“I’m afraid I cannot do that.”
Aylesbury waited until the thug lifted the cudgel to strike and dodged in, grabbing the ruffian’s wrist and twisting him about while arching back out of the range of the knife as it swung about.The blade caught his jacket, tearing through it with an audible rip.
Pulling Crumpky’s arm up as he rotated, Aylesbury wrenched his wrist and forced the cudgel from his hand.Palming it, he lunged forward, slamming the butt end of the club into the thug’s gut and upward into the bottom of his jaw when Crumpky doubled over from the blow.His head snapped back, his chest bowing outward.Aylesbury wrapped his fist around the cudgel and threw a right cross with it into that broad target.
Crumpky fell to the ground, gasping for air with a hand pressed to his chest.Stepping down on the man’s wrist, Aylesbury jerked the knife from his hand and pocketed it as Crumpky continued to wheeze.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?”he asked pleasantly.“You never would have thought that a fellow could learn as much in the dormitories at Cambridge as you do on the streets,eh?”
“Harry!Are you all right?”Fiona rushed to his side.
“I am,” he assured her.“Our friend here is having some trouble breathing, though.We need to secure him so he can’t follow when he recovers.”
“Let’s cut off his legs below the knee,” she suggested, glaring down at Crumpky.
“Perhaps something a little less extreme?”he countered, looking around the rubbish scattered through the alley for inspiration.
“Chop him into wee bits?”
He grinned, every bit the old Harry that she remembered.“What a bloodthirsty lass you are.”
She smiled wickedly.“Well, it would certainly keep him from following.”
“That it would,” he agreed.“What do you think, Crumpky?”
Crumpky dragged in a deep, pained breath, clenching his chest.“Ye bastard!”
“Give me the knife, Harry,” Fiona demanded, holding out her hand.Aylesbury arched a brow, and she sighed impatiently.“I’m not going to kill him...or cut off his legs.”
Taking the knife, she proceeded to gut the basting holding the three rows of black military braiding around the bottom of her skirt.Once begun, she was able to rip them away easily.Aylesbury took the lengths one at a time, binding Crumpky’s feet and hands.
“We’ll leave him here and call the authorities once we get home,” he told her.“They can come back for him.Sorry, Crumpky old chap, fellows like you always get their comeuppance.”
To his surprise, Crumpky grinned up at him, baring tobacco-stained teeth.“So will ye, gov.”
“Harry, watch out!”Fiona cried out, and Aylesbury rolled to the side but not quickly enough as the blade of a knife slid across the back of his neck.
He wiped a hand across the area, his hand coming away with only a smear of blood.It wasn’t bad then.Rolling to his back, he found one of Crumpky’s cohorts coming at him again and threw a foot to block him, sending the thug lurching to the side.Aylesbury leapt to his feet, warily watching the knife as the man steadied himself for another attack.This one was a huge, hairy brute with a bush of dark, scraggly hair that might have been home to any number of small creatures and a beard even more suspect.
“Harry, here!”Fiona was holding Crumpky’s knife out to him.
While it would have been nice to have it, he wasn’t about to leave her defenseless should something go awry.Though this ruffian was only an inch or so taller than he, he outweighed Aylesbury by a trice of stones easily.He could only hope it was more fat than muscle.
“Keep it!”
“Keep it?”she repeated in disbelief.“Do you feel like you needed a bigger challenge?”
Aylesbury huffed humorously, palming the short cudgel once more.“You’re about to end up like your friend,” he warned the newcomer.
“I doubt that,” the big fellow grumbled, stalking forward.
While a daunting sight, Aylesbury took heart.Obviously, the thug had been hired for his menacing appearance and, no doubt, murderous skills, but he was lumbering and slow.A brawler, no doubt.He would be dangerous in close combat.Luckily, Aylesbury was something of an out-fighter when it came to boxing, using his speed, quick reflexes and longer reach to strike from a distance and dance away from what would surely be a felling blow if the brawler managed to land a punch with those meaty fists.
But Aylesbury had some added meat to his own fist with the cudgel in hand.The club added weight and a rock-like solidity to his punches as he threw brisk snapping jabs, catching the brute on the cheek, jaw and nose in rapid succession.Ducking under the thug’s swinging arm, Aylesbury bounced hard punches off the man’s ribs and kidneys as he circled.The knife arced down again, catching Aylesbury across the back of the hand.
Fiona gasped but did not give into distracting and decidedly unhelpful squeals and screams as other ladies might.
Shaking the sting off, the marquis contemplated his next move.While he was wearing his opponent down, he wasn’t doing enough damage to ensure a successful getaway, and there was still the third man out there somewhere to worry over.The brute swept a paw forward again, catching Aylesbury’s collar and dragging him closer, his beefy arm looping around Aylesbury’s neck.Knowing there would be no escape if he were so caught, Aylesbury dropped to his knees and sent the cudgel straight into the man’s groin.
