“There you are, Jade!”
Venture took a step back, swallowing his retort and following the voice. Hunter was making his way down the steps toward them. Now in his mid-twenties, Hunter was as handsome, as tall as he remembered, though now Venture was taller.
Hunter held Jade’s hand and sprinkled her with flowery flattery with the ease of a gentleman very much accustomed to beautiful young ladies. Venture wondered if he took such a refined approach to the common girls he fooled around with.
Jade reentered the carriage, gladly accepting Hunter’s assistance. Venture shut the door after him. He exercised every bit of his willpower in order not to “accidentally” slam it on Hunter’s leg.
He drove them to the theater, for Hunter had tickets for a showing of the ever popular love story, “Rich and Sage.” The leading actor, Den Cloud, was said to make half the women swoon by the end of each performance, while the female lead was played by Violet Heights, who’d given half the professional fighters in the country private performances.
Venture was in no mood to make small talk with the other drivers parked along the street after he delivered them to the theater, and unwilling to lose sight of the exits in order to drive around town as he might have done if Jade had been in other company. So he stood with his arms crossed, leaned against the carriage, glowered at the empty stone steps, and tried to remember his plans to show Jade who was the better man.
Neither Hunter nor Jade paid him any attention when they finally poured out of the theater with the rest of the crowd and reentered the carriage; while this was an intentional effort on Jade’s part, he was just plain invisible to Hunter, who, typical of his class, acknowledged servants only when necessary.
When they arrived back at the Gilded, he could hear them laughing as he turned the handle of the carriage door. Hunter emerged and helped Jade out, and Venture had no choice but to step aside. He tried to reason with himself that he shouldn’t do anything stupid. There was only the farewell left for him to endure, and then he could stuff her back in the carriage and get her home.
He stayed by the rig while the two of them stepped up the curb and onto the stone slab walk in front of the inn. Seeing Jade’s hand in that of any other man made him ill. In Hunter’s, it made him want to throttle someone like never before. The pair made their way up the steps hand in hand, but instead of parting at the door, Hunter, still without a look at Venture, raised a hand in his direction and waved it toward the carriage.
He just shooed me!
Venture couldn’t believe it. “Sir!” he called out.
Hunter had pushed the door open and Jade’s foot was poised to step inside. They both stopped, turned around, and looked at him.
“Sir, this won’t do.”
“What won’t do?” Jade’s cheeks flushed with anger.
“Jade, my dear, why don’t you stay there for just a moment while I have a word with your servant.”
“Of course.”
Venture waited while he trotted back down the steps. For the first time, Hunter looked him straight in the face.
Venture saw the recognition dawn in his eyes. “It’s you. Delving,” he said in a low voice.
“Yes, sir.”
“Venture Delving, the bonded servant who likes to play at being a fighter. Remember your place for once, and stay out of this.”
Venture shook his head at the thought of Hunter’s empty room upstairs, of the ways he might persuade a foolish girl to put herself in a dangerous situation. “Sir, if she goes in there, I go in there. That’s how her father would have it.”
“He is not here.
I
am here, and I say she is coming inside with me. I am sure you have some idea how much I care for what her father thinks.”
“Sir—”
“Look, let’s not make a scene out of this and upset the lady. Let’s not let our—disagreement—get in the way of what could be a profitable transaction for both of us.”
“I’m not sure I understand what you mean, sir.”
“You give us an hour, and there will be a handsome reward in it for you.”
Hunter withdrew a bag of coins from his pocket and tucked them into the inside of Venture’s coat. As he did so, he whispered a few comments about the desirability and the pleasures of Jade’s unclothed body.
A part of Venture began to panic, wanted to scream.
You’ve seen her? You’ve touched my Jade? You’ve been with her?
He pressed it down, refusing to allow himself to feel the meaning of this just now. Right now, he had to deal with this bastard. He was about to snatch the bag out and fling it back in Hunter’s face, but thought better of it. He knew just what he was going to do with those coins.
“You think this lady’s honor is for sale?”
“Oh, no,” whispered Hunter. “It’s your cooperation I mean to buy. The other I will get for free. I always do.”
