To Sin With A Stranger (3 page)

“And you know of this, lass?” Sinclair folded his arms over his broad chest. “You’re dressed well enough and don’t appear in want of anything.”

She whirled around. Her eyes flashed with annoyance. “I do not speak of myself, but of the widows and orphans of our soldiers.”

“And you reckon that interrupting a fight, a night’s entertainment, is the way to convince these gentlemen to dip into their bulging pockets for your cause?” Sterling coughed a laugh. “Lassie, if that’s your daft notion, then you’d best leave.”

Gentleman Jackson nodded to a stocky matched pair of low-browed grunts. “Escort the lady to the street, please.” He turned and looked at the buxom redhead who was busily refilling patrons’ glasses. “Maggie, see her to the corner so she can find a hackney.”

The men closed down upon the young woman, then gently, yet firmly, grasped her upper arms and marched her toward the door. She turned her head and met Sterling’s eyes with a furious glare. “You’ve not seen the last of me, Scotsman!” she warned.

“Do you promise, dearie?” Sterling called back. He watched her thrash fiercely against the men dragging her from the club. “Ah, don’t struggle, miss,” he called out to her. “You’re apt to make more money for your
cause
on the street corner anyway.”

The crowd erupted with laughter and gibes as the woman was escorted through the doorway.

Sterling sucked his swollen lips inside his mouth, watching the doors until Gentleman Jackson’s men reappeared a few moments later. He was curiously relieved when they returned so quickly, without the young woman with the blazing doe eyes.

“Sterling.” Grant was tugging at his arm, urging him back to the square. “The bout. Come on. It’s time to end the game.”

“Time to end it.” Sterling shook his head, shook the image of her from his mind. Gentleman John Jackson set the pugilists to the chalk lines once more and signaled the battle to begin anew.

The Irishman heaved forward, but Sterling’s stitched hand thrust up from below, delivering the blow he’d intended before the feisty miss had walked between them.

Eyes rolling white into his head, the Irishman crashed to the floor. He did not make to approach the chalk lines or even to stand.

All eyes fixed on the Irishman’s second, who nodded his head ruefully to Gentleman Jackson.

“The battle’s over, Sterling!” Grant was beside him in an instant. “You are the victor.” Grant opened his leather pouch and began wrapping a lint bandage around Sterling’s bloodied knuckles.

Killian was muttering something about the side wagers as scores of gentleman surged forward. Slapping Sterling’s back, one after another pumped his hand hard in congratulations, proudly showing off Sterling’s bloody prints on their gloves.

As the crowd subsided, Gentleman Jackson reached out for Sterling’s left hand as though to shake it, but when their palms met, Sterling felt several coins press against his skin. He opened his hand and saw six guineas gleaming in his palm.

“Your portion of the winnings, lad. Just a token, mind you.” He gestured to the patrons tossing coins to Killian, his smile as bright as the guineas he was pocketing. “As you evidently know, even in by-battles, the real money comes from the betting.”

“Aye, so I’ve heard.” Sterling looked down and ran his thumb over the cool coins, making them clank together in his hand.

So much money, with so little effort. They’d live like kings for a month or two on his portion alone.

How simple this was. Why, he could dress the leased house on Grosvenor Square, launch their success in London, and finance their bids for redemption—if he broke his promise to his brothers and sisters. If he fought a prizefight again.

As he peered past his hand, he noticed a pamphlet lying crumpled on the floor. He bent and picked it up, taking only the time to read the front before folding it and surreptitiously tucking it into his breeches. He looked down at the guineas in his hand, then unwound a bit of lint wrapping from his left fist, and tore it off with his teeth. Unrolling it widthwise, he settled the coins inside and tied it into a tight bundle.

Grant slapped him hard on the back. “Criminy, Sterling. Everyone is positively thunderstruck. The Scottish marquess landed the Irish champion. You did it!” He juggled four bulging bags of coins in his hands like a jester at a fête.

Sterling smiled, sending a fresh trickle of blood down his chin. “Lachlan’s seeing to our winnings on our bets in White’s book?”

“Aye. He left the moment the clover hit the floor.” Grant laughed deeply, giddy to be holding so much money once again. “I can’t believe it. All of this, from a single punch.”

