did not take them?” There was an accusation there.

  “We’re not beggars.”

  “But we will be,” Ruth said without missing a beat.

  “He is training Sam.”

  “Who will not see another fight when he loses,” Ruth said bluntly.

  Damn her sister for being right.

  “Do you know what I believe?” Her youngest sibling didn’t give her a chance to reply. “You’ve been so hurt these years that you’re not putting common sense first. We need help. Take. It.”

  “I can’t,” she cried, tossing her hands up. “He was betrothed to another,” she finally gave her sister. “He was here on a lie and led me to believe he’d marry me.”

  Ruth rocked back on her heels. “Godrick?”

  “Yes, Godrick,” she said tiredly. “His betrothed came to me. I found out from her.” She remembered the shame of that long-ago day. His delicate, blonde, future bride eyeing their then-luxuriant-to-the-Storms town house with palpable disdain.

  “But they didn’t marry.”

  At her sister’s pronouncement, Patience blinked.

  “He loved you. I do not doubt it. I was a child, but I remember you two, because I wanted to someday know that.”

  A man bound by a childhood betrothal to a woman he hadn’t known. That truth had shattered her. But his failure to ever come ’round after had served as testament enough to his feelings. Or so she’d believed.

  Yet, he’d helped her and Sam anyway. Had offered her funds. The cold, ruthless duke’s son she’d taken him for ten years earlier would have never given a jot about the fighter’s daughter he’d left behind.

  Gentle fingertips settled on Patience’s arm, and she looked at her sister’s hand resting there. “And you’ve smiled more these weeks than you have since he left us,” Ruth said softly. “Even with your worries about Sam’s fight, I see the… lightness you once had, the woman you once were, and I’d not throw that away because Godrick made a mistake long ago.”

  Throat clogged with emotion, she tried to get words forth. And failed.

  Ruth gave a slight squeeze and then, without another word, left, the faint click of the door indicating she’d found their room.

  Her sister gone, Patience returned her attention outside and swiftly leaped sideways. Oh, God. Surely her eyes were playing tricks. Or mayhap she’d conjured him from all her musings since that afternoon. Heart racing, she crept to the edge of the window and peered down.

  Godrick stood below. In his black jacket and fitted black breeches, he had the look of sin and seduction, and she was reminded all over again why she’d forgotten everything her mother had told her years ago about guarding her virtue and holding on to respectability.

  And bloody hell, he was here. Why was he here?

  Surely not to… visit her? Gentlemen paid visits to ladies. They took tea and pastries in parlors and receiving rooms. Or mayhap he’d come to discuss next week’s fight. Patience hurriedly glanced about. She took in the small wooden table and the four mismatched chairs surrounding it. The aged sofa and shellback chair they’d brought with them, when all other furnishings and trappings had been sold off. There were no parlors or drawing rooms here.

  Humiliation spread through every corner of her being. It was one thing for him to know she lived a life of work and had never belonged to his station. It was an altogether different matter to invite him inside so he might see how they’d lived for the past years.

  Patience stole another furtive glance.

  Gone.

  Some of the tension went out of her. Not that she cared if he saw precisely her circumstances. She didn’t. It was a humble and oftentimes desperate existence, but they’d survived. Liar. You care. You don’t want him to—

  A knock sounded on the door, and she whipped about, her gaze drawn to that wood panel. Oh, God. Mayhap he’d go away. Mayhap—

  Another rap filled the small quarters. She jumped. He was decidedly not going away. Patience briefly sized the distance between abject embarrassment and the cobbles below. For all her earlier resolve for a show of bravery, there was nothing—knock—more humbling than revealing how low one had fallen from the ranks of a once-comfortable lifestyle. Why is he here?

  Knock.

  Ruth stepped out of their room. She opened her mouth—

  “Shh,” Patience whispered, shooting across the room and staying her. She touched a silencing finger to her lips. He’d go away.

