Chapter 28
Long ago, I might have once mentioned my views on being wrong about anything. I’ve rarely admitted it and even if I were in the wrong, I cannot recall ever regretting it even so.
Well, today, I was ever so wrong about something. I thought I could thumb my nose at the world without consequence. Today I’ve realized just what those consequences might be...and it would not be worth it.
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Fiona stared at the thug at the end of the alley, torn between the mortification of knowing her passionate exchange with Harry had been witnessed and the alarm the sight of her pursuer inspired.
Short but thick and muscular, he held a knife in one hand and a short cudgel in the other.
Luckily, he appeared to be alone. The brutes must have split up to look for them.
Looking around, she searched for a weapon or an escape.
“Oi, yer not goin’ to run from ol’ Crumpky again, are ye poppet?”
“Mr. Crumpky, really,” she said coolly, crossing her arms over her chest. “Of course, we intend to run.”
Next to her, Aylesbury made a choking sound that might have been incredulity or laughter.
“Stay back, Fiona,” he murmured, holding his arm in front of her as if the barrier might protect or restrain her. “I’ll take care of this.”
She blinked in astonishment. “You can’t think to fight him! He’s armed. What are you going to do? Throw you’re A-levels at him?”
He grinned at that. “Do you think that would work?”
“Humph! Now, who’s enjoying themselves?” she muttered, but he was already sauntering toward their assailant, his empty hands held out slightly from his sides. Had she truly missed the devil-may-care side of him?
“Crumpky, is it?” Aylesbury drawled. “Tsk, tsk, what an unfortunate name. Well, Crumpky, old chap, we’re at a bit of an impasse here, are we not?”
“An impasse?” Crumpky tested the word. “Wot’s that?”
“A standoff. A stalemate, if you will. You see, I cannot allow my fiancée to be dragged out of an alleyway.” The marquis wandered closer. “And yet you want to drag her away. You do know you would have to? She isn’t one to go quietly.”
“All ready noted, gov. Bloodied my nose, she did.”
“Then why not let us pass?” Aylesbury asked amiably, still sauntering closer. “You return to your band of merry men. Pretend you didn’t see us. You’ll never get a cent from her in any case.”
“Sorry, gov,” Crumpky said, rotating the cudgel in his hand. “I ain’t lookin’ to ’er for me nickel. Now stay back there.”
“I’m afraid I cannot do that.”
Aylesbury waited until the thug lifted the cudgel to strike and dodged in, grabbing the ruffian’s wrist and twisting him about while arching back out of the range of the knife as it swung about. The blade caught his jacket, tearing through it with an audible rip.
Pulling Crumpky’s arm up as he rotated, Aylesbury wrenched his wrist and forced the cudgel from his hand.
Palming it, he lunged forward, slamming the butt end of the club into the thug’s gut and upward into the bottom of his jaw when Crumpky doubled over from the blow.
His head snapped back, his chest bowing outward.
Aylesbury wrapped his fist around the cudgel and threw a right cross with it into that broad target.
Crumpky fell to the ground, gasping for air with a hand pressed to his chest. Stepping down on the man’s wrist, Aylesbury jerked the knife from his hand and pocketed it as Crumpky continued to wheeze.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” he asked pleasantly. “You never would have thought that a fellow could learn as much in the dormitories at Cambridge as you do on the streets, eh?”
“Harry! Are you all right?” Fiona rushed to his side.
“I am,” he assured her. “Our friend here is having some trouble breathing, though. We need to secure him so he can’t follow when he recovers.”
“Let’s cut off his legs below the knee,” she suggested, glaring down at Crumpky.
“Perhaps something a little less extreme?” he countered, looking around the rubbish scattered through the alley for inspiration.
“Chop him into wee bits?”
He grinned, every bit the old Harry that she remembered. “What a bloodthirsty lass you are.”
She smiled wickedly. “Well, it would certainly keep him from following.”
“That it would,” he agreed. “What do you think, Crumpky?”
Crumpky dragged in a deep, pained breath, clenching his chest. “Ye bastard!”
“Give me the knife, Harry,” Fiona demanded, holding out her hand. Aylesbury arched a brow, and she sighed impatiently. “I’m not going to kill him...or cut off his legs.”
Taking the knife, she proceeded to gut the basting holding the three rows of black military braiding around the bottom of her skirt. Once begun, she was able to rip them away easily. Aylesbury took the lengths one at a time, binding Crumpky’s feet and hands.