His youngest brother, Killian, drew alongside Sterling. “You look bluidy awful, Sterling, but och, it was worth it, wasn’t it? Single Sinclair. That’s what they’ve dubbed you. Did you hear?”

Sterling was still dazed. Images of the battle flashed in his head. Images of
her
.

Killian nudged Grant. “He’s not looking so well.”

Grant eased Sterling’s shirt over his head, guiding his tired arms through the cambric sleeves. “I’ve got a hackney out front. Let’s get you home and have Siusan look at that face of yours. Maybe have her add a few stitches to that Sterling sampler of hers—what do you reckon,
SINGLE
SINCLAIR
right across your knuckles?” His brother laughed and made to guide him forward, but Sterling stopped.

“Go on ahead. I’ll be right there. I just want to thank Gentleman Jackson…for this opportunity.”

Sterling exhaled and smiled inwardly. Just as Sterling turned to search him out, Gentleman Jackson caught his arm and stopped him.

“I have a battle scheduled at Fives Court, next month.”

“Aye.” Sterling nodded. “I saw mention of it in the
Times
. Madrid and Dooney. Touted as the match of the century, is it not?”

“Would have been. Madrid’s neck was broken in a battle two nights past. He’s dead.” Gentleman Jackson sucked in a great deep breath. “Dooney’s a champion. When he takes a man down the odds are fair that he won’t be walking again for a good long while…if ever. I will be honest with you. He’s dangerous.” Gentleman Jackson peered silently into Sterling’s eyes.

“You’re not inviting me to fight Dooney—after what you’ve just told me?”

“I know, I’m a madman for asking this, you being a marquess and all that, but I am asking. I’d like you to consider fighting in Madrid’s place.”

Sterling did not reply, but stared down into Jackson’s eyes, dumbfounded.

“The victor’s portion for this battle is a bloody fortune. And with the by-bets…” Gentleman Jackson closed his mouth, and then exhaled through his nose. “Look, I know the money mightn’t mean much to a fine marquess, but I have a notion that the challenge, the sport, might. And you’ve got the natural talent. You’re fast and light on your feet. Dooney won’t be able to touch you.” A faraway look muted the excitement that had been in his eyes only a moment before. “Reminds me of myself in days past, you do.”

Sterling swallowed, his saliva still thick with the blood of the fight. The money did have great appeal to him—but so did the ability to walk. “I—I don’t ken what to say, Jackson.”

Sterling glanced up, and over Gentleman Jackson’s shoulder noticed a small group of club members eavesdropping on the conversation over the rims of their brandy glasses.

Gentleman Jackson turned his head and grimaced at the cluster of men. Cupping his hand around Sterling’s upper arm, he walked him into the center of the smudged chalk square. “Now, now, you don’t have to answer me now. Just consider it. You’d be the toast of Society. Every drawing room door would be open to you. Everyone of consequence will be in attendance at the fight.” He clapped his shoulder. “Consider it, won’t you? That’s all I ask.”

“I will.” Sterling nodded, then shook Gentleman Jackson’s hand and bade him good eve. For several moments he stood on the edge of the chalked square, trying to think about the offer Jackson had made him. Instead, visions of the golden-haired beauty invaded his thoughts with as much surprise as she herself did when she had climbed up onto the stage waving her pamphlets in the air and making her plea for donations to anyone who would listen.

He weighed the lint packet of coins in his palm, then closed his fingers around it and headed from the Pugilistic Club toward the hackney.

Consider it he would, but fighting a world champion known for inflicting lasting injury, and even death, well, that was madness, pure as it comes.

Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not the fish they are after.

Thoreau

[_The next day _
The Sinclair residence
Grosvenor Square

It was unusually early for Sterling to be about. The day had yet to ripen and the noon meal was still at least an hour from being served. But he could not sleep. His jaw still ached and his mind still dwelled on the battle the night before, on that bold miss…and on the offer Gentleman Jackson had made.

After the arduous task of dressing one-handed and without the assistance of the valet he’d had nearly all his life, he descended the stairs. His footfall was barely muted by the tattered and well-used runner, but he did not wish to awaken his slumbering brothers or sisters. It was not yet noon, and he needed time to be alone, to think. To consider.