  Her sister gave her a peculiar look.

  Rap, rap, rap.

  “It is Lord Godrick,” she mouthed.

  Ruth brightened. “Why didn’t you say as much?”

  Flying the rest of the way, Patience shot a hand out. “No,” she rasped.

  Her traitorous sister drew the door open. “Godrick,” she cried with the same girlish cheer she’d had when he’d come ’round years earlier. Only, she was no longer a girl. She was a young woman with callused fingers who worked long days that stretched well into the evening. In this moment, however, with her dimpled smile that met her sparkling eyes, she bore more hint of the child she’d once been. And a selfish, ugly part of Patience’s soul wished she’d retained such youthful cheer.

  “Miss Storm,” he greeted, sketching a bow. His gaze snagged on their surroundings, and he faltered for a beat.

  Patience prayed for the floor to open up and swallow her and their revealingly frayed belongings whole.

  Then, it was as though she may have imagined that unfathomable glint in his jade eyes, because all hint of emotion was gone as quickly as it had come.

  “Have you come to see Patience?” her sister ventured.

  Oh, a traitor indeed.

  “Yes.” He dropped a bow better suited for a ballroom. “Though it is an honor to greet both Storm ladies.”

  Cheeks blooming with color, her sister giggled.

  Frowning, Patience studied their exchange as he collected her sister’s fingers and placed a kiss on them. Ruth’s blush deepened. And in this moment, she bore no hint of the child she’d been, but rather she was a young woman easily charmed and enchanted by the affable Lord Godrick Gunnery. While the two spoke with an old familiarity of long ago, something dark and unpleasant settled low in Patience’s belly. Something that felt, tasted, and burned like… jealousy.

  “What do you want?” the question burst from her lips.

  The amicably chatting pair fell instantly silent.

  She curled her toes hard. Ruth took mercy. She dipped a flawless curtsy. “I’ll leave you to speak with my sister.” Casting a quick sideways glance that saw far too much, she returned to the room she shared with Patience.

  The faint click as she closed the door behind her created an artificial sense of privacy. Paper-thin walls would do little to disguise any hint of sound or discourse. Patience shifted back and forth on her feet. “Would you please sit?” She motioned to the makeshift parlor fashioned in the open space.

  His long-legged strides easily ate up the distance to the chairs they’d once sat upon. Back when the pale pink had been a bright fuchsia, and there were no hints of repairs, tears, or stains. She claimed a spot that neatly concealed a tear in the faded white sofa. “Would you care for tea?” she offered belatedly. After all, regardless of lot or station in England, it was the one universality shared by its people.
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br />   Godrick lifted a hand in declination. “No. Thank you,” he murmured. How polite they were. How very formal.

  Patience folded her hands before her. They spoke simultaneously. “Have you come—?”

  “I’m here—”

  “—for Sam?” she finished when he went silent.

  He gave his head a slight shake. “I’m here for you.”

  She cocked her head. Surely she’d misheard him. Surely—

  “I miss you,” he said quietly, his deep baritone gruff.

  Her heart thudded to a stop and then resumed a rapid acceleration. What was he saying? “But you’ve seen me every day,” she whispered.

  Godrick flashed her a half grin full of such sadness it wrenched at her. “Since I”—he grimaced—“left, I built my salon. I amassed a fortune.” He dragged his chair closer, so their knees brushed. “And it’s all meant nothing because you’ve not been there.”

  A sheen of tears misted her eyes, and she blinked them back. “Why are you saying this?” she beseeched.

  “Because I need you to know I love you.” That once-shattered organ in her chest lifted and soared. “I wronged you, and if I could, I would take back my mistakes, and I want a life together with you.”

  The air left her on a noisy exhale. And then, reality intruded. Dukes’ sons, even fourth-born ones, didn’t marry women without noble roots who called home a set of rooms over a bakeshop.

  He took her right hand and folded it in his palm. “As my wife.”

