To Seduce a Scoundrel (23 page)

“Do you want any more whisky?” she asked as she took the empty glass from his fingers.

“No.”

Her gaze fell to his hand, the knuckles were red and scraped, the flesh stained with blood. Suddenly she knew why he’d pulled his hand away in the coach. She’d hurt him. But no more than he’d hurt himself. “You like to fight. Tell me why.”

He rested his head back against the pillow and closed his eyes. “It’s complicated.”

“You stopped engaging in prizefights for a reason and then did so again tonight. Was it just to save me, or do you plan to fight again?”

He kept his eyes closed. “I was to find Jagger a permanent fighter.”

“And did you?”

His eyes opened—the uninjured one anyway—and he regarded her with a pupil as dark as midnight. “Yes.”

“So you’re done fighting?”

“In prizefights. I will always fight in my club.”

She still couldn’t fathom why men would do this to each other willingly. “Is it like this?” Her gaze flicked to his injured hands before resettling on his battered face.

“No. We’re friends. We spar, but we don’t beat each other mercilessly.”

Friends who fought for fun? “Why?”

“It’s different for everyone.”

He was doing his level best to discourage her, but she wasn’t having it. “I want to know what it is for you.”

He was silent several moments. The candlelight cast shadows across his face, drawing her to the intricacies of his wounds, the marred beauty of his features. “It’s a release. A comfort. It’s home.”

There was no mistaking the wistfulness in his tone. She’d never heard him speak like that. The door to the outside chamber creaked, followed by footsteps and the appearance of the woman from downstairs.

“Come in,” Ambrose called.

She entered with a tray and set it on the bed. She removed a stack of towels and placed them next to the tray, then put the bowl of steaming water and a jar of tonic on the bedside table.

Philippa picked up the jar and glanced at the woman. “What is this?”

“Apply that to his wounds. It will help him heal.”

Ambrose wrinkled his nose then grimaced. “Hopkins coated me with that noxious brew earlier.”

The woman sniffed. “Good, then you’re about due for another dose.” She looked at Philippa. “Don’t take any rubbish from him.” After a nod from Philippa, she took her leave.

Philippa dipped a cloth into the water and resumed her seat. “May I?” she asked and gently lifted his hand.

His good eye regarded her steadily. “Yes.”

She began to wipe away the stains of blood on his fingers and on the back of his hand. He winced a bit as she moved the cloth over his abraded knuckles.

She glanced up at his face before returning her attention to his hand. “Is Saxton a member of your club?”

“Yes.”

“That explains a few things.”

“It does?” Ambrose arched a brow, and she smiled.

“I noticed he sported a few bruises last fall. It was odd.” She bent her attention back to her work, finishing up his first hand and moving on to the next one.

She felt alarmingly at ease, alone with him in his bedchamber, when she ought to have been scandalized. As she cleaned a nasty scrape, he drew in a sharp breath. Pausing, she looked up at his face. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” he ground out through clenched teeth.

“Ambrose,” she said softly, wanting to take all of his pain away.

He exhaled slowly and seemed to relax a bit. He stared at her intently, intimately. Her body tingled with awareness. She returned to her ministrations, careful to dab gently at his wounds.

Time for another question. “Why is my reputation so important to you? That you’d fight to protect it?”

He shrugged, but grimaced for the effort. “Jagger would’ve found a way to get me to fight.”

She peered askance at him. “So my reputation means nothing to you? I don’t believe that. You protected it before you even met Jagger.”

He wrapped the fingers of the hand she was tending around hers. “You don’t deserve to be ruined.”

His touch was warm, wonderful. She shivered beneath the dark intensity of his stare. “But the girl in Cornwall did?”

He looked away and removed his fingers from atop her hand.

With slightly shaking fingers, she resumed her work. She finished with his other hand then studied his face. “Is anything broken?”

“I don’t think so. A surgeon looked me over after the fight. Before you arrived.”

