The Greatest Lover Ever by Christina Brooke

Author:Christina Brooke [Brooke, Christina]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Historical romance, Regency
ISBN: 9781466822276
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2013-12-30T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

“You spent the morning cavorting about the countryside with the one lady at this gathering you ought to avoid.”

Lydgate curled his lip in disgust and tossed Beckenham the pair of gloves he’d taken down from the wall of Beckenham’s purpose-fitted boxing saloon.

Beckenham caught them, wondering what Lydgate would say if he knew about that kiss.

Beckenham was an enthusiastic pugilist, and one of his few indulgences beside his stables was converting the outbuilding next to the bathhouse into an appropriate place for all kinds of indoor physical activity.

The walls were lined with racks of equipment, from shuttlecock rackets to cricket bats to boxing gloves, bows and arrows and foils.

He pulled the boxing gloves onto his hands. “Less talk, more action, Lydgate. I’m going to black those pretty blue eyes of yours.”

Lydgate gave a dramatic shudder. “Not the face, dear coz. Anything but the face.”

Beckenham knew he didn’t have a chance of hitting Lydgate’s face unless Lydgate allowed him to. On Beckenham’s good days, they were fairly evenly matched. Beckenham’s weight and power against Lydgate’s superior agility.

Today was not going to be one of Beckenham’s good days.

If he’d cherished any illusions about that, their first, rather one-sided bout left him in no doubt.

Panting, he said, “It was a chance meeting. Besides, we spoke only of my courting Miss Violet.”

He punctuated the sentence with a right aimed at the shoulder, which Lydgate easily dodged.

“And?” said Lydgate, shifting his feet and boring in with a one-two feint and punch that smacked Beckenham in the ribs.

With a grunt, Beckenham drove through the pain to land a blow to Lydgate’s chest that sent him staggering back a pace. Lydgate’s eyebrows twitched together, and the light of battle joined gleamed in his eye.

Answering his cousin’s question, Beckenham forced out, “Says she wants me to marry her sister. Says I’m the man to run Cloverleigh to her satisfaction.”

Lydgate danced back, dashing his arm across his forehead to wipe away sweat. “Generous of her.”

“I thought so.” It had been generous. Even the sweetest-tempered female, which Georgie most assuredly was not, would have found it difficult to say those words.

She was capable of that kind of quixotic generosity, he found.

“So you’ll fix your interest with the sister?” Lydgate persisted. He bore in with a few jabs toward Beckenham’s smarting rib cage, but it was mere flourishing; he didn’t have his mind on the fight.

Beckenham shrugged. “It does seem like the perfect solution.”

And Georgie didn’t mind. Didn’t mind at all. Encouraged him, in fact.

Damn her.

They finished the bout and Lydgate took himself off, presumably to meddle in someone else’s affairs. Beckenham went to the bathhouse and indulged himself in a long, hot soak, before entering the fray once more.

* * *

Georgie entered the drawing room, where the ladies gathered that afternoon. She intended to while away the time before dinner with a gothic novel she’d managed to unearth in Beckenham’s austere library.

Tempted though she was to curl up in the window seat of that dark, masculine cave and stay out of sight, she had a duty to Violet to protect her from the cats.

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