“Shut the bedroom door. We can escape using the porch roof.”
He could only hope one of the neighbors or servants were home. Resigned he turned back toward the door, only to find William Lancaster climbing up the stairs. Nick leaped at the door, but the large man had already lunged toward it and plowed into it with his shoulder. Nick stumbled back but stayed on his feet and put himself between her uncle and the window.
“No, you don’t.” Lancaster raised a pistol and signaled for Nick to move aside, but he refused.
It didn’t matter because Frances stepped up beside him, the chill from the open window behind making him shiver but the look in her uncle’s eyes turning his heart to ice.
19
“Give it to me,” her uncle said, his eyes cold.
“What?” Frances’s tone was flat as she slid her freezing hand into Nick’s.
“Don’t play stupid with me, girl. You went to the savings and loan and retrieved something. I want it.”
She gave a hard laugh. “You assume there was anything to find.”
“We both know Albert went to great lengths to keep this from me, butIhave won at last.” Uncle William waved the pistol again, indicating the door. “I’ll have one of my men search you.”
Frances gave one of those Judith sniffs with the same hauteur as her future sister-in-law. If they lived through this, Frances would have to thank her.
Nick’s hand was moving in hers, but she didn’t dare look at him. Was he trying to tell her something?
Uncle William’s two thugs were running up the stairs from the basement as the three of them came down from the second story and stopped in the middle of the main hall. Frances positioned herself and Nick so they faced the little alcove near her father’s office. How many nights had she dreamed of hiding there as the horrible man in front of her had stormed, unaware she was there?
“Search her,” her uncle said, his expression ugly.
“What are we looking for?” one of the men asked, stepping toward her.
“Anything that doesn’t look like it belongs.”
Nick shifted as though preparing for a fight, and she squeezed his hand.
“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” Uncle William said, shifting the pistol at Nick.
“ButIwould.”
Frances lifted her knee and kicked the flunky closest to her as hard as she could right in his man parts. With a painful howl, he dropped to his knees. The other man was already upon her, grasping her arm. She immediately put Mr. Ito’s training to work, pinning the flunky’s hand. Since learning how to do the move, she’d gotten fast with it by practicing on the cowhands. The second flunky was on the floor, face down, his arm pinned painfully against his back. She grabbed his hair with her free hand and smashed his head into the hardwood floor.
As she reached into her boot to pull out her knife, she checked to see how Nick was doing. He and Uncle William were doing an odd kind of dance around the hallway, with Nick shifting around like one of those boxers. What was he trying to do? Perspiration made Uncle William’s hair cling to his head, and his hand shook. They were going to have to finish this quickly because the man she’d kicked was starting to move.
William turned the gun on Frances, and everything seemed to happen at once. She threw the knife at her uncle as she dropped to the floor. Nick was already in motion, leaping between them. Her uncle cried out as the knife struck true, but he’d already squeezed the trigger.
As the weapon clattered to the floor, Nick flew back. Blood blossomed on his shirt, and it was as though Frances had been struck. Fear threatened to overwhelm her, and she knew the truth. He wasn’t just important in her life—hewasher life. She was in love with him. There was no way she could go on without him.
“No. No.” Frances scrambled across the floor to him
The room was suddenly full of people and noise. She rolled Nick to his back. She could barely register Charles’ shouting orders to Uncle William. They’d won. But what did it matter if Nick died? With a sob, Frances put pressure on his shoulder, as she’d seen one of the cowhands do when one of the men had been cut in an accident and was bleeding badly.
“Maude,” Doris called, suddenly there and kneeling beside Nick, “why don’t you take Judith and see if old Doc Turner is at home.”
“He’s home. We talked to him,” Frances said, unable to take her eyes from Nick’s white face.
With a rustle of skirts, the other two women were gone.
“Luke, we need towels,” Doris said, tearing off the bottom part of her petticoat. She indicated Frances should lift her hands, so she did, and her sister put the fabric over the wound. As Frances moved her hand back into place, she was grateful her sister had helped the delivery of Mary Teague’s most recent baby.
“Someone needs to call the police,” Charles said from the side where they were tying up the two flunkies.
