In the Dark with the Duke by Christi Caldwell Page 0,50

so the scars there stood out. “My partners have taken exception with your being here.”

She waited for him to say something more than that.

Yet still found herself waiting several moments later as it became abundantly clear he intended to say nothing else about the pair, and it spoke to Hugh Savage’s loyalty.

“Your partners won’t allow you to use the arena as you see fit?” Annoyance swirled. “Who are they that they’d expect you to answer to them?”

A muscle rippled along his jaw. “You don’t know anything about it, and it’s not your business either way.”

That crisp deliverance only further roused curiosity and frustration at the peculiar relationship Hugh had with his partners.

“You worry so much about what they say?” she asked.

“Those men saved me,” he snapped, and then the color leached from his features, draining his skin to the pale white of his scars. He immediately went tight-lipped, and she knew no matter whether or how much she pressed, he’d reveal nothing more than that. And she’d not ask or force him to.

Even as I yearn to know what monsters are his . . .

It was a reminder that they were more alike than he would ever know, or believe.

“Just because someone saves you doesn’t mean you owe them a blind allegiance, Hugh,” she said gently, and rested a hand at his sleeve. The muscles bunched under her touch, but he didn’t pull away, and she took heart in that. “Let us . . . for now focus on finding a place to complete my lessons, and when we’re done, you can go back to pleasing your partners.”

She almost felt guilty about that challenge. Almost. But desperate times and all that called for even underhanded tactics.

Almost.

“I’m a minority shareowner of this place.”

“So . . . you believe if you went against their wishes and continued my lessons here, they’d . . . turn you out?” What a lonely existence his was, and proud as he was, he’d likely end the discussion if he caught a hint of the sadness that took root. He’d see it only as pity and would never welcome such a sentiment. As such, she kept her features in a mask to match his own.

“I know I’m not in a position to anger my partners or act in my own interests,” he said in a tone that marked an end to that discussion. “If you expect to receive your lessons, it isn’t going to happen here.”

Did he think to be done with her because of his surly partners? That she’d balk at the possibility of finding another place where they could meet?

Lila began to pace. Fact: his surly co-proprietors had cut short her lessons here. Fact: she and Hugh were now presented with the impossible task of finding a place to train. A place where they could work without being noticed.

Her pacing grew frantic. It certainly couldn’t be Sylvia’s. Even if there weren’t the matter of a household of underfoot servants, Lila couldn’t very well train inside her sister’s home. It was one thing for Lila to learn how to fight. It was an altogether different one to bring that into her sister’s household.

She stopped so abruptly her skirts snapped wildly about her. A smile spread on her cheeks. “Very well . . .” Lila left that there to dangle.

“What?” he asked warily.

“You said we must meet somewhere else, and I’ve a place.”

A short while later, after a hackney ride on to her brother’s household, closed up during Clara’s confinement, and looked after by the remaining servants, Lila disembarked.

Hugh lingered in the carriage before joining her on the pavement. “What is this?” he asked from the corner of his mouth as she paid the driver.

“We needed a place to train, and I know of a vacant residence.” Drawing her cloak closer, Lila peered about the still-empty streets that she’d grown up on. At this early hour, the fashionable sets always slept on. She’d once kept those same hours.

Not waiting to see whether he followed, she started on down Adam’s Row. Hugh instantly fell into step alongside her. Together, they wound their way along the alleys intersecting with some of London’s wealthiest townhouses. She’d learned—and benefited from—the fact that members of the ton wouldn’t ever dare be found in those rodent-infested pathways traversed by servants and chimney sweeps.

Hugh, a man more than a foot taller than her, moved with grace, melding with the shadows as one born to them.

They reached the former servants’ entrance, and Lila pressed the