The Fighter and the Fallen Woman (2 page)

Lady slid out of Mr. Adams’s embrace and reverted to her usual pose of his arm around her hips with hers around his shoulders. Most men thought Mr. Adams could be mocked about his squat stature or the graying fringe of hair circling his head, but he either had them beaten within an inch of their lives or he went out with Lady on his arm. Taller than most men, she walked with her shoulders back and her breasts out—no hunching for Lady. She could be as bold as her protector and he prized that about her. Of course, when she was out with him and somebody made a comment about his height, Mr. Adams simply turned his head to the side so his cheek was lying on the swell of her breast. No man seemed to have the spirit to say more after that. Only one ever had, but after they pulled his body out of the Thames, such comments were few and far between.

Doing what she was good at—controlling men—Lady lifted her free hand and smiled at the American. “You may call me Lady, Mister...”

“Collins, Mr. Sebastian Collins, at your service, Miss Lady,” he said and formally bowed over her hand. Lady could feel not only his gentlemanly kiss, but the terribly bold stroke of his tongue at the base of her middle finger. The look he gave her could simply be called admiring or flirtatious, but Lady recognized it instantly. He was offering something different if she was interested.

“It’s just Lady.” She smoothly pulled her hand away, but left him with a flirtatious smile of her own. She knew better than to burn any bridges she crossed over, or rather, under. “And I’d like to introduce Mr. Hannibal Adams, importer of the finest porcelain Chinese vases, owner of the Red Door Brothel, and sponsor of the World Bare-Knuckle Fighting Championships set to start in a few moments.

“Mr. Adams,” Lady said, lowering her head to speak softly in his ear but not inclining her face away from Mr. Collins, “this is Mr. Collins of America. He wants to meet you but hasn’t said what he wants.”

“Pish, Lady. I wanted to pay my respects to the man who organized this tremendous affair.”

“Pish yourself, Mr. Collins. All men want something.” Lady smiled at him and let her fingers trace idle designs on Mr. Adams’s shoulder. She watched as Mr. Collins glanced from her to Mr. Adams, then back to her, his face somewhere between anger and appreciation.

Suddenly the American burst into loud laughter, the action bowing his spine and causing him to set a hand on his stomach for counterbalance. He rocked back, coming a little too far forward, and out of the corner of her eye, Lady saw Shade take a step closer. As Mr. Collins’s laughter died down, he slowly regained his posture while taking a handkerchief out of his pocket to dab at the tears in his eyes.

“Charming, beautiful and a philosopher. You are a lucky, lucky man, Mr. Adams.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it, Collins. I wanted the best so I paid for it, pure and simple.”

Mr. Collins smiled and Lady could feel him trying to find equal footing. His face hardened when Mr. Adams purposely dropped the honorary title of Mister, but there was little he could do in retaliation. Not here. Not now.

“Ah, successful, powerful and intelligent. No wonder they call you the Earl of the East End. And indeed, with the best at your side.” He nodded at Lady.

She inclined her head in acknowledgment, knowing it would please Mr. Adams. There was a part of her also acknowledging Mr. Collins’s crafty response. He understood now he had no way to go toe-to-toe with his adversary, so he chose to go with flattery instead. Seldom a losing gambit, at least where Mr. Adams was concerned. She could see Shade had moved back a few steps. This pissing match was over, at least between the men.

“Aye, she’s the best tail out there, ain’t you, Lady?” Mr. Adams slid his hand down to grip the lower swell of her ass. He gave it a little shake and Lady let an obligatory sultry giggle escape. “Now, Collins, what can I do for you?”

Mr. Collins reached into his jacket for a leather pouch. He pulled the top off and offered it to Mr. Adams. “Cigar? The tobacco is from Virginia and some of the smoothest you’ll ever taste.”

Mr. Adams nodded and took one, and Mr. Collins did the same. He struck a match and held it out to Mr. Adams, then with a few puffs, got his going also. With that same flirtatious smile, he held the lit match out to Lady. She made a show out of pursing her lips and blowing the flame out.

“Lucky match,” he murmured.

“I told you, luck has nothing to do with it.” Mr. Adams’s tone was low and strident. His grip suddenly became painful. He would finish this game in an instant if Mr. Collins continued to goad him. Thanks to King, her protector’s mood was on the surly side and thanks to Mr. Collins, she had been delayed from restoring that mood to something better. She had to risk big or possibly pay later tonight if she couldn’t finish making up for either man’s foolishness.

