Chapter Eleven
Louisa screamed.
She wasn’t the screaming sort, generally, but she required an outlet for her outrage as much as her fear. She glared at the man whose face loomed in the shadows where Gabe had been half a second ago.
Eyes glittered behind the half-mask that disguised his face. He grabbed her arm.
“I’d stay to finish what he started, but I know from past experience he’s in possession of an extremely thick head. Come with me, lady.”
Louisa kicked out her leg on instinct. Her foot connected with his shin.
He grunted and his fingers clenched on her arm. “A termagant, are you? I expected no less.”
She flung out her foot again, this time driving her heel into his knee. He flinched and staggered. “You’d best not—”
Gabe, on the ground, rolled and rose with a roar, like a monster rising from the sea. He came at the attacker, fists windmilling. “Get away from her.”
“I should have known—” The masked man threw himself to the side in time to avoid a blow to the windpipe that would have felled him. Instead, Gabe’s fist landed on his shoulder. The man, smaller and slighter, recoiled.
“—known you wouldn’t stay down!” the other man finished, drawing a gun.
“No!” Louisa brought down her elbows on his outstretched arm with all the force she possessed. The gun fired in its arc downward, the barrel pointed toward the earth and off to the side. Louisa screamed again, this time in fury. He might have hit Gabe. He might have shot Gabe.
“You’re a fiend!” The gun dropped from the attacker’s fingers, his arm rendered nerveless by the blow, as she intended. But he swung his other arm in a backhand that snapped her head to the side with an audible crack. Louisa sucked in air and the metallic taste of blood inside her cheek.
“I’ll kill you this time.” Gabe dove at the other man, a whirlwind of icy energy and deadly intent. Louisa shrank against the tree, scrambling to keep out of the way, desperately hoping their assailant didn’t produce another gun.
She thought about diving for the weapon if the opportunity arose. The shot was spent, but it could serve as a club. She couldn’t let him hurt Gabe. Or her, for that matter.
Gabe gave her no opening. He launched himself at the masked man, bearing both of them to the ground.
The attacker was wily, but Gabe was larger, stronger, and clearly adept at the art of brawling.
She feared she was about to witness a murder, and then Gabe would be taken away from her.
Her call to him strangled off when two other dark shadows appeared before her, enormous hulks.
“I’ll kill you first,” the man on the ground snarled, and the two new shadows seized Gabe.
“Murder!” Louisa shrieked at the top of her lungs. Someone was nearby; someone would hear. “Thief! Robbers! Call the guards.”
She was sure she’d seen one or two of them, strolling about in black suits, trying to blend in as other visitors. Rumor said the patronage of Vauxhall had grown increasingly ruffian-like over the years, but this— This was a planned attack. And Gabe was the target.
“Mur—oof.”
The man on the ground rose and kicked her legs out from under her. Louisa fell heavily, stunned momentarily by the impact. Then she swiftly rolled to her side, covering the pistol with her body. At least she was now in possession of a weapon.
“You dare touch her!” Gabe bellowed. He lowered his head and charged at one of his assailants, butting him in the midsection like an enraged bull.
The man was a full head and shoulders larger than Gabe, and at least two stone heavier.
His partner was built along the same lines, and he simply grabbed Gabe from behind and tossed him aside.
Gabe hit the ground again, and one of the heavies kicked out a leg the size of a tree trunk.
Louisa was sure she heard the crack of bone.
Louisa struggled to her knees. The ground was cold and damp.
Her beautiful skirts would be soiled beyond repair.
Which mattered little if she turned up dead in them.
But the breath she drew to scream again—for surely someone would help them—was choked off by the masked one, who clamped two hands around her throat and used her neck to yank her to her feet.
“You and I shall have a chat. Come along.”
Gasping, scrabbling to haul in air, Louisa clawed the hands at her throat. Her mind clumsy with terror, she realized she held the pistol in one hand. She swung it toward the man’s head and heard the crunch of steel, silver, and wood against his skull.
He swayed on his feet, blinking at her, and slowly, the hands fell away.
On one of them, he wore a signet ring. She couldn’t see the design in the dark, but a new frisson added to the layer of fear.
She hauled in air, gasping for the breath to accuse him. He turned and melted into the shadows.
Gabe was still on the ground, though his combatants were having a hard time keeping him there.
