Protecting The Princess - Nadine Millard Page 0,52

my cousin is needed. So, if you’ll be so kind as to come with me? I’d hate to have to kill you.”

Jacob rolled his eyes as though the threat of bodily harm were a mere inconvenience.

He turned to face Augustus. Harriet barely saw him move. Hardly heard a sound.

Yet within a split second, Augustus screamed in agony, and his revolver clattered to the ground.

He clutched his hand as he dropped to his knees, and Harriet was amazed to see a small, silver dagger protruding from the flesh.

“Did you—?” She gaped in awe.

“Well, he wouldn’t stop talking and making threats,” Jacob answered, sounding defensive.

“Harriet.” He stepped closer, his arms reaching for her. “There are things we must discuss. Obstacles in our way. And I know this cannot come to anything. But—”

A sudden burst of sound and light rent the air as Tallenburg’s guards came rushing toward them.

“Bloody hell, can’t a man get a word out around here?” Jacob bellowed before turning to face the charge. “Get inside and stay there until I come for you,” he said urgently.

Harriet opened her mouth to object to his harshly given orders.

But then he turned to look at her.

“Please, love,” he said softly, his eyes tender and pleading.

Without another word, Harriet nodded then ran toward the house.

Outside she heard shouts, clashes of blades, and even a shot or two.

It sounded almost as chaotic out there as she felt inside after Jacob’s wonderful words.

Almost, but not quite.

Jacob made light work of Tallenburg’s first wave of guards.

By the time the next group of guards arrived, he’d been joined by Hans and the two princes who, he was pleased to see, were exceptionally skilled as swordsmen and pugilists.

Prince Christopher seemed to take great delight in dragging his cousin inside once the fighting had ceased.

And Prince Alexander looked like a child with a new toy as he rounded up fallen soldiers, in various states of ill-health, locking them up in a drawing room until the aid that Hans left to acquire arrived.

This particular incident would take an age to clean up, Jacob knew.

Relations between the Tallenburg duchy and the Aldonian crown would take no small amount of delicacy to sort out.

Thankfully, Prince Christopher said over the furious swearing and empty threats from his cousin, the younger Tallenburg seemed imminently more sensible than the elder.

Jacob had watched the prince carefully while Lady Althea made a spectacle of herself. First throwing herself at the apprehended duke, wailing and declaring her love in a most embarrassing fashion.

When the man dismissed her and her face paled dramatically—no doubt as the reality of her situation sank in—she threw herself at the prince, this time begging for mercy and claiming innocence.

The prince however, barely flinched in the face of such a vulgar and emotional display.

Jacob was quite sure that even if the man had intended to wed Lady Althea, his heart hadn’t been involved in the decision, and it certainly wasn’t affected now.

When the magistrate arrived with a bevy of men to assist, the prince ordered the lady be taken away with the rest of the prisoners, impervious to her caterwauling and the obvious discomfort of the portly magistrate.

All that was left now was for a carriage to be prepared. Something Prince Alexander ordered Tallenburg’s household staff to do at once.

“He tried to use our sister as a piece of property to be traded,” the prince said. “The least we can do is steal a carriage and a few horses. Oh, and—” He signalled to a footman, who seemed as dazed and shocked as the rest of the servants. “We’ll also steal whatever you can pack up from the kitchens. And the wine cellar,” he finished.

When the room emptied of everyone but the princes, Hans, Jacob, and Harriet, a stilted silence fell.

Jacob had so much he wanted to say. So much he wanted to do. Namely, take Harriet in his arms and never let her go.

But hell would freeze over before he’d ever get that opportunity again.

He knew it. And yet he could not regret that he’d confessed his feelings. Could not regret the love he’d discovered with her, and the short time they spent together.

Even though the hurt it caused now was almost killing him.

If he’d never loved the princess, he’d have been spared this pain.

Yet he would endure it for the happy times he’d known with her.

Prince Christopher stepped toward the princess, bending to speak swiftly in her ear. She nodded once, and he reached out and pulled her into a tight, short