“What is this place?” she asked.
“My boxing room,” he said from behind her.
She walked farther into the room. “Who taught you to fight?”
“My father, but I really come from a line of very violent men. I take after my grandfather more where fighting with my fists count. My father was more into blades. I took all of his equipment out after he died,” Aaron answered.
Christin opened the trunk and found a pair of old fighting mufflers. She touched them and said, ”So, you’re descended from gladiators?”
He grunted. “Perhaps.”
She looked over at him. “Did you like fighting?”
His face cleared as she held his eyes and then he said, “Not in the beginning, no.”
She was surprised by that answer.
He cut in before she could ask more. “Now, tell me about these other women I’ve brought here.”
Christin’s stomach unsettled, and she turned to find he’d crossed his arms over his chest.
She crossed her arms. “I know I’m not the first woman you’ve... helped.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’re right. You’re not the first.”
She looked away.
He went on. “I’ve probably played a role in helping half the Spinsters. Lorena and Genie I’ve known since we were children, and I’m sure I’ve broken a few noses of other boys who’ve said something dishonorable to them in the past.”
Christin lifted her eyes and tried to imagine Aaron as a young boy fighting on young Lorena and Genie’s behalf. That almost made her smile. “Did this happen often?”
He lifted a brow. “Have you met Lady Ashwick and Lady Valdeston?” That was indeed answer enough, but he went on nonetheless. “Every break we got in school was spent at Francis and Lorena’s home. The girls were always picking fights in the village that we brothers would have to break up. There was always someone who wanted rescue, me included.”
“You?” she asked.
He shook his head. Now was not the time to change topic. “I’ve helped many women, but they don’t stay here, and I’ve not brought a woman here at all since the girls moved in.”
She stared at him and knew that look. She’d offended him.
Betty had lied to her. Or perhaps, Christin had simply heard her wrong. Perhaps when the woman said ‘guests’ she’d meant gentlemen? Perhaps Aaron simply liked helping people. Was that so wrong? She’d obviously offended him earlier when she’d said he’d take her body as payment. How could she have been so wrong?
She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
“Who told you I bring women in my home?” he asked her.
Christin pressed her lips together and moved toward him. She tentatively placed her hands on his arms and held his eyes. “No one. It seems I misunderstood what was said.”
“By whom?” He was not going to let it go.
Christin inhaled. “Don’t make me tattle on her. She was very kind to me. It’s not fair that I misinterpreted her words.”
“Betty,” he said.
She was stunned. “How did you know?”
He shook his head and then in a blink, his arms were down and around her. He pulled her in until their bodies touched and lowered his head to hers.
She gripped his arms and kept her eyes on his, though she struggled to breathe.
He was silent for a moment and then said, “You’re the first woman I’ve allowed into my home in over a year.”
She nodded her understanding.
One of his hands slid up her back and cupped her neck. The cold left his eyes and they warmed. “And never before have I felt this way about a woman.”
She inhaled and closed her eyes. Her hands moved to his shoulders as the arm round her back tightened. The light feeling she’d felt earlier that day was taking over. She opened her eyes, “How do you feel?”
His answer took her breath. “Like I’ve taken a blow to the head and woken up in heaven with an angel there to greet me.”
She tilted her head up, but he released her before their lips could meet and took a step back.
They smiled at one another and then he grabbed her neck once more and lowered his mouth to her hair.
His voice was soft. “This is definitely as close as I’ll be to heaven.”
“Don’t say that.” She was surprised he felt that way. She looked into his eyes and frowned. “Why would you think so?”
He grabbed her hand and led her back out of the room and into the hall.
His next words surprised her. “Don’t let her spend too much time with my mother. She’s pleasant enough but far from dependable.” He was no longer smiling.
“What do you mean?” Christin looked back down the hall and wondered at the woman she’d just allowed Tina to walk away with.
His voice hardened. “I mean, if your niece finds any affection for her, she’ll be greatly disappointed to wake up one morning and find the countess gone.” His words were more than bitter.
She turned to look at him and sensed that pain again. It took a great amount of effort on her part not to reach out and touch him then. She was amazed that he would share such obvious pain with her.
“Is that how your mother was with you?” she asked.
He held her eyes. “What are your parents like? Were you and your sister happy as children?”
The question astounded her just as much as the change of subject did. He was clearly done speaking about his mother, and she wouldn’t press it. He’d opened up once; perhaps he would do it again.
But did she want him to?
She focused on his cravat. “They died when I was young, though from what I can remember of them, they were very good to us.” She smiled at a memory. “My father was a physician and my mother his aid, a midwife. Often, either one or both of them would be pulled from the house in the middle of the night to attend to one tragedy or another, but nothing was more amazing than the night my sister was born. My father was forced to oversee my mother himself when my mother’s midwife could not be found.” She gazed into Aaron’s eyes then. “I wasn’t supposed to go into my mother’s chamber, but there had been such commotion at my father’s presence that I’d been able to spill in without anyone noticing. There’s something about the look on a man’s face when he holds his screaming, bloody newborn in his hands. Whenever I’d gone with my mother to see a child born, I’d witnessed gentlemen holding their freshly cleaned babes, but with my father…. That moment was vastly different. There was a look of wonder and pure reverence when he gazed at the child and then my mother.”
