In the Dark with the Duke Read online

  Praise for In Bed with the Earl

  “Exceptional . . . This series launch is an intoxicating romp sure to delight fans of historical romance.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “Sizzling, witty, passionate . . . perfect!”

  —Eloisa James, New York Times bestselling author

  Praise for Christi Caldwell

  “Christi Caldwell writes a gorgeous book!”

  —Sarah MacLean, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

  “In addition to a strong plot, this story boasts actualized characters whose personal demons are clear and credible. The chemistry between the protagonists is seductive and palpable, with their family history of hatred played against their personal similarities and growing attraction to create an atmospheric and captivating romance.”

  —Publishers Weekly on The Hellion

  “Christi Caldwell is a master of words, and The Hellion is so descriptive and vibrant that she redefines high definition. Readers will be left panting, craving, and rooting for their favorite characters as unexpected lovers find their happy ending.”

  —RT Book Reviews on The Hellion

  “Christi Caldwell’s The Vixen shows readers a darker, grittier version of Regency London than most romance novels . . . Caldwell’s more realistic version of London is a particularly gripping backdrop for this enemies-to-lovers romance, and it’s heartening to read a story where love triumphs even in the darkest places.”

  —NPR on The Vixen

  OTHER TITLES BY CHRISTI CALDWELL

  Lost Lords of London

  In Bed with the Earl

  Sinful Brides

  The Rogue’s Wager

  The Scoundrel’s Honor

  The Lady’s Guard

  The Heiress’s Deception

  The Wicked Wallflowers

  The Hellion

  The Vixen

  The Governess

  The Bluestocking

  The Spitfire

  Heart of a Duke

  In Need of a Duke (A Prequel Novella)

  For Love of the Duke

  More Than a Duke

  The Love of a Rogue

  Loved by a Duke

  To Love a Lord

  The Heart of a Scoundrel

  To Wed His Christmas Lady

  To Trust a Rogue

  The Lure of a Rake

  To Woo a Widow

  To Redeem a Rake

  One Winter with a Baron

  To Enchant a Wicked Duke

  Beguiled by a Baron

  To Tempt a Scoundrel

  The Heart of a Scandal

  In Need of a Knight (A Prequel Novella)

  Schooling the Duke

  A Lady’s Guide to a Gentleman’s Heart

  A Matchmaker for a Marquess

  His Duchess for a Day

  Five Days With a Duke

  Lords of Honor

  Seduced by a Lady’s Heart

  Captivated by a Lady’s Charm

  Rescued by a Lady’s Love

  Tempted by a Lady’s Smile

  Courting Poppy Tidemore

  Scandalous Seasons

  Forever Betrothed, Never the Bride

  Never Courted, Suddenly Wed

  Always Proper, Suddenly Scandalous

  Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love

  A Marquess for Christmas

  Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love

  The Theodosia Sword

  Only For His Lady

  Only For Her Honor

  Only For Their Love

  Danby

  A Season of Hope

  Winning a Lady’s Heart

  The Brethren

  The Spy Who Seduced Her

  The Lady Who Loved Him

  The Rogue Who Rescued Her

  The Minx Who Met Her Match

  The Spinster Who Saved a Scoundrel

  Brethren of the Lords

  My Lady of Deception

  Her Duke of Secrets

  A Regency Duet

  Rogues Rush In

  Nonfiction Works

  Uninterrupted Joy: A Memoir

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2020 by Christi Caldwell Incorporated

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542021265

  ISBN-10: 154202126X

  Cover design by Juliana Kolesova

  For Lindsey:

  In you, I’ve been so very lucky to have an editor who not only believes in my work but also helps make sure it “sparkles.”

  I’m so grateful for all you do.

  Thank you for always being there to discuss my characters and plot points and everything in between. Lila and Hugh are for you!

  Contents

  Start Reading

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  About the Author

  One fist to the gut.

  One to the eye.

  A third to the throat.

  And that’s how one dies.

  —The Fight Society

  Prologue

  Covent Garden

  London, England

  1810

  The rules were clear.

  They were simple.

  Always land the hardest, sharpest blow. The decisive one that, when properly dealt, ultimately kills.

  And that ruthlessness was what brought the nobility ’round. After all, they would turn out coin for the cruelest of pleasures, and those cruelest pleasures were what kept Hugh Savage alive.

  Or they had. Until tonight.

  Hugh jabbed a fist out, punching swiftly at the air. From the reflection in the cracked beveled mirror, he caught sight of his visitor before the man even spoke.

  “You do know what you have to do?”

  Hugh met that question with nothing more than another practiced blow that hissed in the quiet.

  The desperate ones always wanted a damned meeting. As if they had something meaningful to contribute. Ultimately, Hugh had come to realize, those lessons were more about the obnoxious nobs convincing themselves that they had some control over the matchup, when really, the two men in the ring were the only ones who mattered.

