Chapter 6

The Fight Society. I search for accurate words to describe such a bloodthirsty arena. There the men, naked from the waist up, they battle like savages.

The Duchess of A

A s Raina's hired hackney bounced along the uneven cobblestones, she contemplated the Mayfair Streets giving way to the western boundary of St. Giles Parish.

The windowpane reflected back Raina's softly smiling visage. Why, it wasn't every day a young lady outmaneuvered a veteran agent with the Home Office.

Had Raina managed to do so?

Yes.

Had it been easy?

No. It had been ridiculously simple, and enjoyable—for Raina, anyway.

Well, with the exception of herself having to suffer through the tediousness she'd put the both of them through today. Trips to the modistes, milliners, and leading societal patronesses? The world's worst, dullest, reading materials.

She pulled a face.

No, Mr. Cadogan hadn't been the only to one suffer for her efforts.

And yet…

Raina nibbled at her lower lip.

She didn't want to think about how easily he'd conversed with Millie; how patient he'd been with her young sister. He could have very easily rejected the girl's request to join them in the Drawing Room. Instead, he'd allowed Millie to persuade him to not only do so but to sit beside her, and consider all her drawings.

Raina shut her eyes.

Given her own brother's apathy for his own female relations—and any respectable woman—Raina discovered a dangerous weakness for gentlemen who didn't merely indulge young ladies, but instead, who actually listened to them.

That was the manner of man she yearned to have in her life.

Raina's eyes went flying open.

Are you mad? Woolgathering over Mr. Cadogan because he'd entertained your younger sister? She made a moue with her lips.

It is his job.

You are his job and nothing more, pointed out that same voice of reason which had pulled her out of her fantastical musings.

She'd not feel guilty or give the man some kind of credit for being in anyway decent. As she'd learned during his interview, Mr. Cadogan, bodyguard extraordinaire, smooth-talking spy, put up a fa?ade with the ease of once renowned actor, Mr. Edmund Kean.

Proud and driven, Mr. Cadogan would be a whole lot less magnanimous were he to discover he'd been duped.

That pebble of unease in her belly grew.

Fortunate for Mr. Cadogan he need never worry about discovering how badly he'd been hoodwinked.

Because if he did ever find out…?

A small, promontory shiver traipsed along her spine.

Do you truly believe a man of Mr. Cadogan's caliber and resolve won't? the devil in her head delighted in pointing out.

Raina let the curtain go, and the faded ivory fabric danced back into place.

It was too late, she'd allowed a crack; thoughts of Mr. Cadogan finding out he'd been duped, and the floodgates opened.

Her protector, with his granite-hard jaw, nearly obsidian-blue eyes, and forbidding stare fixed on Raina. They'd glint with the promise of punishment.

Thump-thump-thump

Raina gasped. Her heart pounded painfully against her ribcage.

"Arrived we 'ave, sir."

They'd arrived.

At some point, she'd reached her destination, somewhere between Shaftesbury Avenue and Oxford Street.

She'd been so focused on the thrill of her triumph and then the niggling of worries about sneaking out from under Mr. Cadogan's watch, that she'd not thought about just where she'd ordered the hackney driver to take her.

Raina took a deep breath. "A moment," she called, deepening her voice.

Maybe she'd deliberately focused all her energies and musings on thwarting stern, stoic, Mr. Cadogan, to keep herself from thinking about where she was going.

But now she was here, and there could be no pretending or letting herself think about anything other than this .

By the din outside the carriage walls, for all intents and purposes, Raina may as well have arrived midday for the fashionable shopping that took place near this side of the Dials. The loud exchanges and boisterous laughter of passersby combined with calls of women and men hawking whatever goods they were selling.

With fingers that shook, Raina reached into the jacket she'd pilfered from one of the stable hands and found the sheet she'd tucked away there.

She stared blankly at the page for a moment, worrying the already wrinkled corners with her fingers. If she didn't step outside this carriage, if she ordered the driver to turn back, and never stepped foot outside, then she'd never know.

She'd never know if her mother had been right and that Raina was the same as all the other Goodheart's before her, and the ones that would come after her.

With a quiet curse, she unfolded the new list she'd made to replace the one Millie burned.

The Fight Society

When all respectable noblemen in Polite Society notoriously fought at Gentleman's Jackson's, of course, her late father and brother would frequent a ribald, lawless, boxing arena, where women were granted access.

