Chapter 5

T om Talbot watched from the wings while the third-to-last bachelor was purchased for the grand total of seventy-two pounds.

He was up next. He’d been attending these bachelor auctions put on by the Thalia for a few years now. It was a good way to earn a few quid, and the job was a damn sight more pleasant than Tom’s usual line of work.

There wasn’t much Tom wouldn’t do to earn a few quid. One day, he would do a lesson with some rich toff and lie through his teeth that this soft-handed cove who was so lazy he couldn’t even get dressed without a servant on hand to help him had real potential . The next, he would agree to allow Linington and Sons to put his likeness on their tins of Extra Deluxe Talcum Powder in exchange for a handsome fee. This meant that his face was the first thing that came to mind whenever someone got a nasty rash around the old elephant and castle, but that was all right. Some people said you couldn’t put a price on dignity. Not Tom. His price was fifty pounds.

Tom needed to sock away as much coin as he could, something that had been driven home during a bout against Donovan McLaren two years ago. He’d managed to hang on, to win. But McLaren had landed a wicked left hook to Tom’s temple, and that was when his ears started ringing.

He needed to get out of the boxing trade. Talk to an old boxer—if you could find one—and ringing in your ears was the least of your problems, for all that it drove Tom mad. Some of them were completely off the hook. Didn’t know their own names, didn’t recognize their own children.

Tom was determined to quit before that was him. But that brought up the question of what he was going to do next. He was big and strong, so he could unload crates from ships or lug kegs of ale, but that sort of work didn’t pay very well. There was also the possibility of working the door at one of the gaming hells, tossing anyone who got drunk and belligerent out on their arses.

The problem was that sort of job attracted men who thought they were tough the way a butcher shop attracted flies in the summertime. And what better way to prove just how tough they were than by starting something with the former heavyweight champ?

In fact, anytime Tom was out in public, the odds that some drunken fool would come up to him and take a swing were stupidly high, which presented a problem of its own. If he swung back, he was liable to get brought up on an assault charge. After nine years of doing little other than boxing, his notion of a light, cautionary tap would lay most men out.

He did his best to make a joke, to diffuse the situation, to wrap the idiot up in a bear hug and deliver him back to his equally inebriated friends. But he was fucking sick of it, sick of not being able to go down to the pub and have a bloody pint without it turning into a story for some stupid cunt to bore all his friends with, about the time he got into it with the champ.

He wished he could go back to Stockbridge, the little village in Hampshire where he’d grown up. There, he was just Tommy Talbot, son of one blacksmith and younger brother of another. But there wasn’t any work for him in Stockbridge. Hell, his brother, Neil, had been forced to move to Southampton after Tom’s niece, Liza, was born because there wasn’t enough smith work for him, not with another mouth to feed.

Then there was the fact that the countryside was too bloody quiet. His ears had never bothered him more than when he and Neil had gone back to visit their Nan last Christmas. He hadn’t realized how helpful the constant buzz of London was in distracting him from his ringing ears until all of that beautiful shouting and cursing had been gone.

So, he didn’t want to stay in the city, but he’d lose his mind in the country. He needed to stop boxing, but he wasn’t good at anything else. He’d been saving his shillings while he tried to figure out what he would do next.

Which he would.

Eventually.

Madame Heron was doing his introduction. Tom started loosening up. The only other man left, Gabriel Davenport, clapped him on the shoulder. Tom didn’t know Davenport. He was an army officer recently returned to England. He was also a lord—Viscount Fairbourne. But he’d only inherited the title from some distant relation a few weeks ago and seemed a lot more army than aristo, meaning that Tom liked him just fine.

“Good luck,” Fairbourne said, squeezing his shoulder.

Tom gave him a nod. “Thanks, mate. You, too.”

Then Madame Heron said his name, and he strode out onto the stage, preparing to perform the routine he’d done a half-dozen times on this stage before.

He started by ripping his shirt right down the middle. Or at least, that’s what it looked like. In truth, the shirt had a seam running all the way down the front, which Tom had stitched together loosely for precisely this occasion. He’d used it each of the six times he’d been on this stage, and he meant to keep using it for as long as Madame Heron would have him. He didn’t have shillings to waste destroying a shirt.

But the effect was good, and the ladies in the audience gave an awestruck Ooh !

As he tossed the shirt aside, Madame Heron said, “As I’m sure you know, Tom Talbot is the reigning heavyweight champion. Believe me, ladies, you won’t find another specimen like this! Tommy, love, show us the goods, won’t you?”

Tom knew what to do. He flexed his arms, flexed his chest, flexed everything. He went through a series of classic strongman poses, doing his best to whip the ladies into a frenzy.

It sounded like it was working. Oohs and aahs turned into cheers until it was time for his grand finale. He turned around, brought his fists up to his ears, and flexed everything back there as hard as he could, including his arse. The cheering turned rabid, and Tom thanked his lucky stars those birds weren’t armed with pitchforks, because he wouldn’t have stood a chance, heavyweight champion or not.

