Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

“Well, that was something.” Aaron looked Keith right in the eyes as Keith jumped down from the ring.

Keith had lost count of how many fights he’d had that night. There were only a few grazes on him, for all his opponents had barely been able to touch him. In fact, the only reason they had grazed him at all was that he had grown tired.

“Remind me never to bet against Keith,” Xander said thoughtfully as he counted up his winnings. “I’ve done mighty well tonight.”

“I’m glad at least someone’s happy.” Keith sat down on a bench as he was handed back his waistcoat and Philip tossed him a towel to wipe off the sweat.

“You’re not happy?” Philip raised an eyebrow. “You flattened everyone here tonight.”

“Well, maybe a little.” Keith permitted himself a small smile, much to the others’ amusement.

He wiped the sweat from his face, trying to hold on to the buzz and thrill of the fight. It was certainly exhilarating, and for a few minutes, he had been able to forget the ridiculous foppery of the ton and think about nothing but surviving the next blow.

That didn’t last long, though. Now that he was sitting down, he was thinking of the way Celia had been looking at him. He dwelled on how she had obviously been concerned about him, and the way she had gripped his shirt.

We cannot stay away from each other. This is exactly the opposite of what I wanted.

“You all right?” Xander asked, sitting beside him and passing him a flagon of something he first presumed to be water. He quickly realized it wasn’t and indulged in the burn at the back of his throat.

“Aye, fine,” Keith lied, trying to push all thoughts of Celia away.

“There’s something you should know.” Philip nodded at the crowd. “Whilst you were up there fighting, people have been talking.”

“Do they ever do anything else?” Keith asked with a sigh.

Xander snorted. “They always whisper. They spread rumors and tales, even if they’re entirely of their own creation.”

“They said some good things about you,” Aaron pointed out. “That you’re quite the fighter, and that a duke who was once a laird is something to be reckoned with.”

Keith took another hefty sip of his drink, for he had seen Philip wince at these words.

“They said other things too,” Philip whispered.

“Such as?” Keith prompted.

“You were seen talking to Celia.” Philip’s demeanor softened.

It was clear he was worried about Keith. It wasn’t like before, when he was trying to warn Keith off Celia. Now, he was concerned about the whole situation.

“People are whispering that with how close you were standing, she might be your lover.”

Keith choked on the vodka and spat it back on the floor. Xander clapped him on the back as Aaron rescued the flagon.

“They said what!?” Keith coughed.

“You heard,” Philip said, his voice even softer. “I’m sorry. We tried to stop the rumors.”

“People like a tale. They take it and run with it.” Xander sighed beside him. “Be wary, Keith. Some people here, their words would never reach the rest of the ton, but there are plenty of men like us here tonight, and their words certainly will.”

“Be careful how much you’re seen talking to Lady Celia,” Philip urged. “For both of your sakes. Or…”

“Or what?” Keith asked.

Aaron cleared his throat and sat down on Keith’s other side. “Lady Celia’s reputation has always been questionable.” He smiled. “We all owe her for ending up with our wives… But she doesn’t behave like other ladies, and people wonder just how much experience she has. The truth is, no one knows if she has ever been scandalous or not.”

I know.

Keith kept the thought to himself. He was also certain that before him, Celia hadn’t experienced such things. She’d heard of them perhaps, but she hadn’t felt them. He was the first and only man to touch her.

That protective and possessive creature inside him awoke again. It purred, longing to have Celia back where she belonged.

“Just don’t give the ton proof that she has been scandalous,” Philip urged quietly. “It could come back to bite you both.”

Keith nodded. When he had first met these men, he might have thought their interference was too much, but now that he knew them a little, he understood what they were trying to do. They were not only trying to protect Celia, they were also trying to protect him.

“Ye…” Keith turned his head to Xander. “Ye talk as if ye have been on the wrong end of whispers and gossip.”

“I have been.” Xander nodded. “Do you know what I had to do to stop those whispers?” He held up his left hand, showing the wedding band on his fourth finger. “I had to marry Violet. Not that I’d change what I did.” He smiled a little, his expression unexpectedly warm. “But it is a warning. If you have no intention of marrying my sister-in-law, then be careful just how much you two talk in public.”

Keith nodded, thanking them for their warning.

“Enough of the serious,” Philip said as he passed the flagon back to Keith. “Let us celebrate. Let me know the next time you’re planning on coming, Keith. I’ll be placing all my bets on you.”

By the time Keith left that night, he felt quite separate from his own body. He was overtired from the fights, and the vodka had made his head swim.

He took his horse and rode home slowly, not wishing to cause an accident in his state, though he was barely able to concentrate on the road ahead. Instead, his mind wandered to things he had long tried to keep hidden. Unpleasant memories resurfaced.

