It was a good thing he hadn’t rushed in—the man had an accomplice waiting at the end of the garden, his hands full of ropes and bonds of various sorts. The idiots should have gone in together and bound her there, he thought with a professional’s eye. Much smarter way to go about it. They could have used chloroform or a knock on the head to make her behave, but these men had made two grave mistakes. They’d underestimated their quarry. His Maddy wouldn’t go quietly with anyone.
And they’d forgotten whose household she resided in, and therefore who she could call on for a protector. Though he couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to abduct her. Well, apart from him.
He was calm, cool, and deadly. It took him the work of a few seconds to break the neck of the furious accomplice, dragging him out of the way so his body wouldn’t alert the bully holding Maddy. He could hear the man now, cursing and threatening.
“Bite me again and I’ll blow your fucking brains out,” the man growled. “I told you I can hurt you real bad if you fight, and you’re heading for the slowest, painfullest death I can think of, the way you’re c
arrying on.”
Maddy didn’t seem to think much of this, because she kept fighting as the man dragged her down the stairs. “Damn if I won’t shoot you in the head and leave you here and to hell with what Parsons said.” He peered into the gathering gloom, but Luca had hidden himself just beyond the gate. “Parsons, where the hell are you? I can’t hold her much longer.”
Apparently Maddy didn’t believe in paying any attention to the fact that the man could easily kill her—she bit down hard again, and he let out a howl, dropping the pistol as he whirled her around and slapped her, so hard her head jerked back. A second later he’d grabbed her again, one burly arm around her neck, and Luca knew the man was about to kill her, was about to snap the slender, beautiful neck with one swift jerk.
He had no weapon but his knife, and it had been a long time since he’d used it on another human being. He stepped into the light. “Let her go,” he called out.
The man froze, looking up and peering into the shadows. “Now you know that’s not going to happen, guv’nor. Even if I weren’t getting paid I’d do this one for free, for all the trouble she’s caused me.”
“I can pay more.” Not that he would—he’d kill the man as soon as he released her.
The man shook his head. “Sorry, Captain Morgan. I know your reputation, but trust me, my employer’s far worse. I wouldn’t go foul of him for love nor money. Now you just step away and Parsons and I will clean up this mess.”
“I’m afraid Parsons is unavailable.”
Silence for a moment, as the big man considered it. Maddy was looking at him, her eyes wide and staring, and he could see both the fear and fury in them. It took a lot to frighten his Maddy, and…
And why the hell was he thinking of her as “his” Maddy? No one had ever been “his” anything.
“Then I think, cap’n, that you’d best just turn around and go back the way you came. Because there’s no way you can stop me, and I’ve been around a time or two, and I’ve seen men in love before. Trust me, you won’t be wanting to see this.” And he positioned his arms, about to snap her neck, when Luca called out.
“Kick him.” The sound of his barked order startled the kidnapper for almost a fraction of a second, but it was enough. For probably the first time in her life Maddy followed an order without questioning. She kicked, and Luca threw the knife, hard and true.
The big man went down immediately, dead before he hit the ground, and he took Maddy with him, so that she was trapped beneath his suffocating body. There wasn’t much blood—Luca had aimed for the man’s eye, the force of the throw would have driven it directly into his brain, and thank God he hadn’t lost his touch. Leaping across the weed-choked garden, he grabbed the man’s arm and dragged the dead weight off her, and she scrambled away from him, from both of them, struggling to catch her breath.
“You killed him,” she said after a long moment, crouching against the railing.
“I did. He was about to snap your neck like a twig.” He was waiting for hysteria. He got none.
“My neck isn’t like a twig,” she said absently in a dazed voice, clearly trying for composure. “I’m accounted to have a beautiful neck.”
He could agree with that accounting, though he could see the marks from the man’s rough fingers color the pale skin of that beautiful neck, not to mention the beginning bruise on her cheekbone where the man had struck her. If Luca had carried a gun he would have shot the man in the face just… just because. “You would have made a lovely corpse,” he managed to say wryly.
She struggled to her feet, and he didn’t make the mistake of going forward to help her. She was shaky but doing her damnedest to hide it, to hide any sign of weakness from him. Her enemy.
“I gather a friend of yours hired him. Did you have anything to do with it?” she asked, brushing off her ugly dress with careful hands. Damn, he hated those dresses of hers. The sooner he got her out of them the better. And he’d made up his mind. Get her out of them he would.
And then her words sank in. “What friend?” he demanded. “And if I had anything to do with it why would I rescue you? Besides, if I ever decide to kill you I’ll do it myself.”
“Lovely,” she said. She looked up at him. “And if you decide to kill me I’ll stop you by any means I can.”
He didn’t bother to tell her that wasn’t humanly possible. If he wanted to kill someone then they were dead. He recognized the man now—a bullyboy who went by the name of Dorrit the Cleaner, and he’d been responsible for a great number of private executions like the one planned for Maddy. The police, as well as some of the best criminals in the country, had tried to defeat Dorrit and failed. The fact that Luca had succeeded was only one of his sudden pleasures at the way things were unfolding.
“What friend?” he said again, impatient.
“Your Mr. Brown. He told me you were lending me to him to work at his family estate, and I told him I didn’t want to go.”
He gave her a dubious look. “That makes no sense on any level. You’re not my property, to lend to other people. And Rufus Brown is a ridiculous, harmless fribble. On top of that, wouldn’t that be rather an extreme reaction to someone refusing a job?”
“I asked the man who was trying to kill me if Mr. Brown sent him. He said yes.”