Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19

E sme’s head snapped back as her sparring partner, a young fighter named Rose, landed a punch square across her jaw. She staggered and was only not deposited on her arse because they were fighting at fifty percent strength.

“Good punch, Rosie!” Campbell Ripley called from the side where he was coaching the session. “And oy, Esme, put your damned hands up. This is why you don’t fight with your mind somewhere else, girlie.”

Esme lifted her hands higher and just barely kept herself from glaring at Ripley. “Just been doing this for years,” she muttered to herself. “Not like I know what I’m doing.”

Her opponent’s eyes went wide, but Rose said nothing, and they just went back to circling. Esme forced herself by sheer will not to let her mind wander and the rest of the session didn’t produce any further unexpected result.

When it was over, she patted the other woman on the shoulder. “You’ve a good cross, Rose, and even your half-strength is powerful. If you want it, I think you have a future.”

Rose’s eyes widened. “Thank you, Hellion. That means a lot comin’ from you.”

Esme forced a smile and ducked out the ring, unrolling her hand wraps as she reached up to touch her tender jaw. She would likely have a bruise there by tomorrow. Bollocks it all.

She felt Ripley approach behind her and chose to ignore him. He was going to have things to say and she wasn’t certain she had the energy to have that particular conversation.

“I’ll stand here all day, Es,” he said after a moment had passed. “I’m not so easily put off.”

She faced him and looked up into his harsh, yet handsome face. “What are you on about?”

He arched a brow, the one with the stripe of a scar across it. “I’m also not a fool, Hellion.”

She sighed. “What do you think you know, Ripley? I don’t like games.”

“Who is he?” he said, and folded his arms across his broad chest.

She stopped fussing with her things and pursed her lips. “Who is who?”

“Whoever is making you blush when I ask the question. Whoever is making you forget yourself in the ring and just about everywhere else right now.”

She shook her head. The fact that her distraction was so obvious to Ripley didn’t bode well. She shrugged and hoped she could put him off, but before she could answer the door to the fighting area opened and Finn stepped into the room. She stared at him, watching him before he saw her. She had no idea why he was here during this time that Ripley usually had his club closed to gentlemen. She couldn’t imagine it was a good reason.

But despite her fears, she drank in the sight of him. He was so beautiful. So perfectly handsome in every way. She knew that body, that mouth, those hands and all they could do. Not just offer pleasure, but comfort. Support. They could make her want things she’d given up on having a long time ago.

“What the hell, Esme?” Ripley growled, his tone lower now as he caught her arm and forced her to look back up at him. “The Earl of Delacourt?”

She blinked. “What?”

“I have eyes.” He shook his head. “I can see you looking at him across the room, a room he very much shouldn’t be in, and you look like you just saw your favorite dessert.”

“Bugger off,” she muttered, and shook her arm free from his gentle grip. “You don’t know a fucking thing.”

“Does he know who you really are?” he snapped.

She opened and shut her mouth, but couldn’t find the words.

Ripley threw his head back and cursed a streak that would have burned the ears of most ladies clear off. “He does. I can see it written on your face. He’s an earl , Esme. You had to run from that life. How could you ever go back and be safe?”

He was only saying all the things she already knew, but Esme’s eyes stung with unbidden tears nonetheless. She let out a shaky sigh. “I don’t know. I-I can’t.”

Ripley’s expression softened as if he understood something in that moment that he hadn’t before. Then he patted her shoulder, pivoted on his heel, and started across the room toward Finn.

F inn found Esme at last in the big room, standing beside a ring in a black leather corset over a thick-strapped chemise that went to her knee. She was currently barefoot with her red hair frizzy from exertion, one hand still wrapped from where she must have been sparring.

He caught his breath at the sight of her, here in her element, watching him across the room. She looked like a goddess, as irresistible beside the ring as she was in his bed or would be in a ballroom.

But before he could move to her, he also noticed something else. Campbell Ripley, the owner of the club and his own boxing teacher, heading toward him, shoulders thrown back and the look of an angry bull on his face.

Finn squared his shoulders as Ripley reached him, setting one foot back out of habit and adjusting his hands at his sides in case he was about to have his own fight.

Ripley’s gaze moved up and down him in a moment. “Well, you aren’t a useless student, are you, my lord? Your stance is good.”

“I’m wondering if I’ll need to use it with you coming across to me like that,” Finn said cautiously.

Ripley jerked his head back toward Esme. “You know who she is?”

Finn chest tightened. It seemed Ripley was here to protect Esme from him. She’d said several times that the boxing master had helped protect her when she first ran from her cousin. For that, Finn couldn’t be more grateful. But seeing this man, who was properly considered handsome, come to her rescue like he had a place to do so made Finn…

Jealous.

“Oy, answer me,” Ripley snapped. “You know who she is?”

