Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

T hey stayed all afternoon with the vicar and his wife, and when they finally left, it was not entirely in their own clothes. Cora wore a gown new to her, a bit too short and a bit too snug about the bust. Mrs. Green, when she'd returned home, had been happy to loan an old gown and had helped Cora change clothes. The gown fit, mostly, as they stepped into a darkening village just as the sun began to droop in the sky.

Liam strolled at Cora's side with a lazy sort of lope, hands shoved in pockets. He suffered a similar, tight-fitting predicament. While he and Mr. Greene were of a height, they were not of a similar build. Mr. Green had the slender physique of a scholar, and Liam's shoulders were broad and thick and, frankly, straining the hard-working stitches of his friend's shirt.

"Keep your head low, Cora," he hissed, tipping his hat low over his face. "While we're here, we can't be recognized."

"I don't see why not. You can be who you are without worrying about censure. So, you like to watch a good fight now and then. That does not make you an irresponsible bounder. You hold yourself to unreachable standards, Liam. Let's have some fun." She took his hand, squeezed it.

He squeezed hers back, pulling her close to his side as he slipped them both through a break in the crowd around the inn. "I should not have allowed this. You should not be here. If the magistrate gets wind of the fight, there'll be trouble. Matches are illegal, Cora." He hissed the last bit.

"Would you have come if I were not with you?"

"No. Because they are illegal ."

"But you would want to."

He did not answer that.

"Keep the hat low and no one will recognize you. No one will think to look for the former vicar, current viscount at a boxing match. Remember, Liam, it's illegal."

He snorted, and her mood surged up to the skies. Despite his worry, the world seemed electric, charged with the excitement of the forbidden. What excellent research for her poem! She had no knowledge of battles, of men crowded together on a field, and she'd been using her experiences on the packed London streets to draw the scenes. This would prove so much more useful.

"How does the magistrate not already know? There are so many people here!" And many wearing superior silks and quality boots. London swells with… "Are those fishing poles slung over their shoulders?"

"It's part of the game. Pretending they're here for a bit of innocent sport. Participating in a violent sport instead."

"Then we should have a fishing pole."

He stopped, swung around, and she slammed into his chest, looked up into his sizzling and astonished green eyes. "You're… enthusiastic about this."

"I am."

"You, who remain calm and aloof every other time, are vibrating with eagerness."

She shrugged. "It's exciting. I've never seen boxing before. To know we are not supposed to be here…" She exhaled a whoosh of breath. "I suppose I like the thrill."

His worried slash of a mouth curved into a wicked grin. "God, you're adorable."

She leaned into him, her lips lifted so they almost touched his chin. "And you're not supposed to say things to make me want to kiss you."

"And I have no idea what those things are, so I either take the risk of displeasing you or remain silent. Shall I button my lips closed?"

Oh, heavens no. She couldn't have that.

She licked her lips. Plump, soft, kissable. He cursed, squeezed her hand, and dragged her away from the inn. "I need a drink. The fight will not start yet. Pub's down this way."

"Have you been to one before? Not a pub. A match."

"Many times. You could call it my secret vice."

A secret vice. Wonderful. "Tell me more."

They pushed their way through a door down the lane, and he found a table at the back of the room, hidden in a corner.

"Sit," he said, swinging her toward a chair and pulling his hat brim low. When he sat, he raised his free hand. A barmaid ambled up, and he kept his face hidden. "Two ales." The woman left, and he peeked at Cora from under the brim of his hat. "Glad you kept your bonnet."

"It is exhilarating to be in disguise. Come. I know you think so, too."

He grinned. Just a flash before it disappeared again. "We have to be careful."

The barmaid returned and snapped two tankards onto the table as Liam snapped several coins beside them. She left, and Liam took a long pull of his drink.

Cora wrapped her hands around her tankard and sniffed it, took a sip. "Quite good. Stronger than small beer."

"Drink slowly."

She did, studying his throat as he swallowed. Mr. Greene's cravat hung limp around Liam's neck, and she could see more of that part of his body than usual. She had learned so much about him in the last half hour, and she wanted to know more, but where to start?

"Secret vices, Liam," she said, swiping a droplet of ale from the outside of the tankard and sucking it off her thumb.

Liam's gaze followed her movement from tankard to lips. He seemed to have stopped breathing.

Fair. Because her breath caught in her chest watching him watch her.

"You," he growled. He leaned across the table, drawing her forward, her heart beating in her ears. "You are my secret vice."

She shivered and leaned back into her chair. "I cannot be a vice if I am your wife."

