These weren’t simply women. They were aristocrats.
And it was only once she’d recovered from that discovery that she noticed what she should have noticed the moment she’d been shepherded into the room, like a lamb to slaughter.
One entire length of the long, narrow, extraordinarily dark room was a window—a great shaded window that looked out on a roomful of men, all dressed for evening, clustered in a horseshoe of a crowd, at once not moving and in constant motion—shouting and laughing and enjoying themselves, vibrating with energy like leaves on a thriving oak in the heat of summer. The throngs of men surrounded a great empty space, blocked by rope and covered in sawdust, of which the women were afforded a perfect, unobstructed view.
The ring.
Mara moved closer to the glass, unable to stop herself from reaching out to touch it, amazed by the way the room glowed.
Thankfully, it occurred to her just in time that the men would see her if she came too close to the window. She stopped, pulling her hand back, even as she could not understand why not one of the men beyond seemed at all interested in the window or the ladies inside the small, dark room.
Were they so used to women watching the fights that they weren’t scandalized by the women’s presence? That they didn’t yearn to control them? To keep them at bay? What kind of place was this?
What kind of perfect, wondrous place?
“They won’t see you,” said a lady nearby, drawing Mara’s attention to her serious blue gaze, large and unsettling behind thick spectacles. “It’s not a window. It’s a mirror.”
“A mirror.” There was nothing mirrorlike about this window.
Mara’s confusion must have shown, as the woman continued, “We can see them . . . but they only see themselves.”
As if on cue, a gentleman crossed in front of the ring, close enough to the window to touch, before pausing for a moment and turning to face Mara. She leaned forward as he did the same on the other side, lifting his chin to fluff his cravat.
She waved a hand in front of his long, pale face.
He bared his teeth.
She dropped her hand.
He lifted one gloved finger, scrubbing it back and forth over the crooked, tea-and-tobacco-stained grimace before turning and walking away.
A collection of women nearby laughed uproariously. “Well. No doubt Lord Houndswell would be terribly embarrassed to know we have all witnessed the remains of his dinner.” The woman smiled at Mara. “Do you believe it now?”
Mara grinned. “This must provide you hours of entertainment.”
“When there isn’t a fight to do the job,” another woman replied. “Look! Drake’s entered the ring.”
The chatter inside the room dimmed as the women turned their attention to the young man climbing through the ropes into the sawdust-covered space where two others waited—the Marquess of Bourne and another pure aristocrat, pale and unnerved.
The crowd at the far end of the ring parted to reveal a large steel door, and the air in the room seemed to change, to grow thick with anticipation.
“Any minute now,” a feminine sigh came from several yards away, and the entire room—on both sides of the window—seemed to still, waiting.
They were waiting for Temple.
And Mara found that she, too, was waiting.
Even though she hated him.
And then he was there, filling the doorway as though it were cut to his size, broad and tall and big as a house, bare from the waist up, wearing only those scandalous tattoos and buckskin breeches fitted to his massive thighs, and the long linen strips she’d wrapped along the hills and valleys of his knuckles and around the muscles of his thumb and wrist, as she tried not to notice his hands. Tried not to remember how they felt on her skin. Tried to remember that he was a weapon.
And when he’d kissed her, she’d remembered the truth of all of it. He was a weapon, spreading desire through her body, like bullets. Wounding her with want.
“He’s the biggest, most beautiful brute of a man,” another woman sighed, and Mara went still, forcing herself not to look. Not to care that there was admiration and something more in the tone—something like experience.
“Too bad he’s never shown interest in you, Harriet,” another said, calling forth a symphony of laughter from the rest.
Forcing herself not to care that the experience in the lady’s words was a lie.
And then he was moving toward them, and it might have been her mind playing tricks, but it seemed like he was looking right at her, as though the magic window were a mirror for everyone in the room but him.
As though he knew himself well enough to never have to see his reflection ever again.
He was through the ropes then, and Bourne—now dwarfed by Temple—moved to Mr. Drake, saying words that Mara couldn’t hear. Drake lifted his arms wide and the marquess smoothed his palms down his sides, patting the fabric of his breeches in a clinical, if rather shocking movement.
Mara could not keep quiet. “What are they doing?”
A lady came to her side. “Checking for weapons. The fighters are allowed a second to make sure that the bout is a fair one.”
“Temple would never cheat,” Mara said, the words drawing the attention of the women around her before she could hold them back. Heat flooded her cheeks as she looked from one to the next, finally settling on the woman who had spoken, uncommonly tall and blond, brown eyes glittering near gold in the reflection of the brightly lit ring.
“No,” the lady said. “He wouldn’t.”
There. There was the experience that Mara had misheard earlier. This woman knew him.
She was beautiful enough for it.
They were no doubt beautiful together, matched only in height—with everything else perfectly contrasted to each other. She imagined this woman’s long arms wrapped around his neck, her long fingers threaded through his dark hair. His massive hands at her waist. Possessing her. Loving her.
And she hated him all over again, but now for another, more confusing reason.
A long whistle sounded from the other end of the room, “What I wouldn’t give to be Drake’s second right now!”
Mara’s attention returned to the ring, where the well-dressed aristocrat approached Temple, awkwardly indicating that he, too, should raise his arms. He did, the muscles of his chest and abdomen rippling with the movement, and Mara’s mouth went dry at the image he made, waiting for the man to check his person for weapons, smirk on his lips, as though he had the devil himself on his side, and therefore had no need of trickery.
She imagined his arms high above his head, caught in the scandalous strap that hung from his ceiling, where she’d held herself still, the cool leather biting into her palms, a contrast with his heat. With his touch. With his kiss.
But she hated him.
“Go on, man! Touch him!”
“Take him in hand!”
“Make sure to check all the nooks and crannies!”
The ladies were competing for bawdiest encouragement now, laughing and crying out as the aristocrat in the ring checked the Duke of Lamont with a speed born of fear or embarrassment or both.
“Not so quickly!”
“Or so soft!”
“I’d bet my fortune that Temple likes a firm hand!”
“Don’t you mean your husband’s fortune?” came the retort, and the redhead at the window turned to the room, a wide grin on her pretty face.
“What the earl doesn’t know shan’t hurt him. Look at the size of him!”
“Ten quid says he’s that big all over.”
“No one will take that bet, Flora,” someone replied, laughter seeping into the tone. “Not one of us wants you to be wrong.”