When a Rogue Meets His Match - Elizabeth Hoyt Page 0,112
with sweat, and a muscle under one eye was twitching.
Messalina no longer thought him handsome or urbane or charming. He was a mad fiend.
“He’ll come.” Mr. Blackwell lifted one of the pistols.
Messalina froze, but he was only changing position.
She was very much afraid Gideon would come out. “What will you do to him?”
“What do you think?” Mr. Blackwell said absently, parting the curtain at the carriage window to peer out. “I’m going to kill him—or have him killed.”
Her gaze met the hulking man’s dull eyes, and her heart seemed to freeze.
“Why?” she asked desperately.
Mr. Blackwell glanced at her irritably. “Because he’s about to give the business ledgers to his man. Keys would be bound to realize that I’ve embezzled from the mines.”
He meant to kill her. Why else tell her his motive so carelessly?
This was sheer madness. Did he really think he could kill either Gideon or her in broad daylight and get away with it? He’d be captured before he stepped from the carriage.
Of course, that might not save her or Gideon.
She swallowed and said with a semblance of outrage, “You’ve been stealing from Gideon?”
He shrugged, letting the curtain fall with a smirk. “For years.”
The carriage door abruptly opened, and Messalina’s heart near stopped when she saw Gideon climb in.
He started for her as the big man tensed, but Mr. Blackwell waved a pistol.
“No.” He nodded to the carriage’s floorboards. “Sit there, your legs crossed and with your hands in front of you.”
Gideon looked at him without moving.
Mr. Blackwell swung one of his pistols to Messalina’s head without taking his eyes off Gideon. “Unless you’d like me to shoot your wife right now?”
Gideon’s nostrils flared, but otherwise he remained impassive as he dropped to the carriage floor.
“Keep your eyes on him,” Mr. Blackwell instructed his bully, and then knocked on the roof with one of the pistols.
The carriage lurched into motion.
“I don’t know what your plan is, Will, but I doubt it will work,” Gideon said calmly.
He hadn’t looked at Messalina again since he’d been ordered to the floor. She found herself desperately longing for his gaze. If they weren’t somehow rescued…
Well. She wasn’t going to think about that.
“My plan,” Mr. Blackwell said, “is to kill both you and your lovely wife and then drain the business bank account before buying a ticket abroad.” He shook his head with mock regret. “Simple. Easily done. This is your own fault, Gideon. We could’ve made so much more money if you’d hadn’t been so stubborn about using the boys in the mines.”
Boys? Messalina stared at Gideon. This was the first she’d heard of such a thing. How long had Gideon and Mr. Blackwell been arguing over how the business was run?
“You wanted boys under the age of fifteen to work those mines,” Gideon growled. “They’d come out crippled or worse. I’ll not have it.”
“They’d work for half the amount of a grown man.” Mr. Blackwell leaned forward, a sneer on his face. “Do you care so much for children you’ve never met?”
Gideon stared at him steadily. “Yes.”
“You can care about them in hell,” Mr. Blackwell hissed. “You and your wife.”
The carriage swung wide around a corner, jostling everyone inside.
In that moment Gideon sprang toward Mr. Blackwell. He caught both of the man’s wrists, swinging the pistol’s aim away from Messalina.
There was a terrible BANG followed immediately by a second report.
Smoke hung heavy in the carriage.
Both Mr. Blackwell and the huge man were wrestling Gideon now, and Gideon was favoring his right arm.
Messalina looked wildly around the carriage for something to use as a weapon. When she couldn’t find anything, she lifted her skirts and kicked as hard as she could at the huge man’s leg.
To her surprise the man recoiled with a roar. He lunged across the carriage toward Messalina.
She prepared for another kick, but Gideon wrested one of the pistols away from Mr. Blackwell. With a twist he hit the big man on the back of the head with the butt of the gun.
The man fell like a stone, narrowly missing Messalina’s feet.
The carriage jerked to a halt.
Mr. Blackwell swung at Gideon’s head with the other pistol. Gideon ducked aside. His hand shot out, connecting high on Mr. Blackwell’s left side.
The men froze for a moment.
Mr. Blackwell looked down and then up, his face twisted in shock.
Gideon drew back his hand, and Messalina saw that he held a bloody knife.
“You’ve stabbed me,” Mr. Blackwell said, his face white.
“I’ve killed you,” Gideon replied with grim satisfaction.