Page 37 of The Boxing Baroness

“Unlike your sort, Your Grace, Jack doesn’t expect people to be papered like racehorses. He knows what it’s like to earn his crust and believes people deserve a second chance.”

“Perhaps you should cease Your Gracing me and call me Sin, Marianne.”

She doubted that she’d ever be able to call him by such an intimate name. She would avoid calling him anything at all.

“So, let’s get to it then, shall we?” She moved toward the door, but the duke reached it first.

She stopped and glared up at him rather than going through the now open doorway. “You’re no longer a gentleman. Women like me open our own doors.”

“I refuse to be discourteous, simply because everyone else is.”

“It will make you stand out even more than your speech and dukely posture.”

His nostrils flared at her mockery. “I believe the word you are searching for is ducal.”

“No, is it?” she asked with exaggerated surprise. “I suppose you would know.”

He cut her a scathing look and strode through the door ahead of her, no doubt suffering an agony of self-recrimination at his ungentlemanly behavior.

* * *

Sin knew she was just trying to goad an angry response from him—and she was damned good at it, too. If he bickered with her, then he’d just be giving her what she expected. He needed to ignore her childish digs and jabs.

That was easier said than done.

Jack Nelson was just shrugging out of his overcoat and an older man—yet another pugilist by the look of his battered visage—was in the process of hanging up one of the leather bags.

“’Mornin’, luv,” Jack called out to Marianne when they entered. His dark eyes flickered curiously over Sin and Elliot.

“These are Sin and Smithy,” she said. “The ones I mentioned to you.”

Nelson strode toward them. “Annie says you’ve both done a bit o’ fightin’ and know your way about a mill.”

Elliot spoke first. “Aye, sir. I fought at The Hatchet and trained with Jemmy Wallace when I was a lad.”

Sin blinked at his friend’s sudden, incomprehensible accent.

Whatever it was that Elliot had said brought a smile to Jack’s face. “I squared up against Jemmy years ago.” He pursed his lips and shook his head. “A damned shame what ’appened to ’im.”

“Well, he always did like the ponies a bit too much,” Elliot agreed. Both men took a moment of respectful silence.

Jack turned to Sin; his eyes narrowed. “I ’aven’t ever seen a fighter with specs before.”

“They are recent. I didn’t wear them back when I fought in Leeds.” Sin had conceived of a past for himself before coming today, choosing Leeds because he owned an estate just outside the big northern town and had often sneaked into mills with a cousin when he’d been a lad. “I had a few big money bouts at The Jolly Taxpayer, but that was years ago.”

Jack’s eyebrows—one of which was bisected by not one, but two white scars, shot up. “Blimey, listen to you.” He turned to Marianne, who’d watched their exchange with ill-concealed amusement. “Didja find a bleedin’ dook to replace me, luv?”

The little shrew grinned. “Nobody could ever replace you, Jack. Mr. Sinclair talks like a duke because he used to butler for one. He got sacked for being on the tipple.”

“Oh, aye?” Jack asked, giving Sin a second, more piercing, look. “Which one’d ye work for? Tell me it wasn’t that arsehole Lord Flawless?”

Marianne coughed and then said in a choked voice, “Er, not him, Jack. It was some other arsehole—a Scottish duke.” She surveyed Sin with laughing eyes; it was an engaging, charming expression that hadn’t been turned his way before. “It was Handsome Charlie who told him about the job.”

Jack looked pleased by that information. “You know that old rascal Charlie, do ye?”

“Yes, I do,” he lied.

“Quite the lad, old Charlie, eh?”