Chapter 17

"What is the meaning of this?" Nathaniel hissed to Bill, behind the relative safety of a theater tent that no one seemed to be interested in yet. "You are not supposed to be here. How did you gain entry?"

Bill gave a throaty chuckle that melded into a rattling cough. "I just wanted a word, Nathan. Nothin' serious, so you can wipe that rough look off your face." He paused, thumbing back toward a more forested area of the gardens. "We've got us a tent over there for boxin'. Callin' it a "Gentlemen's Room". The Countess asked for us personally, and it would've been rude to refuse."

"Oh…" Nathaniel straightened up. "So, why were you beckoning to me?"

"I told you; I wanted a word with you." Bill took out his pipe and lit a taper from a nearby torch before putting the flame to the tobacco. "Couldn't help watchin' you and that lass. Warmed me old heart, it did. I expect that's why you haven't been to Rotherhithe in a while."

Nathaniel rubbed the back of his neck, feeling as if he had betrayed his old friend somehow. "I could not find the right moment, without alerting suspicions."

"You've been entertainin' that fine young lady, you mean," Bill said, blowing bluish, acrid smoke into the air. "I'm not here to scold you, Nathan. I'm not your father. It don't matter to me if you never box again though Arnold won't agree. You'll be losin' him a lot of money, but there'll be others who'll come along and make up the difference again. To be honest, I wanted to see how you were farin'. I know you've struggled before when you haven't been able to get in the ring for a while. But it seems I had naught to worry over. You're somethin', you look well, and you look happy."

Do I? Nathaniel paused in his pensive rubbing, realizing that Bill was right. In previous years when his mother had made it impossible for him to leave the townhouse without her knowledge or to venture away from Bergfield without an interrogation, he had teetered toward a strange sort of madness as if there were things crawling through his veins, forbidding him from enjoying any peace. But since Leah, there had been no frayed nerves, no restlessness, no unease—not of the same kind, anyway.

"It has not been that long," he pointed out, convinced that the unease was merely delayed. "I will return in due course, no doubt, when I have a moment to do so."

Bill shrugged, drawing more smoke up the pipe. "You don't have nothin' to prove to me, Nathan. If this is the end of your boxin' days, so be it. At least you can say you left while you were still a champion." He smiled a brown-toothed smile. "You don't have nothin' to prove to your father anymore, either. Never liked him much to be honest with you. Couldn't understand what he was doin' when he brought you to fight as a lad. Thought he'd gone mad when he said it, but there wasn't much I could do against a duke, you know?"

"Never liked him much? I thought you were close friends," Nathaniel said, dumbfounded.

Bill snorted. "We made each other a lot of money. Didn't make us friends. I was loyal, and he liked that. He kept me comfortable, and I liked that. But I've watched you grow from a littlun, and you're nothin' like him. For one thing, he couldn't throw a punch to save his life, but it's more than that. You've a good heart, Nathan. His was black as coal. Surprised no one killed him sooner, to be honest with you, after all he'd done to irritate the somethin' dens and other such miscreants."

"I always thought my mother would be happy when he was gone," Nathaniel said, more to himself than to Bill. "But she mourned him as if he had been good to her, telling the newspapers that he had died a hero, trying to save the life of the woman he had been found with. I still do not know why the papers believed her. Although, perhaps that protected us all from ridicule and investigation, so I should be grateful."

Bill sent another plume of bluish smoke into the air. "How is she?"

"Desperate to see me married and to become a grandmother," Nathaniel replied with a chuckle.

"So, what are you waitin' for? Somethin' the matter with that fair lass who is keepin' you out of harm's way?" Bill cast him a knowing look.

Nathaniel shrugged. "She is wonderful, but I cannot risk becoming like my father. What if it happens against my will? What if, one day, I wake up and I say something that he would have said, and it swells from there until I am exactly like him? He always said that I had the same devil in him that he had had since he was a child, and that it cannot be ignored forever. He said it was what made me so good at fighting."

"Hogwash," Bill muttered. "I haven't had me a fine education, but I've seen enough rabblerousers and troublemakers to know if one's born with it or bred with it. You haven't got a jot of it in you. You can see it in the way you fight. You don't fight dirty, you help a man up when he's down, you keep it clean, you follow the rules, and you shake a man's hand when it's over. You're a proper gentleman boxer but a gentleman first and foremost. So, if you're worried about somethin' like him, forget it. You won't."