“I’ll be driving the lady home now,” Venture said with such an intentional thread of threat that most gentlemen would have been only too glad to leave his presence.
But Hunter was a man of no weak will himself, especially when it came to dealing with his lessers. “No bondsman stands between me and what I want.”
“I do.” Venture said gladly, unblinking.
“Fine.” Hunter removed his jacket, and, to Venture’s surprise, his sword.
Venture took off his coat too.
“Hunter! Vent! What are you—”
Hunter was quick, but Venture could see a swing coming at the first tensing of muscle and move in the blink of an eye. He dodged Hunter’s right, but his left came immediately, hard and low, right in his side. Venture kept his posture and his composure, absorbing it as though it were a minor nuisance and not the sort of blow that would have him peeing blood the next day.
With one arm behind Hunter’s waist and the other grasping a leg, he picked Hunter up high and ran him right into the ground. Hunter fought it all the way, and it was an ugly, awkward fall. Sensing little movement beneath him, Venture got up and took a step back.
Hunter let out a wheezy breath, then wobbled to his feet. He glared at Venture and went to get his coat. Good. They were done. Venture turned to get his coat, too. He’d take Jade home and—
“Hunter, no!” Jade screamed.
Hunter hadn’t picked up his coat, he’d picked up his sword and raised it in the air, ready to slash right at Venture’s head. At Jade’s scream, Hunter started, and that hesitation was enough of an opening for Venture to let his fist fly with the perfect combination of fury and precision, striking Hunter right under the jaw with a tremendous cracking of bone. Venture ducked swiftly to the side to avoid being hit in the face with Hunter’s feet or his blade as they flew up in the air on impact. Somehow he mustered the will to catch the bastard’s head just before it could smash on the cobblestone. The sword flew out of Hunter’s limp fingers and clattered to the ground next to him.
In an instant Jade was there, screaming, leaning over Hunter, cradling his bleeding face with her hands, calling his name.
Upstairs, windows flew open. Down the street, figures broke into a jog, heading in their direction.
“What did you do?” Jade gasped. “Venture, what did you do? Did you kill him?”
“He’s just knocked out. Move out of the way,” he said urgently. He had to get him out of here, quick, before the lawmen came.
Jade’s dress and her trembling hands were streaked with blood from Hunter’s broken mouth. “Why, so you can finish him off?”
Venture stopped and waved to the men. “No problem,” he called. “Just a bit too much to drink.” The figures slowed and nodded. “I’m taking him to Healer,” he told Jade. “Get out of the way.”
Reluctantly, she stepped aside. He hoisted Hunter up, and almost staggered at the burden of the utterly limp body of a man his own size. He put him across his shoulders, ran to the carriage, then tipped him off onto the carriage floor.
“You’re not even going to put him on the seat? What kind of brute have you become?” Tears streamed down Jade’s cheeks.
“Shut up! Do you really want me to hang? Just get in. We have to go!”
She glared at him, gathered Hunter’s coat and sword, and got in. He was careful to drive fast, but not fast enough to draw attention.
The carriage arrived at the healer’s house, a compact but handsome sandstone dwelling conveniently located on the north side, near Beamer’s and several other popular gathering places known for the occasional brawl. Venture was relieved to find Healer—whose family had been healers since the days when men were named for their professions—at home. His wife, Daisy, hurried Jade off into one room while the men hefted the still unconscious Hunter out of the carriage, up the steps, and inside, into another room positioned just off the entryway for situations such as this.
The walls of this room were lined with shelves, which held jars of ointment, syrups, and herbs, and baskets brimming with rolls of clean bandages. Below the shelves was a cupboard whose sliding doors were kept closed in order not to frighten patients; Venture knew that it held a variety of sharp instruments used for piercing, cutting, clamping, and sawing.
“What happened here?” Healer said as he helped lay Hunter down on a specially built bed, which held the patient at waist height. He bent to examine Hunter’s rapidly swelling face.
“We got in a fight, sir.”
The wrinkles of concern on Healer’s brown face fell into dismay. “You got in a fight with a Crested man?” He mumbled to himself, “Beat a Crested man, just like that.”