Louisa braced herself against the tree where, in a different world, Gabe had pressed her to his body and kissed her.
He could be taken from her, and she’d only just found him. These men were set on murder.
Her mind flailed, still swamped by the sharp terror of feeling near death. The pistol would not crack the skull of one of these bully boys. Neither would a tree branch. No one had come to their aid, though she heard voices calling in concern. She could barely see in the shadows.
“He’s gone,” she finally rasped, her voice scraping her raw throat. “Your masked friend. He scuppered.”
“Eh?” One lifted his head to look her way, his fist raised to deliver another pounding blow. Gabe writhed on the ground, kicking and chopping at the man who knelt above him, trying to choke off his hair. Louisa’s own throat burned in sympathy.
“I hope he paid you in advance,” Louisa growled. “Though it won’t save your necks before a judge. Not for attacking a lord.”
“A lord?” The one who’d paused recoiled, pulling his fist back.
“A lord…wouldn’t…fight like…this.” His companion grunted as Gabe landed a sharp blow to the side of his neck. He shook his enormous head.
“Peer of the realm. You’ll hang.” Louisa used her Matron’s voice, assertive, commanding, though her throat burned. “And I’ll testify. I’ll know your faces. I’ll see you drawn and quartered.”
She was fairly certain no one was drawn and quartered any longer, but surely execution was still the sentence for murderers. This was enough to give the first man pause; he lumbered to his feet, rumbling a warning to his friend.
The second man grunted as he took another blow from Gabe, then launched a fist the size of a ham. Louisa cried out at the blow. Gabe went utterly limp.
“I say it’d be worth it jes to do ’im in,” the second grumbled, but he too heaved to his feet. Louisa pressed a hand to her mouth to keep from screaming at them; it would do no good.
They left, rubbing their bruised knuckles, pushing through the crowd Louisa heard assembling on the walk.
She wanted to cry out for someone to catch them, detain them, or just get a good look at their faces, but she couldn’t breathe again for terror.
Gabe was so still. She threw herself to her knees on the ground beside him and groped at his face, his neck, his chest, trying to find signs of life.
He was warm. Breathing. His pulse was still racing from the fight, but he was completely unconscious. “Here,” Louisa cried to the voices calling in inquiry. “Help us.”
Men came forward, fellow guests whose entertainments until this moment had been to stroll among the lamps, debating whether to pay the exorbitant price for refreshments and stay for the fireworks.
Perhaps they too had lured their lady beneath the trees for a kiss.
Now they gazed on the fruits of villainy, with Louisa, who knew she must look a perfect Fury in her disheveled state, hoarsely issuing orders.
“Where do we take ’im now?” Several men volunteered to carry Gabe to the lighted path, where he lay in the walk like a fallen angel, still unconscious.
Louisa, realizing she still held the pistol, did her best to tuck it inside her tiny reticule.
One of the onlookers went to fetch a cart.
Gabe’s carriage and driver would be somewhere nearby.
“The watchhouse?” someone suggested.
“The penitentiary’s just across the bridge,” another pointed out. “Sure and they’ll have an infirmary there.”
“I know a place nearby with an infirmary, and skilled nurses,” Louisa said. “Only I shall need help putting him into his coach.”
***
“My bedroom, Alice,” Louisa said. “Lead the men to my bedroom.”
“Oh, Matron,” Sister Agatha fretted. “You mustn’t. A strange man? In your bedchamber?”
“He is not strange to me, and there is nowhere else suitable.”
Alice led the way with a lighted candle through the corridors while the men she’d hired carried Gabe between them on a man-sized sling, a piece of canvas with handles.
“The women’s infirmary is occupied at the moment.
” One of their older residents was recovering there after a fall, and there was a mother who had newly delivered.
Bringing Gabe there would only upset them.
“And the other infirmary is under renovations.”
“There was nowhere else you could go? No place nearer?”
“Really, Sister, it must be ten of the clock. On whose door could I go knocking?”
“It is almost midnight,” Sister Agatha said severely. “Our board of directors will not like this.”
Most of the board of directors for the Hospital were benefactors and personal friends, but there were always outsiders, Members of Parliament or men of the city, who interested themselves overmuch in the doings of a charitable institution that insisted on its own oversight.