Mara’s thoughts raced.
It could be that easy.
A reed-thin bespectacled man materialized at her side. “Temple requests that you meet him in his rooms. I am to take you there.”
Excellent. “I have every intention of meeting the duke.”
She intended to set him down. To prove him wrong. To prove herself stronger and smarter and more powerful than he thought her. To make him regret his words. To make him rescind them.
His kisses had distracted her too well. His strange, unexpected kindness had upended her keen awareness of this war they waged. But then he’d called her a whore. And she was reminded of his purpose. Of hers.
He wanted retribution; she wanted the orphanage safe.
And she would get what she wanted.
Tonight.
Her commitment redoubled, she and her guide emerged from the quiet passageway into a crush of bodies beyond, and Mara was grateful for her mask, the way it focused her view—men moving in and out of frame—the wheres and whyfors of their journey made irrelevant by her limited view.
The mask turned the entire evening into a performance of some kind—the men moving across a stage just for her, dressing for a larger, more important scene. For the main player.
Temple.
She let the man guide her back to Temple’s rooms, where he deposited her in the dimly lit space and closed the door behind her, throwing the lock without hesitation.
But Mara was already moving across the room, already heading for the steel door she’d watched from the other side of the ring. Knowing where it led.
She yanked it open, her plan clear in her mind—as clear as the plan twelve years earlier that had set her on this course. That had led her to here. To this moment. To this man.
She ignored the men on either side of the aisle that marked the clear path to the ring, grateful for her mask in those fifty short feet even as her gaze tracked no one but the enormous man still in the ring, his back to her as he reached for grasping, congratulatory hands.
The poor thing had no knowledge of what was to come.
She was so focused on Temple, she did not see the Marquess of Bourne before he stepped into her path, catching her by the arms. “I don’t think so.”
She met his eyes. “I won’t be stopped.”
“I don’t think you’d like to test me.”
She laughed at the words. “Tell me, Lord Bourne,” she said, considering her options. “Do you really think that you have any place in this? My entire life has led to this moment.”
“I will not let you ruin his retribution,” he said. “If you ask me, you deserve every ounce of it, for the devastation you’ve wrought.”
Perhaps it was the implication that he understood the long thread of past that stretched between Mara and Temple. Or perhaps it was the ridiculous entitlement in the words, as though the Marquess of Bourne could stop the globe from spinning on its axis if he wished. Or perhaps it was the smug look on his face.
She would never know.
But Mara did not hesitate, using all the strength and skill and lessons she’d learned from twelve years living on her own with no one to care for her, and from the man beyond, who’d refreshed them.
Bourne didn’t see the punch coming.
The smug aristocrat reeled back, a sound of shock and surprise coming on a flood of red from his nose, but Mara did not have time to marvel at her accomplishments.
She was ringside and through the ropes in seconds, and the moment she stood there, in the uneven sawdust, the room began to quiet. The men clamoring to claim their bets and call for a second bout turned to face her, like layers of onion peeling off for stew.
It took him a moment to hear the silence. To realize it was directed at him. At the ring.
A thread of uncertainty began at the back of her neck, starting its slow, curling journey down her spine. She willed it away.
This was her choice.
This was her next step.
She met his black eyes even as he started toward her, and she saw the surprise there. The irritation. The frustration. And something more. Something she could not identify before it was locked away in that unforgiving gaze.
She took a deep breath and spoke, letting her voice run loud and clear in the enormous room. “I, too, have a debt with The Fallen Angel, Duke.”
One black brow rose, but he did not speak.
“So tell me. Will you accept my challenge?”
Chapter 11
If he’d been offered ten thousand pounds to guess who would step into his ring next, he would not have imagined it would be she.
But when the room quieted and he turned from a collection of men on the other side of the ropes to see what had distracted them, he knew it would be she. Even as he was sure it couldn’t possibly be.
There she was, standing tall and proud and strong at the center of the ring, Drake’s blood splattered at her feet, as though she were in a tea shop. Or a haberdashery. As though it was perfectly ordinary for a masked woman to enter a boxing ring, in the middle of a men’s club.
She was barking mad.
And then she spoke, issuing her challenge in her calm, clear way, as though she were perfectly within her rights to do so. As though the entire club wouldn’t explode with the scandal.
Which it did, in a cacophony of harrumphs and guffaws and affronted grunts that quickly devolved into a chattering masculine din. Under cover of noise, Temple collected himself and approached her, his opponent in every way, and yet not his opponent at all.
He raised a brow.
She did not move, and he wished the mask gone so he could read her expression.
It could be gone. Instantly, if he willed it.
He could call her bluff, unmask her in front of the lion’s share of the most powerful men in London, and resume the life that had been frozen in time for twelve years.
And the one that had been frozen in time for less than a week.
But then he would not see how far she would go.
He tilted his head and spoke so only she could hear. “A bold move.”
She matched his movement, her lips curving gently. Teasing him. Tempting him. “Whores must be bold, I’m told.”
And with that, he understood. She was furious.
As well she should be. He’d called her a whore. Guilt threaded through him, somehow discernable from frustration and fascination.
She did not let him find the right reply. Which was best, as he wasn’t sure he could. Instead, she added, “As should an opening gambit, don’t you think?”
Guilt was chased away by the words. By the challenge in them. By the excitement that thrummed through him every time they faced each other. This was more powerful than any bout he’d ever had. “You think I will allow you to win?”
The curve became a smile. “I think you haven’t a choice.”
“You’ve miscalculated.”
“How so?”
He had her. “My ring, my rules.” He raised a hand to the room, and the collection of men—two hundred, perhaps more—went quiet. Her eyes went wide behind the mask at the way he controlled the space and its inhabitants.
“Gentlemen!” he called to the room at large. “It seems tonight’s entertainment is not complete.” He stepped closer to her, and the soft scent of lemons curled around him—clean where this place was filthy. Light where it was dark. She did not belong here. And somehow, she did.
Perhaps it was simply that he did not wish her to leave, even as he knew she should.
She was close enough to touch, and he pulled her close to him, sliding one leg between hers, loving the way her silk skirts clung to his trousers. Loving the feel of her in his arm, firm and right. Hating it, too, the way she seemed to consume his thoughts when she was near him. The way she distracted him from his goal.