"Even if I would throw over all my obligations and responsibilities to make you smile?"

She licked her lips. "Perhaps… perhaps then, yes. But the boxing matches , Liam."

He fell into the back of his chair with an exhale. "I was not a particularly steadfast student. I spent as much time as I could following the matches. Most men like to bet on the outcome. I wanted to see the movements. I admire the skill. Once I began as my father's curate, I stopped. This is my first since then."

"You are an enigma, surprising me at every turn."

"I am not. I'm a simple enough man."

"A simple man would be predictable. He would admonish a wife like me, turn his nose up at boxing matches, and when he did have hobbies or vices, he would not care if others knew. Because he is a man. And easily forgiven. But you behave in the exact opposite manner. You accept me as I am, yet you are wary of how others perceive you. You accept others' flaws but chastise yourself for having any."

The lusty curve of his lip had disappeared, replaced with the frantic look of a hunted rabbit—all wide, darting eyes and twitching jaw. "I hate to disappoint."

"Do you know why I did not tell you? Why so few women would tell their husbands about the books they read if they read books like I do? Because I feared judgment. More, I feared you'd despise me. You did not. Yet you fear the judgment of these townspeople should they discover your penchant for flying fists."

He took another swallow of his ale, plunked it on the table, wrapped both hands around it. "I told you about my father discovering me in the graveyard. What happened after that was almost worse than being discovered with my shaft in hand. First, my father locked me in a room off the side of the church. For… a day or so. I don't really know. He left me in there with… nothing. Stripped the room of every last item."

The man sounded like a villain from one of her own poems. She sipped her own ale, waiting. Please, God, let the story improve.

"He said nothing. Not a single word. He simply marched me into the church, shoved me onto a pew, then cleared out the smaller room, and shoved me inside. Slammed the door closed"—he inhaled a shaky breath as he pushed a shaking hand through his hair—"and left."

She scratched a nail into an old indentation in the tabletop. "Did he say anything? When he returned?"

"No. Not a word for two months. Not to me. In every other way, he was the same to me he'd always been, neither loving nor mean. But me… I was changed. I think. Two Liams. One determined never to shove others into rooms of my making, and the other desperate to earn a word from my father, even if it was a yelling one. I suppose I've been that way since then. Refusing to judge others because I know… I know I am not good enough to judge anyone."

Her fingers became claws as each beat of her heart somehow enlarged it. It pressed against her ribs, too big, too full.

"Cora," Liam said, leaning back in his chair, "you've gone red as a berry. And if you claw your nails into the table much longer, you'll leave new dents in it. Well, more dents in it. Breathe?"

She exhaled with a whoosh , flattening her palms against the table. That exhale, a breaking damn releasing a flood of words. "That self-righteous, addlepated, son of a—"

"Cora," Liam laughed.

"I curse him. And his children."

"Which is me."

"And his—"

"Children's children's children? I'd prefer you not curse our own progeny, as hypothetical as they are. Breathe." He slid his arms across the table and covered her hands with his.

She breathed. But more than air coursing in and out of her lungs, his hands steadied her. "You are a miracle, Liam."

" Shh . You'll sound as if you like me."

She did. Lord help her, she did. She flipped her hands beneath his so they were palm to palm, and then she flipped them again, taking his hands with her so hers rested atop his. So her hands locked his hands to the tabletop.

"We must start a club," she said.

"The sexually frustrated club?"

"Oh, no. Not that at all. The horrible father's club."

He pulled away from her, folding his arms across his chest. "My father was a fine man. He simply saw me for who I am."

"Caring, funny—"

"Impulsive, restless, flawed. He was right to do what he did. In his capacity as vicar, he'd seen many a young woman, many a young girl… ruined. So have I. Had my father not locked me in an empty room, who knows how I would have turned out. Perhaps I would have ruined that young girl in the graveyard. I would have been forgiven. She would not have." His head fell forward, chin to chest, but still he spoke, "I know I sound terribly radical, but—"

Her chair screeching across the floor broke his word in two. She rounded the table and plopped down into his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck as his arms came around her, soft and hard at the same time, understanding and protecting.

She kissed him. In front of everyone who cared to see and to the cheery huzzahs of a few voices raised high across the tavern. She kissed him because she had to, because she'd never felt a need so strong in all her life. Food, sleep, breathing—luxuries compared to kissing Liam. She cupped his cheeks in her hands, made a thorough job of it, tasting the bitter ale and something all his own, wishing she had stripped her gloves off first so she could feel the glinting stubble roving across his jaw.

