Brentwood's Ward by Michelle Griep

Author:Michelle Griep [Griep, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-1-63058-683-6
Publisher: Barbour Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2015-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

As soon as Emily was safely behind him, Nicholas ripped off his greatcoat and shoved it over the windowsill then leaned forward and scanned the situation. Bricks walled his sight, hardly two feet from the carriage. Either they’d stopped perilously close to a building, or they were in an alley.

From above, arms shot down. One pair. Good. He could deal with a single man on the roof. Nicholas snagged one of the arms, dug his fingers into flesh, and yanked downward.

Then let go.

A head, followed by a body, plummeted past the gaping hole that had been the window. Bone cracked against wheel rim. Curses ended with a grunt. Breathing hard, Nicholas turned. Surely Emily would have plenty to say about this.

But she wasn’t there.

Before the realization fully sank in, darkness filled the doorway, taking on the shape of a demon. Or was it a cloak-covered thug? Nicholas leaned back and kicked. His boot heel smacked against bone and flesh, sending a man sprawling into a wall hardly three feet from the carriage.

So, this was an alley.

And that was a thug.

Nicholas snatched his gun off the seat and vaulted out the door.

Like a lightning bolt, a knife blade flashed toward him. He jumped back and cocked the gun with his thumb. Dark eyes peered into his, twin pools of depravity—and something more. Was that a memory skimming across the man’s face, recognition flaring his nostrils? No time to decipher it now. Nicholas lifted his gun.

The brigand turned and ran.

Edging sideways, past horses pawing in their harnesses, Nicholas tore after him. “Stop!”

The thug glanced over his shoulder. Big mistake. His foot shot out on an oily patch of God-knew-what, and he fell. The knife flew from his hand. Before he slid to a stop, Nicholas towered over him.

And fired.

A bullet at close range was never pretty. Neither was the man’s scream ricocheting off the bricks.

Nicholas dropped to one knee and grabbed the man’s face, forcing his mouth shut. “Get to a surgeon. You might lose the leg, but you’ll have your life as a prize. Thank God for that, for I’d as soon have killed you.”

Bolting up, he tucked the gun in his belt and shot forward, following blood splats in the gravel. Maybe one day he’d be thankful for the gruesome trail that would lead him to Emily.

But not now. Not with visions of what he might find. Two paces later, he stopped dead.

His heart twisted like a groan.

Ahead, clearing a corner in the T-shaped alley, a Sampson-sized brute carried Emily over one shoulder. She bounced like a plaything gripped in a dog’s teeth as he pinned her with one arm. His other hand held a gun, the muzzle aimed at Nicholas’s chest.

Nicholas pulled his own gun and lifted a prayer. The screams of the man behind him foreshadowed that this might not end well—especially since he hadn’t the time to reload. Schooling his face, he bluffed. “Drop the girl, or you’re a dead man!”

The man stopped, twenty paces off. “Son of a jackanapes! If it isn’t the mighty Brentwood.

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