Page 3 of The Scoundrel's Christmas Challenge
“They’re all bags of wind.” Nasal man again. “I could take any of them in an honest fight. If they even knew how to play fair.”
Lucius grinned. His friend, Mr. Hawkesbury, had done well. Pushing the library door open with a bang, he confronted Lord Frederick. It was difficult not to laugh at the man, his eyes still discolored and puffy from the facer Nettie had planted on him.
“Seems you’ve got a crook in your nose.” Lucius strode toward the table by the window. “I’d be happy to straighten it out for you. Say, Jackson’s tomorrow?”
“Wh-what are you babbling about?” Lord Frederick’s tone was nonchalant, but his eyes held fear. “Didn’t your mother teach you not to interrupt one’s betters?”
Lucius snorted. “She did, along with the advice never to give in to a bully. Since my sister’s lesson didn’t seem to penetrate that thick skull, I shall have to reteach it.”
“I would never lower myself?—”
“To pinch a noble woman’s arse? Your ship has sailed.” Lucius turned to the others in the room. “Get The Book. First bet: Will Lord Frederick accept an invitation to a boxing match after saying publicly that I am merely a bag of wind? Or will the coward try to slink out with his tail between his legs, like the dog he is? Hurry, gentlemen, place those wagers while we wait with bated breath.”
A blustering Lord Frederick rose, face and neck purple with rage, addressing his cohorts. The same men he’d agitated into arguments dozens of times, only to sit back and take the wagers himself. But today wouldn’t end with a plump pocket and a smirk on the miserable lord’s face. Lucius wanted justice, and by the devil, he’d have it.
“Does everyone hear this reprobate antagonizing me, goading me into a contest of fists? I’m not even healed yet, and he wants to take advantage?—”
“Of a man who let a lady bust his nose,” called out a patron from the back of the room.
“We all heard you boasting, Lord Frederick. Now prove your honor and accept the challenge,” said Hawkesbury, sending a wink in Lucius’s direction.
“You—you tricked me into saying it.” The duke’s son pointed at Hawk, who only shrugged his shoulders. He searched the crowd for a sympathetic face and only found the same murmuring that Nettie had received.
“Let’s switch our wagers to how long the boy will whine.”
“I say he’ll run.”
“My money is on him accepting—then not showing.” Raucous laughter followed this comment.
“I do accept!” cried Lord Frederick.
In the end, no one would place a wager against Lucius to lose, so the last entry in White’s betting book had been:
Lord Frederick, running from Lord Page’s challenge—6; Lord Frederick accepting the challenge—4.
***
The match was brief. Lord Frederick had tried to insert a champion in his place, but when the man saw his opponent was Lucius, he returned the blunt. “Sorry, my lord, I didn’t know it was you. I’d much rather watch this than participate.”
As the two men faced one another, Lord Frederick made a fatal mistake in taunting his adversary. “Seems you have bad luck with women, Page. One stolen from you, one ruined while under your protection. You’re gaining quite the reputation.”
At the mention of Christiana, Lucius lost all control. He remembered his fist slamming into Lord Frederick’s face, then being pulled from the floor, arms still swinging. The duke’s son lay curled on his side, whimpering for mercy.
A week later, with Lord Frederick still in hiding while he nursed his battered face, Lucius realized the satisfaction of pulverizing the man had been fleeting. In all honesty, it was his fault Nettie was ruined. He had allowed his self-pity to control his life, let the dark take over when he’d never been the gloomy type, hurting his beloved sister. It was time to put away the regrets. Either he made a plan or put Christiana from his mind. This brooding had cost Nettie her chance at a good match. If it took him the next ten years, he would keep his sister safe until she was married and under another’s protection.
CHAPTER 1
November 1820
Falcon Hall, Suffolk
Christiana, Countess of Winfield, considered the package on her grandfather’s large oak desk with a smile. Tomorrow was her birthday, and the package had arrived early—as it did every year. With slender fingers, she tugged at the string, then carefully opened the box. With a gasp, she withdrew the tiny china replica of a blue tit.
“It’s beautiful, my lady,” said her maid, Constance. “He never forgets, even after all these years.”
“No,” she murmured, rising from the desk and walking to the curio cabinet near the hearth. It held her most prized collectibles, though some of the contents were only precious to her. On the left were the porcelain vases her grandmother and mother had collected. One, a priceless Ming vase, was another sought-after possession. The Earl of Bentson had been pestering Christiana’s mother to sell the piece for as long as she could remember. Once he discovered her daughter had inherited the vase, he turned his attention on the young widow.
She opened the right side of the cabinet and set the little bird among the others, all gifts from Lucius. She’d received the first, a swan, on her sixteenth birthday just before he left for university. Besides the short notes—carefully tied together and stored away in her chest—he had sent a new aviary specimen each November.
