In the Dark with the Duke by Christi Caldwell Page 0,18
to flee.
And yet she’d done it. She’d not only found Hugh Savage, but she’d spoken with the notorious fighter and put her request to him. Some of it anyway.
And she was still standing. For nine years, she’d hidden from the world and avoided interactions with men of all stations, only to find herself capable of coming to the rookeries and requesting the services of a man known for his lethality.
No, she’d not brought him around to agreeing to work with her. In fact, since her pronouncement, he’d not so much as uttered another word, neither accepting nor denying her request for services. But she hadn’t fainted or fled, and somehow she’d spoken evenly with him, and with that came a triumphant thrill inside.
He turned back. “What did you say to me?”
A lone cloud moved overhead, obscuring the moon and dousing Hugh Savage’s face in shadows, and there was something even more terrifying about engaging him in the dark. For at least with some light between them, she could see the threat before her. She could have it illuminated and wasn’t left with the panic of guessing at his sentiments.
Twisting her fingers in the fabric of her cloak, Lila hovered where he’d all but thrown her moments ago. “I came here to learn about what you do.”
“What I . . . do?”
She tried—and failed—to make anything from that echo of a question. Clearing her throat, she went on. “In . . . there.” Not bringing herself to look at the place behind them, she gestured vaguely with her palm. “And I’d like to ask you to provide me with basic instruction.”
He shook his head.
“On how to fight, that is.” Even gentlemen like her brother-in-law, who’d trained at boxing, could be taken down. But this man? “According to the papers, you’re undefeated.” Learning from one such as him would see her equipped with the skills she needed to care for those she loved, when she had failed not only herself but also the friend she’d dragged along with her to Peterloo.
Did she imagine the upward tilt of his lips? Or was that more of the night’s shadows at play? For when the cloud cover lifted and the earth again bathed him in pale-white light, not so much as a hint of emotion flickered across his face.
“This is certainly a first,” he murmured.
Nay, Lila didn’t expect it was customary for a lady of the peerage to journey to the rookeries and put such requests to the legendary street fighter. Why, before her sister-in-law, Clara, proprietress of the Muses music hall, Lila had never known that a woman could ever be anything other than a wife . . . or an unmarried spinster. “I don’t see why that should be the case,” she said softly. “Too often women find themselves prey—of their husband, of brigands on the street. Why should they not seek you out?”
“Because women generally have sense enough to know not to tangle with the Devil,” he said on a silken whisper.
He was trying to terrify her.
And it is working . . .
Refusing to give in to the warning bells clamoring loudly in her mind, urging her to flee, Lila made herself look at the monster of a man across from her. Truly look at him. Not unlike her, he bore the marks of life. But he’d never been taken down. Not as she had. And he’d also triumphed to become king of this underground empire. “You don’t look like any Devil,” she finally said. “You may as well be any man, Mr. Savage.”
A cold laugh shook his frame. “And that is why you’d be wise to go, Flittermouse. You wouldn’t know danger if it leapt out and took a bite of that pretty face.”
There were two erroneous statements there:
One, he assumed she knew nothing of danger. He was dead wrong on that score.
And two, he’d called her pretty.
Mayhap the dark of night concealed her enough to hide the marks upon her own skin. Or mayhap he hadn’t looked closely enough at her. Scarred upon her face and legs as she was, none would ever dare mistake her for any degree of pretty.
“No, you’re not so very scary, Mr. Savage,” she murmured. For one who had lived on the streets, he sounded a good deal more like the gentlemen she’d once conversed with, once upon a lifetime ago, during her first—and last—London Season.
His eyes thinned, forming narrow, impenetrable slits. “Why do I think you’re trying to convince yourself as much, Flittermouse?”