Chapter 7

“ W hat a fucking cunt.”

Tom winced. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

But after listening to Gwendolyn’s story, it was his honest opinion of her brother. What kind of worm would try to steal from his own sister? Especially when he didn’t even need it? After all, Gwen had said his income was twice hers.

Gwendolyn lifted her chin. “Although it is not the language I would have chosen, I agree with your sentiment wholeheartedly. This is why I attended the bachelor auction tonight. If I pass the medical exam my brother is arranging for me tomorrow, I will be an independent widow with a moderate income and a cottage of my own. If I don’t, I will go right back under my brother’s thumb, and he will press me into marrying another one of his awful friends.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you picked me,” Tom noted.

She squeezed her eyes shut. “It was probably selfish of me. But my brother can be both vindictive and violent. When I saw you walk across the stage, I knew at once that you were the one I should choose. You were so tall and robust. I do not mean for my brother to discover my subterfuge, so it is my hope that he never finds out about our rendezvous. But, in the event that he does, I felt certain that you, out of all men, would be safe. That he would never dare to cross you.” She peered at him, cringing. “I apologize. You probably do not wish to be involved?—”

Tom snorted. “I don’t care about that.” It seemed unlikely that her brother would ever find out he’d been duped. And if he did, Tom could probably crush him with one hand.

He couldn’t believe what he was about to say. But the truth was, he knew a thing or two about struggling to secure your independence. And besides, he liked Gwen. She was a little bit odd, this bespectacled bluestocking, and they didn’t have a single thing in common.

But he found he wanted to help her, nonetheless.

“If you’re sure about this,” he began.

Hope flared behind her spectacles. “I am! Completely sure. Does that mean… are you willing to go through with it?”

Tom rolled his neck, loosening up. “I suppose I am.”

He didn’t know shit about this, about being a tender lover, about seducing a virgin. Or… he supposed he did, but it had been so fucking long . Not since Gracie. How long had that been? Ten years? It felt like another lifetime, like he’d been a different person. Hell, he had been a different person, young and full of hope. If you’d asked him back then, he would have told you what he was doing wasn’t just fucking. That he was making love to the woman he was going to marry.

He really had believed that for the year he’d thought she was his girl. It was clear he would have to leave Stockbridge, that there was barely enough smith work for his brother, Neil, and no hope of there being enough for the two of them. It was a year after he’d shot up to six and a half feet, and the notion that he might be able to go to London and make it as a boxer had started to seem less far-fetched.

He had it all planned out. He’d been saving every penny Mr. Norton paid him to help work his farm. He and Gracie would marry before they left. The first year or two would be hard. They’d both have to find paid work in order to get by. If things didn’t work out in those first few years, he would find a proper job so he could support what by then would be a growing family.

He'd honestly thought Gracie was on board.

So, imagine his surprise when he was sitting in church on a Sunday morning and the vicar read the banns for Gracie and Richard Everett.

He remembered sitting there, stunned silent.

Not Neil. Neil had blasphemed quietly, under his breath. Which he did all the time when he was behind the anvil but not in church .

Tom could still hear his brother hissing, “What the fuck , Tom?”

Tom hadn’t been able to summon the wherewithal to answer, although his brother had more or less summed up his own thoughts. It was a mistake. It had to be, right? Everyone knew Gracie was his girl.

But why didn’t she say something? The whole point of the banns was to speak now if there was a problem. Why didn’t Gracie gasp, press a hand to her heart, and cry, “Oh, dear, Mr. Cartwright—I think you must’ve said my name by mistake.”

Instead, she just sat there, silent as a church mouse. Tom could see her pretty golden head a few rows in front of him as she sat there unmoving, shoulders stiff.

After a minute, Neil jabbed him in the ribs. “Did you know about this?”

“No.” Tom’s voice sounded hollow to his own ears. “No, I…” He couldn’t seem to get any more words out.

Neil’s hand had clasped his shoulder. “It’s all right. It’ll be all right, you hear? Breathe.”

After church, Tom had wanted to speak to Gracie, but Neil had stayed him. “Not here,” his brother muttered. “Don’t make a scene in front of the whole town.”

And so that evening, he had waited outside the Three Cups Inn where she worked. When she came outside, he stepped out of the shadows, blocking her path.

“Tom!” Her voice held not only a note of surprise but of admonishment. “You startled me. What are you doing here?”

“What do you think I’m doing here?” he asked, voice hoarse.

She had the grace to look uncomfortable. “You heard what the priest said.”

“I did,” he acknowledged, nodding. “But I didn’t understand it. I thought we were going to marry, just as soon as I had enough saved up.”

She sighed. “I suppose I should’ve said something a long time ago. I just thought it was obvious.”

Now he felt fucking stupid. “Thought what was obvious?”

Her voice turned mocking. “You’re going to go to London? You think you’re going to make your living boxing ? What do you think’s going to happen—you’re going to be the heavyweight champion?” She laughed spitefully. “There are a thousand men who say that every year. How many of them do you think succeed?”

He held his voice as even as he could. “I know the odds are stacked against me. I said I’d look for work as a smith after a couple of years if things don’t pan out. I have a plan , Gracie.”

She lifted her chin. “Well, it was always a daft plan, at best. And that was before Richard Everett proposed.” Pity crept into her eyes. “You couldn’t expect me to turn down a chance like that, Tom. He’ll inherit his father’s farm one day! You’re the type of man a girl likes for a roll in the hay. But he’s the kind you marry.”

Tom bowed his head. He didn’t say anything more. He just turned and left.

He didn’t need to hear more after that.

He’d left for London the next morning. In the end, it had been a blessing in disguise. After all, who’d ever heard of a boxer without a chip on his shoulder, without something to prove? Every time he’d wanted to quit, every time he’d wanted to take his aching body home instead of training for one more hour, he’d heard Gracie’s mocking voice in his ear. You think you’re going to make your living boxing? What do you think’s going to happen—you’re going to be the heavyweight champion?

He fucking did, and he fucking had. He’d boxed angry those first few years, rising up the ranks and earning a reputation for his punishing training schedule as much as his punishing right hook.

But in the end, Gracie had been right, hadn’t she? Not that he couldn’t support her now . He made a damn good living now, while he was in his prime. Maybe even as much as that priggish husband of hers who was twice her age and didn’t know what to do with his tongue. At least, that was what he’d gathered the first time he’d gone back to town, when Gracie had tried to pick up where they’d left off. He’d had to clench his jaw not to say something nasty, something designed to hurt her, like asking if she really thought she could compare to all the women he’d fucked in London.

He thought his eyes had probably conveyed the message well enough if the way she shrank back was any indication. He’d stood there, saying nothing, and she eventually cleared her throat and walked away.

It had been satisfying in the moment. But the truth was, his body was already starting to break, and he would be worthless in a few short years.

He’d been a bad bet all along. Gracie had just seen it before he had.

“Tom? Tom?”

Gwen’s voice recalled him to the room at the Pulteney. To his new life as a soon-to-be-down-and-out boxer.

“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head, which only made the ringing in his ears worse. “You were saying?”

Gwen’s blue eyes blinked behind her spectacles. “Are you ready to proceed?”

“I am.”

He meant it. He could fucking do this. It had been a while, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to make this good for her. She deserved a damn sight better than what she’d got from her brother and ‘husband.’

He knew something about that—about deserving better than what you got.

And he wasn’t going to let them make Gwen feel like rubbish.

“I’m going to make this fucking good for you,” he said before his lips came down on hers.