Glorious.
Equal .
He turned to the crowd, hating the hungry gazes fixed upon her even as he knew they were necessary. “Shall I check her for weapons?”
A roar of approval came from the assembly of men, and he reached for her skirts, knowing the knife she carried so religiously would not be far. She gasped as his hands slid over her torso and hip, recognized the sound as one of pleasure. He met her gaze. “I never thought you an exhibitionist.”
She pursed her lips. “I would not begin to do so now.”
“Hmm,” he let the sound ooze over her. “Your actions tonight suggest otherwise.” In the pocket of her skirts, his fingers found the book that cataloged their story in pounds and shillings and pence.
She felt the touch and met his gaze. “Be careful, Your Grace, lest tonight cost you more than you think.”
He couldn’t help his smile as he found the hilt of her knife. Ubiquitous. “Hebert made you a pocket?”
She narrowed her gaze on him through the mask. “I thought I’d made it clear that I am quite skilled with a needle.”
He couldn’t stop the laugh that came then. The woman was remarkable. She’d received a dress that cost more than her salary for a year, and immediately installed a pocket to keep her weapon close.
He removed the knife and held it high above their heads. “The lady is equipped with steel.”
In more ways than one.
The men roared their own laughter as Temple tossed the knife across the ring, ignoring the way it slid through the sawdust. Too focused on her.
“A woman cannot be too careful, Your Grace.” It was her turn to raise her voice. To play to the crowd. To win their laughter. She smiled at him, bright and brilliant, and he wished they were anywhere but here. “But what of my challenge? Are we not evenly matched now that you’ve taken my blade?”
The crowd erupted in guffaws and a chorus of oh-ho s, and Temple realized what she was doing. “Not in the ring, my love. But perhaps we can find another place to . . . discuss it.”
The men chortled, and she stiffened in his arms, her words carrying across the room. “I don’t think so. You hold a debt of mine. I am here to win it back. ’Tis the way of the Angel, is it not?”
Oooh , sang the crowd.
He shook his head slowly, playing to the crowd even as he spoke to her, quiet and serious. “I don’t fight women.” Remembering the first time he’d said it to her. The man he was then. Unsure of himself. Uncertain of his actions. No longer.
She curled one of the hands on his chest into a fist. “And tell me, Your Grace, have any of them ever challenged you here? In the ring?”
“She’s got a point, Temple!” someone in the assembly cried out.
“I’ll give you a hundred pounds to let me accept the challenge for you, Temple!”
“A hundred only? I’ve got five for a chit like that! I’d wager she’s glorious in the sheets!”
He released her and turned toward the words to find Oliver Densmore, the biggest ass in London, hanging on the ropes, tongue fairly hanging out of his mouth.
Temple resisted the urge to kick the man’s teeth in.
“Well, Your Grace?” Mara distracted him. “Have you ever had a challenge from one of my sex?”
The word sex rioted through him like a blow, and he was suddenly certain that she was the most skilled opponent he’d ever faced in this ring. “No.”
She turned in a slow circle to show her masked face to the room, finally stopping and facing the mirror where the women no doubt tittered and gossiped and wondered about her.
She met his gaze in the mirror and smiled, the expression wide and welcome, and for the first time since they’d met on that dark London street, he wondered what it would be like for that smile to be commonplace in his life. To know it well. “Ah,” she said, the words carrying through the room. “So you forfeit.”
He hesitated, not liking the thread of unease that came with the words. “No.”
She turned to the oddsmaker, whose wide eyes were in danger of escaping his head. “Is that not the way of the bouts, sirrah? The fight happens, or the fighter forfeits?”
The older man opened his mouth and closed it, looking to Temple for guidance. Smart man.
Temple crossed his arms over his chest and saved the poor git. “There are other ways to fight. Other ways for me to win.”
She turned then, looking over her shoulder, those lips curved and calm and defiant. And unbearably tempting. “Other ways for me to win, you mean.”
The crowd went wild. They adored her, this mysterious woman who seemed to have Temple and the rest of the world wrapped about her finger.
And somehow, in that moment, he did, too.
He was beside her in an instant, collecting her in his arms, pulling her tight to him, and taking her lips. Claiming her in front of God and London. Tasting her sweetness. Her spice. The roar of those assembled faded away as he consumed her, the kiss too rough, too searing, until he realized that she was matching it with her own passion. Her own fervor.
She’d felt it, too.
She wanted him just as he wanted her.
What a disaster. One he would worry about later.
He kissed her again and again, his hands coming to cup her face and hold her still as he claimed her with lips and tongue and teeth until the whole world had disappeared and there was nothing but her. And him. And this moment. And the way they matched.
The way she saw him.
The way he saw her.
But they weren’t alone, of course. And he was close to ravishing her in front of all of London.
Christ . He was kissing her in front of all of London .
He was ruining her.
He stopped, lifting his mouth from hers, loving the way she followed his lips, loving the way she ached for him as he ached for her.
No.
She was ruined. As though she were the whore he’d called her. The whore he’d meant them to think her. Except now the plan seemed flawed.
Christ. What had he done?
It had been the goal, had it not? Retribution? But somehow, it was all wrong. The plan hadn’t included desire. Or passion. Or emotion.
What had she done to him?
She lifted one auburn brow. “Well, Your Grace? Do you fight? Or forfeit?”
“Neither.”
He did not wait for her to reply, instead lifting her into his arms, grateful that her mask was still affixed to her face, and carrying her from the ring, the cheers of all of London in his ears.
It would have been an excellent plan, if not for the man blocking his path.
Christopher Lowe.
H eart pounding, Mara was caught up in Temple’s arms, too distracted by the strength of him and the excitement of their verbal bout and the euphoria of her unsettling him to realize that he’d stopped. She didn’t notice until he set her down, her body sliding along his until her feet found the sawdust-covered floor.
“Lowe,” he said, low and dark, and she spun toward the word. He was revealing her now? She supposed it was a good move. The checkmate of their game.
But disappointment came, nonetheless.
Until she realized he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking past her, over her right shoulder, into the eyes of her brother, who stood several feet away, on the edge of the ring, frustration and something worse in his gaze. Something unsettling. Something incalculable.
“You think you have won? You think you can take everything of mine . . .” He paused. “And my sister?”
The room went silent, every man present leaning forward to hear the conversation.