Page 40 of The Boxer’s Belle

With weak fingers, she untangled the fabric of her chemise from the hay and pulled it over her certainly frightful hair before rising to her feet.

When she finally turned to face him, he was working the buttons through the fabric of his breeches. The golden strands of his hair were falling over his eyes in that way she usually found appealing but now recognized as convenient.

Cowardly.

She knew then. The morning wouldn’t be filled with heady kisses and heated caresses. Their future, or the lack of it, was evident in the frigid movements of West’s fingers and the defensive set of his shoulders.

“Well?” The word escaped her throat, though she hadn’t intended to free it. Because that first shot, her first defensive volley landed before his toes in the dirt. And his answering arrow was sure to pierce her heart.

Air escaped him in a great whoosh. The effort left him smaller, more fragile than she knew him to be. “Last night— We shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have. This—us—it was a mistake.”

“A mistake,” she repeated stupidly. Even though she’d expected it, thought to brace herself… hearing that pitiful, insignificant word used to describe the most wonderful moments of her life... The last vestiges of hope wilted in her chest.

“You’re a lady. And I’m…”

The laugh that ripped from her throat was hollow, and bitter tasting on her lips. “You’re what? An arse?”

West flinched as though he’d been slapped. As though she were the one breaking him. “Belle⁠—”

“Lady Arabella.”

At last, his eyes snapped to hers, dark and swirling not with lust the way they had the night before, but with something like regret. And wasn’t that absurd? If anyone had cause to regret that night, it was certainly her.

“Lady Arabella. I should see you back to the house,” he offered, a gentleman even in his discomfort.

“You should see me back to the house?” She scoffed and gestured with one hand toward the imposing brick structure behind her. “Do you suppose I’ll lose my way?”

The argument she would never admit to baiting him into didn’t tempt him. “No, but you’re in your underthings. And Draycott⁠—”

“I’ll take my chances with Draycott and the like, thank you.”

“Be— Lady Arabella…”

“No. Do not follow me.”

Very little dignity remained in Bella’s possession as she plodded back to the house, barefoot in her shift, detritus spilling from her tangled hair. But her pride was still hers—she wouldn’t let him take that from her.

Pride was the one thing that had never abandoned her.

Not even in the years that followed.

In her more generous, less petulant moments, Bella understood that West had been correct that morning. Her father would have killed them both before he allowed her to be with a mere stable master’s son.

In truth, they’d been lucky their tryst hadn’t resulted in more permanent consequences. She shuddered at that ruinous thought. Even now, months after his death, the thought of informing her father that she was with child out of wedlock filled her with an unholy dread.

At the time, West had not yet found the sort of success he now enjoyed in the ring and couldn’t have supported a child. Bella fancied herself a rather self-sufficient sort of lady—though more by necessity than any particular interest or choice. But she wasn’t so vain as to suggest she could manage a household in the way a woman of West’s former station might.

But West no longer had such excuses for his dismissal. Ambrose Sinclair was no more. And West had amassed more than enough wealth in the ring to support a modest family.

And yet for some reason, he still did not want her. Or he wanted her carnally but found the notion of her as a romantic prospect repugnant. And that notion was worse. Unacceptable.

Bella snapped to her feet. She found herself stomping through the deluge before she recognized her intention.

Miles Weston was a fool. And she intended to tell him so.

CHAPTER 11

Fiery leaves escaped their branches to cling to West’s soaked frame as he stumbled through the forest. His lungs burned at his clipped, slippery pace. The oppressive rain poured through gaps between the canopy, leaving every inch of him drenched.