CHAPTER 2
“Is that all you’ve got, Your Grace?”
The taunt came from across the makeshift ring, accompanied by a spray of blood and spittle.
Edward’s opponent was a dockworker named Briggs, a man built like a brick wall with fists the size of ham hocks. He bounced on his feet, grinning through a split lip.
“Heard you nobles are soft.” Briggs circled left, his bare feet scuffing against the sawdust-covered floor. “All that fine wine and fancy living. Makes a man weak.”
Edward said nothing. He kept his guard up, his breathing steady, and his focus absolute.
The back room of the Crossed Keys tavern stank of sweat and stale ale and the copper tang of blood. Oil lamps cast wavering shadows across the crowd of men pressed against the ropebarriers, their shouts and jeers blending into a roar that Edward had learned to tune out years ago.
Briggs lunged. Edward sidestepped, let the punch sail past his ear, and drove his fist into the dockworker’s exposed ribs. The crack of impact rippled up his arm. Briggs staggered, his grin faltering.
“Your mother knows you’re out this late?” Briggs spat blood onto the sawdust. “Oh, wait. She ran off, didn’t she? Left you and your brother behind like yesterday’s rubbish.”
The words found their mark. Edward felt the old wound pulse beneath his ribs, that familiar ache that never quite healed. His vision sharpened. His muscles coiled.
Briggs saw the change in his eyes and pressed his advantage. “Touched a nerve, did I? The great Duke of Heatherwell, abandoned by his own mother. What kind of woman leaves her children? Must have been something wrong with?—”
Edward moved.
Three punches. Left jab to snap Briggs’s head back. Right cross to his jaw. Left hook to his temple. The dockworker’s eyes rolled white. His knees buckled. He hit the sawdust with a thud that silenced the crowd.
Edward stood over him, chest heaving, and his knuckles throbbing. The rage still pulsed through his veins, hot and dark and hungry for more.
He forced himself to unclench his fists. To step back. To breathe.
The crowd erupted into cheers and groans as money changed hands. Edward turned away from the unconscious man and ducked under the ropes.
The landlord appeared at his elbow before he had taken three steps. Grimsby was a wiry man with a face like a ferret and eyes that never stopped calculating. He held out a leather purse, coins clinking inside.
“Your winnings, Your Grace.”
“You know what to do with it.” Edward reached for the cloth a boy offered him and wiped the sweat from his face. Briggs’s blood streaked the linen red.
Grimsby sighed. “The orphanage again?”
“Anonymous donation. As always.” Edward met his gaze. “And I will be checking that the full sum arrives. If I discover a single shilling has gone astray, you and I will have a conversation you will not enjoy.”
The landlord rolled his eyes and tucked the purse into his coat. “I’ll never understand you, Your Grace. Most men fight for coinor glory. You come here to beat men senseless and give away the prize.” He shook his head. “What sort of man enjoys that?”
Edward stepped closer. The landlord’s smirk faded as Edward’s shadow fell across him.
“I don’t enjoy anything.” The words emerged low, rough, and scraping from somewhere deep in his chest. “Make sure the money reaches the orphanage by the week’s end.”
Grimsby stumbled backward, his face pale. He nodded once and scurried away.
“Charming as ever, I see.”
Edward turned to find Hugo Beaumont leaning against a wooden pillar, arms crossed, a grin spreading across his handsome face. The Duke of Thornwaite looked absurdly out of place in the dingy tavern with his fair hair artfully disheveled and his cravat loosened just enough to suggest aristocratic indolence.
“How long have you been standing there?” Edward accepted a fresh cloth from the boy and pressed it to his split knuckles.
“Long enough to see you reduce poor Briggs to a heap of regrets.” Hugo pushed off from the pillar and strolled closer. “The man will be drinking his meals for a fortnight.”
“He should learn to keep his mouth shut.”
