Page 39 of Colour My World
His father smiled. “Good. You agree with me for once.”
“Did I?”
“What are you implying, boy?”
Darcy rose. “Mother wished me to marry as you did.”
His father’s knuckles whitened around his glass. “Your mother is no longer here.”
“Georgiana is.” He turned towards the door. “I will do as you ask, but I shall never marry my cousin.”
His father lifted his glass once more. “We shall see.”
* * *
Darcy stepped onto the stage, the wooden boards rough beneath his boots. The air was thick with sawdust, sweat, and stale ale. He rolled his shoulders, drew a long breath, and released it.Precision. Endurance. Power.He had learned those well enough with a blade. Now, he would master them with his fists.
Henry Pearce—the Game Chicken to every tavern and club in London—watched him with the lazy disdain of a man already bored with the outcome. Beside him, his gaze impassive, Gentleman Jackson stood with his arms crossed.
“He’s lasted longer than I expected,” Pearce said loudly. He shook the sweat from his hair. “Shall I knock him down or let him dance a bit more?”
“I didn’t bring you to break him.”
Pearce turned to Jackson. “When has I ever done you wrong?”
“Mind your place.”
Darcy set his stance. Pearce raised his guard. The first punch jarred through Darcy’s bones and drove him back two steps. The second landed square against his ribs. Breath fled his lungs. His legs buckled. The floor slammed into him.
He pressed his knuckles into the sawdust-covered boards and choked down bile.Get up. Get up.
Pearce rolled his shoulders, waiting.
Darcy forced himself upright. He wiped blood from his lip and raised his guard once more. Again.
This time, he moved differently. Chin tucked. Vanity set aside. Pearce swung—and Darcy rolled with the punch instead of meeting it square. He took the hit, but he stayed on his feet.
Again. He watched the weight shift, the pull of a shoulder, the tension in an arm. He watched for the tell that told of an attack.
Pain taught him what pride had not. Muscles burned. Skin scraped raw. His ribs ached with every breath. But he endured.
And then he struck first. Pearce grunted as Darcy’s punch landed hard in his ribs.
A heartbeat of silence. Then, the Game Chicken nodded. “There he is.”
Darcy swallowed the taste of copper thick on his tongue. A punch slammed into his temple. Darkness.
When the world righted itself, he lay flat on his back.
“Now he looks like a man of the bottom,” Pearce said.
“A man proves his mettle with his fists,” Jackson replied. “Douse him with a bucket. Who’s next?”
* * *
Darcy sputtered as the coldness of the water shocked him back to consciousness. He raised his fists. Shook his head and realised he lay flat on the ground.
Barty threw a towel over his face and rubbed his hair with vigour. “You may wish to remain horizontal, sir. You’ve taken a blow to the noblest part of your station.”
