The Wild One (38 page)

"I'm trying, sir, but 'e's too quick for
me!"

"Then you'll have to be quicker, won't
you?"

Dickie lashed out with renewed vigor. Gareth
neatly blocked and deflected the blow, getting in a good punch to
Dickie's jaw.

"Son of a bitch! Blimey, ye're damn good for
a nob ... where'd ye learn to fight like that, anyhow?"

"I have brothers," Gareth answered, grinning
as he blocked another hit. He didn't bother mentioning that the
village lads with whom he'd grown up had also taught him all they
knew, and that he and the Den members often practiced their
pugilistic skills simply for fun and exercise, and that he'd been
thrown out of inns and alehouses because of his penchant for using
his fists — because in his mind he wasn't watching Dickie. He was
seeing Lucien sitting there beside him on the steps, treating him
with wary respect and talking to him as an adult. He was seeing
Lucien swallowing his pride to offer a half-baked apology — and
then that strange look on his face, almost of admiration, as he'd
prepared to leave. What had it taken his brother to
ask
,
instead of demand, that he return to Blackheath? How much had it
cost him to back down — probably against his better judgment — and
let Gareth make his own decisions, right or wrong?

He's giving me the chance to prove myself. I
will not let him down.

"All right, that's it for today," Snelling
declared. "For you, anyhow, Dickie. Gareth? You're going to be up
against Nails Fleming on Friday night. It's a big match, and I'm
putting lots of blunt into promoting it, so make sure you train
especially hard this week. If you do well against Nails, then we're
going to pit you against the Butcher."

"The
Butcher
?" Gareth asked,
grinning. "Is that his ring name or his trade?"

"Both. And believe you me, the name's well
earned. I've just bought his contract, so he'll be coming in next
week to fight for me."

"
The Butcher's coming 'ere?!?
" asked
Dickie, in something like awe.

"He is, indeed. He's the best Scotland has
to offer. And the way our Gareth is looking, I predict he'll soon
be the best
England
has to offer. Oh, what a fight that will
be: Scotland versus England, the Butcher against the Wild One!"

"Hell, I'm game," Gareth crowed happily,
feinting toward Dickie. "Bring the mon on!"

Everyone laughed at his clowning attempt at
a Scottish accent.

"Don't look so damned eager," Snelling said.
"You have to fight your way through Nails first."

Nails, who also worked for Snelling, was
sitting nearby on a bale of hay, thoughtfully watching Gareth.
Gareth had seen him in practice against others in Snelling's
stable; he was quick and energetic and as lean as a spike of iron —
hence his name. He had a shaggy cap of coffee-colored hair, a
receding chin, several missing teeth, and fists that were
disproportionately large for the rest of his body. He looked at
Gareth and grinned.

"Why don't I fight him now?" Gareth asked,
amiably slapping Dickie across the back as the two ended their
practice session. He was pulsing with energy, more determined than
ever to prove himself.

"I don't want you fighting him now; it'll
spoil all the suspense of Friday's match," Snelling said.

"We'll just do a little sparring," Gareth
countered dismissively. "What do you say, Nails? Care to give it a
go?"

"Beats sittin' 'ere watchin'
you
'ave
all the fun!"

"All right, all right," Snelling muttered,
waving Nails toward Gareth. "Get in there, then. But don't kill
each other, that's all I ask. Save it for Friday night."

Grinning, Nails stripped off his shirt, put
up his fists, and waded through the hay to meet Gareth. He got in
the first hit, neatly getting under Gareth's guard and catching him
a glancing blow off the chin. Gareth managed to block the next, but
Nails was quicker than a mosquito. He was clever, seasoned, and
strong, and Gareth, concentrating so hard on what he was doing that
he promptly forgot all about Lucien, knew he was going to have his
hands full on Friday night.

Thank God.

