Page 50 of Any Duke in a Storm

Raphael snorted as she giggled harder.

“What’s so funny, bitch?” another man yelled.

“Neither of us are heroes,” she replied, hand sliding through to the layered slits in her dress and petticoats behind Raphael’s torso. “We’re the fucking villains,bitch.”

With that, she yanked the pistol out and took out the one who had spoken with a cracking shot to the stomach.He might live if he got himself to a doctor. It was pandemonium as the men screamed and shouted, rushing them all at once. In a move that could rival the grace of a ballerina, Raphael swung the pistol from his coat pocket to take out the man closest to him before sinking to his feet in an elegant sideways crouch to snatch a knife from its sheath in her right boot. The flat of the blade kissed her stockinged calf and made her suck in a sharp breath before embedding itself into another assailant.

That cheeky wretch!

Grinning with exhilaration and arousal, Lisbeth whirled, plucking the four-inch-long hairpins shaped like thin swords from her coiffure. She dragged one end lightly over Raphael’s groin, eliciting a groan and a smothered oath of vengeance. Turnabout was fair play. With a wink, she put the weapons to better use by kicking the man coming at her right in the gut and then stabbing him through the ribs with rapid jabs of her wrists. He screamed and fell onto his arse.

Four down. Four to go, including the leader. He had a bemused expression on his face—as if he wasn’t quite sure how his upper hand had gone south—but it turned quickly to rage. Two of the men dropped their weapons and fled, so Lisbeth cleaned her hairpins off on her dress and tucked them back into her hair before retrieving one of the fallen cutlasses with a wild grin. She almost wished there were more enemies.

She saw Raphael shoot her a wry glance at the red streaks on her striped ivory and blue muslin skirts.“What?” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s just a little blood. Don’t go squeamish on me now.”

“You are one of a kind, woman,” he said.

Lisbeth swung the cutlass in a slow circle, testing the weight and getting comfortable with the wooden hilt as she and Raphael squared off against the two remaining hooligans. They didn’t look too worried, and the reason for that became clear when footsteps clapped on the cobblestones as four more ruffians sprinted toward them. The two men who had run had gone for reinforcements. One of the new thugs had a pitchfork.

Anticipation sluiced through her veins. She’d gotten her wish.

Lisbeth let out a whoop. “This is the best day ever. Trident is mine!”

The heated look in Raphael’s eyes promised filthy things that made her go hot, but then she was too busy slashing and twisting, hacking and ducking. Her arms burned and her chest ached with the breaths sawing out of her lungs as she fought like a devil. She swept a man’s legs out from under him and kicked another in the side of his calf with a quick snap. The cutlass went flying from her grip in a moment of distraction when she heard Raphael roar in pain. But she could barely find him in the mass of dirty bodies.

A thick arm rounded her neck, but not before she instinctively tucked her chin down to protect her throat. “Enough!” a man bellowed, his fetid breath making her gag.

When the last attackers froze at the command, Lisbethcaught sight of Raphael and the red across his abdomen. Blood welled from a deep gash, spreading like a scarlet line, but he stood tall despite the sudden pallor of his brown skin.Damn.

“I’m going to have to strangle her right in front of you to teach you a lesson,” the man grasping her said, and tightened his hold.

“You say that like it’s a threat,” Lisbeth taunted with a giggle. The trick was to keep the enemy unbalanced. He’d already seen her fight, so he was aware of her skills. Playing the damsel would not get her anywhere, so acting the glib scoundrel was the next obvious choice. The tongue could be as effective as a blade in the right circumstance. “Sometimes a girl likes it rough.”

Raphael’s eyes bulged with rage when the disgusting cretin rubbed his crotch against her and one of the men still standing burst into raucous laughter. “Do you now?” her captor crooned. “I knew you’d be a handful, but I’ll bind you all the same before I show you what a real man is like.”

“Such confidence,” she wheezed with another breathless laugh. Lisbeth didn’t have to pretend the breathless part—the man was squeezing the space in her throat to a sliver even with her chin blocking him from fully choking her. Black spots began to dance in her vision. She had to make a move before she fainted from the lack of oxygen.

Focusing, Lisbeth shunted her hips backward into his erection, but only when she felt the tension in his grip lessen marginally did she step to the side and grasp hisarm with both hands, one at the wrist and the other at the elbow. With all the force she could muster, she slammed her left hand back to his groin, catching him squarely on the hard column of flesh. He screamed, his body curling forward, and she swung her elbow up into his nose, hearing bone crack before he released her and toppled back.

Lisbeth could have stopped there, but he’d rubbed his grimy cock on her. Men like him would always try to take advantage of defenseless women. Andshewasn’t defenseless in the least. Staring at him, Lisbeth reached down for the knife in her boot.

“Touch another woman without her consent and I’ll come back and cut it off.” Then she buried it to the hilt right in his shriveled, tiny ballocks.

“Fuck! Fuck! You gelded me, you fucking bunter!”

Lisbeth wrinkled her nose. “And now you’re insulting jades making an honest living. Honestly, do youwantto die today? And that’s Bonnie Bess to you.”

When the man’s face blanched even in his agony, eyes rounding with dread, she grinned. Good, he knew who she was. A blade in the balls was a blessing from someone with a brutal reputation like hers. The Bonnie Bess from the sea shanty would have cut them off and taken them with her as a souvenir.

“They’re mine next time,” she crooned in a honeyed voice, and he started sobbing.

More footsteps raced toward them, but it was Gibbons and Balzac, who had their guns in hand. They were followed by two other crew from theAvalon—Peppers andJim. The thieves who could still move scattered at the new arrivals, abandoning their leader who was curled up on the ground crying and clutching his bleeding crotch.

“Bloody hell, Raphael!” Lisbeth shouted, dashing to him as he swayed unsteadily on his feet, his skin an unhealthy wan color. Gibbons pulled one arm over his shoulders, making him grunt in pain. “Get him back to the ship and find a fucking doctor!” she ordered.

Raphael shot her a weak smile. “Worried about me, Viking?”

“Promises were made,” she told him before kissing him soundly on the lips, those vicious green eyes unable to hide her fear. “Don’t you dare die on me.”

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