As a child, he’d pushed open his mother’s bedchamber door one day to see her crying her eyes out. No handkerchief in the world was large enough to dry those tears as she flung herself into the window seat, her head pressed against the glass as she stared outside.

Tracing a finger down the lead lining of the glass, she had whispered how they were like bars.

“They are my prison, Keith. This place… it is my prison.”

Then the memory shifted to something else. He saw his mother and father at the front of a great hall. His father gripped his mother’s hand possessively, so hard in fact that she winced in pain. She didn’t want to be there, that was obvious.

When Keith tried to place himself between them, trying to protect his mother, despite how much smaller he was, he felt his father’s glare.

“No,” Elizabeth had whispered under the sound of everyone in the great hall clapping. “You will not hurt him,” she had pleaded with his father. “He’s only trying to protect me.”

“The boy will learn his place.”

Keith had paid the price for it that night. It didn’t stop him from trying to protect his mother, though. He always got in the way and tried to help her.

He could still remember the first time he managed to successfully stop his father from hitting her.

He had been just seventeen. He and his brother had been out on the training grounds. They’d returned together, discarding their swords and laughing about their fighting, when they had heard shouts and screams coming from a sitting room.

Keith and his brother had burst in there to see their father raise a hand to Elizabeth yet again. Elizabeth had cried out, attempting to escape, but he caught her ankle and dragged her back again.

She had been so small compared to their father, prostrate on the floor, curled up, afraid.

Keith hadn’t hesitated. He’d leaped across the room before his father could bring down his hand. At seventeen, he was already taller than his father and growing muscle every day. He grabbed hold of his father’s wrist. The anger was plain on his father’s face.

“Ye dare to stop me, laddie? Ye’ll pay the price for this.”

His father then tried to hit him, but he wasn’t strong enough to do the job. Keith had knocked him back instead.

“This ends. Ye will never hurt any of us again,” Keith had demanded.

It was that day that Keith had vowed never to marry a woman for love or any sort of attachment.

Elizabeth had always feared the man who was so obsessed with her, and clearly, with good reason.

I am my father’s son. What if the monster he was rises inside me? I can’t let it happen.

“What did you get up to last night, then?” Grace asked as she looped her arm through Celia’s.

The two of them were promenading through the parkland, though Celia was distracted enough that she hadn’t paid too much attention to where they were going. She was only aware of the fact that they had wandered aimlessly back and forth, past the lake and through the trees.

“Oh, nothing,” Celia lied.

“Nothing?” Grace elbowed her with a laugh. “Philip tells me that you went to the boxing warehouse. Is it true? Did you go?”

“Well… perhaps.” Celia gave a small smile. “But rest assured, I was not there that long anyway.”

“Ha! I could never be so bold as you. What gives you the confidence to do it?”

“To do what?”

“To do as you wish,” Grace said with a shrug. She steered Celia along a different path. “I would always fear what the ton would think of me if I was so bold. I’d definitely end up on the scandal sheets again…”

“I don’t care what they think of me. They already think ill of me, so I suppose I stopped trying a while ago.”

“Even so…” Grace paused. “Speaking of what they think, don’t you think people are staring at us quite strangely today?”

“Staring at us? Why would they stare?”

Celia looked around. Ahead of them on the path, a young group of women were staring at the pair of them. The moment they saw they had been caught, they looked away.

“Perhaps a little. Let’s think nothing of it.” Celia pulled Grace down another path. “Let’s talk of something else instead. How’s Diana faring with her bouts of sickness?”

“She’s doing a little better, I believe.” Grace nodded. “She’ll be welcoming that child into the world before you know it. She’s so excited to meet the little one, whether they be a boy or a girl.”

“She’ll make a wonderful mother, I don’t doubt it. She’ll be sweet and doting, all in one.” Celia smiled broadly. “She’d be wise to keep her child away from her mischievous friend.”

She offered an impish look that had Grace tapping her arm.

“Well, that depends. If your mischief is going to boxing warehouses, Aaron might be happy enough to let you take his son there. If it’s a girl, I don’t know what they’ll think.”

Celia and Grace turned onto a new path, under the cover of some trees. Far ahead of them, a bandstand was filled with violinists playing a happy tune. One of the violinists faltered, though they quickly recovered.

Celia paused when she realized the violinist had made the error because he had noticed their arrival.

Has something happened?

“Shall we listen to the music?” she suggested, pointing at the chairs before the bandstand.

“Yes, let’s.” Grace hurried to a seat. “Do you wish for a child of your own? Motherhood is like nothing else you know.” She smiled widely, her happiness palpable.