Another easy conquest like Bull O'Rourke and
he would die of boredom.

~~~~

The reminders were everywhere.

Juliet saw posters promoting the match on
the corner of the High Street, along East St. Helen's, in the
Market Place, and along the Vineyard. When she and Becky went into
town to do their shopping, people stopped and pointed her out in
the street as "the Wild One's wife." Even more distressing, the
betting had already started — and Nails was the ten-to-one
favorite.

Such odds didn't dim her husband's
enthusiasm for the upcoming match in the least. If anything, he
trained even harder, talking excitedly about the money Snelling was
paying him, anticipating the following week's fight with some
fearsome Scot named "the Butcher," reveling in his newfound sense
of worth.

It was that which kept Juliet from admitting
how much all this fighting, and talk of it, upset her. She bit her
tongue when he spoke excitedly about his upcoming Friday night
match with Nails. She turned away when he came home and threw
playful feints at the wall, the mantle, the doorframe. And
something in her heart lurched painfully when she entered the house
one afternoon and found her husband lying on his stomach on the
floor, both he and Charlotte giggling as the infant crawled all
over his back — for all it would take was one blow, and her baby
would grow up without the gentle man who was, in every way but one,
her father.

He had turned into a diamond after all, her
Wild One, and as she watched him cheerfully making a cake of
himself over their daughter, she wondered how she could ever have
preferred Charles.

The days fell away, and the match against
Nails loomed ever closer.

~~~~

On Friday night, Gareth easily defeated
Nails Fleming in the second round. The crowd went wild. They
carried their new hero all the way back to Swanthorpe, cheering him
to the skies and hailing him as the next English champion. "Bring
on the Butcher! Bring on the Butcher! We'll show Scotland you don't
tangle with an Englishman!" was the cry that burst from hundreds of
throats. They left him at the gates of Swanthorpe, and with no more
damage than a cut high on his right cheek, Gareth strode into the
dower house an hour after the fight had ended.

Juliet, waiting up for him and trying to
read by the light of a single candle, nearly wept with relief when
she heard the door open.

Thank you, God. Thank you for keeping him
safe.

"Juliet? I didn't di-ee," he called out in a
sing-song voice that made two syllables out of the last word and
teased her for worrying about him so. Obviously, he knew what
she'd
been doing all night.

She put down her book and, candle in hand,
hurried past Charlotte, sleeping in her cradle. Just outside the
kitchen she paused to compose herself. She didn't want Gareth to
know she'd shut all the windows so that she wouldn't hear the
distant din surrounding the fight. She didn't want him to know that
she hadn't been able to eat her supper, that she didn't remember a
single word of the book she'd been trying to read, and that she had
nearly paced a rut in the floor of the sitting room.

But her worries, she soon saw, had all been
for naught. He was standing by the hearth, unhurt, and looking no
more exhausted than if he'd taken a walk through the fields. She
noted a small cut on his cheek, but nothing more. A wave of
crippling relief washed through her, nearly buckling her knees as
she ran into his arms.

"Gareth!"

"Hello, dearest." He caught her up and
kissed her. "Mmmmm, you look good —" he cupped her breast in one
hand, rubbed the nipple through the fabric, and slanted his mouth
across hers once more — "and taste even better!"

She pushed away from him so that she could
better study him. "And
you
look ... virtually untouched. Are
you sure you've even
been
in a fight?"

"Actually, no," he said, frowning, and it
was then that she realized something was troubling him.

"Gareth, what is it?"

He sobered. "I am not sure, Juliet. But
something's wrong. Something I just don't understand." He moved
away and paced once before the fireplace, twice, then threw himself
into a chair. "I sparred with Nails, my opponent, earlier this
week. He kept me on my toes, he was so quick. But tonight ...
tonight he fought as though he was half-asleep. It was the
strangest thing..."

"Was he ill?"

"No. I don't think so. He began the fight
with all sorts of nervous energy. Caught me a good one right here,"
he said, tapping his cheek. "But late in the first round, he began
ailing. It was most peculiar, Juliet. It was almost as though he
was — I don't know, drugged or something."

"Perhaps he was drunk."

"No. He had a few good swigs of ale before
the fight, but not enough to get foxed. It wasn't that at all."