  As his wife. She opened her mouth and then promptly closed it. She tried again. Trying to comprehend. Attempting to make sense of what he’d said. Marriage to him was the dream she’d carried as a girl of eighteen, and the dream she’d mourned every year he’d been gone from her life. Now, he held out that gift.

  “But I need to tell you… everything first.”

  The hoarse regret in his tone hinted at details that, in her cowardice, she didn’t want, for what they no doubt portended.

  She wetted her lips. “Tell me what?”

  The muscles of his face contorted, and he jumped up. She remained rooted to her spot, staring at him as a war raged in his eyes. What other secrets existed between them? What lies? I don’t want any more mistruths between us. She wanted the simplicity of a life with him. Marriage. Happiness. “Edwin,” he said hoarsely.

  Edwin? Befuddled, she glanced about for her long-absent brother.

  “He is—”

  The door flew open, and that very figure, her negligent brother, stormed into the room. Fury burned with the seeds of hatred in his brown eye, his other glassy and vacant from a long-ago fight. “By God, Gunnery, I will see you in hell,” he rasped and charged forward.

  Chapter 8

  Godrick’s life was destined to be a series of missed opportunities. The irony of that was not lost on him in this moment. Not once, but twice, he’d cost himself the chance to own the truth of his circumstances.

  Any other woman would have retreated in the face of Edwin Storm’s rage. Three inches past six feet and a thick wall of muscle, the man had grown in strength since Godrick had last seen him. Yes, he was such a bear of a man that women and most men would flee. Patience raced to place herself between him and her seething brother, but Godrick stepped out from behind her. He’d not let her risk her safety to protect him. “Edwin, what are you doing?” she demanded like a stern mama delivering a naughty child a dressing down.

  Then, that was what Storm had always been. Since Godrick had taken up lessons with the other man’s father, he’d shown only a sulking jealousy and rage. In that, he was no different from the thunderous figure before them now. “You’d let this man back in our home?” her brother spat.

  Patience settled her hands on her hips. “He is helping Sam,” she said tightly, matching Edwin’s steps as he attempted to reach Godrick. “You do remember your brother? The one slated to fight King?”

  That damning recrimination was met with a guilty silence from the other man.

  Even Edwin in all his fury had the good grace to flush. Hmph. He should feel like the bastard he was for abandoning Sam… and all the Storms. The rooms they stood within now were evidence of the struggle and strife they’d known. Pain scoured his heart. She’d deserved so much more. While he’d been living a life of luxury and comfort, this had been her existence.

  Then, rage stirred to life in Storm’s gaze. He stumbled back a step, and then murder flashed in his eye. “You have Gunnery teaching my brother?” His words rang with hurt betrayal.

  Patience jutted her chin out. “Nay, I have Godrick teaching our brother.” Not taking her furious gaze from Storm, she jabbed a finger across the room to where Ruth stood, silent as the dead. Her solemnity was so uncharacteristic of the child he recalled.

  Storm sputtered, but Patience, relentless, didn’t allow him a word. “You’ve been gone,” she shot back, going toe-to-toe with him. “Don’t come in here outraged when you’ve not been there for any of us. Not Sam. Not Ruth. And not me. You’ve been so focused on your own miseries these past four years, that you lost everything that made you once honorable.”

  Pride filled Godrick. God, she’d always been magnificent. Fearless. Unlike her dishonorable bastard of a brother, who’d attacked him from behind and left his family to suffer.

  Because of that blow I landed…

  “I should leave,” Godrick said quietly. He’d not be the cause of more strife and sorrow for her or any of the Storm family.

  “No.” She whipped about, her skirts snapping noisily at her ankles. “Do not.”

  A bitter, ugly laugh burst from Edwin Storm. “Did you part your legs for him again?” he taunted, earning a gasp from Ruth.

  “Storm,” Godrick bit out, taking a step closer. A murderous rage blazed to life at the other man’s disparagement.