Madame Heron strolled onto the stage, running a hand along Tom’s arm. “As you can see, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. May I have a starting bid of twenty pounds?”

The bidding began the way it always did. Lots of bidders at first, with most dropping out when it climbed to fifty pounds. The most Tom had ever fetched had been ninety-two pounds, of which he’d been allowed to keep half. Most men would’ve given their eyeteeth to receive such a sum for the chore of making love to a woman.

Except… as Tom had discovered over the years, he tended to attract a particular type of bidder at these things. He was the biggest brute in all of England, and the women who bid on him typically did so because they wanted to be, for lack of a better term, brutalized.

The first time a woman had asked him to hit her in the face, he’d thought he was finally losing his wits. When it became apparent she was serious, he had refused. Of course, he had refused! His mother raised him better than that, and the fact that he was the heavyweight champion of England wouldn’t have prevented Molly Talbot from going at him with a wooden spoon if she’d heard of him mistreating a woman.

But he slowly came to realize that this was a fantasy some women had. He tried not to judge. God only knew that some strange thoughts had passed through his head over the years while he was rubbing one out.

When it became clear that he’d best get used to this sort of request, he’d come up with a policy of sorts. A list of the things he would do—throw them over his shoulder and carry them up the stairs, toss them on the bed, pound them nice and hard, hold their wrists, and say whatever they wanted. But there were some things he refused to do, which included choking, hitting—other than a light swat on the bottom—and anything that was going to leave a mark.

He should have enjoyed it. And he did, at least, a little bit. He was getting his cock wet, after all.

But there was always that voice in the back of his head that asked… Really? Is this how everyone sees me? A big, violent brute?

Is this the only thing I have to offer a woman?

Realizing he’d been brooding, he smiled and flexed an arm. This was business, not pleasure. The more money he could sock away, the more cushion he’d have when he finally had to stop boxing one day.

Two ladies emerged as the top bidders vying for his company. One was a young blonde in a green dress who hadn’t bothered to wear a mask. She was pretty, but she had a spoiled look about her. What looked like a wedding ring flashed on her hand. No matter how pretty she was, Tom had a bad feeling about that one.

As for the other gel, he couldn’t see much of her on account of the cloak she wore. She looked shortish and plumpish, and a pair of spectacles occasionally caught the light beneath her hood. Unlike the brazen blonde, who didn’t mind who saw her bidding exorbitant sums for the privilege of spending the night with a man who hadn’t put that ring on her finger, Miss Spectacles kept her shoulders hunched and looked like she wanted to hide beneath one of the theater’s wooden benches.

The bidding came to her. “Seventy-two pounds!” Miss Spectacles called in a shaking voice.

The blonde responded with a smirk. “Seventy-three pounds.”

“Seventy-four pounds.”

The spoiled blonde openly pouted. “Oh, are we going to do this all night? One hundred pounds.”

You could’ve heard a pin drop. This was the highest bid of the night, the highest bid Tom had ever got. He wasn’t looking forward to whatever hoops this woman would make him jump through, but it would be worth it for fifty fucking pounds.

Madame Heron was just stepping forward to call it when Miss Spectacles shrieked, “Two hundred and fifty pounds!”

As she did so, she lifted her chin. This had the effect of causing her cloak to fall open.

Cor , but the gel had a nice rack of lamb on her. To be sure, she’d covered her apple dumpling shop in a swath of black bombazine that buttoned all the way up to her chin.

But Tom suddenly found himself feeling downright enthusiastic about the prospect of transacting business with little Miss Spectacles.

Madame Heron stepped forward. Judging by the sour look on the blonde gel’s face, Miss Spectacles had just delivered the knockout punch. Madame Heron made a sweeping gesture. “We have a winner!”

Tom couldn’t help but grin as he jumped off the stage. Two hundred and fifty pounds! Which meant a hundred and twenty-five for him. Not bad for a night’s work.

A few of the ladies pawed at him as he weaved his way through the crowd. Tom’s smile grew tight, but he didn’t say anything. He was used to being treated like a piece of meat, because that’s what he was, wasn’t he? Whether he was in the ring or on the auction block, he was valued for one thing, and one thing only—his muscles. No one gave a rat’s arse about his thoughts or feelings or any of that rot.

He'd once thought someone might, but that was when he’d been young and stupid. In any case, Gracie Fitzsimmons had thoroughly disabused him of that notion. He was the sort of man a woman wanted to fuck, not the sort she wanted to marry. At least he understood that now.

But this was no time to wallow. He had a job to do and damned if Miss Spectacles wasn’t going to be a satisfied customer. Reaching her in the crowd, he scooped her up in his arms and lifted her high against his chest. Hens always loved it when he did that, and sure enough, Miss Spectacles gave a breathy little gasp.

He leaned his head toward hers. “Gonna make it worth every penny, love.” He said it loud enough that the women around them burst into cheers. He carried Miss Spectacles down the aisle of the theater and straight through the door to the sound of whistles and shouts behind them.