“Fantasies that would shock the senses,” Ellie said, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Some say he likes his women bare and bound, blindfolded and at his mercy.”
“It matters not,” Josie waved her slender hand. “He is cursed withennui, my dear. Even if a woman succeeds in attracting his notice, they will not hold it for long.
“If the scandal sheets are to be believed, his affairs are short-lived and too numerous to count. Some even equate them to be incendiary, flaming hot for a long while before they burn to ash, and he moves to another without a look behind him.”
Swallowing, Bridget could sum up what she knew of this Beast in three words:arrogant, seducer,anddisreputable, characteristics that any virtuous lady would take pains to avoid— but the kiss still lingered in her mind.
“Oh,” she mumbled.
Once again, her friends shared another look, and this time Josephine asked, “Why did you ask, Bridget?”
“Erm… I overheard a lady speaking about him when she and her mother came to the seamstress shop.” The lie felt heavy on her tongue as she knew neither of her friends would take it well when she admitted to the titillating encounter that night. “I wondered about it.”
“Hm,” Eleanor gently lifted her cup. “We shall all pretend you are not lying to us, but we will wait until you are ready to tell us what really happened.”
She blushed to the roots of her hair and turned away. “I am not.”
“Sure, dear,” Ellie patted her hand. “Sure, you aren’t.”
The unintrusive hackney William had hired to carry him into the depths of the Spitalfields clattered down the streets. As they got deeper into the town, shuttered storefronts lined both sides of the street, and people and horses jostled along the cobblestone.
They arrived at a street wedged in between two buildings in Petticoat Lane, the two-story building sandwiched between a bakeshop and a gin store. Wrapping on the roof, he waited until the carriage stopped and hopped out, pulled the rim of his hat down to shield his eyes, and headed to the steps.
Bypassing the front door, he took the side staircase and headed to the door around the side before rapping on the peeling door, hoping Silas Gilliam, a middle man in the boxing industry, was home and not tousled up in a gutter somewhere.
“Or nursing an injury in a hospital,” he muttered.
On the fifth knock, the door opened. Silas’ lean boxer-honed frame filled the doorway. His hair was scruffy and his jaw stubbly with the beginnings of a night beard, and his fine lawn shirt was partially unbuttoned, revealing the corded column of his throat, while the robe he wore only gave a glimpse of the edge of his trousers. His large, masculine feet were bare.
“What are you doing here?” the middleman asked. “Well, I shouldn’t ask that. I bloody well know why you’re here, but the answer isno.”
“I endeavor to change your mind,” William said affably. “Are you going to let me loaf on your doorstep like a wretched urchin or will you let me in so we can discuss it?”
Grunting, Ambrose stood aside, and William stepped in, doffing his hat and tugging off his great coat. As ragged as the outside was, the inside was the opposite; the furnishings were rich wood and pelt with wing chairs of leather, with cigar smoke curling in the air.
“You aren’t in the middle of arendezvous, are you?” William asked, looking around for female paraphernalia. “If you are in the middle of—”
“Do you think I’d answer the door if I had some youthful chit lounging around?” Silas scoffed as he went to a cupboard and liberated a bottle of Tobermory whisky. “A glass?”
“Just one, thank you,” William gazed at a portrait. “More than that and I am a danger to myself.”
Shame clamped William's insides when he thought back to two years ago, when he had woken up half naked on the floor of a whorehouse, covered in his rancid sick and up to his neck in debt.
His drinking and gambling had spiraled out of control, his rakehell ways had found him jumping from one bed to another, in the abyss of ignominy.
He thanked the Gods that his father had not been around to witness his ultimate disgrace; he'd wagered the Brookhaven Castle—his papa's legacy—on a round of hazard.
By a stroke of luck, he had won.
When it came to personal virtues, William could claim only one: he had the ability to see his own faults clearly, well, without the haze of liquor covering his mind.
A glass plunked on the bookshelf beside him and William took it, then sipped. “The Circuit is approaching, where all the prizefighters will compete for a hundred thousand pounds. I need you to get me in.”
“I know you’re good, Your Grace. As the Masked Marauder, you have trumped a lot ofn'er-do-wellcompetitors, but those were silly boys doing silly things for shillings and half-pennies. This race is for the big boys, respectfully, Arlington,” Silas replied.
“See, how this works is you put in your bid, and the powers that be chooseyou. Sixteen of the seeds are chosen from all over England. In their respective areas, eight advance to the semis, and four rough it out for the first spot against the reigning champion.”
The Circuit Matches, a play on the Circuit Court, the highest-level administrative division of His Majesty's Courts, was an open secret in the rounds of pugilism. The tournament had no set date or year but when it came around, all the best prizefighters in the realm endeavored to win it.
