Zachary heard a resounding slap, and then Elizabeth’s cry.
“That will teach you not to humiliate me, Elizabeth as you did with that pathetic cowboy over dinner. You’ll learn your place quickly under my rule, and it won’t be pleasant. Ask any of my slaves in Barbados.”
Zachary moved out from beneath low-hanging trumpet flower vines. His six foot two frame towered over the little man who dared to slam Elizabeth up against the wall.
Havemeyer glared over his shoulder. “Get out. This is between me and my fiancée.”
Zachary sized up the bruise on Elizabeth’s face, and her desperation to pry Havemeyer’s fingers digging into her shoulders. Blood rocketed through his veins. “Not a chance.”
Elizabeth thrust off the sugar baron and moved beside Zachary. Havemeyer became restless, moving from foot to foot, twisting at the waist, rolling his thin shoulders.
Almost laughable, except Zachary was furious with the man who gambled to lay a hand on a defenseless lady, and in her own home.
Nobody spoke.
Havemeyer’s mouth opened and closed like a goldfish pecking at the surface. Thin moveable lips over a chomping mill of teeth. “You should learn your place, Rourke.”
“I’d like you to teach me,” Zachary taunted. Zach entertained knocking out his teeth, breaking his arms and legs. That would be too kind.
“Let’s keep our tempers,” said Elizabeth.
The smaller man pumped his chest out, a wonder his lungs didn’t explode. “I can take care of you. You might be dressed up but you’re still a cowboy. I’d hate to see your new fancy clothes get messed up.” He guffawed at his own joke.
“I should warn you, Havemeyer. You might want to get a dozen men to back you up.”
Emboldened by the amount of alcohol he’d consumed, Havemeyer came to life. The sugar baron was not in control of his wits. Maybe jumping from side to side took up all his brainpower. He stepped forward one angry pace. “Get out of New York.”
The smaller man stumbled toward Zachary and then braced against the motion and spun back and started to whirl a fast one-eighty toward Elizabeth with his fist cocking behind his back like a pitcher aiming a speed ball. Zachary seized the man by the wrist and waited for a split second and then let go again and the guy teetered through the rest of his turn all unbalanced and ungainly and incompetent and ended with an anemic late swing that skipped Elizabeth entirely.
But then Havemeyer turned right back and directed a second swing upright at Zachary. Zachary stepped right and the incoming fist droned by an inch from his chin. The force behind it whirled the sugar baron forward and Zachary kicked the man’s feet out from under him and ditched him face down on the marble floor.
Elizabeth gave a warning cry. The sugar baron was already up on his knees and scrabbling for grip, hand and feet, like a sprinter, a small derringer pointed at Zachary’s heart. The man was deranged, and Zachary didn’t trust a random gunshot fired into Elizabeth. So, Zachary kicked him hard in the head. The man’s eyes rolled up and he toppled sideways and lay still with his leg folded under him.
Zachary booted Havemeyer’s gun free, picked it up and gave it to Elizabeth. “Take this, Elizabeth, and keep it. You never know when you’ll need protection.”
“He followed me in here. I had wanted to be alone.”
“I don’t countenance men preying on defenseless women. It’s the code I grew up with.”
Her eyes lit with worry, she said, “What about Havemeyer?”
Zachary shrugged. “Looks to me like the sugar baron tripped over his feet. The servants will find him in the morning. He won’t dare say anything because he’d have to admit how he’d accosted you.”
Elizabeth turned her cheek, using her reflection in the conservatory window. “Is it bad?”
“Nothing that a little powder won’t cover. You should report him to your father.”
“No! Mother would say it was my fault for provoking him. She’d expedite my marriage to him. I thank you for saving me from that dreadful man.”
She watched Zachary drag Havemeyer to the rear of the conservatory. A three-inch thick wood plank heavy with an array orchids draped over the horrid man. With the side of his hand, Zachary chopped the plank in half.Impossible.
Pots crashed, shrouding the sugar baron with dirt, orchids and shattered pottery. Elizabeth gasped. “How did you do that?”
He shrugged. “Gravity.”
“No. Chop the board in half. Don’t tell me that was a skill picked up from the Comanche?”
“Chen taught me. Taught me many useful things.”
