In the Dark with the Duke by Christi Caldwell Page 0,15
all mixed up in his mind with the present, and his breath came fast like this woman’s before him, he’d used cheroots to pace his breathing.
Joining the mysterious stranger, he came forward with the cheroot out. “Here.”
The young woman hesitated and then deliberately pushed the hood of her cloak back.
Her lashes fluttered, as if it were a struggle to open those lids, and then she did.
Hugh froze as he took in the details which her hood had previously concealed. Her eyes. It was her eyes he noted first. They were a spellbinding blend of gold and copper and peach, a brown that didn’t know which to settle on and so had melded every variation in between.
“What am I to do with that?”
Pulled back from that fanciful musing, he took a final draw before offering it over once more. “You smoke it.”
He expected her—a woman more refined than the sort he kept company with—to turn her nose up in distaste, but then . . . she was here, wasn’t she? As such, unsurprisingly, the young woman collected the cheroot and brought it to her mouth. Hesitating, she looked up at him.
“Inhale.” He demonstrated the motion.
She took a pull, and then color blazed to life on her cheeks as she descended into a paroxysm of coughing. As she choked, he surveyed the area for others. Only shadows graced the back of his establishment. She’d come here . . . alone. For what purpose? To steal a look at the barbaric fights inside? She’d certainly not be the first. Those of her lofty station had a perverse interest in how the other half lived. Hugh and his ilk were oddities for their viewing pleasure.
The moment she’d managed to get the rise and fall of her chest settled into an even cadence, she took another small inhale. This time, she coughed only lightly.
“Thank you,” she said softly, as if she were thanking a fine lord for a cup of tea and not one of East London’s most ruthless street fighters for a scrap of smoke. She made no move to return his cheroot. Instead, she puffed away on it like she’d been doing it the whole of her life.
He passed an assessing gaze over her. He couldn’t make out her form, which was swallowed by the folds of her heavy-looking brown cloak. But he’d place her somewhere near twenty-five. Not a child. A woman grown.
From within the arena, cheers erupted as another winner for the night was crowned.
There’d be no break between matches. They three—he, Bragger, and Maynard—made their coin by the number of fights, and any rest in action meant a decline in profits.
When he looked back at the odd nighttime visitor, he found her with her eyes clenched shut once more, puffing away at his cheroot. “What brings you here?” When she clearly had no wish to be.
It was a sentiment he connected with all too well. In fact, mayhap that was why he remained chatting with her now.
His question managed to bring her eyes open once more.
She stared not at Hugh but rather the flaming tip of the cheroot. “I’m looking for someone.”
Ah. With that, the quiet stranger directed her attention back to his window.
She craned her head back and forth, skimming her gaze over the crowded arena. “Do you know the people in there?” Her breathing rasped loud in the night.
So it wasn’t simply the cat’s curiosity that had brought her out. She sought one of the patrons. If it wasn’t a morbid fascination with stealing a glimpse of the ruthless world at play behind the panels of Savage’s that brought strangers here, it was the quest to rescue a respectable family member from the den of depravity and evil. “Some,” he allowed. It was an absolute lie. Hugh knew each and every man who stepped within the doors of Savage’s. “Is it a brother?” he hazarded.
There were several beats of silence before the young woman seemed to register that question. “Hmm?” Even so, she made no attempt to answer him. Her cheeks whitewashed, she just continued on with her distracted but determined search.
“Are you looking to bring your brother home?” He paused. “Or is it a husband?” After all, she was of the age that she’d be married by now, to some fancy merchant, perhaps.
“I . . .” This time, she quit her exploration and looked back in Hugh’s direction. That vague blankness of her earlier stare had returned. Her eyes belonged to the haunted. Hugh knew. They were