“I don’t passively accept anything.” Audley quick-stepped back and licked at a small trickle of blood from his split lip. “And you have incorrect information.”
Julius shrugged. “As you say. But ask yourself why I’m here. I don’t need any more money. I’ve not come to drain you further. I’ve only come because we share a mutual problem.”
Audley furrowed his brow. Stepping close, he wrapped his arms around Julius, and they pretended to wrestle. “It’s not only myself I have to think of,” he whispered. “My family would become pariahs.”
“As long as the blackmailers are out there, the threat will always exist.” Julius blocked a knee to his stomach. “Only by finding them and eliminating them is the risk to your family removed.”
“Less talking, more fighting!” someone from the crowd yelled.
Julius twisted his lips and pushed off the young man. “The men want a show.”
Audley just stared at him, panting. He was torn, Julius could tell.
He needed to make the man’s decision easier.
“I have a proposition.” Julius circled to the left, shuffling backwards to avoid a jab. “If you win this match, I walk away, never to bother you again. But if I win, we talk.”
Audley puffed out his chest. “You think you can beat me, old man?”
Julius was maybe fifteen years his senior. Hardly doddering. His own chest expanded. “Is that a deal?”
A muscle in Audley’s forehead twitched. For a moment, Julius thought the kid would turn away. Then, slowly, Audley nodded and held out a fist.
Julius bumped it with his own and got down to business. He could box with the best of them. The straightforward technique was useful to burn off his frustrations. But boxing wasn’t his preferred fighting style. When he fought to win, he turned to the arts he’d learned in the Orient. Their system was ingenious, efficient, and infinitely more dangerous. Men of his station would consider it impolite. It had no place at Gentleman Jack’s.
Audley was focused on Julius’s hands, so Julius shot out a leg and swept the kid’s feet out from under him.
“What the hell?” Audley rolled to his hands and knees, and Julius let him climb to his feet. No need to completely humiliate the boy.
Tucking his chin to his chest, Audley lunged at him, a volley of jabs and crosses aimed for his face. Julius dropped to one knee and grabbed his opponent’s front ankle. He pulled it towards him while pressing his shoulder into Audley’s hip. For a second time, the man went down.
Using Audley’s leg as leverage, Julius flipped him over to his stomach and vaulted up Audley’s prone body. Before the man could catch his breath, Julius had one hand at the nape of his neck and one knee on the nerve that ran down the back of his arm.
“Son of a bitch, that hurts.” Audley struggled to push himself up, but ended up just increasing the pressure on the nerve. He flopped back down.
“So where should we talk? My house or yours?”
***
They’d ended up at Simon’s, another club Julius was a member of. The respectable one. The boy had sulked, let Julius know he didn’t think his fighting style was proper, but Julius had no doubt the conversation would happen. Lord Audley had made a deal, and the son of the Duke of Roxburn didn’t renege on a promise.
Julius had managed to convince his friends that their presence would only impede Audley’s tongue, so it was just the two of them in the corner of the billiards room, snifters of brandy on the side table between them, cigars in their hands. Audley had wanted to go into one of the private rooms in the back, but Julius had told him that nothing looked so suspicious as two men secreted away together.
“What do they have on you?” Audley asked. He stared into his glass as he swirled the brandy. “I’m not discussing my situation unless you do, as well.”
Fair enough. Unfortunately for Audley, Julius wouldn’t be imparting anything truthful. He had plenty of skeletons in his closet, but, as he wasn’t being blackmailed, saw no need to shake their bones. A useful lie would suffice.
“I belong to a club,” he began.
Audley stretched his arms wide, brandy sloshing over the rim of his glass. “Who doesn’t?”
“Not this type of club. A club that can’t be spoken of in polite society.”
Audley drew angrily on the cigar and blew out a long stream of smoke. “Again, who doesn’t?” he muttered.
“Something unfortunate happened in that club one night,” Julius said. “A woman was hurt.” That was true enough. Women were hurt there every night. For coin and pleasure.
Audley followed his statement to its logical conclusion. “And you covered it up, but not well enough.”
