To Sin With A Stranger (24 page)

“How long until the bout begins?” she asked her father. Her hand was already on the carriage door latch.

“None at all. It has begun.”

In the distance, a great roar rose into the air. Isobel did not wait a moment longer. She flung open the carriage door and leaped down into the dusty road. Lifting her skirts to her knees, she ran toward the court.

Sterling stood in the roped ring facing Liam Dooney, the world champion of bare-knuckle battles. Their seconds led them to the lines and waited as their positions were checked.

“Please don’t do this, Sterling,” Grant said into his ear so Sterling could hear him over the roar of the crowd.

Unlike the usual gloved matches held at Fives Court, true enthusiasts preferred a bare-knuckle fight. The possibility that one of the fighters might be killed only increased the draw of spectators.

More than one thousand men stood around the ring, a few more in shuttered boxes, and still others in the rafter stands above.

Sterling surveyed the hordes of cheering gentlemen, eating, drinking, and smoking pipes as they would at any other Society event. This seemed odd to him, for this particular spectacular might end in the death of one man. Him.

Even if he had wished to forfeit the bout, his honor would not allow him to do so now.

He looked across at Grant, who had arrived an hour ago to claim the honor of second, along with Dooney’s man, who was now being led a pace back from the chalked square on the stage so that the battle could begin. Grant beckoned for Sterling to come with him, but Sterling shook his head. Suddenly a surge in the crowd drew Sterling’s attention and he turned his head, and to his great surprise, he saw Lachlan and Killian fighting their way to the edge of the stage.

“Sterling, this is madness,” Killian yelled to him, before being pushed back by the heaving masses of spectators.

Lachlan made it to the ropes before one of the umpires yanked him down. “Leave the damned gold on the table, Sterling,” he cried out as he was being dragged toward the rear of the court. “We don’t need it!”

He wasn’t leaving.

Sterling turned his head back and looked across at the Irishman. Dooney was a huge man, the very rare sort that made Sterling look average-sized in comparison. He was hailed as the most skilled fighter alive, with unmatched boxing skills and fast hands that could levy blows that could permanently maim or even kill—and had.

Sterling, on the other hand, was the product of Edinburgh sparring schools. He was quick on his feet, hard-hitting, athletic, and a natural pugilist…who had only entered the prize ring when, at a young age, he had learned money was to be easily had from a few solid punches.

Attention was called. Sterling and Dooney were set legally at the lines, and at Gentleman John Jackson’s signal, the battle commenced.

Sterling feinted and sparred with Dooney, who threw a few punches his way, but committed to none of them.

Most certainly the Irishman was waiting for Sterling to make the real first move. And so, being a gentleman, Sterling complied with his left fist. Dooney’s head jerked, and he fell to his back on the stage.

The crowd rushed forward, likely not expecting Sterling to have landed such a tremendous blow so early in the bout.

Crawling back to his feet, Dooney wiped a smear of blood from his lip and returned to the chalk lines, which were being freshly set for the next round.

Sterling felt it then. His usual confidence in the ring reemerged and surged into his throbbing fists. He rushed at Dooney, landing yet another vicious punch, while shrugging off several stinging counterblows. Dooney fell forward to his knees, wincing in pain and bleeding heavily from his left eye and his mouth. He staggered to his feet and raised his fists defensively before his face.

A calmness came over Sterling. He knew Dooney was hurt and exhausted. It would only take him one solid punch to floor the giant once and for all. The volume of the crowd swelled, making his ear throb from the noise.

Gauging his moment, he drew back his right fist. Suddenly there was a flash of movement at the ropes. He held his focus.

“Sterling,
no
!”

Isobel?
He turned his head in time to see Isobel crawling under the ropes onto the stage, kicking at the umpires who were trying to stop her. “Isobel!”

There was a horrid flash of pain in his jaw. His head flung backward and his body slammed back against the stage.

He blinked, and suddenly Isobel was kneeling beside him, peering down. Tears were in her eyes.

“Christ, woman, you are going to be the death of me,” he groaned.

“As long as it’s me, and no one else.” Isobel glared up at Dooney, who was staring at her in astonishment.

