Page 3 of How to Seduce a Viscount
She knew they couldn’t let her live. What if she’d seen the message? Even if it meant nothing to her, she could still relay it to others perhaps. They couldn’t take that chance. They were here for containment.
She flourished her knife and smiled when it stopped their advance. They weren’t close enough to strike. Yet.
‘If you wanted the message you would have tried for it long before this. Why walk all this way?’
She hoped someone would open the door soon. She was practical about her odds here. She’d take one of them, maybe hurt a second one badly, but she’d not take all three. They were too big. Their sheer size would overwhelm her if they rushed her all at once—a wolves’ ambush.
‘Kill, maim or live, which one do you think it will be for you? And you?’ she bantered, brandishing her blade one more time, letting them know she’d read their thoughts and they matched her own.
Each knew she’d likely kill one of them and gut another. Each were weighing the odds they’d be the one to walk away unscathed. They had to act soon. The longer they waited, the more likely it became that it wouldn’t just be her they would have to face on the doorstep.
The thickset one snarled. It was all the warning she had before they came. The outcome of this doorstep skirmish would be decided in a matter of seconds now.
The thickset one reached her first. She thrust hard, feeling the sharp blade stab past layers of muscle and fat. The force of it vibrated up her arm but she held on, withdrawing the blade and whirling to face another as he fell. She wielded the knife up high in fencing fashion to parry a thrust, but she’d left herself open. She wasn’t quick enough. She felt a blade slice her side. Felt the warmth of blood and the sting of pain.
Ignore ither mind cried. She had to protect the message, had to protect Lucien Parkhurst.
One of the men grabbed for her and she kicked out at him. He stumbled, losing his grip on his knife in the process and she staggered forward, her blade dealing damage with the last of her strength. The man gave a groan, his eyes wide with shock at his misjudgement. She pushed him away and he slumped in the snow.
One more to go and she hadn’t the strength. He lunged for her, grappling for her knife, his hand encircling her wrist trying to shake the blade free. She’d be no match without it. She kicked and fought, feeling her power ebb. Her shirt was wet. It must be soaked through now. She was dizzy and the world was starting to spin.
The front door opened at last, light spilling out like a benediction. A blessing, a farewell…and a form with it.Lucien. She’d know those dark waves and dark eyes anywhere. Ferocious and feral, his features were fierce as he charged the third attacker and pulled the man from her. She felt his weight leave her, felt her own weight leave her, and then it seemed that life its very self followed.
At least she’d made it. Lucien would find the message. He would search her coat. She’d not failed the earl or the Horsemen. But oh how ironic, she thought, to have come this far, gotten so close, only to die on the doorstep of her desire at the very last.
Chapter Two
Whoever she was, she wasnotgoing to die, this waif of a girl dressed in trousers. He wouldn’t allow it. Luce knelt beside her, pushing back her coat, ripping at her shirt to get at the wound. Dear lord, there was so much blood. It was everywhere, drenching her coat, soaking her shirt.Andshe’d been stabbed on his doorstep. Who stabbed waifs on viscounts’ doorsteps in the middle of snowfall at midnight? No one. But peopledidstab messengers that sought the Horsemen. Good God. The message must be important. If so, why had Grandfather sent her? She was delicate and pale with silvery hair like an angel’s. And yet she’d managed to skewer two before he’d made it downstairs.
Luce stripped off his cravat and pressed the hasty wadding to the wound, his mind rapidly prioritising his actions. The bleeding had to be stopped. Immediately. She would need stitches. Her care came before his questions.
Luce lifted her in his arms. How had someone this light managed two brute-sized men? He angled her through the door, juggling her in his arms. She moaned in protest. That moan was proof of life. Thank God.
‘You’re safe. I’m taking you inside. We’ll see to your wound,’ he assured her.
One never told a fallen comrade how bad an injury was. The rule was to be positive, to minimise the severity of the situation so that the injured didn’t panic. Luce hoped the slice wasn’t as severe as it looked. Sometimes a wound just bled.
Luce’s servants had been woken by the commotion and had come to see what had happened. Luce issued orders to them as he climbed the stairs with the waif in his arms.
‘Rowley, take the footmen and tie up any of the men outside who are still alive. Put them in the wine cellar. Mrs Hartley, I need hot water and medicinal supplies. Send a maid up, one with a strong stomach.’
He set his household in motion, thankful the girl in his arms was feather-light. He’d not realised how many steps comprised his staircase, or how long the corridor was. Perhaps that was his haste talking. There was little time to lose.
‘In here, my lord.’ A maid scurried past him, holding open the door to a guest room. ‘This chamber has been aired.’ The maid hurried about the room lighting lamps and laying a fire. Luce would have to remember to thank her later for her efficiency in a time of crisis.
Luce laid the silver-haired waif on the bed and pushed aside the tatters of her clothing, getting his first good look at the injury. He sucked in his breath. That wasn’t a slice. It was agash. Behind him in the room, he could hear the arrival of hot water and supplies.
‘Another pad please.’
The layers of his wadded cravat were soaked through. Someone was beside him, pushing a clean cloth into his hand. He folded it and pressed it to the wound.
‘Shall I send for the doctor?’ the efficient maid—he remembered her name was Rose—asked.
‘Yes, at once.’
Although he held out little hope there would be much help from that quarter. The doctor would be an hour at least in coming, perhaps more with the weather. That assumed the doctor was even at home and not already out braving the elements to deliver a baby or attending to some other medical need.
By the time the doctor arrived, Luce thought grimly, it might not matter. The injury may resolve itself by then. Either he’d get the situation under control or not. He didn’t want to think of the ‘or not’. This slip of a girl had fought three men on his doorstep. She could not die. Not until he knew who she was and why she’d come.
