by Pamela Cayne
Bloody hell, that hit home, and even now caused him to feel worse than a thousand Robertos. He needed to stop acting like a total arse and be who she needed him to be—something he hadn’t been in a long time. A real man.
The lights in the front of the house were out, but the kitchen looked to be occupied. There was some dim lighting on the upper level, but King couldn’t tell whether Lady was up there or not. Or whether she was alone.
A carriage rumbled down the street and stopped in front of the house. King recognized it as Mr. Adams’s and drifted back farther into the doorway. Instead of Mr. Adams getting out, like King was expecting, Mrs. Nesbitt came out of the house and got in the carriage.
King waited for five minutes after the carriage left, but there was no other movement in the house, nor did the carriage return. So this was another visit to Mr. Adams. Given the events of last night, King dreaded the secrets the old woman might be spilling, but he wasn’t sure if there was anything he could do. He felt more anguish that Lady would be hurt by Nessie’s betrayal than at any sense of his own future, however short that may be.
He left his hiding place and started down the sidewalk toward Lady’s, turning the corner and searching the windows on the side of the house for signs of life. There was motion in what must be the kitchen or the scullery and he started walking toward the back door. He didn’t know what he was going to do. He only knew he had to see her, talk to her.
He knocked softly but there was no answer. He knocked again and softly called, “Lady, it’s King.”
She opened the door, the siren of earlier tonight replaced by a kitten in a fuzzy pink robe and damp hair starting to curl. The strongest thing he’d ever done in his life was not take her in his arms at that moment.
“You took quite the chance, opening the door when you weren’t sure it was me,” King said, a little scared that she had been alone.
“I know three things,” she said. “Nessie’s true birthday, how to make gingerbread, and the sound of your voice. Now come in. I just made some willow bark tea, and I suspect you could use some as much as me.”
Her casual declaration did more to ease his pain than any tea, and he stepped into the warm, homey kitchen. “How are you feeling?” he asked, torn between wanting to see her as she answered and not wanting to make her uncomfortable by watching her. He settled for gesturing at the teapot, but then his shoulder blazed into a sharp pain and he gasped, pulling his arm back to his side.
“Oh, King. Your shoulder.” She rushed over to him. “Let me see.”
“It’s okay.” He pulled away, then walked across the kitchen. “It’s a bit sore, but I’m fine.”
“Then you won’t mind me taking a look. Please?”
That please was going to be the death of him. Resigned, he turned back to her and unbuttoned his shirt.
Lady came to his side, her light scent of tea and lemons teasing him as she slid his shirt off. She made little noises, clicks of her tongue as she looked at the bruising around his left shoulder. She trailed one finger down his back toward his armpit, and though it hurt, the feel of her fingertip on his skin eased a deeper pain. When she came around to his front again, he reached up with his right hand and stroked his thumb across her cheek, letting his fingers curl under her jaw. She stopped, then looked at him with big blue eyes.
“I’m sorry about this morning, what a bastard I was. I only—”
“Shh.” She placed a finger over his lips and he felt it in every cell of his body. Her lips tipped into a small smile. “I was a bit of a bitch myself. Forgiven and forgotten, for both of us?”
He nodded, even though he wanted to argue about the harsh label she’d used for herself. She left, and he listened to her footsteps go upstairs, into one of the rooms, then come back down. She returned to the kitchen with a roll of cloth she was unwinding. “Your shoulder is going to have to be immobilized if you need it to heal quickly, and I mean tight. If the binding is too loose, it doesn’t give you any support.” She reached for his arm with one hand, the cloth in the other.
“Hey, hey, hey.” He slapped lightly at her hands and prayed she knew he was teasing. “How do you know I want it wrapped?”
“Trust me. You do. Let me wrap it, and if it doesn’t feel better immediately, I’ll restore it to its current state. Agreed?” Lady smiled and he made the mistake of meeting her eyes. He was positive no sapphire had ever shone as brightly.
“Immediately.” He pointed what he thought was a quite strict finger at her.
“Quick as a bunny rabbit.” She made a small x over her heart. King tried to keep a stern look on his face.
Lady took his wrist, then stopped and looked up at him. “You’re not going to start slapping me again, are you?”
He looked away quickly, playfully sticking his nose in the air and hoping she didn’t see in his eyes how she affected him. “Not if you don’t take advantage of my virtue, madam.”
With a giggle, Lady finished arranging his arm and King recited the rules to nine-card brag in his head. If he wasn’t careful, she’d see how she affected his body, as well.
“Now, to get this on properly. Take this edge here and hold it tight.” She started the binding on his right side and set his left hand on top of it. If he could have stood there until doomsday, her hand on top of his, the tip of her pinkie finger brushing against his side, he would have died a content man. Yes, he’d touched her plenty last night, but this was a touch willingly given and that meant more to him than winning the tournament.
She walked around him once, pulling the linen tight as she went and firmly securing his arm to his side. It was uncomfortable, but the pain in his arm eased a little. With each turn, it was harder for him to take a deep breath, but the pain lessened and lessened until it was merely a small twinge when she finished. “There, isn’t that better?”