Finn nodded. “I do. Do you?”

“I know exactly who she is,” Ripley growled. “I saw what she was like after she ran, I protected her all those years ago from a man of power just like you.”

“Not like me,” Finn said with a shake of his head. “But like you , all I want to do is defend her. Help her.”

“Oh, how lovely, a gentleman who likes to go around saving ladies who have virtually nothing to fall back on. That always ends well when they run out of interest in them,” Ripley said, and there was something bitter in his tone that made Finn wonder what personal attachment he had to that story.

“I’m not going to run out of interest, Ripley.”

“That’s what they all say,” the other man grunted.

Finn looked at Esme. She was still standing across the room, watching them, but she made no move to join them. It was as if she was seeing how this would play out. If Finn would be put off and abandon her, perhaps.

“I’ve known you a long time, Ripley,” he said, calming his tone. “I respect you, and for the fact that you’ve helped her and continue to help her, I can only feel friendship and gratitude.”

Ripley’s brow knitted but his mouth had begun to relax a fraction. “You didn’t look none too grateful a minute ago.”

“Because…” Finn drew a long breath. He hadn’t intended to say this out loud for the first time to a man who was no more than an acquaintance, but sometimes in stories about knights, they had to pay a toll to cross a bridge. Pass a test to reach the princess, didn’t they? “I’m in love with her,” he said softly.

Ripley stared at him for a moment that felt like it stretched a lifetime. “Does she know that?” he asked, gentler now.

Finn shook his head. “I think we both know she isn’t in a place to accept that from me. Not yet.”

“No. Her shell is very strong, life led in your high society made her so.” Ripley glanced back at her and then back to Finn. “Would you love her enough to let her go, if that was what was best for her?”

The pain that ripped through Finn at that question was almost enough to drop him to his knees. But he managed to maintain calm. He had been clinging to the notion that somehow he could work this out, get Esme out of danger and then find a way to welcome her back into his world. But Ripley was only presenting an option that Finn knew was very much also available.

He might never find a way to bring her home. She might not want to come home after everything she’d endured. She might not want Finn and all his life entailed.

“If I had to, if it was what she wanted or what was best for her, yes.” His hands tingled and he shook them out at his sides. “I’d walk away.”

A long silence stretched between the men and then Ripley stepped aside and motioned his head toward Esme. “Go on, then.”

Finn blinked in surprise, but moved toward her regardless. She shifted to stand a little straighter as he came near, and he felt her reading him in that scant distance that separated them. She saw through him, too, for the first words out of her mouth when he reached her weren’t about why he was there or whatever had happened between him and Ripley.

“What’s wrong?” she asked instead, reaching for his hand.

He swallowed hard. “You may be in danger, Esme,” he said, and watched how her eyes went wide, flashed with a fear she immediately tried to control. “Will you come with me?”

E sme hadn’t argued when Finn asked her to go with him. She hadn’t fought him as they loaded into his carriage and rumble off away from the boxing club and back toward…well, she assumed his home. Where else would he take her?

She stared across the vehicle at him where he sat watching at her, his fist lifted to his mouth. She could bear this no longer. “Tell me what happened.” she demanded.

He nodded. “Yes. Yes. Earlier this afternoon I went to meet with your cousin.”

Her head began to spin as she tried to digest that information. “You what? Why? And why didn’t you tell me that this was your plan?”

“Esme.” His tone was even.

She blinked as reality became clear. “Because you thought if you did that I might follow. What happened to being trustworthy, Finn? What happened to not keeping me out of a situation that involves only my well-being in the end?”

He caught her hand as she’d done his in the club and held it gently. He leaned forward, his dark eyes bright with earnest concern and…and something else she feared to see in them.

“I was never going to keep it a secret for long,” he said. “Look into my eyes and know that’s true.”

She did and she could see it. God help her, she believed him. Because she wanted to or because he was really true…well, that was something likely still up for debate.

“You said in the club that I was in danger,” she whispered. “How?”

“Francis invited me to join him, said he wanted to renew the friendship between my house and your father’s,” he said. “But when I didn’t respond immediately to his offers to join in his financial…well, no one could call them less than schemes, he moved to a different mode of convincing. He moved to blackmail. He’s been watching my house.”

Her lips parted and she felt like her throat was closing. “But…but I’ve been coming to your house.”

He nodded. “He’s seen you do so.”

“No!” she almost screamed, and pushed herself back on the bench of the seat like she could escape the horrible words he’d just said. All her fears rose up in her chest like demons and words fell from her mouth in a jumbled mess. “No, no that cannot be true. It can’t, not after all this time. He can’t know I’m in London, he can’t know where to find me. No, no, no-”

Finn lunged toward her and fell to his knees on the floor at her feet. He cupped her cheeks gently, smoothing his thumbs over her skin. “Please, please listen to me. Please, Esme. Please breathe.”