  Restraining the fury pumping through him, Hugh let his fist fly, coming so close to the mirror his knuckles brushed the glass.

  Jab-Jab-Jab.

  Yes, the last thing Hugh, a bare-knuckle fighter, needed was a lesson. And certainly not from th
e man who’d come here as a coach. He might come from the highest ranks of London high society, but in these streets, Hugh was king of the ring. He faced the lord. Nearly forty years older than Hugh’s fifteen, the man was smaller by three stone, shorter by a foot, and stupider by a lot. Hefting his shirt overhead, Hugh tossed it aside, and the color drained from the fine gent’s fleshy cheeks.

  A clamor of cheers and cries went up outside the doorway, in the room where even now the latest contest ensued. Over that din, Hugh could still make out distinct sounds: The audible swallow of the masked lord as he took in Hugh’s scarred and marked chest. The rapid bobbing of the gent’s throat. The scratch of fabric as the gent clenched and unclenched his jacket.

  “I know how to fight,” Hugh said, speaking his first words since his handler had sent him back to ready for his match. “And even if I didn’t, the last person I’d take tutelage from is one like you.”

  Surprise brought the old man’s eyebrows flying up over the tops of the fabric obscuring his face.

  Hugh smiled coldly. They were always startled by his crisp tones. Always unsettled, as though they’d stumbled upon an anomaly, a fine-speaking person who had no place in these parts.

  But despite Hugh’s flawless King’s English, none would ever dare dispute or question that this was the only place he belonged.

  The old lord managed to find his voice once more. “I want him dead. I’ve got a sizable sum on you.”

  That was the plan, then. The Fight Society, which had begun as a ruthless underground children’s bare-knuckle ring, had evolved as the competitors had gotten older, and the spectators had begun to thirst for more bloodshed. More violence. More danger. More everything except mercy for the street rats made to tussle for their enjoyment.

  Bare-knuckle fighting had devolved into matches to the death—boys who’d never really been boys, forced to scuffle like dogs in the street, with not even a meal tossed to the most ruthless to emerge triumphant.

  I have to get out . . . I have to get away from this . . .

  “Did you hear me, boy? I want him dead.”

  “My lord, if you’ll excuse us for a moment.”

  As one, Hugh and the masked nobleman looked to the owner of that voice—Dooley, the hated handler.

  The gentleman stomped over to the lead handler. “The boy’s not being agreeable,” he said, jabbing a finger to the ground, punctuating each word. “He’s a stubborn, shameful one, and—”

  “And also one of our best.” Dooley flicked a flinty stare over a still-silent Hugh.

  The mask that concealed nearly the whole of the patron’s face pulled around his fleshy lips.

  While that pair spoke in angry but hushed whispers, Hugh practiced several swift uppercuts.

  They wanted control of every exchange. Of every duel. Of every outcome. To hell with all of them.

  And to hell with this life that wasn’t a life.

  “If you’ll excuse me, my lord?” Dooley was saying.

  The nobleman cast another look Hugh’s way. He wanted to say more, but apparently he was not as dumb as Hugh had originally taken him for.

  The moment he’d taken his leave, Dooley closed the door behind him and turned the lock. “You disapprove.”

  It wasn’t a question, and even if it had been, Hugh wouldn’t have answered Dooley.

  “You’re too good at what you do to hate this life,” the head of the underground operation said, almost conversationally. “Every last one of the combatants out there would kill to possess your skill, Savage.”

  Savage. It was the only surname he’d ever known. One he didn’t remember being given, and as such, he may as well have been born with it. Either way, the name was an apt one.

  “Killing’s what they do anyway,” Hugh pointed out jeeringly.

  Every muscle in his body went taut and strained and pulsed as the realization hit him.

  We. Not “they” . . . we.

  For tonight, Hugh would be expected to take part in that same barbarism. If he wanted to live, that was.

  Sweat slicked his skin.

  It had been inevitable.

  This moment.

  This exchange.

  He’d known this night was coming. He’d just managed to convince himself that Dooley believed Hugh’s value as a fighter was greater. That it would spare him from being thrust into a death match.

  “Here.” The other man tossed something at him. “You asked for these?”

  Hugh caught the strips of thinly cut, white linens. There was no such thing as honor in the rookeries. Men took any advantage they could. It was why, without compunction, he sat and proceeded to loop his thumb and wrap behind one hand.

  “Does that really work?”

  “It worked for the Greeks and Romans,” he muttered. The cloth wraps protected a boxer’s bones and skin. It was a strategy not known by the other fighters in the streets.

  “Interesting.”

  There was an absurdity to the casual nature of their exchange, one so at odds with the fact that, in mere moments, Hugh would leave this room and either meet his end or turn himself into a murderer.

