“You bastards, get off my girl,” the man roared.
Pandemonium ensued, the three villains spinning, one with a knife, another with a pistol, as he and Winterbourne charged in.
Raising his own pistol, Rakecombe aimed but not before a shot rang out.
With no time to look around, he fired and the rat flew back, falling to the floor in a cloud of dust, arm outstretched with a bloody hole to his guts.
The knifeman he recognised as the pug-nosed bastard who’d slashed Bluey, and throwing his spent pistol to the ground, Rakecombe came forward with his own blade, determined to finish the job this time.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the red-scarfed man in a crazed struggle with the other Frenchman, and the part of his brain that wasn’t watching pug nose realised it was the grizzled butler from Stafford’s house.
“I kill you this time, English dog,” sneered pug nose, “then I finish the girl. I cut ’er fingers, toes, one by one.”
Ignoring the taunts designed to rile, Rakecombe circled the whoreson. Maybe he would go for the same trick as before, but pug nose remained wary – not lurching too soon.
Rakecombe swiped, a horizontal arc of sharp blade slicing the air, the merest slither between it and the man’s stomach. The rank smell of sweat and fear even overwhelmed the fish. He did it again, but pug nose slashed out with his own knife, sending Rakecombe’s blade airborne.
The Frenchman grinned, and without mercy flew at him, dagger held aloft, curving it down for the killing blow, but Rakecombe yanked for the cane affixed to his side, sticking a thumb in the jade eye. A deadly stiletto sprung from the silver head, and he didn’t even have to slide it forward, the man’s own momentum sending him soaring onto the slither of blade.
The dagger meant for Rakecombe’s own heart clattered to the floor, surprise etched on pug nose’s face. He crumpled without a whimper, blood seeping from his lips.
Panting, Rakecombe’s eyes focused on the bed, to see the grizzled butler pulling a small girl into his arms, both their eyes streaming. “Papa,” the little one screamed.
“Aimée, my precious Aimée.”
Rakecombe twisted but another pistol shot tore the air, the crack echoing and sending pigeons scattering once more in the roof. His skin grew cold and ice threaded his veins at the female scream of “No” which had accompanied that cannonade of sound.
He couldn’t bear to turn. Couldn’t bear to look. His closed eyes saw it all.
Blood. Aideen. Hushed forever.
His world black.
Numb once more.
A cursing Frenchman…cursing an English whore, ripped through his numbness and Rakecombe dared to turn, eyes snapping open.
Amid the smoke and dust, a stocky blond fellow lay on the ground clutching a bloodied knee, screaming in agony and blaspheming until Winterbourne kicked him in the mouth with a stout hessian.
In the opening stood Aideen – scratching her nose and damn well smiling.
Too raw, too angry and too relieved, he did what he always did in these circumstances and ignored her, when all he really wanted to do was crush his wife to his body and feel her breath.
“I’m indebted, Jack,” he merely groused.
“Wasn’t me, old chap. In case you hadn’t noticed, I got shot and before I could reach for my other pistol, your talented wife saved your hide.”
“Wh-what?” he stuttered, and Winterbourne, he now noticed, held a hand to his upper arm, blood seeping through his fingers, jacket torn.
He turned to Aideen, whose expression was smug. She held out her hand in which lay…
“My four-inch lady’s pistol with poppy-red enamel and inlaid pearl handle. Light, trim and well-balanced. Deadly, of course, but I only aimed to injure…although if he calls me English again…” She glared at the Frenchman. “He had a gun pointed at your back, and however bothersome you can be, I didn’t want you in the seven dirges of hell…quite yet.”
“You should see her reticule, Alex,” interrupted Winterbourne. “I made the mistake of surprising her in the street the other day and she very nearly removed my noggin.”
“Uncle’s finest,” she said, swinging a beribboned item of female frippery from her wrist. “My favourite Saxon-green reticule contains a four-pound iron weight sewn into the bottom – I never go shopping without it. Now, shall we all go home? As instructed, I brought the ducal carriage. It’s waiting with the footmen and that guard you have following me. To be fair, I did follow your rules, Alex… Most of them.”
Rakecombe yearned to simultaneously kiss, crush, scold, spank and swive Aideen until she couldn’t stand…and he didn’t care in which order.
