“Think to have both the lasses for yourself,” her father sneered.
“I do not want that waif Glenna!” Parkington roared. “I want to ruin the woman who ruined me!”
Samuel sighed, clearly frustrated. “You must enjoy pain. I hope so because I’m about to acquaint you with it.” His muscles tensed, ready.
Parkington ran.
Didn’t get very far before a bolt of silver dropped out of Samuel’s grasp with the slightest, quickest flick of the wrist. Blade flying, then hitting home. Right in Parkington’s shoulder.
The viscount cried out and staggered back, his hand and gaze flying to the spot where the blade stuck deep. “Bloody hell! What is it?”
“It’s a knife, you dimwit,” her father mumbled. He eyed Samuel warily now.
“You,” Samuel said, producing another knife from nowhere and pointing it at Parkington, “will take Lady Emma’s name out of your mouth and her existence out of your mind. Because if you do not, and if you survive that wound, I’ll give you a matching one. More center of the chest this time. Do you understand?”
“Bloody hell,” Parkington whimpered, grasping the handle of the knife. “I’ll press charges. You’ll swing for attacking a peer!”
“And who do you think the constable will believe? Two drunken men from over the border? Or an English duke?”
“Who throws knives,” Parkington whimpered, bravado fading fast.
“I do.” Samuel stepped forward as Parkington cringed away from him. “And you’ll remember that the next time your tinybrain happens upon the name Lady Emma Blackwood. Or Her Grace, the Duchess of Clearford. Or any of her sisters.”
“Duchess,” her father mumbled, eyeing Samuel’s knife. “Sounds good. But I’ll not let you have her without a proper payment!”
“I had hoped”—Samuel sighed—“we could discuss such matters in a study like civilized men, a desk between us.”
“He’ll cheat you, Glenhaven,” Parkington rasped, shoving a finger toward Samuel. “He’ll take everything you have, and—ha!—you have nothing. Nothing but those girls, and they aren’t worth much. Give me that one and I’ll give you every damn cent I own.”
“And how much is that?” Samuel drawled. “A year, in pounds?”
“Five thousand!” Parkington bellowed.
Samuel laughed. “That little? Entrust your daughters to me, Glenhaven, and I’ll ensure they marry men worth three times as much as that.”
“Sounds like a better offer.” Her father tapped his chin as the viscount’s blood mixed with the dirt of the road. “You can’t manage that, now can you, Parkington?”
Parkington growled, screamed as he yanked the knife from his shoulder, and pulled his arm back when the blade was free. As if he meant to throw it. Emma raised her arm as Samuel had shown her, imagined the silly tree in the portrait gallery and Samuel’s confident touch showing her just what to do, believing in her.
Emma threw the knife.
“Bloody hell!” Parkington cried, dropping his bloody blade to the ground to clutch at the gaping wound she’d ripped open in his other shoulder.
“Oh, I missed,” Emma said.
“Not quite, luv.” Samuel wrapped his arm around her waist, slipped another blade into her free hand. “You nicked him. We’ll work on your aim. It’s for the best that you didn’t kill him, though. Not sure I can explain that away.”
For a moment, Parkington looked like he might lunge at her, tackle her, risk another knife wound, but he hit his knees instead, his body wavering in circles.
“He needs a doctor,” Samuel said. “Pack him up, Glenhaven, and get him some help. When you’ve calmed down enough to talk sense, without abducting or threatening what I now consider mine, you may contact me.” He held the knife up, wrist ready. “You can release the coachman,” Samuel said, a bit louder than before.
The coachman?
Rustling in the woods to the side of the road, then cursing, then footsteps. The footsteps of more than one pair of feet. The coachman appeared first, rumpled and angry and stomping toward the coach. She’d not wondered why he’d not joined the conflict. She knew now, as a gang of cloaked men stepped out from the trees. She knew them.
“Your brothers-in-law?” she whispered.
“They met me on the edges of London, wouldn’t let me leave without them.”