He made for the contrasting comfort of the ornately adorned ground floor, the only place in the house that felt like home to him—that reminded him of the one place he truly belonged—Castle Sinclair.

Sterling cupped his left hand around the wear-polished newel post and swung around to step into the passage. Suddenly he found himself looking down at a balding head barely covered with a chaotic web of fine white hair. “Bluidy hell!”

“Oh, I do beg your pardon, my lord. I did not mean to startle you. No, I did not. I simply did not expect
anyone
to have risen so early in the…afternoon.” Poplin was a short—by Sinclair standards anyway—heavily wrinkled manservant of dubious skill.

From what Sterling and his siblings had been able to ascertain from their father’s agent, the services of Poplin and Mrs. Wimpole, an ancient, equally unskilled cook and maid-of-all-work, were somehow included in the three hundred and seventy-five pounds per annum they’d paid to lease the house.

The staff, as it was, was actually a blessing, for the pittance of a portion their father had deigned to provide during their banishment from Scotland was not sufficient to pay for any more than the Sinclair brood’s most basic needs.

“My hearing is not what it once was, but I have tried to listen for any sound and open the door before the knocker slammed down—but they keep coming.” Poplin’s voice shook with fretfulness. “No sooner do I close the door than another footman is there…knocking…threatening to wake the family.”

Sterling rubbed his left hand brusquely over his face. “I haven’t the damnedest notion of what you are trying to tell me. Whose footmen? Gentleman Jackson’s?”

“No, his man hasn’t come at all. But dozens of others have come—from all over Town.”

“What do you mean?”

Poplin beckoned for Sterling to follow, then began to shuffle toward the gilt fore-parlor. He winced as he opened the door, as quietly as he could, but the hinges squealed like one of the rats that scurried across the bare floor each night in Sterling’s garret bedchamber.

“There they are.” Poplin gestured to the white marble mantelpiece. It was covered with a veritable litter of calling cards and invitations.

“Damn me.” Sterling strode forward and grabbed up a handful of cards, bracing the pile against his chest as he read one after the other from Lord and Lady This, and Sir That. Plutocrats all, with only one thing in common besides their wealth and influence—what they had written.

Every card referred to Sterling’s upcoming battle of champions. Every card expressed how grateful the sender would be if only Sterling, and his family, would grace them with their presence at a dinner, a ball, a musicale; at the theater, a race, or a rout.

Sterling stared down at the mound of invitations before him, then turned and released the cards in his hand, letting them flutter down upon the highly polished surface of the tea table, like butterflies landing on a garden puddle.

It seemed his decision to fight at Fives Court had already been made for him.

He heard a creak in the floorboards and looked up, expecting to see Poplin approaching, but it was Siusan.

Her eyes were wide, but her eyebrows inched toward the bridge of her nose. “Wh-what are these?”

Sterling coughed a breathy laugh. “These, my dear, are what you and your sisters have sought since we arrived in Grosvenor Square from Scotland.”

Siusan crept closer, then bent and snatched up an invitation and raised it to her eyes. “I can’t quite believe it. Sterling, we’ve been invited to a ball.”

“And everywhere else,” he muttered. He waved his hands toward the mantel. “These, my darling sister, are our entrée into London Society.”

A tremble of astonishment shook Siusan momentarily as she turned her slate-hued eyes to his. The hint of a smile twitched at the edge of her lips, and she reached out blindly for the arm of a gilt chair and dropped down upon its seat. “Dear God, Sterling, you’ve done it. I don’t know how, but somehow you’ve opened up Society to us.”

“So it seems.” Sterling scratched the back of his neck, brushing down the wisps of hair that had begun to stand on end.

One week later
Almack’s Assembly Rooms

Miss Isobel Carington stood at the perimeter of the dance floor sipping a tasteless tincture of lemon juice in a goblet of water. It did not, as she’d hoped, quell the queasiness she’d felt since she arrived; in fact, the weak lemonade made her feel like retching.

Hurriedly she deposited the goblet onto the passing salver of a distracted footman, and then sighed, nervously shifting from one foot to the other. Isobel knew she didn’t belong there—didn’t really belong anywhere—but grand Society events especially made her feel an absolute misfit.

At balls and galas like this one, Isobel was all too aware that she was but a politician’s daughter in a glittering assembly room rich with nobility and the descendants of kings.