“And that I die of exhaustion…from exploring Elgin’s marbles.” Pink embarrassment flooded Isobel’s cheeks, and Sterling coughed a chuckle.

Grant looked worriedly down at him. “Good God, someone get a physician. I believe the blow has caused delirium.”

The Sinclair residence
Grosvenor Square

“What do you think of
FOOL
?” Siusan asked Sterling as she threaded her finest embroidery needle with silk. “Nay, the split on your chin will require more letters than that. What say you to…
ISOBEL
, hmm?”

“I think I should like a simple cross-stitch if you can manage that, Su,” Sterling snapped.

“Oh, do hurry and finish; now that you’ve removed the bandage he is dripping blood again,” Priscilla said, settling the tea service on the marble table before the cold fireplace. “I should not wish to be required to scrub blood out of the settee’s silk covering.”

“I know…
MARBLES
.” Siusan smiled wryly. “Grant told me what you said before you fell unconscious. What did you mean by that?”

Sterling shrugged. “I don’t seem to recall.”

Ivy giggled. “I think we should ask Miss Carington what he said. I daresay she would remember. After all, Grant said Sterling’s words made her color fiercely.”

The brass door knocker sounded, and Ivy and Priscilla rose.

“She’s arrived,” Ivy said excitedly.

Sterling tried to sit up, but Siusan flattened her palm on his forehead and held him in place, then resumed stitching—what felt to Sterling to be an M.

“Stay still,” Siusan scolded. “Not one word either until I have finished.”

Poplin led Isobel into the fore-parlor, forgetting to announce her.

After greeting each of his sisters, Isobel smiled brightly at Sterling. “How are you feeling?”

Sterling started to answer, but Siusan thumped him on the forehead with the flat of her palm.

“Almost finished…” Siusan said, to no one in particular. “There.” She smiled at her handiwork and then looked up at Isobel. “By chance, do you sew, Miss Carington?”

Isobel’s expression went blank. “Y-yes.”

“I am so glad.” Siusan rose from the edge of the settee. “Because I am giving it up. I find it too taxing.” She caught Sterling’s long legs, swung them off the settee, and then beckoned Isobel to be seated.

Isobel gazed into Sterling’s eyes, and he into hers for several moments, saying nothing, until his sisters suddenly remembered they had promised to assist Mrs. Wimpole with soup making in the kitchen and scurried from the fore-parlor.

Isobel wrinkled her nose. “They had invited me for tea.” She glanced at the tea service on the table, then at the empty doorway to the passage before turning her attention back to Sterling. “They…are returning, are they not?”

Sterling shrugged. “Soon enough, I expect.”

Isobel seemed uneasy. “Just as well. I wished to speak to you privately anyway…to apologize for causing you to lose the battle.” She fumbled with her reticule. “I had no notion you were about to become victor.” Slowly she raised her eyes. “I heard about the Irishman’s blows.” She swallowed hard. “I was worried you would be badly hurt, and…oh Sterling, I could not have endured it if you were killed when I had it within my power to prevent it.”

“By stepping between us.”

“By doing anything I could to stop the battle.” Though she had claimed to be sorry for her actions, it was clear she was not. Her gaze was firm and her features were set.

“Isobel, I do not fault you for your good-hearted intentions”—he shook his head slowly—“only your method of stopping the bout.
You
might have been killed. Why would you risk your own life after the pain I caused you over the wager?”

She averted her gaze and let it drift through the window to the square beyond. “You know the answer to that, Sterling.” A golden coil of hair dangling at her brow suddenly required her undivided attention. She lifted the thick curl and peered upward at it, as if to ascertain to which side of her head it belonged. In her prolonged attempt to delay speaking, Isobel’s eyes had nearly crossed by the time she finally made her determination and shoved the hair back into place. Only then, as Sterling waited in silence, did she speak. Her words were low and tremulous. “Because…I love you.” She shifted her gaze back to him. “Don’t you realize this?”

“I think it is more than that, lass. You knew in your heart, even when I could not deny that I had orchestrated the wager at White’s, that I loved you too. That, while my actions might have been questionable, my feelings for you were pure. I loved you, I think, from the evening you first stepped into the ring at the Pugilistic Club, and from that moment, that feeling has grown each day.”

