The Leopard Prince (Princes #2)(23)

“Watch it! He’s got a knife!”

That wasn’t Mr. Pye’s voice. George chanced raising her head and saw to her relief that Harry Pye did indeed have a knife. He held a thin, gleaming blade in his left hand. Even from this distance it looked rather nasty. He was in a strangely graceful fighter’s crouch in the road, both hands in front of him. He appeared to know what he was doing, too. One of the villains was bleeding from his cheek. But the other three were circling, trying to flank him, and the odds didn’t look good.

The gig lurched again. She lost sight of the action as she fell and cracked her shoulder against the seat.

“Will you hold still, you silly beast?” she muttered.

The reins were sliding toward the front, and if she lost them, she’d never get control of the gig. Shouts and grunts came from the fighters, interspersed with the awful sound of fists hitting flesh. She daren’t risk looking up again. She held on to the seat with one hand to steady herself and strained with the other toward the slithering reins. Almost. Her fingertips grazed the leather, but the horse jolted, sending her back against the seat. She just kept her footing. If the horse would only hold still.

One.

More.

Second.

She dived and triumphantly came up with the reins. Quickly she sawed them, little minding the horse’s mouth, and tied them to the seat. She chanced a glance. Harry Pye was bleeding from his forehead. As she watched, an attacker lunged at him from his right. Mr. Pye whirled in a powerful move and kicked at the other man’s legs. A second thug clawed at his left arm. Mr. Pye twisted and performed some sort of maneuver, too fast for her to see. The man screamed and staggered back with a bloody hand. But the first man took advantage of the distraction. He hit Mr. Pye again and again in the middle. Harry Pye grunted with each blow, doubling over, valiantly trying to swing his knife.

George set the carriage brake.

The third and fourth men advanced. The first man punched Mr. Pye once more, and he fell to his knees, retching.

Mr. Pye was going to die.

Ohmygodohmygodohmygod! George scrambled under the seat and brought up a sackcloth-wrapped bundle. Shaking the cloth free, she clutched one of the dueling pistols in her right hand, raised it with a straight arm, aimed at the man standing over Mr. Pye, and fired.

Bang!

The explosion nearly deafened her. She squinted through the smoke and saw the man reel away, clutching his side. Got the bastard! She felt a thrill of bloodthirsty glee. The remaining men, including Harry Pye, had turned in her direction with varying degrees of shock and horror. She raised the second pistol and took aim at another man.

The man flinched and ducked. “Gorblimey! She’s got a pistol!”

Apparently the thought that she might be dangerous had never crossed their minds.

Harry Pye rose, pivoted silently, and slashed at the man nearest him.

“Jaysus!” the man screamed, holding a hand to his bloody face. “Let’s go, lads!” The thugs turned and dashed back the way they’d come.

The lane was suddenly quiet.

George heard the blood rushing in her veins. She carefully set the pistols down on the seat.

Mr. Pye still looked in the direction the men had disappeared. He seemed to decide that they were gone, for he lowered the hand holding the knife. Bending, he slipped it inside his boot. Then he turned to her. The blood from the wound on his forehead had mixed with sweat and smeared down the side of his face. Stray hairs from his queue stuck to the gore. He breathed deeply, his nostrils flaring as he tried to catch his breath.

George felt strange, almost angry.

He walked toward her, his boots scraping against the rocks in the road. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d brought pistols?” His voice was raspy and deep. It demanded apology, concession, even submission.

George didn’t feel like giving any.

“I—” she began firmly, strongly, even haughtily.

She didn’t have a chance to finish because he was in front of her. He grabbed her about the waist and yanked her from the carriage. She half-fell against him. She put her hands on his shoulders to keep from toppling over. He pulled her against him until her breasts were quite squashed into his chest, which, strangely, felt very nice. She lifted her head to ask him what, exactly, he thought he was about—

And he kissed her!

Luscious, firm lips that tasted of the wine they’d drunk at luncheon. They moved over hers in an insistent rhythm. She could feel the prickle of his stubble and his tongue, running over the crease of her lips until she opened them and then… Ohm. Someone was moaning, and it might very well be her because she had never, never, never been kissed like this before in her whole life. His tongue was actually inside her mouth, stroking and teasing hers. She was about to melt—maybe she already was melting, she felt absolutely drenched. And then he lured her tongue into his mouth and suckled it, and she lost all control and wrapped her arms about his neck and suckled him back.

The horse—stupid, stupid animal—chose that moment to whicker.

Mr. Pye jerked his head away. He glanced around. “I can’t believe I did that.”

“Nor I,” George said. She tried to pull his head back down so he would do it again.

But suddenly he picked her up and deposited her on the carriage seat. While she was still blinking, he crossed to the other side and jumped in.

Mr. Pye placed the still-loaded pistol in her lap. “It’s dangerous here. They may decide to come back.”