Page 41 of Earl of St. Seville

A smattering of raindrops covered his face when he looked down at her. “The rain will only increase on our drive. The least I can do, after everything you’ve taught me, is keep you from catching your death of cold.”

To prove his point, he slipped from his coat and wrapped it around her shoulders and head to block the rain from drenching her as they started toward Southlund’s House.

Patience nestled closer to St. Seville, allowing his warmth and the scent of him to wash over her as the rain would have if he hadn’t created a makeshift shelter for her.

It was such a simple gesture, yet one she was wholly unfamiliar with. Not because her father and brothers didn’t attempt to shield her. Mainly because she never allowed anyone this close, finding fault with every man who sought her hand.

Shifting, Patience looked up at the earl. Surprisingly, his stare was focused on her, as well—but not on her eyes. No, his narrowed, russet-brown eyes were trained on her lips.

Heat coursed through her, banishing the frigid cold that stung her reddened nose and seeped through her gloves.

Patience had never been faced with such a situation.

The earl leaned closer, and her lips parted as her tongue darted across her bottom lip. Something in her chest fluttered at the same time she exhaled. She fisted her hands in her lap to keep from reaching out for him, laying her gloved palm on his cheek and drawing his face to hers.

Suddenly, the hack dipped and jostled, hitting an uneven patch in the street and tossing Patience back a few inches. Not far, but enough to break whatever spell had kept the earl’s focus trained on her lips. His jacket slipped down to the seat behind her.

Rain sprinkled her face, and Patience laughed.

The sound seemed foreign and strained, even to her own ears.

The earl coughed and straightened, retrieving his jacket and lifting it up once again to cover her, but he did not lean close again. Instead, he retreated to the far corner of the hack.

Patience searched her brain for something—anything—to draw him close again.

The moment had faded…gone as swiftly as it had set upon them.

“I shall collect you tomorrow evening at the Albany, and we will set out for Seven Dials?” Patience still needed to figure out how to dissuade Merit and Valor from tagging along on her escapade to West End. And now, it seemed all the more important to keep the earl hidden. They had tomorrow evening, and then Patience’s obligation to St. Seville would come to an end.

Win or lose, the earl had agreed that this would be his final prizefight.

What would come then? Could she return to her crusade against pugilism? Draft more pamphlets and send her father into hazardous boroughs to distribute them as if she hadn’t been training a fighter only a few nights before? Could she be content to return to the life she’d led up until the night she stumbled upon the earl bare-chested and escaping her house?

She sighed, but the sound was swallowed up by the wind as the rain increased.

Chapter 13

Sin pushed his untouched meal around on his plate, his appetite stalled by the note from Lady Patience—and the prizefight starting in two hours’ time. I will meet you in Seven Dials. How was he supposed to interpret that? Her missive only held those seven simple words. She hadn’t signed her name or written her message on monogrammed stationery. If anyone had intercepted it, there would be nothing that could be traced back to its sender. Even the young boy who’d knocked on his door at the Albany had been paid two pence to make certain Patience’s note went to no one but the bloke with hair like a seaman.

They’d trained—hard—the day before, and then had gone to the Strand. Before they parted ways, she’d instructed him that she would arrive at the Albany to collect him. Had something occurred? Had their moment in the hack frightened her? For most of the night, Sin had thought it perhaps only he who’d felt the connection between them. The draw was undeniable, no matter how Sin attempted to ignore it.

Maybe Desmond had discovered her absences from Marsh Manor each day when she journeyed to Southlund’s House to work with Sin and forbade her to leave the house?

Their hours together had quickly turned from exhaustive physical exertion to fleeting minutes where Sin longed for them to stretch on and on. With her tutelage, his movements had become more precise, and his agility increased with each session. Patience’s skill in the ring only shone more with each hour as men attended the club to watch the daughter of the famed pugilist, Ivory Bess.

If there were anything more than just her offer to train him connecting them, Sin would have been jealous of every fighter who stood gaping around the ring as they worked. Sin had no claims to Lady Patience—not on her attention or her affection.

“Yes, the man claimed to be a gentleman, though we all know Blankenship’s less than proper tendencies,” the man across from Sin said with a chuckle. “Come now, toes! Have you heard any such vile thing?”

Sin chuckled along with the trio who’d invited him to dine with them before they all made their way to Seven Dials.

Coventry was set on introducing Sin to as many of his wicked men as possible, as if that would keep him in London once he earned the funds needed to return home to Brownsea.

The Earl of Harrington and Davenport were friendly enough. Quite a bit younger than Coventry, but close to Sin’s age, the pair each sported the unmistakable mark of Coventry’s club—the golden W pinned to their lapel.

Sin had left his in his room at the Albany, and he’d noted Coventry’s disapproval when he first entered the Wicked Earls’ Club.

Besides the matching pins, the men favored similar hairstyles trimmed above their collars with tresses that flopped long in the front. They were not men Sin would find any sort of connection with had he been on his home isle, but in London, they seemed to be the usual proper, dapper lords about town.