‘Believe me, it was no comfort to me to witness my brother’s passing or to hear that he had entered a betrothal without confiding in me. Was there a reason for such haste? He can barely have known you?’ His eyes dipped to her stomach. ‘Are you in trouble, Miss Howden?’
Her palm went to her chest. ‘What are you implying?’
‘The obvious.’
‘Well, it is not true. You need not worry on that score.’
‘So why the haste?’
‘He said he was to go to war and made me promise to wait for him. He said we would be married the moment he returned. It was hurried. There was no time.’
‘Even to send word to his father or brother? You can see why I am sceptical of the depth of feeling between you two.’
‘Think what you will. I care not. I thank you for bringing me some comfort in knowing the manner of William’s passing, but you should leave now.’
He sighed. ‘Will made a request of me at the end.’
Her stricken face gave him pause. He could leave now and never fulfil his obligation, and no one would ever know. He could abandon Grace Howden to her fate, be it with Caville Sharp or another lecher, and never set eyes on her pretty, lying face again. He was sure she was keeping something from him. ‘William’s last words were of you. He said he loved you, and he made me promise.’
‘Promise what?’ she asked.
‘That I take care of you in his stead. Apparently, you are in desperate circumstances, and I am to offer you protection.’
‘I neither want nor need your protection, Sir.’
‘If you are in the company of Caville Sharp, I would venture that you do.'
‘I am not in his company nor do I want yours.’ She rushed and opened the door, clinging to it, white-knuckled.
‘You have not let me say my piece. I have a duty to fulfil.’
‘We are not acquainted, Sir,’ she said sharply. ‘Nor do I wish to be bullied by you any longer. You have to go.’ The last words were a sob, and she was shaking with anger.
There seemed to be no gaining Grace Howden’s good opinion, and Rawden did not desire it. He stormed past her, feeling like the worst cad and fool, and rushed down the stairs and out into the street.
Rawden hardly knew where he was going as anger raged like a beast in his heart. Grace Howden had taken advantage of his brother’s good nature. Nothing he had seen or heard from this meeting had made him think he was mistaken. Pretty but hard, Grace Howden was a burden he did not ask for, and he bitterly resented the twisted feelings she stirred in him – lust for her comeliness, a foolish desire to gain her good opinion, and worst of all, humiliation at her distaste for him that she did not try to hide.
She had compared him to Will and found him wanting, as had so many others in his life. She talked of his brother with a soft tenderness and to him with contempt, when he had come here today to show kindness and act with honour. It had been an act of charity, yet she spurned him as a rogue with the blackest hearts.
Rawden stopped dead in the street and cursed, to the alarm of an elderly couple strolling by. Grace Howden had seen him precisely as he was. She was not his equal in station, experience or fortune, yet she had dissected his careful politeness and grudging charity in a few minutes. So it was done - promise fulfilled, honour and duty satisfied. He would never stand to see her again, and the little fool could sink or swim on her own.
Chapter Sixteen
The noise from the crowd was deafening, but Rawden blotted it out and focussed on the meaty fist flying at his face. He swerved and ducked, and it met thin air. The brawny Irishman coming at him was a triumph of heavy muscle over agility, and he was tiring already, but one wrong move would send Rawden crashing to the sawdust floor with a broken jaw or worse.
Boxing was, for many, a gentlemanly pursuit, where the softer members of the ton indulged themselves by thinking they could fight. But there was no real jeopardy in entering a ring with a man you had paid to spar with you. In the cellars of Midwitch Tavern, on the seedy side of London, reeking of stale ale and sweat, it was altogether the opposite of gentlemanly. Here, men fought bare-knuckled and bare-chested, and the rough underbelly of London rubbed shoulders with the well-bred. Ravaged street whores mingled with the primped mistresses of wealthy men. The women hung on the arms of their benefactors, hungry for violence and excitement.
A right hook grazed his ear with a whoosh of air. The man was fast, almost too fast, but Rawden countered with a hard punch to the Irishman’s stomach. The man groaned and fell to his knees, spitting blood that oozed into the sawdust. Rawden turned to a pretty woman in the crowd and grabbed an ale from her hand with a wink, and she smiled back at him. He downed the ale in a few gulps, wiping sweat and blood off with a swollen knuckle, and turned back to his opponent, who was hauling himself to his feet. Rawden felled the man with a vicious right hook, and the crowd roared in delight.
He bounced on his toes, still seething with restless energy. Damn that this violence had not settled his mind nor the anger and guilt warring in his chest. It seemed he would just have to drink himself into oblivion or perhaps visit Romola to work it off another way, if she would have him after their last quarrel.
‘Well played, Voss,’ drawled a voice, and Rawden groaned inwardly. George Sanders, dandy and inveterate gambler, patted him on the back, grimaced, then wiped his hand on his perfectly tailored jacket.
‘It is just honest sweat, Sanders. It will wash off,’ said Rawden.
‘Yes, but you know I don’t like to get my hands dirty. I’d rather you did it for me. Everyone thought the Irishman would beat you, but I had faith, my friend, so you made me a pretty penny.’
‘I live to serve, and we are not friends,’ said Rawden. He had endured the oaf’s toadying at boarding school, but now he did not have to. No matter how he insulted the man, Sanders would persist in thinking they were friends, and with his blood still up, Rawden was in no mood to indulge the idiot.