Juliet felt the first real tremors of
uneasiness. Biting her lip, she walked over to his chair, sat on
its arm, and waited for him to continue.

"He was just like Bull O'Rourke last week,"
her husband said, curving an arm around Juliet and drawing her
close so that her head rested on his shoulder. "Rather sluggish,
not very quick off the mark. Maybe the crowds didn't notice
something was amiss, but I sure as Hades did. There was no sport in
my defeating him tonight, none at all. When a man hits you, you
don't just stand there and take it ..."

"So what did you do?"

"The only merciful thing I
could
do,"
he said, bitterly. "I ended the fight. I swung, he just stared
through me, and I refused to hit him again. Instead, I gave him a
good push that sent him to his knees. The crowd jeered me, but the
devil take them. I couldn't stand there and abuse him for round
after round, Juliet. It just wasn't right."

His arm still curved around her, he leaned
his head back against the chair and stared dismally up at the
ceiling. "I don't know what to do. I've thought about telling
Snelling, but I don't want to expose Nails if he and Bull have an
opium habit or something. Maybe they need that sort of thing to
brace up for a fight. 'Sdeath, I don't know ... I just don't
know."

Juliet moved off the chair, came around
behind it, and began kneading his shoulders. They were stiff with
unspent energy, the muscles knotted beneath her fingers. "Gareth
... if those fighters need opium to give themselves courage before
a match, their speed and reflexes would have been compromised long
before now, in matches with other people — which means they would
never have become such renowned fighters."

"I know."

"And furthermore, if they'd been smoking
opium, wouldn't they have
arrived
at the fight in that
state, not become that way after it started?"

"Yes." With a heavy sigh, he bent forward so
that his forehead rested in the heels of his hands, his fingers
splaying up through his hair. "Those same questions have been
running through my head all night. I just don't want to believe the
alternative. It is too ... too monstrous."

"Foul play?"

"Yes." She watched his knuckles clenching
and unclenching where they poked up through his hair. "That's what
it's beginning to look like, Juliet. Someone is drugging my
opponents before the fights to ensure that I win."

"Dear God." Juliet drew a deep, shaky
breath, then bit her lip to keep back the words that threatened to
spill from her mouth:
Take us away from here, Gareth. Take us
far away — from this awful fighting and whatever evil thing is
going on here. Please ... before it's too late. Take us away, and
back to —

Back to where? Blackheath Castle and the
duke's all-encompassing protection? Even as she considered it, her
heart rebelled. Gareth had worked hard to find a sense of
responsibility, maturity, and self-worth. If he returned to
Blackheath, all that he had so recently discovered in himself would
probably go straight out the window.

"Juliet." He must have sensed the direction
of her thoughts, for he rose from his chair and came around it to
stand before her. He took her face in his hands — his powerful
hands that were no longer white and pampered, his strong, capable
hands that had sent men reeling into oblivion — and gently cradling
her jaw, lifted her face to his. "Juliet, my love ... we will not
be here forever. Please trust me on that."

"But Gareth, what if you're correct and
there
is
foul play going on? Your life could be in
danger."

"The fact that I already suspect as much
will give me the upper hand." He ran his thumbs over her cheeks,
then bent his head to kiss her brow. "All I have to do is continue
to play along with the game, pretend I don't know something strange
is going on — and with any luck, I'll catch whoever is behind this
in the act and bring him to justice before someone gets hurt." He
sighed and gazed deeply into her worried eyes. "I know you would
have me take us far from here, Juliet, but I cannot run from this
any more than I could have run from those highwaymen when I came
upon them robbing the stagecoach that night. Please understand, my
love. This is something I must do."

She shut her eyes and tried to take comfort
in his strength, his faith in himself, the warmth of his arms as
they enclosed her. She did not want him to play the hero again. She
was afraid for him, afraid for all of them. But even as her heart
quaked at the idea of the danger in which he was involving himself,
she knew that she loved and respected him all the more for it.
Another man would turn and run. But not her Wild One.
He
would not rest until justice prevailed.