Savage remained on the steps, staring back at her with such a piercing intensity that it should have roused a deserved terror.
Anything could happen to her here. Anything.
And certainly at the hands of a man rumored to have killed for fun. An admission Hugh Savage himself had made. So why didn’t he inspire the same fear in Lila that nearly every other person incited?
Why, when he was more than a foot taller, his garments straining under heavy muscles, and his skin scarred and marred with ink, did she feel . . . comfortable? Unwittingly, her gaze went to the slight gape in his shirt, the place where a cravat should be, but where instead only bronzed skin, tufts of hair, and crimson-and-black ink peeked out.
“I’m not a bare-knuckle instructor,” he finally said.
“I’m not looking for an instructor, per se, but rather, a fighter to teach me what he knows.” About strength. About how to not be knocked down, and about how to help people who were. How to take down a man who’d hurt those she loved or those who needed protecting. Or herself.
“That’s an instructor,” he said flatly. “And if I was,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken, “I’m not going to be doling out lessons in the night when my ring is in the middle of a fight, Flittermouse.”
Flittermouse.
There it was again.
And Lila decided that was it . . . That peculiar term of endearment was what made him . . . human . . . and not a monster, and what made her able to face him here alone. “I see.” She fiddled with her skirts. “I’m sorry for having taken you away from your boxing match.”
“Fight. It’s a fight.”
Did he think that clarification would unleash panic in her heart? It was a reminder of how little he or the whole world knew of her, or the hell that all people, regardless of station, were capable of enduring. “You have my assurance that I’ll not interfere with the regular course of your business affairs. Until another time.”
“There isn’t going to be another time.”
He might think that was the case. She gathered up her purse and started from the alley. Mr. Hugh Savage had been clear he didn’t want company in the night when he was in the middle of his work.
That was fine.
She’d cede that, but she had every intention of securing his assistance.
Some thirty minutes later, Lila found her way back to her sister’s home, and not even bothering with a sleep that would not come, she made her way to Sylvia’s library.
Freeing the clasp of her cloak, she released the garment and set it down along the back of a leather button sofa. The floorboards groaned and creaked as she walked, assessing the row of floor-to-ceiling shelving. She silently mouthed the name of each title as she went through the still-unfamiliar inventory.
“Flittermouse. Flittermouse,” she repeated quietly. Why had he called her by that name?
She skimmed row after row, and stopped.
A General System of Nature by Carl Linnaeus.
Lila plucked the book off the shelf and read the title page. Tucking the tome under her elbow, she resumed her search.
Mr. Sav—nay, she’d not think of him by that surname. Hugh. Hugh was a good deal less intimidating than having a name such as Savage. Either way, the man should have been a good deal more specific as to when his fight business took place. Though in fairness, she very well should have asked him at which point he concluded his nightly business. Nay, instead, she’d proven as tongue-tied and meek as she’d been for so long, struggling to get out a proper question past the fear that too often paralyzed her.
“Weak ninny,” she mumbled under her breath. Lila grabbed another book by Linnaeus, Animalia Paradoxa.
Setting it aside, she continued on in her search. Lila filled her arms and took up a place on the sofa beside the now cold hearth. Stretching out her legs, she lay down and made quick work of the written words. That ability to read swiftly and recall the details upon the pages was a skill that had come from all the books she’d read over the years. As such, she dropped completed book after completed book back atop the sloppy pedestal table, and became fully engrossed by the next.
Bat, called also by us lapwing, and—
Lila abruptly sat up.
Flittermouse. The flittermouse is a four-footed beast of the ravenous kind. It much resembles a mouse . . .
During the winter, bats cover