  Dooley probed him with his gaze. “What do you know about the Greeks and Romans?”

  A lot. It was another detail he couldn’t explain about his past; however, while he may be forced to fight, he’d not give anything more to this man. Any of them. Hugh checked to see that he had adequate tension in his hand. He tugged the linen and then made a fist, testing to be sure it didn’t constrict his movements too much. “Is that what you’re here to talk about? Ancient civilizations?” He looped the linen around his wrist, then paused midway through the third loop to glance over at Dooley. “If so, perhaps you’d want to talk about the mere mortal Cronus, how he castrated and took apart his father, Ouranos’s, brain?”

  The handler paled. Hugh’s meaning had not been lost.

  Dooley quickly recovered. “Or mayhap we focus instead on how Zeus cut that foolish lad into pieces for ever daring to think he could have vengeance on a god?”

  A god.

  Hugh’s lip curled in a sneer. Was that what the other man took himself for? But then, in a way, in this world, wasn’t he? Dooley and the lords who ran this ring ruled all.

  The only difference? This hell would never dare be mistaken for anything but a Devil’s paradise.

  “Either way, Savage, I’ve not come to argue with you.” Dooley strolled over. “Not on fight night. Not when you’ll require your every wit about you.”

  Hugh wasn’t one who’d ever dare believe Dooley’s words were born of any real concern. Nay, he and the others here, they were commodities, ones who could be dispensed with as easily as a street peddler hawked her basket of eggs or bread.

  His hands larger than most, Hugh wrapped them with the second strip of linen, taking care to smooth the cloth free of any wrinkles or lumps.

  “It’s . . . taken a turn. I know this might come as a surprise to you, but I’m not one who necessarily . . . approves of the new direction.”

  Hugh made no attempt to mask his contempt. “Because you’re so concerned about us boys?” And now girls who’d been brought in to take part.

  Dooley scoffed. “My concern is the profit to be made.” Wandering over, he stopped so that he didn’t have to crane his neck so much to meet Hugh’s gaze. “Training fighters is costly. But more, it is time-consuming. If we’re losing even two boys a night, it’s too many. That’s two more I’ll have to find and train, and even then, they’ll never have the same skill as you lifelong fighters.”

  Hugh’s gut clenched. Aye, that was precisely what they were.

  Dooley released a belabored sigh. “Alas, try telling that to the lords who run this place. And I?” He shrugged. “I merely answer to them. Just as we all do to the peerage. I can suggest the best practices with which to make money in this venture, but I cannot make them do anything.”

  Hugh sneered and went back to his wrappings. “Of course, you’ll always do precisely as th
ey want.” Those masked five who ran the ring. The aristocrats whose money and perverse thirst for gladiatorial fighting had seen the creation of the Fight Society. They were the ones responsible for the children pickpockets and orphans plucked from the streets and whatever hospital they’d called home to take part in this hell. Dooley, however? Powerless as he was compared with the leaders of the ring, he still bore a like responsibility for all that happened here.

  Hugh felt, but didn’t bother to look for, Dooley’s disapproving frown. “Tsk. Tsk. I’m not totally heartless.”

  Not totally may as well have been the same as completely.

  “I’ve invested heavily in you. You? You are special, Savage.”

  Despite his resolve not to give any of his tormentors the benefit of a glance, at those words, Hugh couldn’t resist looking up.

  Dooley’s gaze was slightly unseeing as he stared across the preparation room. “I’ve never seen anyone fight like you. You don’t sound like a street rat. But you fight like one. You are unique, and that deserves to be protected.”

  That.

  Not he.

  Not Hugh.

  As always, he was inanimate to these people. An object to be used for their whims and pleasures. They were all just pieces upon a chessboard, being shifted and shoved about, these men controlling each ultimate move and outcome.

  Just as they had tonight by sending Hugh into the gladiatorial match.

  I’m going to be ill . . .

  The shouts and cheers from the arena were growing to a crescendo.

  The time was near.

  It is all coming to an end . . .

  Tired of dancing around whatever had brought Dooley here, he asked, “What do you want?”

  “See.” The handler wagged a finger. “This is what I was speaking of. You possess an intuitiveness . . . in the arena but also in every exchange.” He let his arm fall to his side. “But I’m intuitive as well. Your opponent tonight is a new one. The Assassin. I want you to end him tonight.”

  “Isn’t that the expectation, regardless?”

  Dooley’s stare held Hugh’s. “I’m telling you that is what you need to do.”

  Sitting up straighter, Hugh focused on the double meaning there.

  “I’ve no doubt you’ll win, Savage,” Dooley said, studying him contemplatively.

  Aye, because he didn’t lose. As such, that would be the expectation this night from the nobs who ran this ring, and from the spectators who came and threw wagers down on the combatants.