That moment, so strongly held in her memory, still made her shiver.
She’d wanted that for herself and had been disappointed when she’d never conceived with John. They’d not come together often. John had been very mild of manner when it came to visiting her bed, but she’d thought that they’d surely done it enough times to warrant at least one child in two years’ time. She knew from Madam Margaret that at times it only took a couple once to produce a child.
Would a man ever look at her as her father had looked at her mother?
She found herself gazing into Aaron’s eyes again and this time, it was not at the thought of memories but of what could be.
I plan to have you.
Would he be as gentle as that first kiss they'd shared? As considerate as John, which at times had frustrated her to no end. John had been so careful as to not hurt her and had done the deed in as quick a time as possible.
But over the last few years, Margaret had shared tales from the bedchamber that had turned Christin’s entire body red, stories of men who didn’t care for gentleness and usually took their time.
Would Aaron be that way?
She looked away, feeling shamed for having compared her sweet husband to Aaron. Even in death, she thought ill of him. She’d never deserved him.
“I’m sorry that you lost your sister,” Aaron whispered. “Losing someone is never… easy.”
She turne
d to him again and wondered at his loss. His father, perhaps? “Thank you.”
He broke away from her and extended his arm. “Let’s join the others in the sitting room.”
Was that disappointment she felt at him not kissing her?
She took his arm and put on a smile, reminding herself that she was safe, that so long as Aaron was around, she would remain that way. She would have to find a way to repay him.
Then once that was done and her troubles were over, she would leave him.
* * *
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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
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The rest of the day seemed to drag, mainly because his mother hadn’t simply stopped at inviting Christin to stay but had gone on to invite the Spinsters and their husbands to dinner. He’d caught Christin’s eyes when Lorena had made it known that some of men had gone to Oxford but would be returning soon. He’d not lied to her, and though he missed his friends, he couldn’t be gladder at their disappearance.
What did irritate him however was Julius and the way the man’s pansy purple eyes seemed to find Christin and remain there with more than mild interest. It had taken everything in Aaron to not do something crass like compromise the woman in front of the room, staking his claim with less dignity than a wild dog.
Julius, with his classic aristocratic looks and blond hair—that Aaron had heard on more than one occasion compared to a cerebrum halo—had annoyed every other Brother who’d found a wife in the last year, and Aaron couldn’t wait until the day the Marquess of Darvess fell. It would only be fitting that he be tortured in some cruel way.
Rollo’s own response had been a knowing look and approval directed at Aaron himself. Christin was beautiful and over the next hour seemed to blend well with the Spinsters, confirming Aaron’s beliefs that she’d fit into his life well.
When tea ended, the Spinsters left, and his mother attached herself to Christin’s side while volunteering to accompany the woman to the Potter Agency to retrieve her things and also to Bond Street to shop for Tina.
Aaron had gone along, taking Mary and Lily with him, and had listened to his mother indulge Christin in stories from his childhood. He’d been mildly surprised that she’d remembered him at all. How easy it had been to abandon him when he’d been yet a boy.
She’d avoided mention of Dan, he noted, which was one of the reasons he’d not cut in. The other reason he’d held his peace had to do with Christin, who seemed to take in every word the countess uttered as though it were fine wine.
Let her get to know him. It was only fair since he planned to get to know her as well.
And he planned to know her very well.
But he didn’t need obstacles in getting there, so he’d fired Betty before they’d departed. Betty had been the maid he’d taken interest in, but he’d found out early on in their conversations that they would not suit and sensed something he didn’t like in her, so he’d distanced himself, allowing her to keep her position as he did so.
But she’d ruined any hopes of staying after what she’d said to Christin. She’d purposefully went out of her way to try and ruin his chances with Christin before they’d truly gotten started.
She’d cried when he’d released her, but he’d felt no sympathy for her and had made sure Simms watched her pack and escorted her out.
His thoughts returned to the carriage ride.
Mary and Lily had spoken to one another, but they’d not tried to engage Tina in any form of speech whatsoever, which seemed to suit Tina, since she’d only given one-word answers to any questions that were asked of her.
It took them only an hour to fetch Christin’s things from the house and then they were off to Bond Street.
Shopping, as Aaron had guessed, would take a far greater amount of time, so he’d left the women and walked to Nashwood London.
He went toward the back of the low-lit smoky room and passed a guard before running up the stairs.
He’d found his friends, Francis the Duke of Valdeston, Sir William Tift, Emmett, the Earl of Ashwick, and Hugh, the Marquees of Edvoy, all in the private office that held a dining table, billiard table, and card table over by the window, and view of the club downstairs.
