It was amazing what a lady could get away with if she only dared to seize her opportunities when they presented themselves.
Lucy had spent the morning at the Pump Room with Eloisa, and her Aunt Jarvis. She suspected her uncle had been in a temper the night before, because her poor aunt was having one of her bad days. When they’d returned to the villa, Aunt Jarvis had heaved herself out of the carriage, a muttered prayer for the recovery of her nerves on her lips, and disappeared up the stairs. Eloisa had flown after her, her brow furrowed with concern.
As for Lucy’s uncle, well…he took little notice of his wife, even less notice of his daughter, and none whatsoever of Lucy. Especially when he was in his cups, which was often. By the time Lucy came back downstairs after seeing her aunt comfortably settled, Uncle Jarvis was sitting alone in a dim corner of the tiny parlor, his bleary gaze fixed on the glass grasped in his meaty paw.
And beyond him an open door, light spilling through it like a beckoning hand.
It was an opportunity, and Lucy couldn’t resist seizing it any more than Uncle Jarvis could resist a bottle of port. A dozen steps saw her through the courtyard. She paused when she reached the road, but a quick glance over her shoulder told her no one had taken any notice of her departure. She’d just have a quick stroll down the road, and then return before she was missed.
She hurried along the road, her heart fluttering with anticipation. The shouts grew louder as she drew closer to the tangle of wagons and horses she’d noticed earlier. She’d been on the far side of the carriage when they passed, and the windows had been shut tight against the dust of the roads, so she hadn’t been able to see what all the fuss was about, but she’d seen enough to know there were a great number of people wandering about. She’d heard the muted sounds of shouting and laughter, and sensed the air vibrating with suppressed excitement.
Was it a village fair, perhaps, or some local holiday celebration? Whatever it was, Lucy knew with utter certainty she’d never been to one before.
As she drew closer, she noticed that despite their haphazard appearance, the carriages and wagons were arranged into a rough, oblong sort of ring around a large, open space. The bulk of the crowd was huddled tightly together inside the ring, their gazes riveted on something happening in the center. Something wildly entertaining, if she could judge by the delighted roars of the surrounding spectators.
It wasn’t just gentlemen, but men of every class and description, all of them shrieking and howling like a pack of wild beasts. Lucy saw a few women here and there, also shouting and shaking their fists, but no ladies. It looked to be a crowd of several hundred, and not a lady among them.
Not a fair, then, or a local celebration. A race of some sort? A cockfight? That would explain the shrieks and howls rising from the crowd. Men were always at their most savage when blood and wagering were involved.
Lucy passed through the clustered wagons, but paused at the edges of the crowd. This was the moment when a proper young lady would deduce this was not an event meant for proper young ladies. Lucy was much more concerned with adventure than propriety, but she’d told herself she’d only take a quick peek, and then she’d be back on her way to her villa before any harm was done.
Instead of retreating, she drew closer, and closer still…
She was within two dozen paces of the center ring when she encountered her first obstacle. Dash it, she couldn’t see a thing except a row of broad backs. Many of them were draped in billowing cloaks, the skirts of which further obscured the view.
No, no. This wouldn’t do at all. She didn’t fancy the idea of watching a cockfight, but she’d come this far, and she wasn’t leaving until she’d had a peek at whatever was unfolding.
She scanned the row of conveyances at her back. If she stood in a wagon bed she’d be able see over the rows of shoulders, but that much height would make her rather more conspicuous than it was wise to be, under the circumstances.
A carriage wheel, then—ah, yes! Just there, a smart black carriage with gold fittings and a green and gold crest, and the coachman nowhere in sight. Surely Lord whoever-he-might-be wouldn’t begrudge her a perch.
Lucy braced her foot on the hub of the back wheel, grasped the edge to haul herself up, then managed to turn herself around and balance her backside against the side of the carriage. Ah, there! Comfortable as could be. Now she could see what was so fascinating, and—
Lucy’s eyes went wide, and a choked gasp lodged in her throat.
God in heaven.
Blood pounded through her body and rushed into her head with such force she nearly toppled off the wheel. She grasped at the spokes with one hand and covered her open mouth with the other.
Two men, both stripped to the waist, were in the center of a roped-off section of ground, and they were—
Lucy pressed her hand harder against her mouth as one man slammed his fist into the other’s face. His hand came away dripping with blood, but the man he’d hit—who should, by every law of anatomy have been rendered unconscious by the blow—only turned aside, spat out one of his teeth, then gave the thunderous crowd a ghastly grin as a red stream of blood spurted from his nose and mouth.
They were pounding the life out of each other.
She’d stumbled across a bare-knuckle boxing match. A pair of half-naked men, their fists flying, faces contorted with pain, blood gushing from places Lucy had never seen blood gush from before.
Knuckles, fingernails, ears, and was that…dear God, itwas.
An eye, gone all wobbly in its socket.
A proper young lady would have fallen into a faint. Or, if she did manage to stay conscious in the face of such brutality, she would scramble down from her perch at once, gather her skirts in her fists, and run back to her lodgings without a backward glance. She’d retire to her bedchamber, lock her door behind her, dose herself with laudanum, and vow never to tempt fate again.
Alas, Lucy didn’t aspire to propriety, and she wasn’t ayounglady at all. She was nearly twenty-one years old, and until she’d come to Brighton, she’d been nowhere, and seen nothing. She wouldn’t be stopped now by a pack of shrieking villains and a dangling eyeball or two.
Still, there was no reason to be pea-brained about it, either.
Lucy craned her neck around and peered over the roof of the carriage she’d climbed. A wagon stood a few paces behind, and beyond that was a sleek new phaeton. Neither was near enough to block the way into the open field beyond. If someone did happen to notice her, or the crowd grew too boisterous, she’d simply climb inside the carriage and exit from the door on the other side. A quick dart across the field, and she’d be back on the road in a trice.
