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“He’s holding his blade breast high,” Pinkie said scornfully. “The pretty man with a spangly blade that he doesn’t know how to use. We should take it from him for his own safety, Bullet.”

Bullet? The leader, presumably. A charming name for a charming fellow.

Thankfully, Dominic heard his family leaving through the back of the hutch.

In one last warning, he spun his rapier; the sunlight filtering through the fog hanging over the market caught the diamond-cut glass on the hilt.

“We can sell that for a pretty penny,” Pinkie said greedily. “Course, we’ll have to have it off you fore we can do that, me lordship. Now how about you give it to us, and your purse as well.”

“If you do that, we won’t offer any offense to that buxom lady of yours.” Bullet’s smirk revealed quite a few missing teeth. “A lady smells sweetest when she’s on her back, don’t she, Pinkie?” He drew out a battered sword with a shining edge.

“It’s the fight a girl’s got in ’er for me.” Pinkie returned Bullet’s wolfish grin. “What’s the fun in tupping a naked lady if she makes it easy for you?”

Dominic’s heartbeat slowed, and his entire body relaxed. “You’ll meet my naked blade first.”

He would have been reluctant to maim men who turned to thievery because they were hungry. Stealing to feed their families. But rapists?

“I don’t like his expression,” the drunk man said, a touch of fear in his voice.

Dominic looked him over with smiling eyes, cataloging the growing panic in the two men who had enough intelligence to recognize their own danger.

Bullet tensed, about to attack, so Dominic jumped forward, his rapier flicking behind the man’s knee before he leapt back in one smooth movement. The drunk watched with horror as his leader fell screaming in the dirt. He and his fellow thundered away on flat feet, leaving Bullet to his fate.

Pinkie was made of firmer stuff; his eyes sharpened to a savage glint. He snatched up Bullet’s sword and spat on the ground. “You’ll pay for that with your money—and your life.”

Dominic might have relaxed with only one assailant left, but for Pinkie’s casual, confident stance; it was that of a man used to thrusting his weapon through solid things. Such as men’s thighs and chests. Dominic’s body was lit with incandescent rage, but his hand remained utterly steady.

Pinkie was too smart to rush. He circled to the left, breathing steadily, holding his sword close.

Dominic circled the other direction until he was in place to kick the wretched Bullet in the knee. The man shrieked, and Pinkie’s eyes involuntarily shot in that direction. In that instant, Dominic lunged forward, putting all his strength behind the thrust.

His rapier was not merely pretty. Spanish steel slid through Pinkie’s jerkin and into his shoulder as slickly as a knife into lard. Pinkie screamed, dropping his sword; Dominic kicked it to the side. His blade came out with a nasty squelching noise.

Pinkie’s eyes were bright, then suddenly pale. “You haven’t killed me.” He clutched his shoulder as blood oozed between his fingers.

“If I had meant to, you’d be dead.”

Bullet was sniveling with fear, clutching his knee as he inchwormed away.

Pinkie crammed his filthy pink scarf into a wad and pressed it against the seeping wound.

“You’ll live,” Dominic told Bullet contemptuously. “You won’t walk again. Perhaps you won’t thieve or rape again.” He let his anger flow down his body and shook it out of his fingertips, a trick his fencing instructor had taught him.

“I’m neither constable, judge, nor jury,” he said, reminding himself of the truth as he said it. “You’ll have your eternal reward no doubt, Bullet, but while you’re still on this earth, stay away from my family.” He turned to Pinkie. “If I see you again, I will cut off your pinkies and then all your other bits. Do I make myself clear?”

Pinkie grunted and kicked Bullet, holding out his hand. “Get up on your good leg.”

“My blade was clean, but that rag is not,” Dominic added. “I may have spared your life, but an infection won’t show you the same mercy.”

He had a wife and family waiting, but first he returned to the rabbit hutch. He found only the squeaks of bunnies in their filthy cages; Crouch was nowhere to be seen.

Walking to the first cage, Dominic flicked the catch, opened the door, and set the cage down on its side. Two large hares scampered out the door, gone by the time he opened the next cage.

His sister would have approved.

Chapter 29

Torie kept looking over her shoulder the entire way back to the carriage, praying that she’d see Dominic strolling behind them, but they reached Mulberry with no more excitement than Florence falling in the muck.