“And that’s the closest you’re going to get to my lips on your flame, Mr. Collins, so why don’t you get down to business, because if that’s all you had to say, Mr. Adams and I were in the middle of a very interesting discussion when you interrupted.” She curled into Mr. Adams’s body, her other arm coming around to hold him in her embrace. She shifted slightly so Mr. Adams could feel her breasts press against his side. It was an old whore’s trick at distraction, but since she was an old whore, she figured she could get away with it.

Either it worked or her verbal slap did, because she could see Mr. Adams mellow, his face wreathed in a happy smile and cigar smoke. The tension drained from her for the second time that night.

“My pardon, Lady. I’ll get down to business so as not to further interrupt yours,” Mr. Collins said, now the picture of a serious toff, from the furrow creasing his forehead to the way he was holding his cigar like a fountain pen. “Mr. Adams, I propose a wager on the fight. Do you see that young man over there in the fighter’s area, the one with the short, blond hair and lean build? That’s my Jonathan, and my wager is my Jonathan against your King.”

“They haven’t even announced the pairings yet. How can you know when your man will fight mine?”

“We have the finest fighters in the tournament. Unless one of them gets hurt, they will face each other in some round.” Mr. Collins was smiling, but the expression had nothing to do with humor. “So, Mr. Adams, do you indeed own the best fighter, as you claim? I’ve got ten thousand pounds that says you don’t.”

Chapter Two

King waited in the back corner of the warehouse, the alcove cordoned off specifically for the fighters, and forced himself not to look into the crowd. Not that he needed to. He could describe every part of her. Her hair was a blond the color of raw wood and it was sleekly pulled back into a tail of curls that flowed over her shoulder and spilled across a breast. Though he didn’t know the fashionable description for it, she wore a shiny dress in dark blue that caused her eyes to shine with a lighter shade of the same. Oval face sculpted by a Greek god with a naughty eye, and lips that could make a holy man sweat. He’d heard she was able to charge more than the other girls on her lips alone.

Like it was this morning, King could remember the first time he saw Lady. It had been a Friday night almost three years ago, shortly after he’d gone from a guard at this very warehouse to one of the few men Mr. Adams trusted to guard his person. Something—a good shipment or some good business—had happened, and Mr. Adams was laughing. He’d given each of the men five pounds, ten for King, and ordered his carriage to take him straight to a little blue house a mile or so from the Red Door. The driver had told him whom they were visiting, so King had known what to expect by the time they arrived.

He opened the carriage door for Mr. Adams and waited behind him as he knocked. Then the door opened and there was Lady. She didn’t act like the house was Mr. Adams’s, leased for his current mistress, nor did she act like the housekeeper was an old madam Mr. Adams had hired—Lady opened the door like she owned it, her corner of London, and Mr. Adams lock, stock and barrel. After she greeted Mr. Adams and let him in, she glanced at King as if the two of them were sharing a secret, then shut the door in his face. Hours later, when he was alone in his bed, King imagined that face, that body, those lips, and pleasured himself.

But then they went back the next night, King in his new black jacket and Mr. Adams with a black velvet box. Unlike the night before, Mr. Adams told King to come in while he gave Lady her present. The housekeeper led Mr. Adams to the parlor but King stayed at the door, so he could see every painful step Lady took coming down the stairs. She was wearing an expensive dark red dress, her hair up in a mass of curls, but she was walking like an old woman with rheumatism. Because she was bent over, she made it to the last stair and still hadn’t seen him, leaving King to ponder her illness as she took that last step. She slipped and he was reaching for her even before he heard her gasp—half pain, half fear. Holding her hand while she regained her balance, King realized she wasn’t ill—she was in pain. After Mr. Adams had come over last night and fucked his mistress, something made him beat her into a shadow of the woman he saw last night.

The terror in her eyes almost did him in, but beneath that—barely flickering but still alive—was something fierce, almost feral, and he knew this woman was a survivor. He could have stayed there all night and studied the mysteries of her eyes, but instead he simply let her use him for a brace and whispered something about willow bark for the pain.

He didn’t care if she was a whore or had done things to survive, there was something about the way she looked at him after that, had every night since, that made him wonder what it would be like to be with her in truth. Yes, he wanted to have her naked and moaning in his arms, but just as often he imagined drinking tea with her, going somewhere in the country where they could see the stars and picking out the constellations, even sailing away somewhere warm and far away from London. He’d been telling himself it was an infatuation and would pass eventually, but the primal part of him that pulsed his blood told him otherwise. It was why he’d held off on kissing her earlier, even when commanded to do so.

