Page 28 of The Boxing Baroness

Never had Marianne met a person so devoid of emotion—any emotion—as Josephine Brown. Not even the Duke of Staunton could compare. At least with the duke, Marianne had sensed anger, irritation, and derision roiling beneath his polished façade. With Blade—a nickname that suited her in more than one way—she sensed only an eerie void.

Cecile made a sound of annoyance and snapped her fingers in Josephine’s face when it appeared the woman had forgotten about her question. “Mon Dieu! You live in your own little world, eh? I asked you about Staunton,” she said before Jo could confirm or deny her rude question. “Was he watching you tonight?”

Blade never did or said anything hastily, and Cecile’s rough treatment didn’t hurry her. Instead of answering, she stared at the wicked dagger in her left hand. Her elegant, tapered fingers looked incongruous holding the heavy, black, leather-wrapped hilt.

“No, I don’t think he was out there,” she finally said, still not looking up, her thumb moving over the edge of the blade in a slow, thoughtful caress. “At least not that I noticed.”

“Pffft!” Cecile flung up her hands and gave the pale blonde a disgusted look before turning to Marianne. “It is as I thought—he has arrived just in time to see you.” Her beautiful features shifted into a crafty, contemplative expression. “This is an interesting development. He is a wealthy and powerful man. If he wants to speak to you, perhaps—”

Marianne turned back to the mirror and dipped her finger into the small pot of rouge; she wished the excitable Frenchwoman would leave the subject alone.

“Maybe he’s here to see you, Cecile. After all, I’m not the last act tonight.”

Cecile gave Marianne a look that spoke volumes and made Marianne’s face heat.

Marianne should have sent Staunton a message after talking with her uncle. Why not? It wasn’t as if a few days made any difference. But she’d felt mulish about it and took all the time he’d offered. And now she had to deal with his presence at her place of work and its effect on everyone else—or at least the females. And probably her uncle when he learned his creditor was in the audience.

Cecile snapped her fingers in front of Marianne’s face and she jolted. “You are like the other one. Off in your own little world.” She jerked her head toward Blade, who was not paying them any mind, but stroking the feathers on Angus’s neck and whispering softly to the rapt bird, who made soft croaking sounds, giving every impression of conspiring with his mistress.

Marianne finished applying her lip coloring and blotted off the excess. “What do you want me to say, Cecile? So what if Staunton is here to see me or you or Blade—sorry.” She grimaced and looked at Josephine, but the woman didn’t appear to have heard the nickname. “He has a right to watch, just like any of the other punters who purchase a ticket.”

“I know that, you nonny.”

“Ninny,” a quiet voice corrected.

Cecile and Marianne both turned to Blade, but she wasn’t looking at them. Instead, she’d picked up one of the cloths they used to remove their face paint and calmly sliced it in half with barely a touch of her blade.

“Barnabé will yell at you for that,” Cecile warned her.

That was true. It drove her uncle mad to find slashed bits of cloth, paper, and anything else around the theater—a sign that Blade had been there, absently cutting objects.

Of course, it also drove her uncle mad when anyone called him by the French version of his name, but that didn’t stop Cecile from doing it.

Blade looked up at Cecile, her fingers lazily spinning the knife with jaw-dropping grace.

When Jo remained silent, Cecile jabbed a finger at Angus, who’d gone back to sleep. “He is standing on my dressing gown—has he done his business on it?”

“Angus has better manners than that,” Jo said mildly, resuming her sharpening. “He likes the feel of silk under his claws.”

Marianne thought that might have been the most information the quiet woman had ever volunteered.

Cecile growled and shook her head before turning back to Marianne.

“Don’t let him distract you tonight, chérie. You need to remember what happened to you the last time.”

Marianne didn’t tell her friend that she no longer needed to steal looks at the handsome peer. She’d get to see more than she wanted of him for the next two months.

* * *

The duke’s carriage—a huge, glossy black beast without any escutcheon on the side—was waiting in front of her uncle’s house when Marianne stepped outside an hour and a half later.

The bout—her third with Nelly O’Grady, a woman from Dublin—had been a tough one. Nelly was smaller than Marianne, but she was fast, and it was like boxing with a hornet; Marianne felt as if she’d been stung all over her body. She was exhausted and in a foul mood; she wanted to have a long soak in her tub and go to bed, yet there she was, getting into his bloody carriage.

Well, the duke might be able to bend her to his will, but that didn’t mean she had to capitulate gracefully.

Marianne smiled at the thought of making the man suffer. A silver lining.

A servant wearing luxurious livery hopped off the back, opened the door, and flipped down the steps as Marianne approached the carriage. She wore her riding kit—breeches and a coat—so the groom didn’t try to hand her in as she climbed into the interior of the huge vehicle. Like the gentleman he was, the duke had taken the back-facing seat. The footman closed the door, and soon they were rumbling away.