Page 49 of Waiting for a Scot Like You
She had never attended a pugilism match, and other than prying apart her scrapping boys when they were young, she had little experience with what fighting looked like, let alone when a man excelled at it. Yet as she watched Duncan turn from passivity to action, she now knew what a born warrior looked like.
He threw a combination of punches and elbows that neatly and quickly incapacitated Coarse Coat. One moment the assailant was on his feet, the next he was sprawled on the floor, blood spattering the front of his shirt. But no sooner had one opponent been felled than another took his place. Duncan appeared calm and focused, his expression both alert and unafraid.
A brute of a man lumbered toward the major, who held him back with a jab to the jaw. Yet Brute flung a massive fist at Duncan’s stomach, making him lurch backward to avoid the hit. His evasive maneuver put Duncan right in the path of a thrown plate. It clipped the side of his face, and a red line of blood dripped down his cheek.
Brute took that as an invitation to try again and moved to shoot a punch toward Duncan’s face.
Beatrice swung a chair at the brute’s back.
Wood splintered, and the chair fell to pieces. She’d never done anything like that in her life, and it was oddly satisfying. But it was less so when there was almost no effect on Brute.
She resisted the impulse to cringe as he turned around, instead holding up her fists in what she hoped was a reasonable facsimile of a fighting pose.
The huge man’s belligerent look disappeared when he stared at her. Who- or whatever he had been expecting, it likely wasn’t a middle-aged woman in the latest Parisian fashion.
“My lady,” Brute said, giving a short bow. “Beg pardon.”
She lowered her hands. Perhaps she could try another tactic. “Please don’t hurt my friend. In fact,” she added, pitching her voice louder and using her most Encouraging Mother tone, “it would be most becoming and gentlemanlike if everyone herestopped fighting. Immediately. Or I will bequitedisappointed.”
To her astonishment, the room quieted. Men dropped their fists and looked at each other with the abashed expressions of boys who had been caught being very naughty. They actually helped one another up off the floor and assisted in sweeping away any dust that had collected on their clothing. A few even shook hands.
“My God,” Duncan said, coming to stand beside her and looking around in amazement, “they’ve stopped.”
“Of course they did.” She sounded far more certain of the outcome than she had been moments earlier. Her limbs felt shaky, but she breathed slowly to calm herself. “No one wants to disappoint me. Oh, your face is bleeding. Come with me, and I’ll see to that cut. No arguments,” she added when he started to protest.
She sat him down on a bench and bustled over to the bar. “Water, please.”
The barkeep rose up from his protective crouch. “Of course, madam.”
The room had begun to return to normal as furniture was righted and someone came through with a broom. Rowe sank down onto a nearby chair, looking slightly dazed but largely unharmed, while Curtis strode toward him.
She returned to Duncan who was, surprisingly, still waiting for her. She set a mug of water on a table and fished out a kerchief from her reticule, which she dipped in the water.
“You’ll ruin it,” he objected as she brought it to his face.
“It’s just a square of cambric. Better to ruin it than mar that lovely face of yours.” She dabbed it gently against the gouge along his cheek. He did not hiss or complain at her ministrations. “Are you in pain?”
“Pain doesn’t hurt.”
She rolled her eyes, but to her amazement, he actually smiled at her, a true smile that made her heart race even faster than experiencing a taproom brawl had.
His gaze held hers, his smile fading, and the damaged taproom ebbed away so that she was aware only of him, just as he seemed to forget about everything else but her.
“I like you this way,” she said softly. “A little roughened.”
“I can be rough,” he answered in a low voice.
She shivered. When he’d been in command last night, making her beg for release, she’d never experienced anything like that. As though she’d been the sole focus of his world and nothing mattered to him but her pleasure. She’d had to obey him in his singular pursuit of her gratification.
Edward had been so apathetic about their lovemaking, treating it like a chore that had to be seen to in order to ensure the continuity of the line. She’d always believed that her desire for sex was somehow abhorrent—hehad certainly made her feel that way—until she began to read the Lady of Dubious Quality’s books and she saw that what she wanted, what she felt, was normal and healthy.
And Duncan, bless him, had given her exactly what she’d been yearning for all this time.
She stared at him, this unexpected man with blood on his face, warrior and lover, and affection softened her. As he looked back at her, his gaze turned tender.
Someone coughed and spat out a tooth, breaking the thrall between her and Duncan.
From the corner of her vision, she spotted Curtis seeing to Rowe. The barrister had Rowe’s hand cradled in his lap and was carefully wrapping Rowe’s abraded knuckles in a strip of clean linen. The tender way Curtis touched Rowe, and the doting expression on Rowe’s face as he watched Curtis nurse him, made Beatrice’s heart clutch.