Nathaniel wanted to believe his old friend, but forgetting all the things his father had said and inflicted was easier said than done. Besides, even if he found himself wanting to turn the ruse into reality, that was not what Leah wanted. She deserved her liberty, so she would never have to be disappointed by a gentleman again.

Just then, there was a rustle from the nearby bushes. Nathaniel's gaze snapped toward it, his heart jolting. Was someone eavesdropping? If so, how much had they heard?

"I shall find you later, if there is time," he whispered to Bill, who nodded and headed back into the cheer of the carnival, trailing smoke behind him.

Narrowing his eyes, Nathaniel crept toward the bushes, catfooted and silent as a snowy night. Even in the gloom, he could make out the shape of a silhouette between the fronds of the tall bushes. Someone was there, and someone had been listening.

Edging nearer, he waited until he was practically standing right behind the shadow before he lunged forward, grabbing for whoever was hiding there. At that moment, a startled scream pierced the air. A woman's scream.

"Leah?" Nathaniel looked pale and panicked in the torchlight as he waded through the bushes; his hand no longer grasping her arm.

She clasped a palm to her chest, breathing hard. "I thought we said no more grabbing of arms!" she gasped, feeling as if her heart was about to beat right out of her chest. "What were you doing, creeping in the darkness like that? You frightened me half to death!"

"I might ask what you are doing alone in the darkness," Nathaniel countered. "Where is your mother?"

Leah forced herself to take slow breaths as he had taught her. "She went to… the stalls to… find something to eat for us. I said I would… wait for her here, thinking it would… be perfectly safe. Apparently not."

She could not admit that she had seen him go behind the theatrical tent with a strange old man and had been too curious to stay away, instructing her mother to fetch some delicacies while she waited close to where Nathaniel had disappeared. And as she had seen Jonathan staring at her throughout the earlier dance, she had figured it would be better if she stayed close to Nathaniel, even if he did not know she was there.

As for the conversation between Nathaniel and the old man, she had heard snippets—something about his father and a boxing match and miscreants. It made no sense to her, but it had piqued her interest.

"Are you telling the truth?" Nathaniel demanded to know.

"More or less," she replied, her heart slowing. "Who was that man you were with?"

Nathaniel closed his eyes and took a breath. "An old friend. He used to be the kennel master at Bergfield Manor."

"Are you telling the truth?"

He managed a stiff smile. "More or less."

"I was not eavesdropping," she insisted nervously.

He frowned a little. "I did not say you were, but now, I am suspicious. Did you hear something you should not have?"

"I heard you mention your father, but that is all," Leah admitted, deciding to be mostly honest. "I suppose I wondered if that had something to do with your aversion to marriage. I know so little about your history, and your mother will not speak to me about her marriage, so… I can only make assumptions, even if they are woefully mistaken. You see, if my mother could marry again, I do not think she would choose my father. He is like… a giant child, and I know it grates upon her, but when one is married, one is rather stuck with whomever they have been bound to."

To her relief, Nathaniel laughed. "Yes, I suppose they are." He sighed and took her hands, holding them gently. "All I know is that marriage is a very… cruel thing. It can change people, and not for the better, and I do not wish to be changed in case it does not change me for the better. I am… babbling, I know, but it is the only way I know how to explain it."

"No, I think I understand," Leah said, wondering what her own parents were like before they married.

It had not been a forced union, as far as she knew, which meant that her father must have had some admirable merits before he became Sarah's husband. Enough merits to entice Sarah into marriage in the first place. Perhaps, his childishness had seemed endearing back then before turning into a later nightmare of constant squabbles and churlish behavior, throwing tantrums when he did not get things his way.

"Still, I cannot understand how any man could leave a woman like you at the altar, even if they had their doubts about marriage in general," Nathaniel said, quite unbidden, his hands squeezing hers with a reassurance that disarmed her. "If it was me, dear Leah, I…"

He stopped sharply, and so did Leah's breath, her entire body thrumming as she silently urged him to continue. She wanted to ask him to say more, but the words could not squeeze past the lump of nervous anticipation in her throat. All she could do was stare at him and will him to finish the sentence.

"I think I see your mother," he said, her heart sinking like a stone. "Come, let me escort you to her."

Leah allowed herself to be led, casting a sideways glance at Nathaniel, desperately trying to read his expression, but it had turned blank and illegible as he concentrated on the space ahead of him, leaving her with one gnawing, infuriating question: What would you have done, if it was you?