“We’ll leave him here and call the authorities once we get home,” he told her. “They can come back for him. Sorry, Crumpky old chap, fellows like you always get their comeuppance.”
To his surprise, Crumpky grinned up at him, baring tobacco-stained teeth. “So will ye, gov.”
“Harry, watch out!” Fiona cried out, and Aylesbury rolled to the side but not quickly enough as the blade of a knife slid across the back of his neck.
He wiped a hand across the area, his hand coming away with only a smear of blood.
It wasn’t bad then. Rolling to his back, he found one of Crumpky’s cohorts coming at him again and threw a foot to block him, sending the thug lurching to the side.
Aylesbury leapt to his feet, warily watching the knife as the man steadied himself for another attack.
This one was a huge, hairy brute with a bush of dark, scraggly hair that might have been home to any number of small creatures and a beard even more suspect.
“Harry, here!” Fiona was holding Crumpky’s knife out to him.
While it would have been nice to have it, he wasn’t about to leave her defenseless should something go awry. Though this ruffian was only an inch or so taller than he, he outweighed Aylesbury by a trice of stones easily. He could only hope it was more fat than muscle.
“Keep it!”
“Keep it?” she repeated in disbelief. “Do you feel like you needed a bigger challenge?”
Aylesbury huffed humorously, palming the short cudgel once more. “You’re about to end up like your friend,” he warned the newcomer.
“I doubt that,” the big fellow grumbled, stalking forward.
While a daunting sight, Aylesbury took heart.
Obviously, the thug had been hired for his menacing appearance and, no doubt, murderous skills, but he was lumbering and slow.
A brawler, no doubt. He would be dangerous in close combat.
Luckily, Aylesbury was something of an out-fighter when it came to boxing, using his speed, quick reflexes and longer reach to strike from a distance and dance away from what would surely be a felling blow if the brawler managed to land a punch with those meaty fists.
But Aylesbury had some added meat to his own fist with the cudgel in hand.
The club added weight and a rock-like solidity to his punches as he threw brisk snapping jabs, catching the brute on the cheek, jaw and nose in rapid succession.
Ducking under the thug’s swinging arm, Aylesbury bounced hard punches off the man’s ribs and kidneys as he circled.
The knife arced down again, catching Aylesbury across the back of the hand.
Fiona gasped but did not give into distracting and decidedly unhelpful squeals and screams as other ladies might.
Shaking the sting off, the marquis contemplated his next move.
While he was wearing his opponent down, he wasn’t doing enough damage to ensure a successful getaway, and there was still the third man out there somewhere to worry over.
The brute swept a paw forward again, catching Aylesbury’s collar and dragging him closer, his beefy arm looping around Aylesbury’s neck.
Knowing there would be no escape if he were so caught, Aylesbury dropped to his knees and sent the cudgel straight into the man’s groin.
The Marquis of Queensbury would disapprove, but Aylesbury could only be as fair as his opponent intended to be.
Borrowing a move from the man’s repertoire, Aylesbury wrapped his arm around the thug’s thick neck and braced himself as the man tried to pull him off.
It took longer than he thought before the giant fell first to his knees and then to the ground.
Dusting himself off, Aylesbury watched the unconscious man to make sure he stayed so. Even Crumpky was eyeing him in surprise.
“A knife,” Fiona said fiercely, waving the weapon at him until he took it. “A knife would have ended all of this much faster.”
“I didn’t want to kill him,” Aylesbury said as she drew a handkerchief from her reticule and dabbed at the blood dripping from his neck.
“Why not? He would have killed you.”
Crumpky chuckled at that.
“Be quiet,” both Fiona and Aylesbury snapped.
“Come on,” Aylesbury took her hand. “We need to go.”
“Very...Ah!” she cried out as the giant brute grabbed her by the ankle. Turning, she raised her parasol and brought it down on his head, where it cracked soundly. “Oh! Look what you made me do!”
With a screech of fury, she beat him with it again and again until it was nothing but sad spindles and tattered violet silk.
Still, the brute grabbed at her skirts and pulled her to the ground. She struggled against him until he suddenly went limp, falling onto his back. She froze, staring at the knife protruding from his chest. She scrambled back, but Aylesbury lifted her into his arms and turned her away.
“Did you...? Is he...?”
“I doubt it,” Aylesbury said grimly, leading her away. “Big bear like that, he’ll probably be even more angry when he wakes up.”
“Harry...” She looked up at his face, as stony as if it had been set in granite. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. He ruined your parasol, after all.”
She groaned, unable to find any humor in their situation any longer. “Please, let’s just go home.”