by Jill Gregory
“No, thank you,” Josie replied with prim dignity, biting back the urge to tell him that she’d sooner tangle with a barrelful of skunks. She’d already had the dubious pleasure of being an unwilling companion to a band of outlaws, and had no intention of ever doing it again. But it seemed wise not to antagonize Pirate Pete at this moment.
There had already been violence enough in this house tonight. She was still worried about the butler in the hall, and wondered if anyone lay injured elsewhere, needing help.
The sooner the outlaws finished their business and left, the quicker they could take stock of the situation and see what could be done.
So she held her breath until Lady Tattersall had dropped all of her jewels into the gunnysack, then Josie slowly removed the intricate gold-and-ruby earrings.
She hesitated for a moment, glancing at Ethan before dropping them into the bag. He gave her a sharp nod. She let them fall with a soft thud.
“Now the necklace, and that shiny bracelet and yer gold ring. Then you, Blackie, you’re next,” Pirate Pete told the ebony-haired girl, who looked revolted at having been addressed by such a low personage.
Josie held the necklace a moment too long, loath to drop it in the sack, and Tiny grabbed it from her. “Ye can always ’ave yer rich lord buy you another one,” he rasped.
She turned anxious eyes to Ethan as first the necklace and then the bracelet clanked into the bag. The only change in his cool expression was a slightly more pronounced whiteness around his mouth. She knew that if the third man did not have his pistol leveled at the ready, Ethan might have done something very foolish.
Josie forced herself to remain calm as she watched the outlaws relieve the black-haired girl of her jewels, and then move on to the little red-haired woman who was trying so hard not to appear frightened, though her blue-veined hands were trembling. She had little jewelry, only a simple cameo necklace and tiny jet earrings, which she tugged from her ears slowly and then dropped into the sack.
“Not worth nearly as much as the rest of it, but we’ll take ’em all the same,” Pirate Pete sneered, and suddenly gave the frail-looking woman a shove that sent her sprawling down upon the sofa.
“Miss Perry! Oh, dear God help us!” Lady Tattersall moaned in dismay.
“Don’t you dare touch that lady again!” the walrus-faced man shouted.
Pirate Pete ignored them both. “You certain that’s all you ’ave?” he demanded of the woman.
Terrified, she nodded, her lips trembling.
“Well, then, it’s the gennelmen’s turn.” He spun away from her in disgust. “Lucian, give over that popper,” he ordered the third man, who handed him the pistol. Brandishing it, Pirate Pete surveyed the group of finely dressed men.
Josie prayed again that Ethan would do nothing foolish. This isn’t Abilene and you’re not wearing your guns, she admonished him silently, but she had small hope that such facts would deter him. He looked grim as death, and more than ready to avenge the shaken Miss Perry.
Oliver Winthrop, on the other hand, showed no desire to put up a fight. His valuables went into the bag without his uttering a peep, nor did he even meet the eyes of any of the outlaws as they watched his quick, nervous movements with jeering amusement.
The walrus-faced man was next. Josie could see his chest swell with indignation as he was forced to hand over a heavy gold pocket watch, money, a signet ring, and a jeweled stickpin. He glared at both Pirate Pete and Tiny, and the helpless rage he obviously felt vibrated through the room. Yet wisely, he refrained from speaking aloud his contempt for the outlaws, and they moved along to plant themselves before Ethan.
“Fork over the lot o’ it, yer lorship.” Pirate Pete leveled the black pistol at Ethan’s heart. “And be quick about it. We still ’ave to get the lady of the ’ouse to show us where her other lovelies are ’idden.”
“What?” Lady Tattersall gasped. “Haven’t you taken enough? Oh, I shall faint! I cannot bear it....”
Tiny snarled at her outburst, and Pirate Pete rounded on her, his black eyes glinting. “Stop yer screechin’, ye old bag o’ oats, or Lucian will cut yer tongue out, he will.”
At this, Lady Tattersall shrieked, and Lucian yanked a knife from his pocket, a wicked-looking weapon with a long, glittering blade, and stalked toward her.
“Calm yourself, ma’am,” Ethan ordered sharply. He turned an icy sneer on the outlaw leader. “Don’t you think you’ve bullied enough women for one night? I’ve a better proposition for you.”
