Just This Once (20 page)

Ethan’s hideaway gun went flying as Pirate
Pete fell against him, and the next thing Ethan knew, he had his
hands full dodging Lucian’s viciously thrusting knife. He managed
to move in following one quick thrust, and to grab the outlaw’s
sinewy arm. With a twist, he had the knife. He stabbed brutally,
expertly, just once—straight into his attacker’s chest.

But at the same moment, he saw Josie strike
Tiny with the candlestick.

The giant never even blinked. But he thrust
an elbow back at the girl, and sent her spinning to the floor.

Then he turned on her, those blank eyes
suddenly lit with unholy rage.

Ethan yanked the knife from Lucian’s chest
and shoved the man away from him. He lunged toward Tiny, but before
he could reach him, he was tackled by Pirate Pete.

“I’ll teach ye to try an’ pull yer tricks on
me!” the outlaw leader roared as he and Ethan went down flailing
together on the floral carpet. They rolled sideways into Lady
Tattersall’s gold-rimmed marble table. It overturned with a crash.
Pirate Pete came out on top and raised the pistol to fire down into
Ethan’s face, but Ethan grabbed his wrist and twisted. A mighty
struggle for the gun began.

And in the meantime, Tiny bore down upon
Josie, still sprawled, winded, on the floor.

When she looked up to see that huge form
advancing on her, she froze. By the time she regained her wits and
tried to roll aside, he was upon her. He picked her up as if she
were a rag doll, held her with her feet dangling off the ground,
and shook her.

Then he set her down with a thump that
rattled her teeth, drew back his hand, and struck her full across
the face.

Josie staggered back upon the sofa. Blinding
pain enveloped her, the way it had the night Snake had beaten her
senseless, aching through her bones, her cheeks, her skull. But she
wasn’t senseless, not yet. Her ears ringing, she pretended that she
was. Her heart pounded like an anvil as she felt Tiny’s paws seize
her, turning her so he could better inspect the damage he’d
inflicted.

Standing over her, he spoke gruffly, almost
playfully.

“Wake up, you, so’s I can give you more
what-for.”

She half opened her eyes, trying to look
dazed. The slow, vicious smile that spread across his massive face
filled her with tingling fear. He edged closer, sausage fingers
flexing, reaching for her throat....

Josie drew her leg in swiftly, then kicked
out as hard as she could. As if she were doing a fierce movement in
a wild dance at the Golden Pistol, she kicked him square in the
nose with all her strength.

He gave a howl of pain and clutched his face
as blood spurted from both nostrils. Before he could try to grab
her again, Josie flung herself sideways and off the sofa, darting
away.

Tiny started after her. But Miss Perry
glanced up from her ministrations of the fallen man and stuck out
her foot. Tiny tripped.

But it only slowed him, and did not fell
him. He cuffed Miss Perry as he stumbled past, and caught Josie
just as she reached the French doors. He seized her arm and twisted
it.

“First I’m goin’ ter break your arm and then
that leg that you kicked me with,” he grunted. “And then, me fine
lady, I’ll bloody
your
nose.”

Josie bit back a scream of pain as her arm
nearly snapped. She opened her mouth, closed it, felt her knees go
slack. He was twisting her arm slowly, smiling all the while,
enjoying her pain and her terror.

She never saw Ethan come up behind Tiny. She
didn’t know that he had managed to wrench the gun away from Pirate
Pete, but that in the struggle it had gone clattering across the
room, nor did she know that he had landed a blow that left Pirate
Pete dazed and dizzy, flat on his back on Lady Tattersall’s
bloodstained carpet.

She only knew that something hit Tiny with
savage ferocity from behind, and that the wounded and bleeding
giant groaned and released his hold on her arm. Josie sank to the
floor, clutching her bruised arm—and saw that, like a huge grizzly
bear, Tiny had flung himself about to confront whoever had slammed
into him.

And that someone was Ethan Savage.

