Page 12 of The Boxer’s Belle

“Were you raised in a barn?” Bella asked, an incredulous note in her voice.

“Yes, in point of fact,” he retorted with a raised brow. She’d spent a fair bit of her youth in that very same barn.

Her dark eyes widened before those soft, rose-pink lips snapped together in a tight, tantalizing line.

Eliza sprang up, the chair teetering behind her before settling. Hand pressed to her mouth, she rushed from the room.

Utterly baffled, Ben stared stupidly after her.

“Go after her, you nitwit,” Bella ordered as she dragged an exhausted hand over her forehead.

“Yes—excellent. I’ll just… do that.” Ben stumbled from the room after Eliza. Leaving West and Bella entirely alone again. For a long moment, the only sound was the staccato pat of raindrops, steadily increasing in tempo and punctuated by an occasional dull clap of thunder.

“How long do you suppose it will be before he catches up?” she asked conversationally.

West was unused to the convivial tone, and it left him off-kilter. “Catches up to what?”

Bella’s gaze caught his. This time her expression was a familiar one—disbelief and irritation rolled into one. At least they were back on familiar footing.

“Never mind.”

“Tell me.”

“I’ve no interest in educating the male species.”

“We’re an entirely different species now?”

“You are, certainly.”

Again, the little twitch at the corner of her lip drew his notice. West may have stolen the brilliant, amiable smiles, but Bella still took great delight in sparring with him.

“A more evolved being—yes, that fits.” West couldn’t help himself. “Tell me, as a lesser, primitive being, what is it like to sit beside greatness?” Of the two of them, Bella was without question the more intelligent and more civilized. But her eyes flashed at the insult—they always did—leaving him breathless.

“You have taken too many blows to the head.”

“How is your head?” The question shocked West when it slipped loose—though he’d been fretting over her injury for more than a year. He never actually intended to ask her—merely continue to interrogate Ben at every available moment.

But all those months ago, when he’d found Bella collapsed and unconscious, bleeding across the stone balcony— that image of her would haunt him the rest of his days. Her breathtaking phoenix feathers crumpled and flapped in a devastating surrender to the breeze, trapped in the syrupy, crimson puddle of her blood. West had lived a hellish eternity in every one of the minutes between when he’d stumbled to her side and when her lashes had at last flickered open.

Her eyes narrowed at him now. “My head is fine.”

“No megrims or eye changes?”

“Any vulnerabilities for you to exploit, you mean?”

West reared back as if she’d slapped him. “What? Of course not!” How could she believe he would ever use that night, those horrific events, against her in one of their petty spats?

“Because you’ve never taken advantage of my vulnerability before,” she spat and tossed her napkin onto the table. The chair screamed across the wooden floor as she shoved it back.

“Bella, I—” His heart cracked in two as she swept from the room in a furious flurry of russet skirts. He was entirely unable to defend himself.

He deserved every bit of her suspicion and ire. And would until the day he died.

CHAPTER 4

This wing of the house wasn’t strictly safe. Bella didn’t particularly care.

Ben had made strides to repair the west wing after last year’s fire—but most of the progress had been in the foundation—walls and floors. The workmen, now occupied with the autumn harvest, had repeatedly warned her away.