Waiting in the shadowsof the hallway for his prey to fall into his trap, Aylesbury absentmindedly checked the barrel of the pistol and hesitated.Just a single bullet remained.
One shot.
Two foes.
Cursing inwardly at the foolish fop who didn’t keep his gun fully loaded, Aylesbury wished he had thought to check it earlier and reconsidered his options.The gatehouse was stripped bare, but the gamesman’s small lodge would have been well stocked.Still it was deeper into the estate along the edges of the neighboring woodland.Not far, but with enough open field between that he would make an easy target if Ramsay or his cohort were armed as the other thug had been.
There were weapons at the dower house.His grandmother had kept his grandfather’s old dueling pistols there.It would be a hard run, but did the old things still work?There was only one way to find out, and Aylesbury wasn’t going to risk failure on a whim.Nor would he bring danger into his home and risk the lives of his dependents.
Voices sounded outside.
One shot.
It would have to do.
“Where are you, darling?”Ramsay’s voice rang out, a jocund absurdity through the entry hall.“I don’t want to hurt you or your friend.Why don’t you come out now and save me a lot of trouble?”
Aylesbury lifted his pistol to the ready, waiting.There was a low rush of whispers, then the shuffle of footsteps across the floor, the creak of a footstep on the stairs.One was going up, the other coming toward him down the hall.Straining to listen, he smiled with grim satisfaction when he heard the hard, wooden scrape against the floor.Ramsay had gone up in his softer-soled shoes, leaving the more practically shod ruffian to search below.
Coward.Ramsay assumed Fiona would have fled upstairs.He’d gone for the lesser threat, leaving his stooge to deal with Aylesbury.So be it.At least he wouldn’t have to waste his single shot straight away.There were better ways to deal with scoundrels for hire.
Waiting with his back to the corner, he counted the steps as they came.Waiting as they tentatively neared.Waiting until a shadow fell...
Aylesbury threw out his elbow, catching the ruffian in the nose and turned around the corner to follow the blow with a sharp uppercut that snapped the fellow’s jaw shut with an audible clack of his teeth.Spinning him around, he wrapped his arm around the man’s neck until he held him from behind.The man began to struggle against the hold but stilled immediately when Aylesbury pressed the barrel of his pistol to the thug’s temple and cocked it.
“Not a word,” Aylesbury growled softly.“Drop your gun.”
“Ain’t got one, gov.”
Snorting in disbelief, Aylesbury loosened him and moved slowly around in front of the villain, keeping him in his sights.“Show me.”
The man opened his coat, lifted his shirt and turned for Aylesbury’s benefit.“Ramsay took it.Bloody sod didn’t even bring ’is own.”
“No loyalty?”He clucked his tongue.“Or are you just doing all of this for the blunt?”
The man lifted a brow and shrugged.“Ye didn’t think we actually like the bloke, did ye?”
“Then why carry on?When I had already bested you once before?”
“Said he’d pay us double.”
Aylesbury almost laughed.“Did you see it?No?The fellow’s to let, chap.He’s got nothing for you.But I...”He dug in his pocket and pulled out his purse, spreading it with one hand to flash the pound notes within.As he expected, the henchman’s eyes widened greedily.“It’s yours, all yours if you’ll just walk away and leave Ramsay to me.What do you say?”
The thug-for-hire nodded, and Aylesbury tossed the purse on the floor between them, waiting until the moment the man bent to retrieve it to bring the butt of the pistol down with a crack on the back of the greedy bastard’s skull.
Down he went, his head meeting Aylesbury’s sharply raised knee for good measure before he slumped to the floor.Checking to make sure the man was unconscious, he took off the man’s belt and bound his hands with it.
Listening carefully, he heard only silence.No movement from above.Nothing from outside.Not that he expected any.It would take far longer for aid to come from Oxford than he had yet provided.
He had time.Taking up his pistol again, he worked his way silently to the foot of the stairs with a grin.
Still one shot.
And only one adversary remaining.
The first stair creaked under his weight, and Aylesbury winced but made haste upward, intent on reaching his foe.He was halfway up when the plaster on the wall next to him exploded, bursting in a cloud of dust and leaving the larger bits to clatter to the stair by his foot as Aylesbury looked up the staircase.
Ramsay’s person was nowhere to be seen, just a shock of hair and a single eye peeping from around a doorframe over a hand still gripping a smoking gun.It was a six-shooter.Not as fine as the one Aylesbury still held.Indeed, it was a rusty old thing, but unlike his worries over his grandfather’s dueling pistols, still in good working order.