“Was this a reputable surgeon?”

“I’m fine. Aside from the way I look.” His mouth quirked up, and despite his injuries, her heart still flipped over.

She fetched a clean towel from the foot of the bed and dipped it into the water before retaking her seat. Slowly, carefully, she cleaned his facial wounds again. Quiet settled over them as she worked, binding them in a silent, intimate cocoon. Every part of her was hyper aware of every part of him. Did he feel the same?

When she was finished, she got a fresh towel and the tonic. First, she soaked a corner of the cloth and held it over his swollen eye. “Does it hurt?”

His one good eye met hers. “Yes.”

“I’ll be gentle.”

“I know.” The dark timbre of his voice heated her blood.

He was right—the tonic smelled awful. Like day-old cabbage the head groom liked to feed the horses at Wokeham Abbey. She dabbed at the swollen flesh and summoned the courage to ask, “That scar on your shoulder, what’s it from?” She held her breath, wondering if it was from the duel he’d purportedly fought with his brother. The one in which Ambrose had killed him.

He scowled. “It’s an old wound. Leave it. Please.”

She didn’t want to let it go, not now. This was as close as they’d ever been, might ever be. And she wanted to know. “There must be more to it than that. No, there must be more to
you
than everything I’ve been told. I simply can’t reconcile your reputation with the man I know. I can’t believe you killed your brother.”

His gaze sharpened. “Can’t believe it or won’t? I’ve told you innumerable times I am not your hero.”

Her emotions tumbled over into anger. “Why won’t you defend yourself?”

His eye flashed. “Because the things I’ve done are indefensible. Including ruining you.”

She held her hand poised next to his face. “I’m not ruined.”

“Not yet.”

Oh, he was maddening. “Saxton’s plan is sound. I’ll return to Benfield shortly, and no one will know I was gone.”

He turned his head from her. “You have far more faith than I do.”

She dabbed at his eye. “I suspect you lost yours somewhere around the time your brother died.” He stared stoically ahead, and she knew he would say nothing more. What did it matter? They had no future together. This—right now—was all they may ever share. She didn’t need to know his secrets, but how she wanted to.

She finished with his eye and then doused another corner of the cloth. With great care, she tended to his other wounds, finishing with his knuckles.

“You should go now. You’re right—Saxton’s plan is good. You’ll be fine.”

She folded the towel and set it on the table. “Do you really think so?”

He turned his head and the intensity of his gaze startled her. “I do. You’ve a wonderful life before you. Our acquaintance is finally at an end. I’ve satisfied my bargain with Jagger. You’re safe. Free.”

She gently laid her hand atop his. “Thank you.”

And then because it was the right thing to do, the thing she’d been raised to do, Philippa stood to go. She plucked the soiled towels from the table to take them downstairs. “Good night, Sevrin. Take care of yourself.”

She turned to leave, knowing she’d never be alone with him again, never share this closeness. Her throat constricted, and her legs felt wooden. As she made her way to the door she heard him murmur, “I liked it better when you called me Ambrose.”

Chapter Fourteen

THE following day, Ambrose managed to get himself bathed and dressed, despite the lingering pain of his wounds. He hurt in places he hadn’t injured, given the effort he’d exerted. Though he fought regularly, he rarely fought that long and never that hard.

He’d just donned his second boot when there was a knock on his door. Slowly, agonizingly, he made his way to the outer chamber and answered the summons, splaying his hand against the jamb to support his weight. Upon seeing his caller, he cursed his decision to leave his bed.

Jagger swept his hat from his head. “You’re looking better than when I saw you last.”

Ambrose gripped the jamb as if he’d pull it from the wall. “What the hell do you want?”

“Better, but you still look like shit.” Jagger raised his brows. “May I come in?”

Ambrose threw the door wide and stepped to the side.

Jagger strolled inside, lightly swinging an ivory-handled walking stick. “You live here?” he asked, perusing the meager furnishings. “I live better than this.”

