But Kennedy had taken Ian’s moment of distraction to cock the pistol once more, and he now pressed it against the marquess’s stomach. Kennedy wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and sneered at Ian. “No, the mistake was yours.”
The gun fired for the fourth time as Ian twisted away but a burning in his side told him that the bullet found its mark anyway. It wasn’t the first time he’d been shot, but he swore it would be the last. Pushing aside the pain, he dove at Kennedy and drove him back once more. They hit the lower wall and Ian felt the stone move with the force of their combined weight.
As the gun flew from his grasp and skittered across the ground, Kennedy’s eyes widened with alarm and Ian sneered down into his face, pushing the man harder against the shifting stone. “How does it feel to be taken down by your own evil deed?”
Beads of sweat appeared on the would-be murderer’s brow as he both clung to and fought against Ian’s grasp until he was bent backward against the rail. “I never thought I was that good,” he audaciously jested, then relaxed his legs, dropping suddenly and using his unsupported weight to drag himself from Ian’s grasp.
The sudden move threw Ian off balance and before he could recover, Kennedy threw himself against the wound in Ian’s side. They both careened sideways.
“No!”
At Hero’s scream, Ian looked up to find her running toward his valet, who had appeared on ramparts, presumably to come to his cohort’s aid. Dickson held another gun in his hands, but luckily killing Hero in cold blood seemed to give him pause. With his hesitation, she reached him at a full run and they toppled against the low wall. The pistol flew over the edge.
The satisfaction of seeing some part of this sinister plot fail was short-lived. Dickson grabbed at Hero, winding his arms around her while she kicked and clawed at his hands. He held her easily, but when she bit his hand, the valet winced. He backhanded her and she spun away with a pained cry.
Before she even hit the ground, Ian wrestled away from Kennedy and delivered one last brutal blow to his opponent. It knocked him to the ground leaving Ian free to deal with the valet. Charging forward, Ian spun him around, using the momentum of the turn to throw Dickson bodily away. The valet stumbled, and the low outer wall caught him low across his back. The momentum of his upper body continued, levered him backward over the wall, and his feet flew up. Dickson went over the side with a shriek, catching the top with one hand.
“Help me,” he begged, looking frantically up at his employer as he dangled helplessly over the long drop.
Ian snorted, thinking of all that this man had done to them. A man who’d had his trust. Dickson had been in his rooms while he slept, and had attempted to murder him and Hero as well. He shook his head. “Help yourself.”
“Ian.”
The fear rather than admonishment in Hero’s voice made him turn only to find she in Kennedy’s hold. His arm tight around her waist and the pistol pointed at her temple.
“Don’t.” The desperate plea emerged from Ian’s lips. Dickson’s frantic beseeching faded away as Ian’s focus shifted entirely to the safety of the woman he loved.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“I’m sorry, Ian.” Sorrow flooded Hero as she watched anger turn to shock and then despair. “I was trying to get the pistol. I thought he was unconscious…”
Ian shifted his gaze to Kennedy’s triumphant expression. “You can have it. All of it. Just don’t hurt her.”
“Really?” Kennedy lowered the barrel of the pistol and ground it against the bloody wound on her arm, causing her to cry out in pain. Ian leapt forward, but when Kennedy lifted the pistol to her temple he froze in his tracks. “She is the key, isn’t she?”
“Are you truly so depraved that you could just shoot her?”
“It’s not as difficult as you might think to watch someone die.”
Ian’s eyes met Hero’s. Kennedy was wrong. It had been arduous enough to see hardened soldiers die on the battlefields, to watch the life leech from the eyes of men under his command, his friends. He could not watch Hero die. He would die with her, or certainly without her. “Let her go. I’ll accept your original bargain. Just don’t hurt her.”
“Ian, no.” Hero struggled against her captor once more. She couldn’t let Ian sacrifice his life for hers. “I won’t let you.”
“It is a conundrum, isn’t it?” Kennedy said thoughtfully. “Problem is, I believe her more than I believe you. She wouldn’t sit quietly at all. What a shame, really.”
With no other warning, Kennedy flung Hero through the gap in the rampart wall. Too terrified to even scream, she instead heard Ian’s harsh cry of denial as she went over the side. Desperately, she grasped for purchase on the remaining parts of the wall. Some of the smaller rocks broke away at her efforts and she feared she’d soon be tumbling down with them. Feet dangling over the furious waters of the firth and her injured arm screaming in pain, she fought against the weight of her skirts and petticoats. She tried to pull herself up again, but instead slipped farther down. Then stuck. To her surprise, the bottom of her steel-boned corset wedged in the stone and supported her weight.
Ian dropped to his knees and caught her under the elbow. “Hero!”
“Get him,” she panted out. “I’m all right.”
“No!” He pulled her up, wincing at the pain in his side.
Sadly, the slight movement lifted Hero from the perch her corset had found for her against edge of the stone and he was left with her full weight to support. Her sudden collapse dragged Ian to his knees; his grip slid to her wrist and left her entire weight dangling there from her injured arm.
“Ian,” she screeched in terror, trying frantically to gain some foothold.
The pain in her arm was excruciating, sending fire shooting up her arm, but she knew only worse things awaited her. Releasing the edge of the wall with her other hand, she grasped at his arm with both hands, putting her destiny squarely in his determination to save her.
