“Tomorrow I’ll go back to smooth things over,” he said. “And I’ll pay the tavernkeeper for the damage.”
She laughed a little. “You mean the plaster? They’re not going to patch that hole. They’ll probably make a frame around that tankard and display it with pride. ‘Rafe Brandon Drank Here.’ ”
As soon as the words came out of her, an idea took hold. Her mind began turning faster than a waterwheel.
“That’s it,” she said, closing the tin with a snap. “That’s what I need to make this brewery successful. A business associate.”
“An associate?”
“Yes. Someone who has a good rapport with the farmers and tradesmen. Someone with a name known in pubs and taverns all throughout England.” Excitement rose in her chest, and she looked him in the eye. “I don’t suppose you know anyone like that?”
His jaw was steely. “No.”
“Come along, Rafe. This could be perfect. We could . . . We could call it the Devil’s Own Ale. To advertise, you could go about England, punching tankards into tavern walls. I’d give you a share of the profits.”
“You want to hire me?”
She shrugged. “Why not? At some point, you have to take up a career.”
“I have a career. I’m a fighter.”
“But—”
“It won’t happen, Clio.” He cut off her objection by lifting her over the stile. Then he vaulted the wooden fence himself and resumed walking along the path.
End of conversation.
Clio walked a step behind him, sighing to herself. How could the idea of a brewery compete with the glory of a prizefighting career? How could anything?
She had to admit, the prospect of imminent fisticuffs had been rather exciting. When she’d thought Rafe was preparing to fight that cheating blackguard, chills had raced over her skin. Not merely because Rafe was a champion, but because he was acting as hers.
But even that rare, heady thrill was nothing—absolutely nothing—compared to the relief she felt when he punched the wall instead.
She’d followed the sport for years now, and she knew how these fighters too often ended. Forgotten. Impoverished. Sometimes imprisoned. Broken, in body and mind.
It would kill her to see that happen to Rafe.
Between the relative privacy and the lingering courage imparted by the beer, Clio felt brave enough to tell him so. She jogged to his side. “I think you lied to me when I came to your warehouse in Southwark.”
“How’s that?”
“You told me I hadn’t walked in on a suicide. Now I’m not so sure. I know you weren’t planning to hang yourself, but going back to fighting . . . ? Isn’t it a slower route to the same end?”
He shook his head. “Not at all.”
“I read the accounts of your fights, Rafe. And not just because I read the papers, and you happened to be in them. I sought them out. I read about all thirty-four rounds of your bout with Dubose. The magazines recounted it in such breathless detail. Every blow and bruise.”
“The reporters make it sound more dangerous than it is. It’s how they sell magazines. And it helps generate interest for the next fight.”
Clio’s concerns weren’t soothed. “I hate the way people speak about you. Even in that pub today, the way they all leapt to clear space and place wagers. As if you were an inhuman creature meant to bleed and suffer for their amusement, no better than a fighting cock or a baited bear. Doesn’t it bother you?”
“No. I don’t fight for them. I fight for me.”
“For God’s sake, why?”
“Because I’m good at it,” he said, sounding agitated now. “I am bloody great at it. And I was never good at anything. Because it’s the one place where I know that my success is mine, and my failure, too. In the ring, I might be facing an Irish dock laborer or an English tanner or an American freedman. When the bell rings, none of it matters worth a damn. It’s only me. My strength, my heart, my wits, my fists. Nothing I was given, nothing I took. I fight because it tells me who I am.”
“If you’re looking for someone to tell you who you are, I can do that.”
He shrugged her off.