At first, he was all too still, but then he removed his hat and held it over their faces. Apparently, so he could deepen the kiss, part her lips with his intrepid tongue and curve it into her mouth. He made a sound in his throat like a large cat's purr, and she moved her hands behind his head, sank her fingers into his hair, pulling him closer.

The table shook as a loud bang echoed across the room, popping them apart.

The waitress stood above them, scowling. "We're not that kind of establishment. If you'd like to get a room, you may pay for one. Otherwise, I'll have to start charging them all for a show."

What seemed a hundred eyes blinked at them from behind her.

Cora ducked her face into Liam's neckcloth and then his chest as he stood and placed her on her feet.

"We're going," he said. "Apologies. Did not mean to make a scene." He tugged her toward the door, and when they stepped onto the street, they dragged in matching breaths. "That was… something." He wiped sweat from his forehead and replaced his hat on his head.

"How does that gentleman do it? Madame Juliet's young man. Who likes to be watched. I found it disconcerting."

He held out his arm, and when she took, he guided her down the street. "Did you? But you initiated it." He spoke through a smile, and each step fairly bounced.

"I am glad I tried it." Better to make it appear as if she'd given into a sudden impulse than to admit the truth—the desire to kiss him had not been physical. It had come from the heart and perhaps even deeper, from the soul. "Is it time yet? Can we go to the boxing competition?"

He chuckled. "A bout, Cora. You must use the correct terminology." His arm came around her waist, and he kept her close to his side as they made their way back to the inn.

So many men, so much taller than her. In her skirts and bonnet, she rather stuck out. "I don't suppose women are allowed at such things," she whispered, huddling into his side.

"Too dangerous. But women fight, too. Sometimes."

She gasped. "They don't!"

"They do."

"I have heard some ladies take boxing lessons in the privacy of their own home. For healthful exercise. But fighting? Like the men do? Will there be women fighting tonight? I should like to see it."

"I like to see you lit up like this, Cora. Eyes bright, excitement tumbling from your lips. Do you think I will ever make you look like this? Alive and eager?"

She stumbled, and his strong arm around her waist steadied her. "Y-yes, I think you might."

The inn appeared before she could figure out what she felt, the coaching yard more crowded than the streets, and Liam pulled her even more closely to his side.

"Out behind the inn," he said, dropping his mouth to her ear to whisper, "there's a field out. That's likely where they've gathered. We'll keep our distance."

"Don't you want to get close? To see their movements? You said you enjoy the skill of it."

"Not with you here."

What had happened to her usually jocular husband? He'd become scowly and growly. And heaven help her, but she found it rather arousing. A pulse low and insistent in her body insisted she kiss him. Again. In front of everyone. Again . And it was not only this new grumpiness that tended a growing fire in the pit of her belly. He'd said once he'd recognized a bit of his own loneliness in Cora. Well, she recognized something in him, too. She'd always known she was not good enough for her father, unwanted by her mother. He too had felt something like that all his life. He too had sought, in his own fashion, a way to fit into the world.

The knowing thawed her. Made her wonder if she, Cold Cora, could… fall in love.

No. Surely not. And certainly not with Liam Fletcher. The man she would take as lover. The man she would take as friend, possibly. The man who just happened to be her husband but would be no more . Of course not.

He guided her around the side of the inn toward the stable, and he took her beyond those, where a line of trees rose up before them. Normal trees, but for the cheers and jeers rising from their tops. Liam led her through the trees and toward the noise until they entered a small clearing, hidden from sight. A mob of men crowded around its edges, screaming and cheering, whistling and laughing. In the center of their chaotic circle, a square ring had been marked off with rope. Inside of it, two bloodied men circled each other.

Cora bounced up on toe and spoke near his ear. "I thought you'd said it hadn't started yet."

"I was wrong. They've been through several rounds. By the look of that fellow's face, they're near the end."

That fellow's face looked horrid—swollen, sweaty, and bloody. "They look like they're dancing."

"Jackson's style emphasizes footwork. Oh!"

One of the fellows inside the ring reached out, quick as lightning, and slammed his fist into the other fellow's face. Cora cried and curled into Liam's chest as his arm tightened around her. But she didn't stay hidden long. When she peeked out once more, the man who'd been hit now retaliated without mercy, fists flying as his opponent dropped to his knees, then hit the dirt in a heap.

"Is he dead?" Cora whispered.

Liam stretched his neck to see. "No. But he's lost. There's another fight soon, but it's time to go home. We came. We saw. Time to leave." But something shot along his limbs and charged his voice, and when she looked up at him, it was to see his face come to life, every inch of it.

