Page 19 of The Boxing Baroness

“I told you to avoid that narsty fizzy brew.”

She laughed, the sound surprisingly girlish, and then winced slightly. “I think you must be the only person who thinks of champagne in those terms. Besides, it was Cecile’s birthday celebration, so I had to drink it.”

Jack grunted and turned back to his satchel. “You warm up good this mornin’, lass—it’s cold as a witch’s tit and I don’t want you pullin’ nothin’.”

She yawned, sighed, and then commenced to engage in the most rigorous series of exercises that Sin had ever seen—and he was no naïf when it came to athletic endeavors.

Like every young aristocratic man, Sin had been obsessed with milling in his youth. While at Eton he, Guy, Elliot, David, and Dominic had started the Gymnos Club.

As gymnos was not only the root word for gymnasium but also the Greek word for “naked,” it had been their brilliant idea to engage in physical exercise while naked, just as the ancient Spartans and Olympians had done.

They’d quickly discovered that outdoor athletics in the Greek climate was a good deal different from attempting the same pursuits in an English one. Even after they’d capitulated to the exigencies of the English weather and donned appropriate clothing, they had continued to engage in a rigorous schedule of training as espoused by the ancient Greeks. That had included: thrice weekly swimming—no matter the season—footraces, riding, climbing anything and everything, from trees to buildings, utilizing dumbbells for strength training, and skipping rope and calisthenics for endurance.

Although Sin no longer embraced the grueling routine of his youth, he still worked his body hard at Jackson’s three times a week and rode most mornings. But what Marianne Simpson did over the next hour and a half... well, he had never seen the like.

She warmed up by skipping so fast the rope itself was a blur, not stopping until sweat poured down her temples. Next, she lifted the dumbbells so many times, and in so many ways, that it made his own muscles scream just observing. After that, Jack used his considerable strength to fling a hard leather ball at her midriff for ten minutes.

Lastly, she did sit-ups, press-ups, lifts, and various stretching-type exercises that Sin wasn’t familiar with.

By the time Jack called a halt to the brutal series of lifts she was doing—using a trapeze bar that he’d lowered—her thin muslin garments were almost translucent with perspiration.

Jack handed her a towel and she walked a circuit around the stage until she had cooled down.

“I’ve got a new one for you today,” Jack said. “Raw and not up to yer level, but frisky enough to keep ye on yer toes.”

Marianne nodded, drying her face before toweling her shoulders and arms.

Jack pulled the bung from the wine bottle he’d taken from his bag earlier—which Sin assumed held water—and handed it to her. She put the bottle to her lips, tilted back her head, and swallowed repeatedly, the action flexing the long muscles of her throat.

Sin couldn’t pull his gaze from her; she was . . . well, he didn’t know what she was. Certainly unlike any female he’d ever seen. He tried to picture her with longer hair, wearing silks and jewels.

He couldn’t visualize it.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and took another gulp, giving him more time to gawk. The muscles in her shoulders and back were defined and elegant rather than bulky. Her arms, on the other hand, were as muscular as many of the men who sparred at Jackson’s. When she raised the bottle to her mouth her biceps bulged, the pronounced tracery of veins a shocking blue beneath her almost translucent skin.

It was cold in the cavernous building but his skin was hot and prickling. Conflicting emotions churned inside him and sent blood pumping to all parts of his body. Marianne Simpson was sculpted and muscular and she moved with the physical confidence of any of the great athletes he’d seen: male athletes.

Women, in Sin’s experience, were soft, curvaceous, and well-padded. And yet his groin had stirred while he watched her work through the grueling training, until he was now erect and aching, more aroused than he’d been for a woman in . . . well, he couldn’t recall when he’d last been so hard.

What the devil was wrong with him to feel desire for such a mannish woman?

No—mannish wasn’t the right word. For all her musculature, she was undeniably female. Her small breasts were delicate swells pressed fetchingly against a corset so loose it hardly merited the name. Although her hips were slender and compact, there was a distinctly feminine curve to them—

He wrenched his mind and gaze off the too-entrancing woman and focused on the brutish man, instead.

Jack peeled an orange and handed it to her. She relaxed while she ate it, staring at nothing in particular as Jack bustled about the stage.

“I’m ready,” Marianne said a short while later, thankfully yanking Sin away from thoughts he did not wish to entertain now or ever.

She stood and dropped her hands to the tapes that held up her petticoat.

Jack cocked his head. “It’s cold, luv—you sure you wanna strip down?”

“I’m burning up and will soon be even warmer.”

She pushed down the petticoat, and Sin’s pulse pounded as the thin white muslin floated to the floor.

He squinted. Were those—