“Six… seven… eight…”
He tried once more to pull himself up, but then he looked up at James, who was standing over him, and he seemed to lose his nerve. He crumpled once more, just as the crowd roared,“TEN!”
James had won the fight. Someone rang a bell, and then the onlookers bolted from their seats, rushing down the stands to the ring. Several men climbed into the ring and hauled James up onto their shoulders.
“The Duke! The Duke! The Duke!” they chanted.
James was laughing and smiling, and even though he looked a bit shaken, Violet could tell he was jubilant. As the crowd lifted him, carrying him back to safety, their eyes met.
She knew exactly what the look in his eyes said—I have won them back. Farrell won’t be a problem anymore.
And as she watched him, she realized that in all her life, she had never felt as much pride as she did then. Pride not only in James, but also in herself, to be married to someone with moral integrity, strength, and bravery. Someone who would put his lifeon the line for the things he believed in and the people he was sworn to protect.
“Were you worried for me, wife?” James asked as Violet descended the steps towards him. She was very pale, but she was smiling, her face awash in relief.
“Of course not,” she said as she met him at the edge of the pit. “I didn’t doubt for a second that you would win.”
He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You don’t have to lie to make me feel better. Even I doubted, for a moment, that I would be able to defeat that man.”
“Well, you didn’t look as if you had any doubt,” she pointed out, and this time, he noticed that her lips were trembling.
She really was scared.
But why wouldn’t she have been? Had he lost, it would have been a disgrace for her and her sisters. She was merely thinking of herself.
She wasn’t concerned about you, he told himself sharply.
“So… you got your way in the end,” a dark voice growled from behind him. James turned to see Farrell being supportedbetween two of his men, staring at him with malevolence. “Just like every other duke before you.”
“If you’re trying to make me feel bad, it won’t work,” James said coldly. “You were the one who was running a dog fighting ring and thenkidnapped my wife.All my sympathy for you ended after that.”
“I can still conduct my business in the duchy,” Farrell snapped. “You haven’t shut this down.”
But James could tell that even Farrell didn’t believe that. He took a step towards the gang boss and lowered his voice to a cool, deadly whisper. “You have lost the respect of the townspeople, which means that you are done here. I am going to loan them money to set up their own, reputable,legalbusinesses, and they will no longer need you. And after I defeated you today, they also no longer fear you. So yes, I believe Ididjust shut down your businesses. Not to mention that if I wanted, I could have you arrested and tried for kidnapping a noblewoman—and the wife of adukeat that.”
The fear in Farrell’s eyes was evident, and James took grim satisfaction in seeing the man who had once instilled such fear in him finally brought down.
“Now get out of my sight,” he snarled, flicking his hand in dismissal.
The bodyguards didn’t wait for orders from their boss. They hauled the gangster away, and James felt a grim triumph as the men disappeared through the doors and out of the arena.
Turning back to his wife, he saw that her eyes had gone wide. He raised an eyebrow at her.
“You can be every bit as scary as the scandal sheets say,” she remarked.
“It’s a reputation I’ve cultivated carefully. When you are dealing with scary men, you have to become one yourself,” he admitted. “And in large part, I based my persona on Farrell’s. He used to scare me as a child. Sometimes when my father visited this town, he used to make me watch when Farrell drowned the dogs—” He broke off, unable to go on.
His throat had constricted, and there was a strange feeling behind his eyes. Like they were burning.
“When you aren’t born hard, you have to make yourself hard,” he added.
Violet nodded. “I understand that. Sometimes, I wonder how I might have turned out had my father been less of a bully and if my mother hadn’t abandoned us when I was young.”
It was the first time Violet had ever really opened up to him, and James felt his pulse quicken.
“You think you would have been less reserved?”
“Perhaps.” She looked thoughtful. “And perhaps I might have hoped for more for myself. As it was, I assumed my father would marry me off to some awful man. So I never dared to hope for a love match or even a happy married life.”