Pirate Pete eyed him suspiciously. But Ethan saw with satisfaction that Lucian had halted his advance on Lady Tattersall, and even Tiny had stopped fingering through the bag of goodies to fix him with a hard blank stare.
“Leave the women alone, and let’s finish this business away from this place. If you dare,” Ethan suggested with a taunting edge to his voice, “come to my house. Stonecliff Park. It’s close by, and contains just as many valuables, perhaps even more. I’ll turn them over to you without shrieking, I can promise you that.”
“Now why would the likes ’o ye be willin’ ter do that?” Pirate Pete demanded, his finger playing along the trigger of the gun.
“What do you care,” Ethan countered with silken calm, “so long as you get your booty?”
It was at this moment that the older gentlemen could contain himself no longer. With an oath he threw himself forward at Pirate Pete and grabbed for the pistol.
Pirate Pete jerked the gun away as the other man tried to wrest it from him. It went off, and the walrus-faced man clutched his arm in rage, all four ladies screamed, and then everything happened at once.
Ethan reached into his boot with lightning speed, drew out a hideaway gun, and fired at Pirate Pete. Tiny threw himself at the outlaw leader at the same time, knocking him out of the way and taking the bullet meant for him. It barely slowed his huge form, though it tore through his massive shoulder. Lucian raised his knife and leapt toward Ethan.
And Josie snatched a candlestick from the table beside her and swung it at Tiny’s head.
In the hissing blaze of the gaslamps illuminating that exquisite and very crowded drawing room, pandemonium ensued. Of one mind, Lady Tattersall, Oliver Winthrop, and the black-haired girl scattered toward the French doors off the dining room, while the auburn-haired lady knelt instantly beside the walrus-faced man, handkerchief in hand, and tried in vain to stanch the blood spurting from his arm.
Ethan’s hideaway gun went flying as Pirate Pete fell against him, and the next thing Ethan knew, he had his hands full dodging Lucian’s viciously thrusting knife. He managed to move in following one quick thrust, and to grab the outlaw’s sinewy arm. With a twist, he had the knife. He stabbed brutally, expertly, just once—straight into his attacker’s chest.
But at the same moment, he saw Josie strike Tiny with the candlestick.
The giant never even blinked. But he thrust an elbow back at the girl, and sent her spinning to the floor.
Then he turned on her, those blank eyes suddenly lit with unholy rage.
Ethan yanked the knife from Lucian’s chest and shoved the man away from him. He lunged toward Tiny, but before he could reach him, he was tackled by Pirate Pete.
“I’ll teach ye to try an’ pull yer tricks on me!” the outlaw leader roared as he and Ethan went down flailing together on the floral carpet. They rolled sideways into Lady Tattersall’s gold-rimmed marble table. It overturned with a crash. Pirate Pete came out on top and raised the pistol to fire down into Ethan’s face, but Ethan grabbed his wrist and twisted. A mighty struggle for the gun began.
And in the meantime, Tiny bore down upon Josie, still sprawled, winded, on the floor.
When she looked up to see that huge form advancing on her, she froze. By the time she regained her wits and tried to roll aside, he was upon her. He picked her up as if she were a rag doll, held her with her feet dangling off the ground, and shook her.
Then he set her down with a thump that rattled her teeth, drew bac
k his hand, and struck her full across the face.
Josie staggered back upon the sofa. Blinding pain enveloped her, the way it had the night Snake had beaten her senseless, aching through her bones, her cheeks, her skull. But she wasn’t senseless, not yet. Her ears ringing, she pretended that she was. Her heart pounded like an anvil as she felt Tiny’s paws seize her, turning her so he could better inspect the damage he’d inflicted.
Standing over her, he spoke gruffly, almost playfully.
“Wake up, you, so’s I can give you more what-for.”
She half opened her eyes, trying to look dazed. The slow, vicious smile that spread across his massive face filled her with tingling fear. He edged closer, sausage fingers flexing, reaching for her throat....
Josie drew her leg in swiftly, then kicked out as hard as she could. As if she were doing a fierce movement in a wild dance at the Golden Pistol, she kicked him square in the nose with all her strength.
