“I mean to provide for you,” he said. “Take care of you. But I’m a prizefighter. Not a clerk.”
Rafe knew himself too well. He could want to be good at this. He could make her promises and try his damnedest, for a while. But in the end, he would let her down.
“It’s out of the question for now. I’ve got to get back in the ring. As soon as we’re married, I’ll go back to training and—”
“As soon as we’re married? As soon as we’re married, you’re leaving to train for a rematch with Dubose?”
“Of course. If it’s the brewery you’re concerned about, you should want that, too. No one will want to drink Brandon’s Loser Ale. I’ll be more help to you when I’ve won my championship back.”
“You’ll be more help to me if you have your health.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “I love you. I can’t bear the thought of losing you.”
Love. Damn, he’d been waiting a lifetime to hear that. But every time she spoke the word, his instinct was to dodge it.
“You won’t lose me.” He rose from his chair, putting his hands on her shoulders. With his thumb, he traced the gentle slope of her collarbone. “I know you’re frightened. But I’ve been doing this for years. There isn’t one good reason why . . .”
“Reason one. You could be killed.” She counted them off on her fingers. “Two, you could be maimed. Three, you could kill or maim your opponent. Four, you could be arrested, charged with riot and assault, transported to Australia, and never seen again. Those are four excellent reasons, Rafe. Four.”
“None of those things is likely to happen.”
“But they’re all possible. And just because they haven’t happened yet doesn’t ensure they won’t.”
He sighed gruffly. “Do you not believe in me?”
“I do believe in you. But I also know Jack Dubose is an opponent unlike the others you’ve fought. I’ve followed the sport for years now, remember? I know how he demolished Grady, and I read what he did to Phillips. The sporting papers said that man might never fight again.”
“Phillips will fight again.” He might not chew again, but he’d fight.
“And I saw with my own eyes what Dubose did to you. I can still picture it, Rafe. Every break.” She ran a finger down the rugged slope of his nose, then laid a sweet caress to his cheek. “Every bruise.”
He caught her hand and squeezed it. “That’s why I can’t end my career that way. I need to prove to myself—to everyone—that I’m not just a washed-up brawler.”
“Then don’t be a washed-up brawler. Rafe, you have a great many talents. You could do so much more with your life.”
So much more?
His hands flexed at his sides. What was more than being the bloody best prizefighter in England? Most people would consider that an impressive accomplishment.
“How many people can say they’re the best? At anything?” He lowered his voice. “We’ve been over this. I don’t need to be rescued from the sport I love. I thought you understood that. I thought you understood me.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “Just once. Just once I would like to know how it feels to be worth making plans around. I spent eight years shunted aside for the sake of your brother’s career. And now, even after everything we shared last night, I learn that I come second in your life, too.”
“That’s not fair. This isn’t about coming first or second or third; this is a part of me. Asking me to give up fighting is like asking me to give up an arm.”
“I’d never ask you to give up fighting. I’m only asking if there’s some way to continue in the sport that doesn’t mean risking your life in our first few months of marriage.” She gestured at the castle walls. “If you don’t like the brewery idea, perhaps you could open a school here. A boxing school. Oh, you’d make an excellent teacher.”
“Tutoring prigs like Teddy Cambourne, you mean? Oh, that will be fine.”
“It wouldn’t have to be wealthy gentlemen. Perhaps disadvantaged boys.”
He shook his head. “It’s a nice idea for someday, once our income is secure. But you said it yourself. There isn’t much money in orphans.”
And Rafe needed to earn money. More than anything, he wanted to provide for her. Keep her safe and give her the life she deserved. Living on her dowry and the castle’s income would be possible, he supposed. But his pride demanded that he contribute, too.
He felt confident he could do that, once he got back in a ring. But in this restrictive little cage of a room? He could only fail.
“I can’t . . .” Christ, he’d never tried to explain this to anyone. “I just can’t do this sort of thing. And it’s not because I don’t wish to, or because I’m too lazy to try. I can’t concentrate on ledgers and schedules and books. They make me feel like I’ve stuck my head inside a beehive. My whole life, I’ve been this way. Eventually, I grow weary of trying and . . . lose interest.”
“You lose interest.”
He shrugged. “That’s the best way I can describe it. Yes.”
She bit her lip and regarded him. “Are you worried you’ll lose interest in me?”
“That’s different. You’re different.”
“How can you be sure?” she asked.
“How can you even question it?”
The words came out too forcefully. They sounded angry, even to his ears.
His conscience—that living, breathing spirit of a lifetime’s accumulated sins—was screaming at him now. Retreat, it said, before he went too far. Said something he didn’t mean.
“Fighting is who I am,” he said. “If you want a man who’ll be happy pushing papers around a desk . . . maybe you should marry Piers.”
As soon as he heard his own words, he regretted them.
Rafe, you idiot.
She winced. “I can’t believe you said that.”
He rubbed his face with one hand. He wished he could claim the same surprise. His whole life was a string of rash words and actions he wished he could take back. Last night, those impulses had worked out in ways that pleased her. But he’d known it was only a matter of time before he cocked it up.
There was just too much of the devil in him. He was doomed to push away the people he loved most. He would never be able to hold anything good.