For a moment, the drawing room blurred and
swam before her eyes. As large and strong as Ethan was, Tiny loomed
over him. The giant outlaw had been shot through the shoulder and
his nose was bleeding, perhaps broken, but he still glared
malevolently and stood squarely, menacingly, on two feet.

There was blood on Ethan’s face too. His
shirt and jacket were ripped, and his dark hair hung in his eyes.
But he, too, was steady. And icy calm. He grinned at the other man,
a taunting, sneering grin.

“Come and get it, Cyclops. Or do you only
fight women?”

“You’re askin’ fer it, yer lor’ship,” Tiny
vowed, his eyes glistening with anticipation.

“See how I’m trembling?” Ethan’s laugh was
colder than mountain snow. “They should have named you Ugly, not
Tiny. Ugly, I’m going to bury you.”

Tiny didn’t know what Cyclops meant, but he
knew Ugly. And the contemptuous tone and expression of the other
man infuriated him into an even greater state of fury. With a howl
he lunged at Ethan, his right fist already swinging.

Josie watched in horror, her heart in her
throat.

But Ethan ducked the blow with smooth
agility. Off balance from the force of his swing, Tiny tilted
forward just as Ethan smashed his fist up into Tiny’s chin. The
punishing blow resounded like a shot through the drawing room.

Tiny went down on one knee. He blinked in
surprise. Ethan slammed another blow down upon the giant’s back.
And another. This time, soundlessly, the outlaw toppled to the
floor.

But Josie saw, just beyond Ethan, that
Pirate Pete had crawled to his knees. He shook his head as if
clearing his senses. Then he clambered to his feet with surprising
alacrity, made a grab for the gunnysack on the floor, and started
at a lumbering run toward the hall.

“Behind you—he’s got the jewels,” she cried,
and tried to rise, but Ethan had already wheeled around. He dived
after the outlaw leader and managed to snag the gunnysack, but
Pirate Pete slipped free of his grasp and bolted from the room.

Josie struggled to stand. Miss Perry needed
help nursing the walrus-faced man, Ethan was coming back toward her
now, looking worried, and she knew there were better things to do
than cry like a baby and dwell upon her own hurts. But dizziness
washed over her as she staggered to her feet, and then Ethan
stepped over Tiny to scoop her up in his arms and her senses
floated for a moment as he carried her to the sofa.

“How badly are you hurt?” he asked as he
gently lowered her onto the cushions.

“Not... too bad.” She bit back a wince. The
fury darkening his face shocked her. He looked as if he could kill
someone at that moment with his bare hands.

“I’m fine,” she murmured faintly. “My arm is
sore, but it’s not important.”

“I’ll see both those bastards hanged.” Ethan
touched her face, brushed a gentle finger across her smooth,
fine-boned cheeks that were ashen with pain. The sight of that
twisted giant hurting her had filled him with a blood-rage he
hadn’t felt since he’d gotten news of Molly’s death. He hadn’t
thought anything could affect him like that again.

“Hold on, Josie, while I tie that son of a
bitch up—”

There was a crash.

As Josie and Ethan glanced around, they saw
Tiny running across Lady Tattersall’s darkened garden, leaving in
his wake shards of broken glass from the French doors.

“The hell you will...” Ethan shot after him,
but just as he reached the French doors a soft, desperate voice
halted him in his tracks.

“My lord, wait!” Miss Perry quavered as she
glanced helplessly up from the side of the fallen man. “I think
you’d best fetch a doctor quickly. It seems to me Colonel Hamring
is going to die!”

T
he next hour was a
whirlwind of frantic activity. A number of servants were found
trussed or struck unconscious in the stables or the kitchens or the
cellar, and one footman was sent for the doctor, another for the
village constables.

A blanket was thrown over Lucian’s corpse.
And Lady Tattersall, Oliver Winthrop, and the black-haired girl
whose name, Josie discovered, was Miss Rosamund Crenshaw—all
returned, babbling on and on about their terror, the humiliations
they’d endured, the horrible ordeal they’d survived.

