Page 90 of My Rogue, My Ruin
With Herculean strength, Archer ripped one wrist from the rope shackle. He forced himself to move slowly, controlling his bloodlust long enough to meet Brynn’s gaze. He needed her out of the way. As he waved his free hand low at his side, her eyes sparked with understanding. He set his jaw, adrenaline surging through his body like an uncaged beast. She inhaled sharply and flung her bound hands up toward the man’s throat, catching him in the soft part of his lower esophagus.
“You bloody bitch,” he coughed, raising the gun as he stumbled backward from Brynn’s strike.
But the movement was no match for Archer’s savage burst of speed as he sprung to his feet and dove forward. With a guttural growl, he tackled him to the ground, the impersonator’s pistol flying into the air and disappearing behind a bale of hay. The man had a stone on him in weight, but he was no contest for the demonic wrath possessing Archer. Blinded by cold fury and purpose, he straddled the man’s body, his fists flying like battering rams, crunching into bone, teeth, and tissue until the man’s face was an unrecognizable bloody pulp. After an eternity, Archer staggered back. He turned sharply in search for Brynn, his knuckles aching. She threw herself into his arms, and he hugged her body to his as he hauled burning breaths into his lungs.
“Are you hurt?” he gasped, kissing her hair, her face, her eyes, while being careful of the ragged bruise on her cheek.
“No,” she whispered.
Archer turned to find a knife from one of the tack shelves and snapped the bonds at her wrists. “Let’s go,” he said to her, but Brynn’s eyes were wide and terrified as she focused on something—or someone—just beyond his left shoulder.
He turned, and in disbelief, saw the man he’d just pummeled unconscious standing. His face was swollen and drenched in blood, but the hand holding the short pistol he had recovered from the hay did not waver. The man’s bloody mouth puckered into a smile, and his finger tightened on the trigger. Archer shoved Brynn behind him, and as a shot exploded into the silence, he braced for the pain.
None came.
He opened his eyes just as the man’s body fell to the ground in a thump, a bloody hole gaping at his breast. Archer whipped around, his mind a tumult of relief and confusion. A whimpering Eloise stood in the doorway, smoke rising from the muzzle of the gun in her hands. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. His sister had just shot a man. Saved their lives. He wanted to go to her and take the weapon from her shaking hands. But he couldn’t move. His legs refused to step away from Brynn’s side. With shattered gratitude, Archer nodded to Eloise and pulled Brynn to him as she collapsed sobbing against his jacket.
“It’s over now,” he whispered against her hair.
Eloise slumped against the door, breathing hard, her hand falling to her side. Archer met her eyes, thankful for once that he hadn’t insisted she accompany them to the Kensington Ball. If she hadn’t been here, he shuddered to think of what would have happened. She must have heard a commotion in the mews, though he didn’t know how or when. It didn’t matter—she had come. But they were not entirely free from threat yet. He motioned her to come closer, putting a finger against his lips.
“What’s the matter?” she whispered.
“There is a second man.”
Her eyes widened as she handed him the spent gun. “I don’t know how to reload,” she began, her entire body shivering in delayed shock. She and Brynn clutched each other as Brynn whispered her fevered thanks. “You saved us,” she said.
“I was only lucky that I was able to help.” Eloise touched the bruise on Brynn’s temple, wincing in sympathy. “We should have that looked at. You may be concussed.”
His sister was correct, and perhaps he himself was as well. But they had a more immediate urgency.
“I need to get you both somewhere safe,” Archer said. “But first, Eloise—how did you know that we were in trouble?”
“I thought I heard someone shouting,” Eloise explained, her voice trembling. “I knew the grooms were off, and it sounded like the shouts had come from here. So I sneaked into Father’s study and took that pistol out of the gun case.”
Archer’s eyes narrowed on the still-smoking gun she had given him. He frowned, studying the shiny embossed twin barrels. He had never seen the intricate bone-handled butt before, and he was familiar with every pistol and rifle in the late duke’s gun case. He’d shot them all at one point or another. His frown deepened as he studied the finely etched designs on the handle. This gun was decidedly not his father’s. The slope of the handle had been cut to fit a much smaller hand.
His blood slowed in his veins as a sticky realization took hold. His eyes met his sister’s, and the fragility in them winked away, replaced by a ruthless, calculated determination. He shook his head as if his own eyes were deceiving him.
“I see the game is up,” Eloise commented, the shift in her voice going from pleading and frail, to strong and cold. Her very appearance transformed before his eyes. In truth, he did not recognize her.
Archer blinked in disbelief as his sister backed away from them, a second pistol appearing out of her cloak. She pointed it right at his head, a smile crossing her lips.
Betrayal speared him like a pointed lance. “Eloise, no.”
“You are far too clever, brother. I should have been more careful with my words. Then again, I suppose it is so much more gratifying this way, isn’t it?”
“Eloise,” Brynn whispered, her eyes stuck fast on the second pistol. “What are you doing?”
But his sister didn’t have to answer. Archer already knew. “You’rethe second man,” he said slowly. “The other assailant.”
She nodded, satisfaction glinting in her icy stare. Suddenly his delicate, physically and emotionally scarred sister didn’t seem so shocked or weak or frail. Her hands were no longer shaking. She was in utter control. “Drop your weapons, Archer.”
He did as she asked, if only because he sensed, with her brutally swift and seamless transformation, that she was far more dangerous than the other man had been. “Why are you doing this?”
Another rapid shift swept over her, Eloise’s unveiled face contorting into something demented and violent. She’d never looked at him this way before, and it chilled Archer to his very core. “Because you deserve to die, you arrogant filth. You should have died in that fire, not your mother. It was meant for you.” Archer stared at her, saying nothing despite the hot burst of pain flaring along his veins and burrowing into his chest.
“Meantfor me?” he repeated. The fire had been anaccident. At least…that was what it had been determined to have been. “You set the fire?”
