How to Woo a Wallflower (Romancing the Rules #3)(67)

“An offer I couldn’t refuse.”

“Quite right too.” Rigg started toward him with a gangly strut, swinging his cane. “More where that came from, boy. Always more blunt to be ’ad.”

“I want the funds first. Then I’ll fight.”

The old man flashed him a snaggletooth smile. “That’s not ’ow it works, my son. Ye know that better than most.”

“The rules have changed,” Gabe told him, widening his stance, muscles tensed, keeping one eye peeled for more thugs. Rigg never traveled alone. “Blunt first. Fight second. Then I want a bounty if I win.”

A rusty sound emerged from Rigg, then higher, a seesawing cackle. He leaned on his cane and bent at the waist, guffawing out a wretched sound, like metal scraping metal. Then, in a flash, he straightened and pressed a blade to Gabe’s throat. “I make the rules ’ere, son. Always ’ave. Always will. Ye forgot yerself if you fink I’ll take me orders from a guttersnipe.”

Gabe held his hands up and considered how deep Rigg could slice him in the time it would take for Gabe to get his hands around the man’s scrawny neck.

“A hundred, in victory or defeat. That’s my offer, boy. Take it as it stands, or scarper off back to your high-kick girl.”

At the mention of Clary, Gabe’s vision clouded with crimson. He jerked up and arched back, knocking Rigg’s knife arm away. He grabbed the old man and spun him, lashing a forearm across his neck. He squeezed the arm that held the knife until the metal switchblade clattered to the ground.

“I’m stronger than you, old devil. I always have been. I should have killed you when I was in my prime.”

Rigg laughed again. “Kill me, and you won’t ever see yer hundred pounds,” he squawked past Gabe’s hold.

The old man was shockingly frail. Gabe could feel his bony body under the layers of soot-grimed clothes. One squeeze, and he had no doubt he could snap the devil’s neck and snuff out the life of one who’d caused others so much misery. It would be justice, but it would be cold-blooded murder. He’d never be able to face Clary. Sweet, good, loving Clary, who thought everyone was redeemable. Hell, she’d probably offer Rigg a cup of tea if she ever met the blighter.

If Gabe had anything to say about it, she never ever would.

He lifted his arm, and Rigg stumbled forward, planting his palms on the brick wall ahead. A moment later, he whirled on Gabe, his cane pointed toward him, a blade protruding from the end. “Fight or go, boy. Choose yer fate.”

“One fight, and I’m finished.”

Rigg lowered his cane and sneered. “We shall see, boy. I wager one taste of blood and pain won’t be enough. Ye always were a bloodthirsty brute.”

Gabe couldn’t deny the charge. But that was his past. He’d left that part of himself behind. This single dive back into hell, and he would go back to making a better life for himself. This chapter could be closed, once and for all.

“Where?” Gabe asked the devil.

“One o’ the usual places. Behind the Crossroads this time.”

The pub was a vile place, but the yard behind was large enough to accommodate hundreds of spectators, though some of Rigg’s fights had attracted as many as a thousand. People came from all parts of London, and farther, to view the brawls. Visitors paid the lodging house proprietors for a room, not for the night but for an hour. For a spot where they could look out a window or get a good view from the rooftops. That was the power of bloodlust.

“The hour?”

Rigg slid a cheroot from his pocket and took the time to strike a match against the bricks and light the end before offering an answer around the burning length of his wretched cigar. “The witchin’ ’our, of course.”

Gabe gave one downward jerk of his chin, shoved his fists in his pockets, and started back toward the Ten Bells. In the end, he hadn’t been fool enough to engage in this venture alone, and he needed to tell his compatriot where he’d be and when.

Four hours after leaving Ruthven’s, Clary and Sara were cold, miserable, and on the verge of panic. They’d visited Sara’s old acquaintances, houses of ill repute, gambling dens, and a lodging house where a crotchety old woman barked at them to leave and never come back. Nivens, Sara said she was called. Gabe and his sister had once lived in the old woman’s dilapidated lodging house just a few blocks from Fisk Academy.

Clary thought of the school and Helen and the girls at Fisk more than once as they traversed the handful of square miles that constituted Whitechapel, but she dared not peek her head in or lead Sara to their door. Tonight, she was about dangerous business, and she didn’t wish the threat to touch any of them.

“Almost at me wit’s end,” Sara said in an exhausted voice.

They chafed their hands as they huddled across the street from one of the most notorious pubs in Whitechapel. The Ten Bells had been associated with the Ripper murders a decade earlier. A few of the victims were known to frequent the establishment, and one visited the very night of her heinous murder. Many suspected the culprit must have partaken at the pub too, perhaps choosing his victims from among its patrons.

“Shall we go inside?” Clary asked Gabe’s sister.

“Nothing in me wants to, except for the hope of hearing word of this bleedin’ fight.” Sara peered through the glass of the establishment. “Not a fit place for a lady such as yourself, Miss Ruthven, but I fear we’ve got to try.”