“Connard! Cochon! Pig!” Rage, kindled by fear and fueled by disgust, thickened her voice. “Don’t you touch me! Don’t ever touch me again!”
Howard scrambled up, an ugly look in his eyes. “You little bitch, I’ll—”
“You heard her.” Lucien stood at the bottom of the bank, tall and solid as a church, his eyes hard and cold. “Back off.”
Howard glanced over his shoulder. Growled. “This is none of your concern.”
Aimée jumped to her feet, prepared to throw herself between them.
Lucien narrowed his eyes. “I have bloodied my knuckles once already rescuing your niece. It would cost me nothing to bloody them again.”
Howard sneered. “Except my family’s goodwill.”
“Miss Blanchard is also family, is she not?” Lucien asked in a deadly soft voice. “You are cousins.”
Howard’s face reddened. “Once removed.”
“And now removed again.” Lucien shook out the coat draped over his arm and dropped it around Aimée’s shoulders, overlapping its edges in front. The collar reached up around her ears.
His coat was wonderfully warm and smelled like him, like man and sandalwood. She clutched its heavy folds gratefully, shielding herself from the cold and Howard’s eyes.
A dizzying memory swept over her, an impression of hard, strong arms and wheeling stars and a road far below unspooling like a silver ribbon in the dark. She almost staggered.
Lucien offered her his arm. “Permit me to escort you to the house.”
She blinked at him, disoriented, trying to force her mind to function.
If she went with him, Howard would be furious.
But if she refused his escort, she would be leaving the two men behind to fight.
Slipping a hand from the shelter of his coat, she gripped Lucien’s arm.
He did not speak as they climbed the hill. She was aware of Howard staring after them, his face an ugly red, as she squelched and slipped up the icy slope. She shuddered with cold and reaction, hard, deep tremors that shook her chest and radiated outward through all her limbs.
“Thank you,” she said as they reached the shallow stone steps of the walk. “I don’t know what I would have done if you had not come along when you did.”
“You must tell me if he bothers you again.”
He thought she was talking about Howard, Aimée realized with a jolt. “I refer to Harriet. It was very brave, the way you ran out on the ice. You saved her.”
He looked at her sideways, his face inscrutable. “She is not the only one I have saved.”
Another spark, another contact, another flutter in her heart or memory. She swallowed. “Naturally, I am grateful. But I can look out for myself.”
“You were quite fierce. Formidable, in fact.” He lifted her hand where it rested on his arm and unexpectedly kissed her knuckles. Shock held her still. The pressure of his lips, the warmth of his breath, seared through the wet fabric of her glove. “But you are a woman.”
Aimée reclaimed her hand, conscious of the staring windows of the house. Of Howard, somewhere behind them. “And because I am a woman, I must be weak.”
“Not weak. But smaller than a man. In any physical encounter, you are outmatched.”
She licked her upper lip, made suddenly aware of his size, his strength, his overwhelming masculinity. In any physical encounter . . .
She slid her gaze from his. “I hope your interference will not spoil your chances with Julia.”
Lucien frowned. “Your cousin cannot excuse her brother’s behavior.”
“Oh no,” Aimée assured him. “But if Howard were to complain to Lady Basing . . .”