Ethan, in the meantime, took over the care
of Colonel Hamring and as Josie watched worriedly from the sofa,
proved himself to be quite competent at cleansing and stanching the
wound, then wrapping it tightly in towels that the housekeeper,
once freed from her bonds, brought him at a run.

Each time Josie tried to rise from the sofa
to help him or Lady Tattersall or Miss Crenshaw, who had collapsed
in a wing chair moaning that she felt faint, Miss Clara Perry
drifted to her side and gently pushed her back upon the turquoise
damask cushions.

“No, no, my dear—you heard what your husband
ordered. You mustn’t move until the doctor has seen you and gives
you permission to get up.”

“But I’m fine.”

“Don’t listen to her.” Ethan spoke over his
shoulder as he wound the bandage tight around the Colonel’s wound.
“She stays put or I’ll hog-tie her to that sofa myself.”

Miss Perry’s velvet-brown eyes grew round.
Josie could understand why. There was no mistaking the ruthlessness
of Ethan’s tone, and the woman didn’t know him well enough yet to
realize that he was not nearly as imposing a tyrant as he made
himself out to be. At least not to Josie.

“But Ethan, you know I have nursing skills,”
she argued from the sofa, horrified by the weakness of her own
voice. She tried again, attempting to sound stronger. “If you’ll
only let me take a look at the Colonel—”

“No!” Even Josie bit her lips at the dark,
quelling glance he threw at her, unmistakable with warning. “Don’t
move.”

So she’d stayed where she was, and Miss
Perry had dabbed a cool cloth upon her head, and tenderly examined
the bruises on Josie’s arms, giving a whimper of distress when she
saw them already purpling in the lamplight—and to tell the truth,
Josie had been glad to lie still. Her heart was finally beginning
to slow down to a normal beat, and the trembling of her body was
not as intense as before. But her arm still hurt, the pain
throbbing outward in two directions—down the bones leading to her
wrist, and up through her shoulder.

But she didn’t complain. She tried to smile
up at Clara Perry, who was watching her anxiously. Josie whispered,
“I’ve married a very stubborn man.”

“Oh, yes, my dear, perhaps,” Miss Perry
whispered back. “But such a very
handsome
one.” Miss Perry
then blushed clear up to her hairline.

To try to distract herself from her own pain
and the terrifying memory of that moment when it had seemed Tiny
would actually rip off her arm, Josie studied the small-boned woman
who was now turning the cloth over and laying it gently once more
upon her brow.

Miss Clara Perry appeared to be nearing
fifty years old. There were tiny spider veins in her delicate
hands, and small lines crinkling at the corners of her eyes. She
had a sweet wren’s face, and soft red hair that curled pleasingly
around a countenance that was pure kindness, though her cheeks did
appear to be somewhat pinched into perpetual anxiety. Her manners
were quiet and humble, as were her clothes. Not for her were the
handsome richness of Lady Tattersall’s trained, beaded dinner gown,
or Miss Crenshaw’s elegant peach-and-cream lace. She was Miss
Crenshaw’s chaperon, Josie remembered, yet even as she pondered
this, the black-haired girl intruded into her reverie.

“Cousin Clara! Cousin! Is it possible you
can attend to
me
for a moment? Mama sent you up here to join
me in Lady Tattersall’s company with the hope that you would take
care of me, yet here I sit, nearly swooning, and you have yet to
bring me any smelling salts!”

“Oh, forgive me, Rosamund dear, but Lady
Stonecliff has been dreadfully hurt by that horrid monster
and—”

“And we are all most grateful to her,” Lady
Tattersall interrupted, tottering over on the arm of her footman
and peering down at Josie through wide, moist blue eyes. “My dear,
how calm you were throughout that dreadful ordeal. Offering to help
me when I’m sure that scoundrel would have choked the life out of
me only to get that necklace from around my throat. And then
actually striking that other man—well, my godson has certainly
chosen himself a great and courageous lady!”

Josie felt surprise at the gushing
compliments of her hostess. “Th-thank you. But I only did what
anyone else would have done,” she replied diffidently. Lady
Tattersall shook her head.