Constant Marlowe dodged his fierce blows, keeping to her toes mostly—footwork, always footwork. She could see he hadn’t expected a boxer. Which is what Marlowe was. She had been a titled amateur and pro. Her first name had come from a reporter who’d described her in an article as a fighter who trounced her opponents with a “constant” barrage of blows. The day after that story ran, she went to the courthouse and dropped her parents’ choice—Prudence—in favor of the journalist’s delightful adjective.