He gave a howl of pain and clutched his face as blood spurted from both nostrils. Before he could try to grab her again, Josie flung herself sideways and off the sofa, darting away.
Tiny started after her. But Miss Perry glanced up from her ministrations of the fallen man and stuck out her foot. Tiny tripped.
But it only slowed him, and did not fell him. He cuffed Miss Perry as he stumbled past, and caught Josie just as she reached the French doors. He seized her arm and twisted it.
“First I’m goin’ ter break your arm and then that leg that you kicked me with,” he grunted. “And then, me fine lady, I’ll bloody your nose.”
Josie bit back a scream of pain as her arm nearly snapped. She opened her mouth, closed it, felt her knees go slack. He was twisting her arm slowly, smiling all the while, enjoying her pain and her terror.
She never saw Ethan come up behind Tiny. She didn’t know that he had managed to wrench the gun away from Pirate Pete, but that in the struggle it had gone clattering across the room, nor did she know that he had landed a blow that left Pirate Pete dazed and dizzy, flat on his back on Lady Tattersall’s bloodstained carpet.
She only knew that something hit Tiny with savage ferocity from behind, and that the wounded and bleeding giant groaned and released his hold on her arm. Josie sank to the floor, clutching her bruised arm—and saw that, like a huge grizzly bear, Tiny had flung himself about to confront whoever had slammed into him.
And that someone was Ethan Savage.
For a moment, the drawing room blurred and swam before her eyes. As large and strong as Ethan was, Tiny loomed over him. The giant outlaw had been shot through the shoulder and his nose was bleeding, perhaps broken, but he still glared malevolently and stood squarely, menacingly, on two feet.
There was blood on Ethan’s face too. His shirt and jacket were ripped, and his dark hair hung in his eyes. But he, too, was steady. And icy calm. He grinned at the other man, a taunting, sneering grin.
“Come and get it, Cyclops. Or do you only fight women?”
“You’re askin’ fer it, yer lor’ship,” Tiny vowed, his eyes glistening with anticipation.
“See how I’m trembling?” Ethan’s laugh was colder than mountain snow. “They should have named you Ugly, not Tiny. Ugly, I’m going to bury you.”
Tiny didn’t know what Cyclops meant, but he knew Ugly. And the contemptuous tone and expression of the other man infuriated him into an even greater state of fury. With a howl he lunged at Ethan, his right fist already swinging.
Josie watched in horror, her heart in her throat.
But Ethan ducked the blow with smooth agility. Off balance from the force of his swing, Tiny tilted forward just as Ethan smashed his fist up into Tiny’s chin. The punishing blow resounded like a shot through the drawing room.
Tiny went down on one knee. He blinked in surprise. Ethan slammed another blow down upon the giant’s back. And another. This time, soundlessly, the outlaw toppled to the floor.
But Josie saw, just beyond Ethan, that Pirate Pete had crawled to his knees. He shook his head as if clearing his senses. Then he clambered to his feet with surprising alacrity, made a grab for the gunnysack on the floor, and started at a lumbering run toward the hall.
“Behind you—he’s got the jewels,” she cried, and tried to rise, but Ethan had already wheeled around. He dived after the outlaw leader and managed to snag the gunnysack, but Pirate Pete slipped free of his grasp and bolted from the room.
Josie struggled to stand. Miss Perry needed help nursing the walrus-faced man, Ethan was coming back toward her now, looking worried, and she knew there were better things to do than cry like a baby and dwell upon her own hurts. But dizziness washed over her as she staggered to her feet, and then Ethan stepped over Tiny to scoop her up in his arms and her senses floated for a moment as he carried her to the sofa.
“How badly are you hurt?” he asked as he gently lowered her onto the cushions.
“Not... too bad.” She bit back a wince. The fury darkening his face shocked her. He looked as if he could kill someone at that moment with his bare hands.
“I’m fine,” she murmured faintly. “My arm is sore, but it’s not important.”
“I’ll see both those bastards hanged.” Ethan touched her face, brushed a gentle finger across her smooth, fine-boned cheeks that were ashen with pain. The sight of that twisted giant hurting her had filled him with a blood-rage he hadn’t felt since he’d gotten news of Molly’s death. He hadn’t thought anything could affect him like that again.
