A low grunt told her he’d hit the mark, but that didn’t seem to mollify Gareth.
He whipped the tails of his coat back, pulling a dagger from some unseen sheath.
“Stay down,” he ordered.
She could do nothing but.
Two men materialized from the shadows of the corner of the garden. Gareth lunged for them, leaping over the railing only to duck another thrown dagger upon landing. He crushed pansies and geraniums as he charged, and Felicity couldn’t imagine the courage it must have taken for the men to stand against him.
Courage or madness.
One of them, a tall, pale fellow with thick arms for his lanky form, limped slightly, the blade in his hand dark with his own blood.
Served him right.
Though her protector wielded his own knife, he didn’t use it, not immediately. Instead, he kicked out at the pale man’s injured leg. It buckled beneath him and, with a strangled sound, the assailant dropped to the ground in a heap.
Gareth stood over him like the very angel of death. “Who sent you?” he demanded.
“Go to the devil, savage!”
The man’s neck made the most sickening sound as Gareth stomped on it before quickly turning to his next victim. This time, their blades flashed and flickered in the dim night as they circled each other, neither of them speaking a word.
She’d never expected violence to be so quiet.
It occurred to her to go for help. To run inside and make someone contact the authorities, but her struggling lungs kept her pinned to the ground.
A third man melted from the shadows, placing his stocky form between her and Gareth. At the sight of the blade he lifted against her guard, Felicity finally found the strength to draw a frantic breath.
To warn him.
Air screamed into her lungs with agonizing labor, and the pitiable sound drew the notice of this third interloper, who turned and advanced upon her.
Panicking, Felicity remembered the knife that’d sailed past them into the garden, and struggled to her hands and knees.
She heard the clomp of a boot on the opposite end of the pergola, and looked behind her. Gareth was still across the garden, applying his blade to his opponent. The stocky blighter smiled the smile of a shark, one of a predator who knew he’d cornered his next kill. He made a sound of perverse delight as he lifted his dagger.
Felicity scrambled to the bed of moss, finding the abandoned blade.
She hadn’t the slightest notion how to use it, but she had to try. Fingers wrapped around the hilt with a death grip, she thrust it in his direction.
Just in time to watch as Gareth rose behind the villain.
His fingers splayed over one side of the stocky man’s face one moment before Gareth smashed his skull into the column of the pergola.
Which shattered.
The pergola and the skull.
Felicity turned away from the sight. Her hand clamped over her mouth as her guts rolled and bile clawed its way up her esophagus.
Blood. She hated her body’s reaction to it, but knew it couldn’t be helped.
“Felicity.” Gareth’s voice was barely a growl above a whisper. “Felicity, look at me.”
She shook her head, convulsively swallowing as the punch she’d enjoyed earlier threatened to make a ghastly reappearance.
Not now. Not in front of him.
She convulsed several times, retching all over the moss, shuddering as her body rejected everything she’d had to eat or drink over the past several hours.
A hand splayed across her back as she did so, another one supporting her, and she heaved again and again. Once she’d finished, she pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and pressed it to her mouth, just in case.
“It’s over,” he said in a jagged tone, this one bleak and resigned. “I need to get you out of here.”
She nodded, unable to do more than that. Her lungs rebelled. Her stomach revolted. Her legs had somehow disappeared.
Rather than help her up, Gareth scooped her into his arms, and plunged into the darkness of the garden corner. They escaped out a back gate and Felicity thought she heard him mutter about undone locks allowing the brigands inside.
Once in the street, Felicity clung to his neck as he identified three horses in the alley between one great house and the next. They were not the sort of beasts any nobleman would pay a penny to own.
No question as to whom they belonged.
Before she could contest, he’d tossed her upon the back of the tallest steed, and mounted behind her.
Clinging tenaciously to the saddle, Felicity shrank back against his chest as he spurred the horse into a lurching gallop over the cobbles. They rode thunderously into the London night, their way illuminated by pallid lamps and a smattering of carriages idling in wait to convey the revelers to bed.
Felicity wasn’t the horsewoman her sisters were. Despite receiving lessons from her intractable mother, she’d always had an uneasy relationship with the beasts. Prudence had once told her a horse could sense her fear, and it responded in kind.
Unable to suppress her fear, she’d decided horses were best appreciated from the ground.
Gareth, however, had no such compunctions. He rode expertly with one hand on the reins, and the other secured around her waist, cinching her to his body.
Anytime her life had been in danger, she’d obsessed over the worst outcomes, picturing herself over and over again the mangled casualty of a thousand fates.
Tonight, all she seemed to be able to focus on was the roll of his hips against her backside as they rode. The ridges and swells of his torso molded against her. It was like being buttressed by warm granite.
Her home wasn’t far, and when they dashed into the courtyard, Gareth leapt from the saddle before the horse had quite stopped, reaching up to pluck her down without a modicum of assistance from her.
Once her feet were planted on the earth, he stabilized her with one hand, while turning to give the beast a hearty slap