But then his worst fears were realized, and a simple press of lips reached deep into his chest and twisted blood, bone and more into a knot. Christ, the last thing he needed was a deeper desire for his boss’s mistress. Even if she made him feel something other than anger or disgust. Even if she was possibly the only person who could understand what life was like as purchased property. Even if she did look at him like she knew all of his secrets and accepted him anyway.

He reached up to unbutton his shirt and felt a single hard tap on his shoulder. He clenched his fists and turned to face the threat.

“Hey, mate, you ripped your shirt there,” said the man before him. In the world of brawny, bare-fisted fighters, he stood a half foot smaller than King, with a lean build. His hair was white-blond and looked like it had been cut by a child holding a razor. His face was equally sharp and angular, but his eyes looked like two hard marbles—a muddy green with chips of flash. This man was danger.

“It’ll match your face in a moment,” King said, the back of his neck prickling.

The man laughed and took a step back, lifting his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Didn’t mean to set you off, mate. Just wanted to say hello before the fights started. Heard a lot about you, is all.”

King slowly relaxed, lowering his arms but releasing the clench of his fists last. “Yeah, well around here, being friendly is more likely to get you a fist than a kiss. Is it different in Australia?”

The man laughed again and shook a finger at King, the oh-ho-ho of his laugh keeping time with the pointing of his finger. “Aye, you pegged me proper, mate. Down there anything goes—fists, teeth, blood, even kisses. Just thought it was more civilized up here, being the mother country and all. Meant no ill will, did I. Just saying hello. My name’s Jonathan.” He held out his hand as though they were two merchants who’d bumped into each other on the street.

King would have rather broken bottles against his face than reply, but he knew he could always turn nasty later. “King,” he said by way of introduction and shook Jonathan’s hand.

“Good to meet you, King.” After three pumps and no contest of strength, he released King’s hand. “Who’s your handler? Mine’s Mr. Collins. He’s an American, but a pretty good chap all in all. He’s standing...oh, he’s over there behind that short bloke and tasty-looking pinchcock. Mmm, maybe she’ll be my present if I win.” Jonathan flashed a wicked grin at King and turned back to ogle Lady.

With an excuse to look at her now, King was finally able to consider Lady more than he ever had before. Perhaps he’d be able to discover why, on that night three years ago, she’d made him feel the urge to be chivalrous for the first time in his graceless life.

She was draped against Mr. Adams like she was being very affectionate, but to King she looked tired. He could see Mr. Adams say something to her and watched as Lady forced a laugh that didn’t reach her eyes. The man with them, Mr. Collins, was watching her like a starving cat with its eye on a trapped mouse.

He still couldn’t tell why she affected him this way, why such a simple kiss would elevate his desire for her into destiny, but he did recognize the rage and frustration drowning him from the inside out. Without another word, he turned from the grinning Aussie and gladly entered the ring for his fight.

* * *

King’s fight started, and Mr. Adams had barely guided Lady to a prime spot in the front of the crowd before she realized something was terribly wrong here. She had watched fights before, be they organized affairs such as these or brawls on the street. The sight of one man beating another bloody was nothing new, but this was not the King she knew and it worried her.

His opponent, Brutus, was easily four inches taller than King and two stone heavier, but King was beating this man into the ground as though a demon had blessed him with extra strength. Less than three minutes into the bout, Brutus was curled into a ball on the red-tinged stones of the floor. Even though the fight was clearly over, King showed no signs of stopping.

“Perhaps you should hold him back.” Lady tugged on Mr. Adams’s sleeve, her fear for King overriding anything else. “I think King isn’t himself right now.”

Mr. Adams’s smile faltered and Lady watched him tally lost money if King snapped or went too far and hurt himself. He thrust Lady at Shade without even glancing her way and raced into the ring. He grabbed King and pulled him off Brutus, then raised his arm and announced, “The finest brawler to ever walk London’s streets, I give you King!”

As soon as he heralded his winner, Lady entered the ring to stand beside Mr. Adams. He liked it when he could exhibit her at the same time other men came over to congratulate him. And she couldn’t stand being under Shade’s protection. He was like his namesake—no light, no warmth.

After King retreated to the fighters’ area to clean up and the last of the toadies slunk away, Mr. Adams led Lady back to their spot at the edge of the ring so they could watch the next fight. She settled in beside him.

“Pet, why don’t you go take care of King? Show him some tender womanly care.” Mr. Adams lit up a new cigar. Lady looked at him, but he was watching the fighters being introduced. Mr. Adams never had her do anything that didn’t involve fucking or looking good on his arm. If he had any inkling how much the kiss—or King, for that matter—affected her, she could be in serious trouble.