King took a few steps, moved his right arm in small circles and leaned against the counter. “It is. It’s difficult not to want to take a deep breath now that I know I can’t, but it beats the constant pain.”
Lady nodded. “It helps if you don’t think about breathing. Your body adjusts to shallower breaths if you allow it to. And it’s much better than having broken ribs...” She glanced up at him, the way they met between them like a third person in the kitchen. He hated to see the light die from her eyes, tried to show her he understood and didn’t hold it—any of it—against her, but she looked away first.
“I promised you some tea, but it’s all gone cold.” She rushed over and emptied the teapot, then added fresh leaves from a nearby tin. “It’ll be ready in a moment.” She moved the kettle to a different place on the stove.
King let her take the conversation somewhere safer rather than tell her she never had to hide any part of her from him. “Tea sounds good. Will Mrs. Nesbitt be joining us?”
“No, she’s on an errand and I don’t know when she’ll be back.”
“Nothing urgent, I hope.”
Lady looked over her shoulder at him, her expression pleasant but unreadable, and shook her head. King only smiled and tried to look harmless.
“So when’s the next fight?” She looked at his binding.
“In three days. I don’t know what kind of shape I’m going to be in by then.”
“Do you know who your opponent is?”
“Mac. He’s tough but I think he’s hurt too. I think most of the fighters are feeling the effects of the tournament by now.”
Lady picked up a towel and started twirling the corner of it on her index finger. She was looking at her hands fiddling with the fabric, but King had a feeling that was not what she was seeing.
“Jonathan and Shade fight in the next round,” she said, her tone too bland for how she was acting.
“And whoever wins that bout is probably going to make it to the championship round. If it’s Shade, then I susp
ect you’ll be happy.”
“Why is that?” She used the towel to lift the kettle and fill the teapot with hot water.
King watched her hands perform the simple task, unable to look at her face as he answered, “Because then Mr. Adams will be happy. He’ll be generous with you, perhaps even enough to get you that little cottage.” He was scared to say get us a cottage for three or anything that would sound too presumptuous or bold on his part. Yes, she’d mentioned the bigger cottage to him, but it was by no means an invitation. She might have changed her mind and wanted to take the offer back. And after the way he’d bullied her this morning, he wanted to make sure she felt safe, in command. He’d started to want that cottage badly, want that future with Lady, but he would respect her decisions. If she gave him another opening, though, he was going to take it. She was too special not to.
“I don’t know.” She traced rings on the lip of the teacup. “I don’t think Troon is ready for two retired prostitutes to take up sheep farming in their village, do you?” She looked at him, her smile as wistful as her tone.
“I think one smile of yours would charm the fish from the sea. The poor villagers of Troon don’t stand a chance.”
A tear trembled in Lady’s eye before she quickly turned and poured two cups of tea. He made a show of walking to the other side of the kitchen and studying a sampler mounted on the wall.
“Did you do this?” he asked loudly, his head slightly turned back but his eyes clearly on the stitchery.
“No, it was here when we moved in. I’m not much for needlepoint, I’m afraid.” She handed him his tea.
“Well, I’m not much for it either, so I won’t tell if you won’t.”
“Your secrets are safe with me,” Lady said from beside him, looking at the sampler as she took a sip of her tea.
“I hope so.” King turned back to the sampler. “Because Mr. Collins is offering me five hundred pounds if I throw the championship fight.”
Chapter Fourteen
Lady gasped, breathing in some of her tea. She blindly set her teacup on a counter as she started coughing violently and gulping for air. After a moment, she was able to breathe normally again, but she could feel tears and worse on her face. She turned to the sink, rinsed her face off and scrubbed it dry with a towel. Needing a few seconds to compose herself, she filled a glass with water and drank half of it down. As she set the glass down, she took a deep breath, then turned to face King. He was standing in the exact same spot, sipping from his tea like a gentleman at his grandmama’s weekly salon.
“Why did you tell me that?”
“You said you’d keep my secrets.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” she shouted, even more irritated by his unflappable calm.
He only shrugged, and Lady took more deep breaths to keep from hitting him. She could read nothing on his face and decided to go back to the beginning, hoping against hope she’d misunderstood. “Could you repeat your original statement, please?”
“Certainly. But I’ll stop the instant you pick up your teacup. That last cough almost did you in.” A small smile lifted one corner of his mouth.
Lady cocked her head and gave him her serious look.
King lifted one hand in a conciliatory gesture. “I said, Mr. Collins has offered me five hundred pounds if I throw the championship fight. That is, if I make it that far and if it’s Jonathan I’m facing. Although, if he’s offering me this blunt, I’m guessing he’s doing the same to other fighters with smaller sums.”
“King—”
“But Jonathan seems to be a fair fighter, and being from Australia, he is probably tough enough to make it all the way through. I’ll have to watch him closer during the—”
“King!”
He stopped and looked at her like she had just shouted during his grandmama’s salon. It didn’t help that he was still holding his teacup right below his chin as some of the dandies did.
“When did he do this? What did you say?” Lady sat at the scarred wooden table below the sampler. Sitting sounded much better than standing right now.