"Not yet." She wanted to stay longer, to see him like this longer.

His jaw softened, and she could tell—she was close to victory. He'd let them stay.

"Cheat!" The cry rose from the crowd surrounding the ring, and a ripple blew through it, several men falling backward as another large body careened into them. "Cheat!" the voice said again, but now with so many bodies fallen, Cora could see its owner—a large fellow with ham-shaped fists and spittle clinging to his chin. "I want my money back!"

"Bloody h—" Liam grabbed her around the waist and dragged her toward the trees. "We're leaving."

No arguments from her now.

She scrambled to keep up but found herself knocked by a rampaging force, out of Liam's arms and to the ground. A large body lay heavy as a boulder on top of her. She pushed at it, trying to pull air into her empty lungs. "Liam!" His name a quiet wheeze. But the body lifted off her, and a drunk man stumbled away, and she tried again. "Liam!" Louder this time as she surged to her feet, looking around. Where had he gone? The man who'd fallen into her must have separated them.

The crowd had become a living thing, undulating around her like an uncontrollable ocean wave, and her bonnet… where had it gone? The dirt beneath her boots empty except for feet shuffling by. Shoulders knocked into her, moving her about. Moving her farther from Liam?

The trees. She must get to the trees. Liam had tried to take her that way, toward safety. She took one step.

And found herself stuck, her wrist caught in a hard, meaty vise behind her, her body jerked backward and into the arms of a large man with foul breath.

"Good afternoon, pretty thing," he drawled.

She tried to hide her nose in her shoulder, pushing and wriggling, and if she had claws, she'd have scratched his eyes out. "Unhand me!" Where was Liam? The angry crowd had consumed him, swallowed him whole. She growled, struggling. "Unhand me!" If this were one of her poems, a bear would come charging out of the woods and devour this man. He'd have to exit stage left, pursued by a bear, no matter the species did not reside in this county. Oh, where was a bear when you needed one? Or a husband. Better a bear than this horrid drunkard.

"Liam!" she cried, her voice more pitiful than before.

"Don't struggle, little lass." The man's breath made her want to retch, and his touch on her hip made her want to become a bear herself. With teeth and claws to teach this beast a lesson.

"Cora?" Her name like a miracle, rising above the rumbling of the fights that had exploded like wildfires all around.

She saw him then. He held another man by the cravat and slammed a fist into his face, and then he looked up and called again. "Cora! Damn all these ruffians to hell! Where are you?"

"Here! Here!" Still, she fought, using her legs now the beast had pinned her arms to her sides. Her knee made contact, and he screamed, eyes bulging wide as teacup saucers.

The foul beast dropped to his knees, his hands folded over that particularly sensitive part of him. She'd read a man could be disarmed that way, but she'd not thought it would be so easy. Excellent. She wouldn't wait so long to try it next time. She stepped around the man, headed for the trees.

And another man appeared before her. "Afternoon, sweety. Lost?"

Not another . "If you lay one hand on me, you sniveling pig's snout, I will not only curse you and your children, but your children's children's children."

He cocked his head to the side. "Huh? Never mind. I like them feisty." He lowered his mouth to hers.

She hauled her leg backward to kick him, but something—someone—hit him before she could finish the deed. Two bodies hit the ground at the same time, and the top body wasted not a breath before slamming his fist into the brute's face.

Straddling her assailant, Liam punched the man. "That." Twice. "Is my." Three times. "Wife." He reared back for a fourth, but she caught his arm, and when he met her gaze over his shoulder, his eyes were wild, wicked, murderous.

"I want to go home. Please, Liam."

He stood without shaking her arm away and stepped over the groaning man as if he were a bit of refuse on the street. Pulling Cora close to his side, he led her into the trees. "Are you hurt?"

"No. Someone separated us."

"I couldn't find you."

"I couldn't find you. And a man waylaid me."

"And what does he look like? I'm going to kill him."

"I, erm, incapacitated him before he could hurt me."

"How?"

"I kicked him. Between the legs."

"Clever woman." He kissed the top of her head and held her more tightly. Behind them, the crowd still delighted in chaos. "The magistrate will come. We must get home."

She didn't argue. Now that they walked in silence toward the vicarage, her mind could think of only one thing—Liam slamming his fist into another man's face. Liam tossing words into the air that sounded like fact but in actuality possessed the killing edge of a dagger's blade.

That is my wife.

It was the first time she'd actually felt those words to be true.

Cora was his wife, and he quite liked it that way.

So did she.