The referee called the start of the new fight and Mr. Adams looked at her with a relaxed smile. “Don’t you worry, pet, I know you’re not a nurse, but Mrs. Henderson told me you had some skill with healing when the girls were sick, so I thought you could keep an eye on King for me. Make certain he gets fixed up if he needs to, call a doctor if you think it best, but just keep an eye on him and make certain he gets anything he needs. I want him in top fighting shape, and if there’s anybody I can trust taking care of him and telling me how he really is, it’s you. You’ll do that for me, won’t you, Lady?”

“Why of course, Mr. Adams.” She ran one finger down the line of his jaw. This was the Mr. Adams she’d been trying to get back from King and Mr. Collins—pleased, comfortable, affable. It made it more difficult to determine why she was uneasy about his request. Perhaps because the information he was basing his decision on came from her former madam, still Mr. Adams’s business partner at his brothel. Mrs. Henderson hadn’t liked Lady since Mr. Adams started to pay her special attention, and she could see the madam trying to set her up for a harsh fall.

“That’s my girl. And when King wins this tournament for me, plus an extra ten thousand from that fool American, I’m going to cover your body in emeralds and fuck them off.” He bit the curve of her breast, then pushed her toward the fighters’ area with the arm he had around her waist. Lady managed to relax a little and threw a naughty wink over her shoulder. Mr. Adams was sending her over to protect his investment, nothing more. If he truly suspected anything, he would have taken immediate action. He honestly wanted her to nurse King back to full health and keep him there throughout the tournament.

She walked through the crowd, then stopped when she saw King. He sat on a low stool with his legs spread out in front of him, his arms crossed at the wrist over his stomach. His dark hair, not much longer than his two-day beard, combined with his hard build to give him a menacing look, like a man who’d just fought his way out of Bedlam. She’d been so relieved about Mr. Adams’s reasoning for throwing them together that she hadn’t thought of what nursing King would mean. Being close to him. Touching more than his hand. Her face up close to his as she looked at the injuries to his eyes, his nose, his jaw. Dear God, how was she going to make it through this tournament without discovering what kind of luck a second kiss would bring? And a third and more after that?

She entered the fighters’ area, grabbed a small gray towel from a pile and dunked it into a bucket of tepid water. Squeezing it out, she told herself it was the strain of twisting the towel making her hands shake. Since coming under Mr. Adams’s care, she hadn’t had to do any cleaning. That’s all it was.

Lady reached King, and seeing his eyes were closed, took the moment to study him further. His head rested against the brick wall behind him, and his expression was calm, as though he was sleeping. She could see a mark on his left cheek and the swelling underneath his already bruised eye from one of the driving blows Brutus had delivered. The knuckles on both hands were raw and bloody, and there was a red blemish on his stomach from another blow.

She knelt down, wrapping her dress around her legs so it wouldn’t drag on the floor, and braced herself to touch him again. She pressed the towel to King’s knuckles. When he didn’t move, she glanced up at him, but his eyes were still closed. She dabbed harder, yet still no reaction. He couldn’t be asleep, so he was ignoring her for some reason. She hadn’t forgotten that it was King who’d grabbed her hand like he was drowning when they’d kissed. He felt something all right, he just wasn’t showing it. She grabbed his wrist and scrubbed at the drying blood on his hand.

“I’m sure you’re cracking good at what you do, Lady, but as nurses go, I think Brutus would be more gentle,” King said.

“I guess I was curious if you felt anything.” She dropped his hand back onto his stomach with the lack of gentleness he was accusing her of.

“Do you?” he asked, then finally opened his eyes. Hundreds of men had looked at Lady, men who thought they were intelligent, witty, and possessed secrets mere mortals could not comprehend. But, opposed to the hundreds of men and their self-serving looks, King’s eyes showed pity.

Lady met his eyes for one heartbeat more before returning her attention to his care. As she blotted at the blood on his knuckles, she studied his large, rough hands. His left had more scrapes than his right. The top joint of the pinkie on his right hand was a little crooked, and his nails were unusually clear of grime. She lifted his right hand and turned it over to tend to the underside. She made one pass with the damp towel over his wrist and palm and stopped when she saw a round, waxy scar the size of a shilling in the middle of his hand. She touched it gently and felt the raised texture of an old burn.

“I heard a story of why he calls you King.” Lady couldn’t look up from the scar on King’s palm, nor could she stop running her finger over it.