Hunter blinked up at Healer. He mumbled answers to Healer’s questions about who he was, what year it was.
Healer scratched his graying, curly black beard and muttered under his breath. After a few more moments of examination, he said, “I expect he’ll live.”
Venture relaxed a little. At least he wouldn’t hang, then.
“The jaw’s broken. And he’s lost two teeth, right in front.” He dabbed at Hunter’s wounds and looked around in his mouth, then retrieved the missing teeth and laid them on a side table. He straightened up and eyed Venture seriously. “I suppose you know the penalties for a bondsman injuring a gentleman like this—and a Crested gentleman at that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll have to ask you to stay here while I send my son for your master. Though from the looks of Mr. Longlake here, I don’t suppose I could stop you going anywhere.”
“I’ll stay right here.”
“You’d better wait in the front room. I don’t want him getting excited seeing you when realizes what’s going on.”
When Healer came out to the front room sometime later, he sat next to Venture on the bench he’d pulled up to the fire. “Why’d you do it, then? He insult you? I know you’ve got a temper, but you’ve never let it get the better of you like
this
before.”
Healer, who’d known Venture from the time he came to Twin Rivers, feared for him, he knew. He was the healer the Fieldstones called when anyone in their household needed care, the one who’d been summoned the night Venture’s mother had died.
“Grant Fieldstone asked me to protect his daughter’s honor. That’s all I really ought to say, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t repeat even that.”
Healer nodded somberly. “I haven’t forgotten the time I set your arm. I see it’s stronger than I ever could’ve expected now.”
“It healed well, sir.”
“You must think very highly of the quality of my work, to have someone else stitch the back of your head, and then choose me to attend this scoundrel.”
Venture smiled back. “You’re the best healer I know, in Twin Rivers or otherwise. That’s why I brought him here. The better he heals, the better the chances I don’t spend the rest of my life in the lockup. As for my head, I was out of town and unconscious, or I would’ve insisted on you.”
“Too bad. I could’ve left you a nice, flat scar half the size of that one. Though, to tell the truth, Daisy’s even better with a needle.”
A moan came from the other room, and Healer returned to his patient. Jade and Daisy emerged from the kitchen, into the front room.
“Come over here now, dear, and dry yourself by the fire,” Daisy said.
Venture rose and stepped aside, but Jade pointedly refused to take the bench. She stood as she dried her hands and the front of her dress, which Daisy had helped her to scrub free of blood. Daisy, usually friendly to Venture, gave him a terse nod before going to assist her husband. Venture hated to think what Jade had told her about him.
“Jade,” he said, “Healer says he’ll be fine. His jaw’s broken. His lip’s cut and he’s lost a couple of teeth, but he’s coming around.”
She spun around. “Why would you do something like that? What’s happened to you?”
“He tried to kill me!”
“And why was that? Why would a good man—”
“A good man? I hate to break the news to you, but what he does with you he’s done with dozens of other girls.” Venture ignored the voice inside that told him he should stop. “But he asked for a whole hour with you. At least he likes you well enough to take his time.”
He took her slap with steely-faced determination, bored into her with unflinching, accusing eyes. She hit him again, this time in the stomach. She, too, had been taught how to throw a punch, and since he did nothing to restrain her or to dodge her wrath, the blow was painful. She threw another punch that met the expansive bruise Hunter had left him, and that hurt even more. It was strangely satisfying to have her hurt him physically. Why Hunter Longlake, of all men?
Jade’s eyes were clouded with tears. She landed a punch wrong, and her wrist bent sharply back. Jade cried out and clutched her arm to her chest. She turned away from him.
Unable to resist the urge to take care of her, he said, “Jade, let me see.”
When he placed his hand on her arm, she back-fisted him with her good hand. Blood dripped slowly from his nose, his upper lip began to puff up, and he tasted the tang of a cut inside.
“Hunter is a good man, nothing like his father, but you don’t care. You tell me to leave you alone, and then you come back and ruin my life—and your life, too—because of your stupid grudge, because you’re always looking for a fight. Hunter is a gentleman who’s never treated me with anything but honor and respect, which is more than I can say for you!”