When a Rogue Meets His Match - Elizabeth Hoyt Page 0,91
smoking a pipe before a door turned and went in the house.
The hairs on the back of Gideon’s neck rose. The courtyard was deserted. He was alone, with only one way back.
He straightened his arm and shook down his knife from the sheath strapped to his forearm, holding it ready between his fingertips.
A cat ran across the yard and disappeared into a crack between the houses.
Behind him a boot scraped against a cobblestone.
Chapter Fifteen
Bet stared at the red-haired man. “Who are you?”
He smiled a foxy smile at her and said, “Your husband, of course. Sometimes I’m a fox and sometimes I am not.”
Then Bet knew that this wasn’t a man at all. Men did not turn into foxes at will. No, she’d married a fae, powerful and strange, and she shivered in fear.…
—From Bet and the Fox
Gideon ducked and turned, raising his knife at the same time in the little courtyard.
The knife meant for his ribs sailed past, slicing a line into his coat.
His assailant hardly took time to recover before slashing out again.
Gideon shuffled back, balanced on his toes.
The man attacking him was experienced.
And deadly.
Gideon’s arm shot out as he went for the gut, but the man swiveled aside, a smile curving his lips. He wore a simple brown suit, but it was in good condition.
“Do you want my purse?” Gideon asked.
Not that he’d give it away, but he wanted to know what this man was about.
The man—hardly more than a boy, really—cocked his head. “I don’t mind taking it off your body.”
He ran forward, as swift as a scurrying rat, and made a pass at Gideon’s ribs again, missing. The suit Gideon wore would never be the same again.
Gideon darted, slashing in a quick, tight zigzag motion.
The attacker raised his arm and Gideon’s blade sliced.
He slid back, expecting blood spray.
There wasn’t any. His attacker must have wrapped his arm with leather.
The man grinned, slipping forward, going for Gideon’s left side, but then at the last minute slashing his right.
Gideon only just got his arm out of the way.
Or not.
He could feel warmth seeping through his sleeve.
There was no time to look.
His attacker was charging, slashing swiftly again and again, his knife a blur. Gideon spun aside once and then again, rallying to flick his blade at the man.
This time blood sprayed.
Gideon stood his ground, his knife thrust at waist height before him, grinning. He wove a dangerous figure eight with the knife.
Slash.
Slide.
Weave.
And dart.
He was elegant. He was swift. And he should’ve prevailed.
He was, after all, the champion knife fighter of St Giles. Had once brought down Grinning Jack and his infamous black dagger.
But alas.
He’d just made another slash when a cudgel hit Gideon on the right shoulder. He felt it at once, the agonizing pain of the arm going out of joint.
His knife clattered to the cobblestones.
Too late he realized that he’d not kept an eye on the entrance to the courtyard.
The next blow got him in the ribs.
And the one after.
Gideon staggered, raising his left arm to shield his head.
He heard a shout, the familiar sound of Keys’s voice, and had two final thoughts:
How disappointed Keys would be that he’d been too late to save him.
And how he wished he could’ve seen Messalina once more before he died.
* * *
“Do you truly want to stay with him?” Lucretia asked hesitantly after Freya and Elspeth had departed.
They’d returned to the sitting room, where Lucretia had draped herself over the settee rather like a languid cat and Messalina slumped in her chair.
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.” She looked at her sister. “I had plans for you and me. We’d leave England, sail to the Americas, buy a little cottage—small, but big enough for a maid and a cook. I’d present myself as a widow and you could be an eligible young lady.”
“That sounds lovely,” Lucretia said. “But you’d never see Freya again if we did that.”
The thought gave Messalina a pang. She’d only recently made up with Freya. To lose her so soon…
“Hopefully we’d never see Uncle Augustus ever again, either,” she felt compelled to point out. “He wouldn’t have any control over you.”
“Mmm,” Lucretia replied rather indistinctly. The maids hadn’t taken away the tea things yet, and she was eating the rest of the seedcake.
Messalina stared at her doubtfully. “You do know that we’ll be having supper in another couple of hours, don’t you?”
Lucretia nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, and Cook is making a leg of lamb.” For a moment she stopped, and her gaze became unfocused,