She fought to do so and blinked at the tears that stung so strongly that she knew she couldn’t keep them from falling.

“He doesn’t know that the lady he’s seen is you. I’m almost entirely certain because I don’t think he’d be able to keep that to himself when he spoke to me about it. He thinks I have some lover, a lady based on the way she holds herself.”

She continued to shake, but her heart rate started to slow with that information. “He thinks…he thinks you’re bedding some innocent debutante or friend’s wife, then?”

He nodded. “Yes. It’s not that I don’t think he’d pursue the matter, try to determine who she is… you are. But the lover is only a means to an end for him. Still, I don’t want you out of my sight while he’s got this on his mind. I don’t want you endangered if he starts to follow the threads he’s uncovered.”

“Oh God, Jane!” Esme burst out. “If he finds out where I come from, he’ll find Jane.”

“We’ll send word to her,” he soothed gently. “And if she needs a place to go I’ll provide it.”

Esme worried her hands before her. “Send word to Ripley,” she suggested. “Jane won’t go anywhere unless someone forces her. Ripley can do it.”

“I will.” He cleared his throat. “Though I expect a punch in the face the next time I see him for dragging him into all this.”

“ I dragged everyone in all this,” she corrected, and sucked in another shaky breath. “And I know the person damaged by it most is you. What about the danger to you ?”

He shrugged. “He threatened me, yes. But it’s not something I can’t handle. In truth, he revealed a great deal about himself, and about your father’s relationship toward him in the process.”

“Such as?”

“He’s involved in illegal activities and your father was aware, refusing to invest or make any inheritance available before his death, and threatening to reveal Francis to authorities, the scandal be damned.”

Her lips parted. “I-I had no idea. He never said a word to me.”

“I suppose he didn’t want you to worry,” Finn said. “But that is certainly a motive for murder. Not only would Francis have access to at least some of the funds he so desperately desired, but there would no longer be the threat of transportation or even hanging.”

“His crimes are so bad?”

“Fraudulent behavior and treason, plus the murder if he did commit it.” He shook his head.

She wrinkled her brow at his troubled expression. “You look upset about this, beyond your concern for me. Why?”

He smiled at her slightly. “Leave it to you to see that.” He sighed. “Francis also let it slip that your father was warning friends off of investing with him. Telling them he was a bad bet. But he…he never told me that. I wonder why. Did he think I wouldn’t care about your cousin’s bad deeds, that I might be open to them?”

She stared at him, and in that moment all her feelings for him, all the reasons she had tried to keep herself separate, became so perfectly clear. Finn was wonderful, he was good and decent, he was everything she’d ever dreamed of when she still dreamed of marrying and living happily ever after like some princess in a fairytale.

And she was in love with him. Deeply and powerfully and passionately, despite all the reasons why they could never be together.

She cupped his face in both her hands, tilting it up toward her as he continued to kneel at her feet. “If my father didn’t tell you, it’s because he knew you to be an excellent judge of character all on your own. He knew you would see Francis for what he is the moment he tried to recruit you, just as you did. Because you are too good a man to ever trade your scruples for money or power.”

His eyes widened at that passionate defense of him, then he lifted up on his knees slightly, bringing his face equal with her own. “Esme,” he said softly. At that moment, the carriage slowed and he glanced at the door behind them with a sigh. “We’ve arrived. I made special arrangements for us to be taken into a back entrance and the vehicle brought to a door so we can enter my home directly without being seen.”

“To keep me safe,” she said.

He nodded. “I’ll also arrange for a few guards for the property who will be certain no one tries to enter, and my servants will be very clear on that score, even for my sister’s wedding. Only those who were invited.”

She flinched. There were details to be worked out, of course. She couldn’t stay holed up with Finn forever, no matter how lovely that idea sounded. But for now, the idea of letting him protect her, even for a while, was so powerful. Just as her feelings were powerful, overwhelming, heartbreaking and life changing all at once.

“I’ll do as you like,” she said.

He looked surprised that she would agree, but when the door was opened, he pushed back, exited the carriage first and after looking around, handed her out and almost immediately through a door into the back part of his house.

His servants waiting there looked utterly confused and he held up a finger to them as if to say, “One moment,” before he took her arm and led her to a parlor toward the back of the house. Away from the front windows by the street, of course. Because she wasn’t safe there.

The reality of that sank in as he kissed her hand. “I’ve some explaining to do and other preparations to start. But please, have a drink or I’ll have them send tea in.”

“A drink is fine,” she said past a suddenly dry throat.

He nodded and then slipped from the room and closed the door behind himself. Leaving her alone with feelings, confusion and fears that now began to grip her with an icy fist she couldn’t dodge, no matter how good a fighter she’d trained herself to be.