Ambrose strode to the middle of the room where Jagger stood judging. He turned to say something else, but Ambrose silenced him with a fist to his mouth.

“Christ, Sevrin.” Jagger lifted his fingers to his mouth and wiped his lips.

Ambrose shook out his hand.
God, that hurt
. But it was worth the pain. “That’s for Philippa.”

Jagger stroked his jaw. “I’m surprised Nolan lasted as long as he did if you hit him that hard.”

“Oh, I could hit you much harder.” And one day he just might.

“Then it’s just as well you’ve found a prizefighter and our association is nearly at an end. Who is he, and when can I meet him?”

“Ackley. Perhaps you’ve seen him fight.”

Jagger thought a moment and shook his head. “Doesn’t sound familiar. But he’s good?”

“Quite, but more importantly his potential is excellent.”

“Brilliant. Who’s to train him?”

“Me.”

Jagger’s obsidian eyes flashed with surprise. “You’re willingly going to continue our affiliation?”

“Not because I’m particularly fond of you—I still haven’t decided if I’m going to beat you senseless yet. That depends on what happens with Philippa.”

“Ah, such tender feelings you bear this girl. One might wonder why you don’t marry her.”

God, how this bastard’s needling rankled, especially because his taunts hit far too close to the mark. He cared far too much for Philippa. “That’s precisely the kind of blathering that will see you thrashed. Do it again, and I’ll show no mercy.”

Jagger held up his hands in supplication—one of them still clutching his hat and walking stick.

Ambrose continued, “I’m training Ackley to be a champion, but not due to any desire to help you. My involvement is solely about Ackley’s potential and my personal interest in his success.” Ambrose had drafted the lad into this, and he wouldn’t abandon him to the likes of Jagger.

Jagger’s eyes narrowed. “What do you want?”

“Calm yourself. I don’t want a share—I’m not foolish enough to think you’d part with that. I merely want control of his training, and you’ll leave me and my associates—including Philippa—
entirely
alone.”

Jagger’s forehead relaxed, and he sprouted a conceited smile. “Done. Since you’re in charge of his training, I’d like for him to fight in an upcoming bout.”

Ambrose had been thinking of whom to pit his protégé against. He needed to acquire more experience before he faced Belcher. “Who, when, where?”

“Isling, May 12, Truro.”

Bloody, bloody hell. Truro
. Isling would be an excellent opponent to prepare for Belcher. They had a similar fighting style. Ackley would learn much from the event. But go to Truro? Ambrose had avoided Cornwall and his responsibilities there for five years. He’d be as welcome at his estate, Beckwith, about as much as he wanted to return there, which was to say not at all.

He felt ready to break into a thousand pieces. He supposed he’d known he’d have to return some time, and why not now? There would never be a “right” time to face his mistakes, to seek forgiveness from those he’d left behind. Perhaps he never could. But didn’t he owe it to Nigel to try? Anguish filled what was left of his soul. “We’ll go.”

“Good. I’ll join you there a few days before the fight. Now, when am I to meet this Ackley?”

They’d skipped their training last night. Ackley had come to watch the prizefight, and they were scheduled to discuss it—reviewing technique and strategy—that evening. “He’s coming here tonight if you’d care to join us.”

“I would. Thank you.” He regarded Ambrose warily. “Am I always going to feel as if you’re just a breath away from pummeling me into oblivion?”

“Probably.”

“And will you?”

Ambrose smiled slowly, menacingly. “Probably.”

“Ah, excellent. Just so I know. Perhaps you should train me as well.”

Ambrose’s smile faded, and he glared at the criminal.

Jagger arched a dark brow. “Too much? Right. See you tonight, then.” He turned and left.

Ambrose sank into one of the stuffed chairs situated by the cold fireplace. His ribs ached. His face and head pounded. His knuckles were on fire. But all of it paled next to the pain he’d felt when Philippa had interrogated him last night.