“Hold on, Josie, while I tie that son of a bitch up—”
There was a crash.
As Josie and Ethan glanced around, they saw Tiny running across Lady Tattersall’s darkened garden, leaving in his wake shards of broken glass from the French doors.
“The hell you will...” Ethan shot after him, but just as he reached the French doors a soft, desperate voice halted him in his tracks.
“My lord, wait!” Miss Perry quavered as she glanced helplessly up from the side of the fallen man. “I think you’d best fetch a doctor quickly. It seems to me Colonel Hamring is going to die!”
Thirteen
The next hour was a whirlwind of frantic activity. A number of servants were found trussed or struck unconscious in the stables or the kitchens or the cellar, and one footman was sent for the doctor, another for the village constables.
A blanket was thrown over Lucian’s corpse. And Lady Tattersall, Oliver Winthrop, and the black-haired girl whose name, Josie discovered, was Miss Rosamund Crenshaw—all returned, babbling on and on about their terror, the humiliations they’d endured, the horrible ordeal they’d survived.
Ethan, in the meantime, took over the care of Colonel Hamring and as Josie watched worriedly from the sofa, proved himself to be quite competent at cleansing and stanching the wound, then wrapping it tightly in towels that the housekeeper, once freed from her bonds, brought him at a run.
Each time Josie tried to rise from the sofa to help him or Lady Tattersall or Miss Crenshaw, who had collapsed in a wing chair moaning that she felt faint, Miss Clara Perry drifted to her side and gently pushed her back upon the turquoise damask cushions.
“No, no, my dear—you heard what your husband ordered. You mustn’t move until the doctor has seen you and gives you permission to get up.”
“But I’m fine.”
“Don’t listen to her.” Ethan spoke over his shoulder as he wound the bandage tight around the Colonel’s wound. “She stays put or I’ll hog-tie her to that sofa myself.”
Miss Perry’s velvet-brown eyes grew round. Josie could understand why. There was no mistaking the ruthlessness of Ethan’s tone, and the woman didn’t know him well enough yet to realize that he was not nearly as imposing a tyrant as he made himself out to be. At least not to Josie.
“But Ethan, you know I have nursing skills,” she argued from the sofa, horrified by the weakness of her own voice. She tried again, attempting to sound stronger. “If you’ll only let me take a look at the Colonel—”
So she’d stayed where she was, and Miss Perry had dabbed a cool cloth upon her head, and tenderly examined the bruises on Josie’s arms, giving a whimper of distress when she saw them already purpling in the lamplight—and to tell the truth, Josie had been glad to lie still. Her heart was finally beginning to slow down to a normal beat, and the trembling of her body was not as intense as before. But her arm still hurt, the pain throbbing outward in two directions—down the bones leading to her wrist, and up through her shoulder.
But she didn’t complain. She tried to smile up at Clara Perry, who was watching her anxiously. Josie whispered, “I’ve married a very stubborn man.”
“Oh, yes, my dear, perhaps,” Miss Perry whispered back. “But such a very handsome one.” Miss Perry then blushed clear up to her hairline.
To try to distract herself from her own pain and the terrifying memory of that moment when it had seemed Tiny would actually rip off her arm, Josie studied the small-boned woman who was now turning the cloth over and laying it gently once more upon her brow.
Miss Clara Perry appeared to be nearing fifty years old. There were tiny spider veins in her delicate hands, and small lines crinkling at the corners of her eyes. She had a sweet wren’s face, and soft red hair that curled pleasingly around a countenance that was pure kindness, though her cheeks did appear to be somewhat pinched into perpetual anxiety. Her manners were quiet and humble, as were her clothes. Not for her were the handsome richness of Lady Tattersall’s trained, beaded dinner gown, or Miss Crenshaw’s elegant peach-and-cream lace. She was Miss Crenshaw’s chaperon, Josie remembered, yet even as she pondered this, the black-haired girl intruded into her reverie.
“Cousin Clara! Cousin! Is it possible you can attend to me for a moment? Mama sent you up here to join me in Lady Tattersall’s company with the hope that you would take care of me, yet here I sit, nearly swooning, and you have yet to bring me any smelling salts!”