“Start small,” Zeke said, walking the edges of the ring. “You’re an accomplished rake. Have you tried seducing her?”
“What kind of question is that?!” Matthew asked. “Yes, I’ve tried, but I’ve never been successful.”
Seth swung forward. Matthew dodged, and Seth’s fist sailed past his left ear.
“Yes, but that wasbeforeyou slept with half of London,” Seth said.
“I haven’t slept with half of London.” Matthew grinned and tapped his cheek. “Only a quarter.”
Seth reared back and hit him with full force, connecting hard against Matthew’s side, staggering him into the ropes. Taking ragged breaths, Matthew stood and wiped sweat from his brow.
“Negative point, Lord Lincolnshire,” Zeke chided. “Poor sportsmanship.”
“He hit me!”
“No strikes to the face,” Seth warned. “We aren’t brawling.”
“Come to think of it, Lord Lincolnshire. You’ve only pursued ladies with long black hair,” Zeke mused. “I imagined it was your family type, considering your sisters also prefer—”
“Don’t comment on my sisters’ preferences, Zeke.” Matthew pointed at him. “Or you’ll be next in this ring.”
“Why must you torture yourself like this?” Seth asked. “It’s been four years, get on with it.”
“Eightyears,” Matthew reminded him.
Matthew stepped forward once more, exchanging blows with Seth. Matthew blockedone-two-threestrikes, then jabbed low. When Seth dropped his guard, Matthew grabbed Seth’s arm and twisted it behind his back. Wincing and immobile, Seth tapped his shoulder. “Enough.”
Matthew released him.
“Point for Lord Lincolnshire.”
Seth shot Zeke a glare. Zeke smiled. Chest heaving, Seth held his hands up over his head to ease the strain in his shoulder. Seth was getting tired, but Matthew wasn’t finished.
“Another round,” he ordered.
“No. I’m out of form.” Seth groaned. “I haven’t lifted anything other than a feed sack or a three-year-old in months.”
“No better reason than to keep you spry,Papa,” Matthew teased, swinging forward to poke at Seth’s stomach. “I thought the expectant mother was supposed to have a big belly.”
Growling, Seth swung forward. Matthew blocked his strikes as Zeke paced around the ring.
“Now that I think on it… Iknewthere was something between you in Ringwood,” Zeke said,stillanalyzing him. “When the two of you disappeared together.”
“Oh, you mean when Matthew was being a hypocrite?” Seth landed a harsher than usual blow to Matthew’s stomach. “When he maimed me for doing whathewas doing?”
Matthew had caught Seth red-handed in Cassandra’s bed years prior. Seth had a scar splitting his left eyebrow from when Matthew thrashed him for it.
“You earned every blow you damn bastard!” Matthew lunged at him, grappling with him. He pushed Seth back and took a swipe at his face. “And I was not doing whatyouwere doing! It was one kiss!”
It had been the best kiss of his life. The type of kiss that could change a person forever. And she blamed it on alcohol. She said it wasnothing. But it couldn’t have been nothing. Not when she sighed in his arms, when she had tasted so sweet, or when he couldn’t smell lilies without thinking of her. She was all he dreamt about. He tried to find that feeling elsewhere and never could.
“She wasn’t supposed to come back,” he whispered through his teeth.
He had resigned himself to a life without her. What the devil was he supposed to do now? It would have been better if she hadn’t come back at all than to lose heragain.
“She should have stayed in Spain!”
Matthew swung forward with blow after blow. Seth guarded with his elbows high. He backed Seth against the ropes and swung low, deep in Seth’s gut. A strangled noise escaped the other man, and he inhaled big gulping breath.
