Page 53 of To Catch a Viscount

She stole a peek.

And yet, neither of the men gave any indication that each punch they landed was anything more than a slight nuisance.

When she’d been a small girl, her mother and father had found her a governess, an unconventional woman who’d not snapped a rod against Marcia’s back and insisted she stand upright, one who’d not sought to crush Marcia’s spirit. Rather, the woman had regaled Marcia with all manner of fascinating histories and subjects from science to ancient Greeks and Romans, including tales of warriors made to fight within a grand arena in Rome.

Now, watching these two men, bare-chested and barefoot, sparring, Marcia had a glimpse of what those long-ago fights must have been like.

There was a barbarism to the match, and their brutality made it impossible to look away from the raw, virile power of the men, their barrel chests matted with hair and glistening with sweat and the blood they shed.

And Marcia sat more upright and watched, transfixed, alternately fascinated and horrified.

The two men pounded away at each other, trading blow after blow, each strike landing faster, harder, as if each man strove with that next hit to propel his opponent on to death and themselves on to victory.

But neither fell.

Neither faltered.

They remained stubbornly upright, which only whipped the crowd into a greater frenzy.

The fighters danced around the arena with steps graceful enough to rival the smooth glide of London’s greatest dancers.

It was nothing short of horrific.

Still, she could not bring herself to look away.

The pair danced closer, so close to where she sat that the sweat flying from their bodies landed upon the skirts of her cloak.

And then, at last, one of the men made a misstep, his left foot dragged, and his shorter-by-an-inch opponent advanced.

Jab, hook, jab, hook, jab, jab, jab.

The head of the poor fellow on the receiving end of those staccato punches whipped all the way back, and he went flying, landing hard on the ground.

As one, the crowd surged to its feet, erupting into triumphant shouts as a uniformed fellow stepped into the ring, took the hand of the fighter still standing, and raised it above his head, declaring him the winner.

At last, it was over.

The fight might have been as short as a minute or as long as an hour, for how well she could make sense of that scene that had just enfolded. Marcia released some of the tension in her shoulders, relieved the violent display was at an end and eager to go.

She looked up at Andrew and found him to be the lone person in the audience not looking at the ring.

He watched her through veiled eyes that did odd things to her chest. Odd that she should develop that sensation only after all these years of knowing him.

Andrew leaned closer. “Tell me, have you had enough, my lady?”

He was pitched slightly forward, as if ready to climb to his feet should she simply say the words.

She knew he would leave his own pleasures here, too, if she gave the go-ahead.

But she’d asked for this, all of this, and to leave now would be to fail. It would mean he’d been right in his belief that all of this was too much for her.

“No,” she said with a trace of reluctance, even as a deep part of her wished nothing more than to leave, to have him escort her off so they were away from this place and alone.

Alone?

She stilled.

Andrew gave her a curious look.

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