“I’m sure it suits some people very well.” Celia laughed as she took her seat beside Grace.

For a second, she thought a lady in a chair nearby stood up and moved chairs, increasing the distance between them, but perhaps she was being a bit dramatic. She ignored it.

“It’s not the life I want. Running around and wiping runny noses? I think I’ll leave that for the rest of you.”

“Is that what you truly feel?”

“Of course.” Celia fixed her gaze on the violinists in the bandstand, hoping this conversation would end soon.

“Then why won’t you look at me as you say it?”

Celia sighed and shifted her focus to Grace, forcing a smile. “I’m quite content not being a mother, Grace.”

“Very well. I just wanted to check on you.”

“You’re sweet for worrying, but there’s no need to concern yourself with me, truly.”

As Celia looked back at the violinists, she had that flash in her mind, the image that had only appeared once before.

It was of a boy with her red hair and the grayest of eyes. Such eyes she had only seen on one man before, the Duke of Hardbridge. She cleared her throat and looked away, realizing that all the people in the other seats weren’t watching the musical performance, but were instead staring at her.

“Grace,” she whispered, “you may be right about them looking at us.”

“Oh my.” Grace sat straight and looked around the green. “They’re hardly making any effort to hide where they’re looking, are they?”

“They’re quite unashamed,” Celia acknowledged with a nod. “Well, let’s find out what’s going on.”

Nearby, she could see a group of young women whom she knew in passing.

Standing up from her seat, she marched straight toward the women. Grace hurried after her, tripping a little, though she managed to catch herself and hurry forward again.

“What are you doing?” Grace tugged on the back of her sleeve in panic.

“Confronting them. I do not believe in taking such things without putting up a fight. What else could be causing these stares other than gossip?”

“But do we have to cause a scene in Hyde Park? Celia!”

Celia heard Grace panicking behind her, but Grace gave up as Celia halted in front of the women. Some of them had the decency to turn away, others just stared back at her. One poor lady blushed the color of a tomato and refused to look Celia in the eye.

“Well, what a beautiful day we are having. Don’t you agree, Lady Annabella and Lady Teresa?” she confidently addressed the two ladies she knew the most from the group.

Lady Annabella turned her eyes to the ground as Lady Teresa stared back, lifting her chin. “No answer? Perhaps you’d prefer to tell us why you are all staring at us instead?”

Grace poked Celia in the back and cleared her throat.

“What is it?” Celia looked at her, then at the people she was nodding toward. Just like Grace, she was beginning to realize exactly who they were all looking at. “All right, why are you looking at me?”

“Humph!” Lady Teresa lifted her chin higher. “You do not know? Can you truly pretend to be ignorant of the news that has broken this morning?”

“What news?”

Celia looked between them all, but still, no lady was forthcoming. They just gawped at her, and one or two of the ladies actually inched away, as if they thought to be caught accidentally by the hem of her dress might stain their clothes.

“Come on then. What is it you think I have done?”

“Ahem.”

“Not now, Grace.” Celia tried to ignore Grace as she cleared her throat and repeatedly poked her in the back.

“Yes, you must pay attention now.”

“Ow!”

This time, Grace poked her so hard that Celia could not possibly ignore it. She turned, rubbing a sore spot on her back as she looked at Grace with questioning eyes.

“Look.” Grace thrust a finger across the park.

Two ladies had just entered the parkland, and they were both moving forward with great purpose. The elder lady was trying to hold the younger lady back a little, though the younger lady could not possibly be stopped. She was marching forward, her blonde hair falling out of its updo as she waved a strip of paper madly in her hands.

“No, Mama, I must speak to her. I must,” Lady Alicia declared. She shrugged off her mother’s hand as she halted in front of Celia. “Why did you do it? Why?”

Her eyes were glistening with unshed tears as she spoke so loudly that it wasn’t just the group of ladies listening to them.

Many across the green halted to listen, and even the violinists paused their music so that Lady Alicia’s voice carried further.

“Do what?” Celia asked with impatience. “What on earth is going on?”

“Do not feign ignorance. Do you think it makes you look innocent?” Lady Alicia demanded, her breath hitching.

“She’s far from an innocent woman, is she?” Lady Teresa whispered to her friends.

Celia glowered at her, but it did nothing to wipe the amused smirk off her face.

“What is it you think I have done, Lady Alicia?” Celia tried to stay calm as she turned back to face the woman who now had tears streaming down her cheeks.

“This.” Lady Alicia thrust the strip of paper forward, enabling Celia to see at once that it was a scandal sheet. “Why would you match me with a man only to steal him from me?”