Page 13 of Wicked Rivals
“Hello, Mr. St. Laurent. Have you come to see the match?”
Jonathan barely spared Linley a glance. “Audrey, what in blazes are you doing here?” His fingers curled around her upper arm.
Audrey struggled in his hold. “Let go of me!”
“Not until you tell me what you’re doing!”
Her eyes narrowed. “I’m practicing disguises.” Her little pink, all-too-kissable lips formed a delicate pout.
“Disguise?” Did she have no sense of the danger she was in? If one of the men around her realized she was a woman, she could be hurt, she could be… He shuddered and shook his head. No. That would not happen because he was taking her out of this place at once.
“If you don’t unhand me this instant—”
“You’ll what?” he challenged. “I’ve half a mind to redden that little bottom of yours so that you cannot sit down for the next week!” His threatening tone attracted more than one glance from the men around him.
Audrey’s warm brown eyes were filling with flames from her temper.
“Everyone is staring. You had better let go of me.”
“She’s right, Mr. St. Laurent,” Linley leaned in to whisper.
Jonathan hated to admit they were correct. Several men were losing interest in Charles, and the other man in the ring. They had instead turned to watch him and Audrey.
“Hellfire and damnation!” he cursed and dropped his hold on her arm.
With a far too dainty huff, Audrey plucked at her little blue waistcoat and checked to make sure the cap on her head was still concealing what he knew was a coiling of silken dark-brown hair. He’d gotten addicted to the way her skin tasted and the honeysuckle sweetness that clung to her tresses. From the moment he’d met her, Audrey had tied him into knots.
Sighing, he forced his attention back to Charles. In the short time he’d been distracted by Audrey’s ruse, it seemed Charles had suffered. One of his eyes was a dark red, and blood trickled down the side of his chin from a split lip.
“What’s the matter with Charles?” Jonathan asked Linley.
The lad shrugged, but his blue eyes were narrowed as he focused on the two men in the ring.
“My lord is fighting fair, but the other fellow is set on fibbing him.”
“Fib?” Jonathan hadn’t had much experience with boxing.
“Fibbing is a beating,” Linley explained.
“Poor Charles,” Audrey murmured. The initial excitement in her eyes from the first part of the fight had faded. The bigger boxer swung a gloved fist and Charles ducked, but he was panting hard. That wouldn’t do at all. Charles was not allowed to lose a match, not if Jonathan could lend some support.
Jonathan rested his palms on the edge of the platform. “Finish him, Charles!”
Charles’s gaze drifted across the crowd as he danced away from his opponent. When he caught sight of Jonathan, he started grinning again. “Wondered when you’d show up!”
Jonathan almost chuckled. “Here we go.”
Charles dodged back, then forward, then to the side, his blows coming swift and hard. The other boxer didn’t see it coming. Charles was finally displaying himself to advantage. The crowd cheered, and the men were shouting wagers on the quickly changing odds.
A masterful uppercut caught Charles’s opponent off guard, and then he stumbled back and fell like a stone. His body hit the platform with a loud smack, and every man with odds on the bruiser winced. Chest heaving, Charles whooped in triumph and peeled off his gloves, tossing them to a man just off the edge of the ring. Then he slipped under the ropes and hopped off the platform.
“Jon,” Charles greeted, his gray eyes sparkling with delight. “Just stalling for time until you showed up.” He reached for a cloth a man passing by held out, and he wiped sweat and blood off his face.
Audrey beamed at him, sidling closer. “Well done, Charles.”
Jonathan tracked the movement, a strange prickling sensation under his skin. He did not like the way Charles was standing there bare-chested and not at all aware that he was flaunting that chest in front of a virginal woman who was barely past her debut season.
“What did you think, lad?” Charles asked Linley.