Raina edged the curtain back enough to steal a peek outside. With the streets dark, and dimly lit by the lampposts, she needed to peer closely for the place in question.

Her mother's diary contained entries throughout about her attendance at The Fight Society. Those dates had ranged widely from the late duchess's first mention Raina could find, being the third of March in 1800. In her writings, the duchess also indicated the duke frequented the boxing arena many years before their courtship.

As such, it was entirely possible such a crude enterprise ceased operation years a—

Her gaze caught on a building some fifteen or so yards away.

Maynard & Bragger's Fight Society

Raina sneered.

"Society," she whispered, into the quiet.

Maybe that harkening to the institution—as names and titles mattered most to the ton—alleviated all the deserved shame and guilt these lords and ladies felt over spending their nights at such a barbaric place.

Thump-Thump-Thump

"Time is money, sir," her driver called out impatiently.

Raina warred with herself.

"I said, ‘time is money'."

She glanced once more at her list.

"I've got other pass—"

Not permitting herself to coward out, Raina opened the door.

The driver gave a startled look.

"Here," she tossed him a small purse. "You'll find the agreed-upon fare, and I've doubled it for the time you've lost. Wait for me, and there will be far more than that." She nodded at the velvet sack his eager fingers were already sifting through.

"Aye, sir."

Adjusting the big, brimmed hat she'd buried her curls under, Raina jumped down.

Keeping her head down, she made her way along the pavement, ignoring as she went, the crude invitations for ‘him' to join the prostitutes along the street. A proper lady would have been shocked by the sights and sounds, and offerings being made.

A wave of bitterness constricted her throat. The innocence Raina once possessed as to what took place between men and women, and to the debauched extent they did, had been shattered when all good ladies were still playing with dolls and marbles and kites.

Raina reached the front doors of Maynard & Bragger's Fight Society .

Dubious, she contemplated the crude oak door, with its even cruder engraving of the title, flanked between two skulls.

On the other side of that panel, ceaseless, bloodthirsty cries rang out. On occasion, from within the cacophonous noise, emerged perfectly obscene and quite descriptive curses that raised a blush on her cheeks.

Who would want to come to such a place?

Your mother, who by her own written admissions, loved every minute of her time here…

Nauseous, Raina, shook her head hard.

Except if it'd been that easy to get rid of the repulsive secrets she carried about her parents, she would have succeeded years ago.

Very well, let us see what this establishment is about, and just why Mother spent so much time coming back to it.

Raina grabbed the handle and let herself inside.

A deafening roar rolled through the jam-packed arena like a wave and poured out into the streets.

A barrel-chested guard, well-dressed in surprisingly fine black garments blocked her entry. The hard gaze he moved over Raina proved as incisive as Mr. Cadogan's, and for a sliver of a moment, she froze in fear that he'd identified her as a young lady disguised as a man.

Greed, she'd learned, however, proved to be the great equalizer.

Raina snatched another purse from within her jacket and thrust the generous offering at the formidable impediment between her and the establishment she needed to visit.

"If you'd be so good as to show me to a private box," she shouted to make herself heard over the din.

"A private box?" he yelled. Surprise—and something akin to amusement—lit the good-looking worker's hard brown eyes. "This way, my lord."

With an unexpected regard, he carefully escorted her through the arena.

People of all stations stood so close their arms touched, and one couldn't wedge one's body through, except when they cheered on the prized fighter they had their money on. As her personal escort shoved men apart to make room for the two of them, she squinted to adjust her eyes to the thick haze of cheroot and cigar smoke that hung over the dimly lit arena.

Until, at last, the big fellow brought her to a stop at the curtained alcove in the furthest right corner of the arena. He pulled back the curtain and motioned her inside the crude, makeshift private box.

Raina eyed the space dubiously.

"Wait here," the worker said, pulling her attention his way. "And for your safety, don't leave."

At that stern order, she frowned. And here she'd believed gentlemen weren't treated in the same high-handed manner ladies were.

The curtain fluttered into her place, and the brusque worker took his leave, Raina looked around the box which, with the wood crates and mismatched chairs scattered about, had the look more of a storage area.

"We bring you our next match," a voice boomed over an impressive quiet that'd managed to fall over the stadium. "Born in St. Giles to Mac Diggory and…"

As the crowd erupted into another round of thunderous applause and cheers, Raina settled herself in. She'd taken her fate into her own hands and set out to find out answers—no matter how horrible they may be—about the type of woman she was.

It was time to find out.