“Are you all right?” He stroked his hand down her arm. “How are you?”
“Good.” She was too satisfied to be embarrassed. “Wonderful—exhausted.” She doubted she could ever be embarrassed with this man again.
“Mmm…” He kissed the top of her head. “You drive me mad, do you know that? Not sure I’m going to survive fifty or so years pleasing you.”
“You’ll manage.” More than that. Good lord, he seemed to understand the workings of her depraved mind.
And then she turned, touching her palm to his cheek. “How are you?”
“Good. Wonderful.” He kissed her again. “Now.”
It was a perfect moment.
Or rather, it ought to have been the perfect moment.
Her first indication something wasn’t quite right was the sensation of Axel bracing himself beside her—just as he’d done when the errant bullet had shot past them in the park.
The menace moved beyond a mere threat when multiple dark figures broke through the nearby brush. She saw several flashes of light, of moonlight on metal, and then screamed in horror.
Those shiny metal objects were knives!
“Felicity—Run!” Axel pushed her behind him, but her knees were weak, and she tumbled backward. Where had they come from? What did they want?
With these questions spinning in her head, she made her best attempt to scoot away, pushing with her feet and hands but finding herself trapped by her skirts.
Furthermore, she couldn’t tear her gaze away from Axel.
In the dark, it was difficult to count how many assailants attacked. Outfitted in all black and wearing masks over their eyes, there might have been as many as a dozen or as few as four or five. Axel landed his shoulder into one man’s midsection, causing him to grunt, then a snapping sound had the villain sprawled on the ground. When a second man jumped on Axel’s back, Felicity’s urge to help warred with a certainty that she’d only get in the way.
Axel managed to get a hold of the second assailant’s arms at the same time he kicked out at a third. When two more drove toward him, Axel bent forward, tossing them both and allowing their momentum to carry them into the brush.
One landed at Felicity’s feet, and peering up at her with a snarl, the menace reached his knife toward her. All but frozen at her predicament, she didn’t move swiftly enough to prevent him from slicing his blade along her ankle. “Get off me!”
Axel must have thought she’d already made her escape. He whipped around in surprise, and looking rather fierce, dragged the attacker by the legs. “Go! Now, Felicity!”
She nodded, even as another one of the men seemed to have recovered. “Behind you!” she shouted. She needed to get away before her presence got Axel killed.
Not caring about the warm blood trickling down her foot, or ripping her skirts, or that she’d lost both her shoes, Felicity shot to her feet. She needed to find help!
Following the distant sound of the revelers, Felicity pushed her way through branches and leaves, breathing a sigh of relief when she discovered the path.
Fearful that Axel would be killed before she could bring help, she ran faster than she’d ever run, startling as she slammed into something—someone—another fellow dressed in black. She twisted, attempting to get away, but just before she reached up to claw at him, a booming sound, and then fireworks lit up the sky, effectively illuminating the face of the man she’d run into.
It was Blackheart, and he wasn’t alone. A handful of men stood behind him.
“They’re going to kill him!” Felicity pointed behind her, sending Blackheart’s companions sprinting in that direction.
Blackheart removed his coat and dropped it onto her shoulders. “Don’t worry about Mantis. I have every confidence he’ll emerge alive.”
Felicity burst into tears.
The Aftermath
“Idon’t know who the hell they were.” Mantis was disgusted with himself. The villainous cretins had all been wearing masks, similar to the one Blackheart wore that night.
Greystone, along with Chaswick, Blackheart, and a handful of the duke’s men, had appeared relatively quickly following Felicity’s sprint into the darkness. Thank God she’d escaped. He’d never forgive himself if she hadn’t.
“Footpads?” Greys asked.
