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dismay, then turned his glass back to where Willy and the waterboy were
arranging towels and buckets and
The smile faded from the viscount's lips, to be replaced by the most
colorful string of curses heard outside a navy brigantine. Brennan would
have been impressed if he didn't fear for his brother.
"Are you hurt? Did someone toss something at the bays? Should I send
for a doctor, Forry? Do you want to go home? Do you want to change your
bet?"
"Shut up, you rattlepate, you're drawing attention. And if you ever call
me Forry again, I'll use your guts for garters."
Attention? Bren looked around. Everyone else was watching the referee
giving instructions. Brennan didn't know whether to fear for his brother's
sanity or for his own life. The curses were lower now, more mumbled than
spoken, and seemed to be mixed with smoke. Bren could pick out
expressions like "sons of rutting sea serpents" and "flogging around the
fleet."
Life with his parents having taught Bren much about the Mainwaring
tempers, he thought he just might get down and visit with some friends
from town. "A little closer view, don't you know?"
The viscount did not know about his brother's painful climb down from
the high-perch phaeton, nor Bren's worried backward glance as he limped
toward a rowdy pair of bucks in a racing curricle. He didn't pay any
attention to the shouted rules of the match, and he did not notice when
his looking glass slipped through numb fingers to the ground far below. All
he noticed and the image would be etched in his mind's eye forever,
magnified or not was the waterboy. A slight, scruffy lad he was, dressed
in a loose smock and baggy britches tied up with rope. His face was dirty,
as though someone had rubbed his nose in the mud, and a greasy woolen
cap was pulled low over his curls. His bright coppery curls.
He was going to kill her. There was no question in Forrest's mind. He
was going to take her pretty little neck in his two hands and wring it. After
the bout. Then he'd deliver some home-brewed to Willy's glass jaw he
owed him that anyway and he'd shatter whichever of Wally's bones the
Oak left in one piece. After the bout. To act before would not be prudent,
and the viscount was always discreet. To smash his way through the
crowds the way he wanted to with a raging Red Indian war cry, to tear the
threesome limb from limb starting with the bogus waterboy, just might
draw a tad of attention to Miss Sydney Lattimore. Murdering her was his
fondest desire; protecting her reputation had to come first.
If one hint, one inkling of her presence here reached the tattle-mongers,
she would not have to worry about dresses or dowries. She'd never be
received anywhere in London and no man could think of offering for her. A
woman in britches? Fast didn't begin to describe the names she would be
called, and her precious sister would be tarred with the same brush.
And if Sydney didn't know what could happen if this horde of drunks
found out she was a woman, then Wally and Willy should have known.
They were supposed to protect her, weren't they? Hell, he only kissed her,
and look what it got him. The twins couldn't be stupid enough to bring her
unless they were sharing one brain between the two of them; he'd find out
if he had to tear their skulls open.
Sydney must have twisted them around her thumb, Forrest decided, the
same way she wheedled the loan out of him when he had no intention of
giving it. Damn and blast, how could she have been so mutton-headed as
to jeopardize her life and her entire future this way, and after giving her
word, too?
That wasn't quite true, he conceded. She'd sworn only to stay away from
the cents-per-centers, not boxing matches or congregations of castaways.
The viscount cursed himself for not getting the little fool's promise to
pretend to be a lady. Then he cursed himself for getting involved in the
first place.
10
Riot and Rescue
« ^ »
er whole life and future depended on this match, and Sydney
H
could not watch it. While the viscount seethed about her presence there,
chewing the inside of his mouth raw, not the least of his aggravation
stemmed from the fact of Sydney's viewing men's bare chests. Blister it,
the only bare chest she should ever see was his her husband's, he meant.
He need not have worried. For the most part her eyes were closed. When
she had to open them to perform her duties, Sydney was still oblivious to
everything but the screaming, shouting men, the fumes from pipes, cigars,
and spilled ale, the appalling sound of fist meeting flesh. The blood.
"Let's go home," she whispered in Wally's ear after the first round. He
gave her a big grin and pulled the cap down lower over her eyes. The bout
went on.
The match was being fought under the new boxing rules with
twenty-five timed rounds, short rests between, and judges to make the
final ruling of victory or defeat. The old-style contests saw no break and no
finish until only one man stood. The only decision was on the part of the
loser, deciding when to stay down.
The innovations sought to make boxing less a gory contest of brute
strength, more a test of skills and science. The new format appealed most
to gentlemen like the viscount, who sparred himself and appreciated neat
footwork and clever defense as well as carefully aimed blows. The nearer
elements of the crowd, however, those on foot surrounding the canvas
ring, had come to see mayhem committed. These bloodthirsty masses did
not appreciate the finesse of a fencing match. They booed and hissed at
each rest period and pressed closer to where Sydney stood, nearly
paralyzed, along the ropes.
In the early rounds, the boxers were evenly matched. Wally had more
cunning and quicker timing. He could dance out of danger, watching for
openings and getting in some solid blows of his own. The Dutchman had
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