“Then why did you contrive such an audacious wager?” she asked.

Sterling didn’t know the answer to that, finding the advantage in any situation had always come naturally for him, but when he replied he was shaken with the raw truth of his answer. “The bet made what I was feeling for you seem safe. I’d convinced myself that I wasn’t really risking my heart and rejection. It was just a wager, and the emotional investment I had made in you was only to reach a successful outcome to the bet. But the more time I spent with you, the more I realized that the risk was not my family’s ten-thousand-pound portion. The true wager was my heart—I risked vulnerability when I gave you my love, hoping that for
once
that love would be returned.”

Isobel sighed. “And it was.”

“Aye, ten to one.” Sterling exhaled the half breath he’d reserved in his lungs. “White’s may nullify the wager and keep the money I escrowed to place the bet. My brothers and sisters may be forced to stomach Mrs. Wimpole’s soup every day. But I won the wager…the real treasure—
you
.”

“You are not a pauper, Sterling.”

“Oh, but close to it at the moment,” he said.

“No, Sterling, you still have this.” She reached into her reticule and withdrew a leather pouch and held it out to him.

“A pouch? Och, lass, I have several.” He pushed it back to her. “You may keep this one.”

Isobel looked as though she was growing frustrated with his levity. She emptied the ring out onto her palm. The Sinclair diamond fitted into the ring’s center sparkled brilliantly in the fingers of afternoon light reaching through the front window. “I cannot keep this ring or sell it for the charity—ever. It belongs to your family. It is for you to give your son someday.” When he did not take it from her, she set it on the marble table.

“If you will not take this ring, then please, will you allow me to give you something, lass?” He stood and extended his hand to her.

She took it and had started to come to her feet when she saw him kneel on one knee before her.

From his waistcoat he withdrew another ring—smaller than the Sinclair diamond, but its mate in every way. “You told me once that you don’t need your father’s consent to marry me. If I ask you, instead of him this time, would you be my wife?”

Isobel’s eyes rounded in apparent surprise, but then her expression softened. “You will have to ask me to know that for certain, Lord Blackburn.”

She tried to conceal a smile of joy, and he knew he had his answer already. Still, Sterling needed to hear it for himself.

“I do not deserve a woman so giving and so noble as you, but if you will have me, Isobel, if you will marry me, I will do everything in my power to become a man worthy of your love.”

“Did you say…
noble
?” Isobel looked at him then as though for the first time. She cast her gaze down and ran her thumb along the lint bandage wrapped around his knuckles. “Sterling. My God, it was
you
—you are the one who has been leaving the donations for my charity. It wasn’t some stranger—or even Leake as I had nearly convinced myself. It was
you
all the while.” She clapped her hands over her eyes. “What a fool I have been not to realize it. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It is a noble cause, one I wanted to support, but I didn’t wish anyone to know—might have ruined my sterling reputation, you know.”

He had thought his quip would bring a quick smile to Isobel’s lips again. Instead, tears caught like brilliant spangles in her lashes. Her chin began to quiver and her lower lip pouted.

Sterling wondered if he had read her intentions incorrectly and if she would deny him.

Truly, he did not deserve her, but he had always found a way to obtain what he’d desired by whatever means necessary. Could it be what he wanted most in this world was atonement for his sins to earn his soul’s redemption?

His heart hammered in his chest and throbbed in his ears as he impatiently awaited her reply, whatever it might be. “Isobel, will you marry me?”

“Yes.” It was as if the wind had been stolen from her lungs, and he questioned himself as to whether she spoke or merely coughed.

Blinking, he leaned closer. “I apologize, dear Isobel, but I did not quite hear that.”

She leaned toward him and rested her palm on his cheek. “I said yes, I will marry you.” Isobel’s lips hovered above his own, until they brushed his mouth ever so lightly. “Nothing would make me more proud than to be your wife, Sterling. I love you.”

He ached upon hearing her words, and his throat threatened to close in upon itself.

No one had joined the words
proud
and
Sterling
. Ever. He closed his eyes for a moment and swallowed deeply, not wishing for the great emotion he felt to well over.