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“Something,” Benedict answered with the faintest glimmer of a smile playing around his lips. “Where you don’t have to make yourself too agreeable to others. I’ll put my thinking cap on.”

“And what will I do this afternoon?” she asked lowering her cup.

“You can sit inside the entrance and take the ha’penny entrance fee.”

9

In truth, Benedict knew he had given Frank cause for complaint that morning. The first fight had gone to plan, but he had rushed second and the third. His mind had been on other things. Namely, his new wife. For some reason, he had imagined he would feel quite indifferent to Lizzie’s struggles to find her place in his life. But that had been before …

Now he was faced with the reality of Lizzie Anderson as his wife, he felt quite differently about the matter. Frank had clearly recognized as much, for when Benedict had said Lizzie would require a chair, his brother had made no complaint, but merely fetched her one and handed her a jar for the ha’pennies. “Daphne will drum up custom,” Frank announced. “And Lizzie can take the entrance fees. Jack, you keep an eye on her.”

Their younger brother had nodded in agreement, and Daphne had made her way back outside the tent to start hollering. Benedict had found himself hovering a moment until he had seen that Lizzie was settled and then made his way back to the ring.

Even now, as Frank touted the next prospect, Benedict was fighting the impulse to turn and crane for a glimpse of her sat in the doorway. God alone knew why. He knew what he would find. Her neat figure sat ramrod straight. The demure braided head of hair. The lips pressed primly together. He wanted another taste of those lips. Damn Jack for interrupting them last night when he had finally got her where he wanted her. Namely, in his arms.

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Just when had he started hankering after Betsy’s correct cousin? he wondered with a quick shake of his head. Desire had crept up on him and taken him unawares. She had spent the night in his bed since then and, what’s more, had left it as innocent as she had entered it, more’s the pity.

It had been a pleasant awakening that morning, though. She wasn’t so starched up when she was sleeping. Lizzie Anderson had been sweet and clinging in the early hours when her arm had stolen around his waist and her breath had tickled the back of his neck. Her trim figure had felt womanly enough, though in truth, he had always thought her on the skinny side at Sitwell Place, stood next to her comely cousin.

Frank sauntered Benedict’s way and, still beaming at the audience, clasped his shoulder in a tight grip. Had he noticed Benedict’s abstraction? “Our first volunteer has boxed a bit before, so watch your step,” he murmured, before turning back to the crowd. “Gentlemen, we have a treat for you! A veritable treat! Can we get another volunteer or two before we start this afternoon? Come! There must be some hot-blooded bruisers among you, keen to prove your mettle to your fellows!”

Benedict let the patter wash over him. He had heard it all so many times, after all. He’d never heard anyone compare him to a Greek statue before, though. That had been a new one. He found he liked to think of Lizzie’s stunned gaze running over him, comparing him to the only example of masculinity she had heretofore been exposed to. A statue. A smile tugged at his lips as he rolled his shoulders.

He wanted her eyes on him now, he realized, though in truth, it was probably just as well they weren’t. Otherwise he might feel inclined to impress her by dispatching his challengers as speedily as possible. Again. And he had a livelihood to earn, he reminded himself, especially with a wife to support.

Irresistibly, his gaze returned to the entrance. Was someone arguing the fee with her? he wondered straightening up. Two men hovered there, talking with boisterous loudness. Nay, they were coming into the tent now, all smiles and jocularity. What the fuck were they smiling about? he scowled. He’d like to see one of them climb in the ring with him, and he’d wipe that smile off their faces.

Benedict decided he would take particular satisfaction in pummeling the bastard in the stovepipe hat. He turned a hard stare on his brother Jack. What the fuck was his brother going to do about it? If he wanted to make himself useful, he could try turning his eye on his new sister-in-law and making sure she wasn’t being harangued by all-comers. He watched his brother cast a bewildered look about him. Bloody young idiot was less than useless.

The afternoon crawled along. It didn’t matter how many times he glanced at the doorway, Lizzie’s attention was either trained outside the tent, or on the person handing her their fee. Only once did he catch her looking his way, and on that occasion, she looked away so fast he barely had time to register the fact. It vastly improved his mood, though.

There was a break between the early and late afternoon show, but Benedict dared not distract himself by going to her. If he had, he would not want to return to the ring at all. Instead, he stayed where he was and accepted the bottle of beer Jack fetched him. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Lizzie sat alone with her lemonade. That Daphne had not approached her once, and after fetching her drink, Jack gave her a wide berth.

In truth, they did not need two women working the outside of the tent. It probably deterred as many customers as it attracted. He would need to find some other occupation for Lizzie. But what? What was she fit for in this world so outside of the one she knew? He ran through the list of prospects, but nothing seemed a likely fit. The theatre tent, such as it was, was full of hecklers and revelers that would no doubt shock the living hell out of her.

The acrobats would have no use for her, and even the food stalls would expect her to share a laugh and joke with their customers. Something he just could not imagine Lizzie doing. If anyone told her a bawdy jest, he had no doubt it would likely be met with disapproval and outrage. Though why that should make him smile, he had no notion.

It was between the eighth and ninth crowd volunteer that inspiration struck. Connie and her Wonderous Females of the World. Had Connie not told him herself that Alfred, her muscle, had run off and left her in the lurch this season?

Though Connie’s booth relied on titillation, she fostered a strictly ‘hands off’ policy and cultivated at least a surface appearance of heavy respectability. Partly, this was to circumvent decency laws, and partly, because outright touch would expose the fact that most of her ‘wonders’ were out and out frauds.

In the past, Alfred’s hulking presence with his cauliflower ears and broken nose had been intended as a deterrent to those that would seek to either opportune Connie’s girls or expose them outright. What if Lizzie were to patrol the tent instead? She could freeze a man at twenty paces with one of her looks, and it wasn’t as though she would shrink from ticking anyone off that crossed a line.

Alfred, for all his bulk, had been awkward and bashful when it came to telling young ladies to stand back or to prevent them from peering behind the curtains. Benedict could not imagine Lizzie showing a similar reluctance. She would wade right in given half the chance.

Again, he found himself inclined to smile at the thought, greatly startling Frank who he realized had just given the chilling ‘he’ll seal your doom’ speech of introduction for him. Hastily, he rearranged his features into a fearsome scowl. It only occurred to him as they were clearing away that he had spent most of the afternoon thinking about Lizzie.

She appeared silently by his side as he fastened the last of his shirt buttons. “Do we tidy away the roped off area too or leave that up for tomorrow?”

“Leave it up,” he answered. “No one will disturb it.”

She held up her jar of ha’pennies. “What shall I do with this?”

“Frank will sort the takings for the day,” he said looking around for his older brother who was already looking through Jack’s betting book with a frown of concentration on his face. Lizzie carried it over to him. Benedict watched his brother take it with a nod, and Lizzie returned to his side.

“I don’t think Daphne really needed me on the door with her, you know,” she commented without rancor.