Also upstairs was Hugh’s younger brother, Lord Raymond Vance, who assisted in running the club and, to Hugh’s surprise, Prince Garrett.
Garrett looked up from his chair at Aaron’s obvious confusion at the door and slowly grinned. He sat at a table with Hugh and Francis. Ray spoke with William and Emmett off in a corner.
Aaron strolled to the table and turned to Francis. “It appears we’ve begun to let just anyone upstairs these days.” Garrett wasn’t even a member of Nashwood London, a club that had been named after the Brotherhood itself. Garrett was also not a member of the Brotherhood, which meant that he should not be upstairs. The only exception to that rule was Ray, but only because he worked there.
Garrett chuckled and leaned back in his chair while cupping its arms. His eyes, which could only be called summer blue, practically glowed with mischief. “Fear I might take your place within your little Brotherhood, Aaron?”
Aaron didn’t jump at the bait. Though Prince Garrett, the Duke of Levenberg, had called the Brotherhood small, they both knew that in reality the Men of Nashwood were virtually gods to Society. All they had to do was count the heads of the men downstairs—men who wanted to be a part of an inner circle that never took new members—to know that being one of the ten meant something.
Though many said the group started during their years at Oxford at a small tavern named Nashwood and that the name had been given to the ten boys who’d occupied a section in the back by the tavern’s owner itself, the Brotherhood had actually begun at Eton. Ten boys had bound themselves together and claimed a connection that could never be broken.
Garrett had gone to Eton, but as the grandson of George II, everyone had found it annoying how every staff member and servant had catered to him as though he were the heir to the throne.
Technically, he was an heir to the Crown, just not the next one or even the one after that.
They’d been lucky when he’d decided to go to Cambridge, only ever having to see him again when their schools competed.
Garrett had beaten William at fencing but lost to Francis at the races.
Aaron turned to Francis as he fell into a chair. “What’s he doing here?” There were things he’d wished to discuss. Mainly, he wished to know how Morris and Calvin were faring in Oxford and what they’d discovered.
An old story about the Brotherhood had risen from the grave and held the power to change their lives forever, but current company would keep him silent, it seemed.
“He’s here for me,” Hugh said. He was sitting as he liked best with the chair back at his front and leaning over it in the most improper fashion. Hugh’s eyes were blue, but shades darker than either Garrett’s, Francis’, or even Aaron’s. “He’s been ensuring that my marriage to Taygete remains legal.”
Hugh had married his Taygete last year, but ten years ago, Hugh had married a woman named Mia. His marriage to Mia—which hadn’t been a love match—had ended with her death less than a year after they’d wed. Mia had been Taygete’s sister, and thus by marrying her, Hugh was going against the law. His marriage to a woman the courts would always see as his sister-in-law would be voidable until the day they died or until the law was changed.
This meant the Brothers would do anything they could to see that the marriage was never questioned in court.
Aaron turned to Garrett. “And how does one assist in this matter?”
Garrett lifted a confident brow. “By whispering in the right ears that the Duke of Cort should be Prime Minister and then moving one’s party to change the laws.”
Aaron wasn’t surprised. Morris had made it no secret that he wished to be Prime Minister. Whenever he was
n’t with Sophia, he was in chambers or making moves that would elevate him in the eyes of the monarch. That Garrett had seen to help him and Hugh… “Garrett, I didn’t know you cared.”
The prince shrugged as though it were no big feat, when in fact, it very much was. “Though, we might all have our differences, I still respect some of you.”
Aaron grinned slowly. He’d not missed the emphasis on ‘some’. Still, he supposed Garrett could remain… for now. He turned to Francis. “What are William and Emmett speaking of?”
“Lorena had an idea for a social club that took both male and female patrons,” Francis said. “Like Almack’s.” He lifted a shoulder. “May be a good investment.”
Aaron agreed but barely had time to voice his opinion before Hugh cut in.
“Where have you been all day?” his friend asked with inquisitive brows. “I went by your house earlier to inform you that your cousin came by looking for you, but you weren’t there.”
Would his cousin Hiram ever leave him be? Why the man thought Aaron would give him an invitation to Lily’s party was beyond him. Perhaps Aaron should have done more than broken the man’s jaw.
“I met with Alice’s friend Christin Potter.”
“Mrs. Potter?” Emmitt asked from across the room with warm gray eyes. He crossed his arms and leaned on the wall. “What did you think of her?”
“We’re getting married,” Aaron admitted without shame.
Emmett’s mouth fell open and much of the same shocked expressions filled the room.
Only William had a different expression. Anger.
“Not you, too,” William accused in the same fashion that one would utter the words, “E tu, Brutus?”
“That will be the seventh wedding in two years,” Garrett said through narrowed eyes. “You men do everything together.”
“Not me,” William claimed as he came over to the table. “I’ll never marry or fall prey to the wiles of women.” He all but spat the last word.
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