King delicately placed his teacup on the counter. He sat at the chair across from her and slumped, one foot hooked on the brace between the legs. Lady almost sighed in relief. The grandson had left the salon and her King was back.
Her King? Lady closed her eyes for a moment and put that thought out of her head. She wasn’t sure what King was, but hers—like a champion of old—was too big a label to stick on him right now, so she not only put that thought out of her head, she barred the door after it and threw the lock.
“Remember when we went to the apothecary and Mr. Collins gave you the flowers?” King asked. Lady nodded, remembering Mr. Adams’s bruising because she hadn’t told him immediately. “It was the night when we met for dinner. He gave me twenty pounds just to consider the idea. And no, I haven’t answered yet, but he’s looking for me to, and soon.”
“Do you know what you’re going to say?”
“The fighter’s purse for the tournament is only two hundred pounds, but there’s some respect to be had, as well. Got to weigh them both, I suppose.”
Both of them sat in the silence until Lady said what both of them were thinking. “And there’s Mr. Adams.”
“And there’s you.”
Lady had been expecting him to echo her, so much so that she had opened her mouth to speak when it registered exactly what he had said.
“What do you mean, and there’s me?”
“You play a part in this game. I know the happier Mr. Adams is, the more generous he is. I can take Mr. Collins’s bribe and run—we both can—but if I stay in the tournament and win, just that one extra fight, I know Mr. Adams will give you a fortune in jewels, possibly even an extra reward for me. It’d be enough that we could buy our safety—Mrs. Nesbitt’s, too, if she didn’t want to come with. Think of it, Lady. We could have a future.”
“No, but you—I didn’t...” Lady stammered as her mind chased itself in circles. King leaned forward and folded her hands in his, looking at her until she met his eyes.
“Tell me there’s not something here, that we never had anything between us.” His voice was a brush of warmth in a world too cold. “Tell me we might not have a chance, that you believe you don’t deserve a happy ending. Tell me and I’ll have my answer for Mr. Collins.”
Lady looked down at their joined hands, his scarred and rough ones wrapped around hers. They felt strong. Warm. So very good. She glanced back at his eyes and saw courage and hope and some glimpse into his heart and it scared her, terrified her into admitting her dreams of a cottage would probably never be anything but that. With a start, she pulled her hands free and jumped back, knocking her chair over in her flight.
“No,” she cried. “No! People like us don’t get happily-ever-afters like in the fairy tales. Our happiness comes in the roof not leaking when it rains or an extra pound of meat because it’s going bad. We may have flirted, thought we had somebody we could talk to for a time, or a way...a way out, but you know and I know that’s impossible. This is my life. This is who I am.” She whirled to her left and took two steps, her hands fluttering in agitation because she couldn’t think of how to make him understand. She spun on the ball of her foot and paced the length of the kitchen, each step driving a black pain deeper into her heart. Moving rapidly only made her bruises and scrapes from Mr. Adams’s ruthless attack last night ache even more, emphasizing that little voice telling her she might have flirted with a young girl’s dreams of running away with a strong and handsome man, but the truth was, if she ran it’d be for her life, not true love.
“You want to see my happy ending? Come here.” She left the kitchen and stormed up the stairs, hearing him behind her but not caring if he came or not. At the landing, she headed for the front of the house and led him into the be
droom she used to entertain Mr. Adams. Skirting the bed, she led him to the window facing southwest and pointed out. “You can’t see it because it’s dark, but out there, about a mile away, is a paupers’ graveyard. It’s where Mr. Adams’s last mistress is buried. I know this because he told me. Oh, it was a conversational little tidbit he offered right after he fucked me for the first time as his new mistress, but the message was understood. That’s why he leases this house, this very house, so I can always look out and know where my next address is going to be if I try to live above his plans.”
Lady turned her back to the window, her breath and a few tears coming in soft, hiccoughing sobs. King stood close enough she could bow her head and it would be resting on his shoulder, but he wasn’t looking out the window. He was looking at her.
“But what about you? Don’t you think you deserve a chance to be happy?” He lifted one hand to gently stroke her jaw. “To know somebody cares for you because of who you are, not how much you cost or what you can do there?” He inclined his head toward the satin-covered bed.
“He does care for me, both for what I can do there and for who I am.” Lady heard Nessie’s voice in her head saying the same thing. “It’s in his own way, but he does. I have a house and food and a little bit of money saved away in exchange for an hour or two once every few days. Who says that’s not happy?” She challenged him with her eyes to say anything against her reasoning.
He didn’t answer, simply pulled her into his embrace so one side of her face nestled in his warm and calloused hand and the other was tucked into the curve of his neck, his stubble a welcome rasp. Lady closed her eyes and let the feeling of being cherished sink into her parched soul.
After a moment, he pulled back so they were no longer touching, and Lady felt it like she had been dropped into dark and icy water. She was instantly numb. She opened her eyes to see his brown ones watching her and felt the water fill her inside, deaden the rest of her to feeling anything.
Without another word, King left. Lady slumped to the floor and stared out the window until the sun came up and chased the fog away from the cemetery in the distance.
