Page 64 of The Rogue's Runaway Bride
“I don’t think this will wait,” Mrs. Johnstone said. “Ye’re tall. Fit. Reasonably powerful.” Her eyes gleamed with humor as she put him on the spot. “I see no reason why ye would not suffice.”
Suffice.What in blazes was she getting at?
“I can name one good reason,” he explained.
“And what might that be?”
He flashed a grin that usually helped him out of a fix. “Well, you see, I have an aversion to pain.”
“Ye will survive the experience. I assure ye of that.”
“Here’s another—my father taught me to never raise a hand to a woman. Now, given that, how can I attack you? Even in the name of self-defense.”
“I guarantee ye will not have a chance.”
“It’s much too awkward,” he said truthfully.
“We do need a demonstration,” Belle spoke up as Ellie and Mrs. Gilroy looked on with subtle half-smiles on their faces. “For the sake of our training.”
Blast it, she had gotten him good. She’d found his Achilles heel.
He couldn’t let her down.
“By thunder, I’ll do it.” He sent Belle a speaking glance. “In the name of education.”
“Excellent,” Mrs. Johnstone said. “I was hoping ye’d see it that way.”
Mrs. Gilroy and Belle looked at Carrie. Seeming to share the same realization, Belle nodded as Mrs. Gilroy took Carrie’s hand. “Shall we go have a wee snack? I’ve made shortbread.”
Carrie nodded enthusiastically, and Mrs. Gilroy led her from the room. Once the child was out of the room, Jon met Mrs. Johnstone’s cool-eyed gaze.
“First, I’d suggest ye remove yer jacket,” she said. “We wouldn’t want to tear that fine wool, now would we?”
“I suppose not,” he agreed. Shrugging off his coat, he laid it over the back of a chair.
“Now, when I count to three, I want ye to come at me,” Mrs. Johnstone said. “Rather like a hooligan in some dark alley.”
He studied her for a long moment.Good God. Was it possible she was toying with him? “I cannot take the chance that I might injure you.”
“Why? Simply because I am a woman?” Mrs. Johnstone regarded him with a hint of taunt in her eyes. “A woman who is quite literally old enough to be yer mother?”
“I’d say that has something to do with it.”
“Ye will not hurt me. I promise ye that.”
“Very well,” he said. “But don’t think I’m going to give this my full strength.”
“I am not concerned,” she said with a sly confidence.
“I’ll do what I can to assist you,” he said, attempting to sound, at the least, civilized before he acted, to use her term, the hooligan.
“Again, attack when I count to three.” She looked quite serious, other than the mischievous gleam in her eyes. “And by the way, the ladies told me ye still refer to me by that rather undignified name my dear nephew Logan came up with when he was an incorrigible young rascal. Oh, what was it?” Her smile was sly now. “The Dragon.”
Bloody hell.He braced himself for what was going to come next.Bugger it, this is going to hurt.
*
Oh, dear.Bellewinced as Mrs. Johnstone employed Jon as her model for teaching techniques for disarming, distracting, and essentially knocking the stuffing out of an attacker. Althoughit appeared the woman had used stage blows in most of the cases, Jon’s foot had been stomped, his shin kicked, and his ribs jabbed. At one point, he’d landed on his back while Mrs. Johnstone demonstrated a martial arts throw, and he’d come uncomfortably close to suffering a particularly unfortunate strike from the woman’s weighted umbrella.
