He laughed softly, making her skin crawl. “I quite like the thought of you on your knees.”
“Enough,” she said firmly. “Let me go. Or I will tell your mother.”
“She will not believe you.”
Aimée raised her chin. “Perhaps her guests will. I am still a lady, Howard. You cannot assault me with impunity.”
Society would look the other way as long as Howard confined his attentions to the servant class. But Sir Walter and Lady Basing could not let it be known that they tolerated his abuse of their own young relative in their home.
Howard’s eyes shifted. His expression hardened. “Then I will have to make sure you don’t tell anyone.”
He reached for her.
She flung out her hand to stop him, to push him away, and the shears in her hand slashed his chin, drawing blood.
His face twisted. “Bitch.”
He grabbed her hand, wrenching cruelly, wresting the clippers from her grasp. She opened her mouth to scream, and his meaty hand clamped on her jaw, stifling her cry. Ah, no. She fought as hard as she could, kicking him with her thin slippers, rolling and scratching to get away, but she was hampered by her skirts, her shawl, her tight sleeves. His weight, his strength, overpowered hers. The edge of the table ground into her back. His fingers dug painfully into her cheeks as his other hand scrabbled at her skirts.
She struggled, panting and twisting. Inciting him. She could feel his erection pushing at her, and her gorge rose.
Dear God. She could not scream. She could not breathe. Her mind grayed with terror. He was going to ravish her, and she could not stop him.
She bit his hand.
He swore, his breath hot and harsh against the side of her face.
And then his weight was gone, plucked, ripped from her. She staggered, catching herself against the table, as he catapulted across the shed and crashed into a wall. Buckets overturned. Water sloshed onto the floor.
Lucien stood over him with a face like thunder, flexing his knuckles. To her fevered imagination, he almost seemed to glow, lit from within by righteous anger.
An angel come to save us.
The answer to her prayers.
“Get up,” he ordered, his voice low and deadly.
Howard shook his head, sprawling in a puddle of water and branches. “She’s not worth it.”
Lucien hauled him to his feet by his neckcloth and smashed a fist into his stomach. Howard doubled over, wheezing.
She should stop them, Aimée thought numbly. But she could not find her voice, could not make her shaking limbs move. She clung to the table for support.
“She is a lady,” Lucien said through his teeth. “Worthy of protection and regard.”
Howard wiped blood from his chin. Licked his lips. “You don’t know her. Or maybe you do. She’s a hot little piece. I only gave her what she was panting for.”
Aimée cringed.
Lucien slammed Howard up against the wall. A pot fell from a shelf and shattered.
Howard clawed at Lucien’s arms.
Lucien shook him like a mastiff shakes a rat. “You don’t touch her.” More blows, hard and punishing, to Howard’s ribs and gut. “You don’t look at her. You don’t bother her ever again.”
“This is my parents’ house,” Howard said thickly. “You have no authority here. I’ll have you thrown out.”
“Not before I tell Sir Walter and everyone else the reason why.”