He did not speak when she noticed him, nor when she froze in place, nor when she went deathly pale and her brown eyes—funny that he noticed their color—went wide with first recognition and then horror.
Nor did he speak when she opened her mouth and screamed. No doubt he would have done the same, had he been in her position.
It was only when she was through with that first, ear-shattering shriek—the one that brought footmen and maids and wedding guests and his father running—that he spoke, taking the quiet moment before the coming storm to ask, “Where am I?”
The maid simply stared, dumbstruck.
He made to move from the bed, the sheets falling to his waist, stopping short as he realized his clothes were nowhere in sight.
He was naked. In a bed that was not his own.
And he was covered in blood.
He met the maid’s horrified gaze again, and when he spoke, the words came out young and full of something he would later identify as fear. “Whose bed is this?”
Remarkably, she found her answer without stuttering. “Miss Lowe.”
Miss Mara Lowe, daughter of a wealthy financier, with a dowry large enough to catch a duke.
Miss Mara Lowe, soon-to-be the Duchess of Lamont.
His future stepmother.
Chapter 1
The Fallen Angel
London
Twelve Years Later
There is beauty in the moment when flesh meets bone.
It is born of the violent crunch of knuckles against jaw, and the deep thud of fist against abdomen, and the hollow grunt that echoes from the chest of a man in the split second before his defeat.
Those who revel in such beauty, fight.
Some fight for pleasure. For the moment when an opponent collapses to the floor in a cloud of sawdust, without strength or breath or honor.
Some fight for glory. For the moment when a champion looms over his beaten and broken adversary, slick with sweat and dust and blood.
And some fight for power. Underscored by the strain of sinew and the ache of soon-to-be bruises that whisper as victory comes with the promise of spoils.
But the Duke of Lamont, known throughout London’s darkest corners as Temple, fought for peace.
He fought for the moment when he was nothing but muscle and bone, movement and force, sleight and feint. For the way brutality blocked the world beyond, silencing the thunder of the crowd and the memories of his mind, and left him with only breath and might.
He fought because, for twelve years, it was in the ring alone that he knew the truth of himself and of the world.
Violence was pure. All else, tainted.
And that knowledge made him the best there was.
Undefeated throughout London—throughout Europe, many wagered—it was Temple who stood in the ring each night, wounds rarely scarred over before they threatened to bleed again, knuckles wrapped in long strips of linen. There, in the ring, he faced his next opponent—a different man each night, each one believing Temple could be bested.
Each one believing himself the man to reduce the great, immovable Temple to a mass of heavy flesh on the floor of the largest room of London’s most exclusive gaming hell.
The draw of The Fallen Angel was powerful, built upon tens of thousands of pounds wagered each evening, on the promise of vice and sin that called to Mayfair at sunset, on the men of title and wealth and unparalleled worth who stood shoulder to shoulder and learned of their weakness from the rattle of ivory and the whisper of baize and the spin of mahogany.
And when they had lost everything in the glittering, glorious rooms above, their last resort was the room that lurked below—the ring. The underworld over which Temple reigned.
The Angel’s founders had created a single path of redemption for these men. There was a way those who lost their fortune to the casino could regain it.
Fight Temple.
Win.
And all was forgiven.
It had never happened, of course. For twelve years, Temple had fought, first in dark alleys filled with darker characters for survival, and then in lower clubs, for money and power and influence.
All the things he’d been promised.
All the things he’d been born to.
All the things he had lost in one, unremembered night.
The thought crept into the rhythm of the fight and for a barely-there moment, his body weighed heavy on his feet, and his opponent—half Temple’s size and a third of his strength—landed a blow, forceful and lucky, at the perfect angle to jar the teeth and bring stars to the eyes.
Temple danced backward, propelled by the unexpected cross, pain and shock banishing thought as he met the triumphant gaze of his unnamed opponent. Not unnamed. Of course he was named. But Temple rarely spoke the names. The men were merely a means to his end.
Just as he was a means to theirs.