  “That is enough, Edwin,” Ruth barked, rushing over.

  “That is it, isn’t it?” Storm breathed as Patience colored. “The man tupped you, all the while he was betrothed to another.” He latched a hand around her upper arm, and Patience winced. “You’d simply take back into your b—”

  Fury pumped through him, and Godrick caught the other man hard about the neck. Startled into releasing his hold, Storm gasped. “Do not put your bloody hands on her,” Godrick said on a steely whisper. He tightened his grip. “Ever. Are we clear?”

  His face a mottled red, Storm managed a jerky nod.

  From the corner of his eye, he detected Ruth rushing to Patience’s side. Horror, fear, and anxiety lined the younger woman’s features.

  Panting, he swiftly released the other man. Storm caught himself against the arm of the sofa and sucked in deep, gasping breaths. Godrick’s chest heaved with the reality of what he’d done—again. Even as Storm deserved to be bloodied senseless for disparaging and putting his hands on his sister. Even if he was and always had been a damned coward who’d fought dirty. Edwin Storm might have been in the wrong attacking him all those years ago, but he’d suffered the loss of his vision for it.

  And no doubt he would carry his hatred with him to the grave.

  “Going to end me now, too,” Storm spat out between ragged breaths. He glowered at Patience. “Your lover, the one Father so loved, cost me my vision. I lost my right eye because of him.”

  There it was. Breathed into existence at last. Words Godrick had owed her but had been uttered by another. Now, they were met with silence.

  Patience’s lips parted. “What?” she asked slowly, looking back and forth between him and her brother. “I don’t understand.”

  Godrick searched for words.

  Alas, Storm filled the void. “Punched me in the temple and cost me my eyesight and fighting career.”

  Godrick swallowed past the painful swelling in his throat. He’d cost Patience’s brother one eye, and his entire career had been ended… and his family had suffered for that loss. At the deafening silence, Godrick turned his palms up. Willing Patience to understand. Wanting forgiveness. How man
y times would he ask for forgiveness for mistakes he’d made? His throat bobbed. “I…” he managed, unable to meet her eyes. “After your father’s death, I’d come and…” His skin pricked with the feel of the Storm siblings’ probing gazes, and he let his words trail off. “Forgive me. I will go,” he said hoarsely, and this time, instead of being ordered out and sent to the devil, he left.

  *

  Head spinning, Patience stared at the wood panel Godrick had just departed through. After the tumult of the evening, her mind sought to put to rights his revelation. The guilt in his eyes. And then his rapid flight.

  He was the reason Edwin had gone blind in one eye? It… didn’t make any sense. None that was logical. She shook her head, desperately trying to understand. Godrick had betrayed her with his silence in the past, but he’d never been violent. Even in his fighting, he’d treated his opponents with dignity and respect. He’d never resorted to underhanded antics used by lesser fighters. And he’d only ever treated her and her family with warmth.

  “That isn’t possible,” she said after she’d worked through everything she knew about him.

  Edwin snarled, “Quite possible.” She registered that which had escaped her before: his slurred speech. The stench of spirits clung to his rumpled garments. He’d made a mess of his life. And he’d always resented Godrick for a greatness that had come so very effortlessly to the other man.

  “You never liked him.”

  Did those words belong to her? Or their sister, who stood, seething.

  “He gaaave me no reason to like him.” Edwin slapped a hand over his blind eye. “And I’ll see him in hell someday for whaaaat he did.”

  “What he did?” Incredulity found its way into her question.

  “He toooook and tooook from Father.” Her eldest brother’s drunkenness made every syllable he spoke long and lazy. “What has he eveeeer done for us?”

  She stiffened. For everything that had come to pass between them, Godrick had owed her nothing. He’d owed her family even less. “Father freely offered to instruct Godrick,” she said softly. “There were never expectations or obligations made by him. Father taught Godrick because Father wanted to.”