practice.” More often than not, men who showed up here with the intention of squaring off had their sights on only one goal: winning a purse.
She tipped her head pensively, sending her long plait flopping about her shoulder.
“What?” he asked.
“It’s just . . .” Lila drifted closer, then stopped so there were several steps between them. Tipping her head back, she peered up. “By your own accounts, the English deride the lessons of those ancient and far-greater civilizations.”
“Far greater?” It was an interesting acknowledgment most Englishmen . . . and Englishwomen . . . would not make. Hugh dropped his hands on his hips. “Tsk. Tsk. The king would consider such talk treason.”
“The king’s not here.”
Nay, in the rookeries, His Majesty, the King of England, may as well have been as fictional as the bogeyman good, loyal English boys and girls went about fearing. Oh, the king owned this pit as surely as he owned the most prosperous colonies the world over, but the people here—Hugh, and every other last miserable soul—were invisible to the sovereign. Just as those who’d gone and fought for his great empire went unseen by him as well. Rage tightened in Hugh’s gut. “You were saying?” he asked through that fury.
“How did you learn such things?” She continued before he could answer, before he could consider an answer. “You recite so easily information about the customs of ancient civilizations. If you’re surrounded by men who deride those ancient ways, then how did you come by such information?”
Hugh didn’t move for a moment. The simple truth was . . . even if he’d wanted, he couldn’t supply her with an answer. Not one he’d understand or could explain. The only memories he had were of being a boy on the streets. The knowledge had . . . simply been there. The same way his refined speech had been. They were those incongruities that when . . . if . . . he allowed himself to think on them, brought questions about who his parents had been. “It’s something . . . I picked up along the way,” he said gruffly, discomfited by thoughts he’d not allowed himself in more years than he could recall.
“And you don’t teach men here?”
“No teaching goes on in this place.” His eyes went to the ring. “Just savagery.”
From the moment he’d found himself taken in, it’d been clear his benefactors had only one intention for this arena.
“But if you think there are other benefits, then surely you’d train your fighters.”
God, she was a dogged creature. “They aren’t my fighters.”
“Didn’t you yourself say you saw the benefits?”
Aye, she asked questions like a damned gossip columnist. “I’m not the one to make those decisions.”
“But you’re an owner, are you not?” she asked slowly, one trying to puzzle through a mystery.
He resisted the urge to shift. “My name’s on the sign,” he countered, hedging. “What do you think that’s for?” Hugh brought his left arm across his chest and stretched the muscles of his forearm.
Understanding blazed to life in her features. “You and your partners didn’t feel it was a good use of resources.”
There’d never been a consideration that they’d instruct fighters. Nay, rather, Bragger and Maynard had instead relied on throwing Hugh into the ring.
Just as they’d do all over again.
Apparently, she didn’t need any input from him. An endearing little frown puckered the space between her eyebrows, that place where her scar ended. “I’d say helping people become better fighters is of tremendous value.”
“But is it going to put more coin in the pockets?” They were rote words Bragger had uttered anytime Hugh had proposed anything other than fighting in the ring. Hugh, who’d spent years trying to find a place in his and Maynard’s world—and who was still searching.
Just as he’d been trying to find his way since he’d gone off to war.
“That’s a rather ruthless way to be,” she said softly, bringing him to the moment.
“Stop with your questioning,” he said tersely. Even though his partners had gone for the morn, Hugh still wouldn’t risk having Lila challenge the other proprietors. The last thing he could afford was either man questioning his loyalty. “Did you come here to learn how to fight or how I run my business?”
The young woman glided over, those almost-floating steps, more graceful than those of even the finest fighter he’d seen dancing around a ring or street corner. “But there are things a person could and should do before being trained to fight?”
He nodded.
She stopped