Page 31 of The Miracle of Love
The knife fell out of this man’s hand, and he stumbled to the ground beside Grace.
Deklan kicked him to hold him down when he tried to reach for the knife, or perhaps he was hoping to grab Grace.
Deklan wasn’t about to let him get either.
Two more charged at him from his left, both armed with pistols aimed at his chest.
He rolled forward to avoid the shots, grabbed the knife laying beside Grace, and threw it with lethal precision to fell one of them. He then shot the other.
Both of them fell dead too close to Grace.
“Time to go.” He hauled Grace to her feet, hoisting her over his shoulder, and setting her none too gently in the carriage now that Rivers had managed to subdue the horses.
He hopped in after her. “Rivers! Get us out of here!”
The carriage took off with a hard jerk that tossed both of them across the bench and caused him to land atop her. Of course, he did his best to contort himself in order to minimize the impact of his big body falling atop her slight frame.
It must have worked, because she wasn’t winded at all and immediately tried to wriggle out from under him.
“Stay down,” he barked when she tried to sit up.
He eased off her and turned to peer out the window.
Grace squirmed beneath his palm which he’d kept splayed across her stomach to hold her down. “What is happening?”
“Stay put and stop fighting me.” Those first two assailants were only now starting to get up. The first man had been easy to subdue, for he was big and ungainly, all brawn and no speed.
The second had been spryer, but still not fast enough to do Deklan any harm. He, too, was staggering to his feet. By the angry movement of his mouth, Deklan could tell he was cursing him and Rivers.
Well, the wretch could do little while clutching his bleeding arm.
The other man was still bent over and breathing hard, no doubt trying to regain the wind Deklan had knocked out of him.
Both were alive because Deklan had not intended to kill them.
But those last two he had killed.
They were not agents of the foreign government, but opposition faction men. He knew from his month of working undercover just how brutal and dangerous they were. He did not want to think of what they would have done to Grace if they’d ever gotten their hands on her.
He hoped there were agents of the Crown close by to haul those two survivors in for questioning. Well, this was Wooton’s problem.
Grace was his assignment, and keeping her safe was all that mattered to him.
He allowed her to sit up the moment they turned the corner. “Are you all right?”
Rivers had regained firm control of the horses, and they were now heading back to Miranda’s house at a steady pace, moving as quickly as the congested streets would allow.
“No thanks to you. First you presume to kiss me and then you shove me to the ground. How do you think I feel? I had no idea your hand was the size of a bear paw.” She was not upright longer than a few seconds before she scampered over him to peer out the window. “Where are they? Are they following us?”
“Damn it, Grace.” He drew her back. “Do not stick your head out and give some assailant a clear shot. Have you not had enough of an adventure? And kindly get off my lap unless you would like me to do something about it.”
She darted off him and sank back against the squabs. “I have no idea what that means. What would you do to me if I sat on your lap?”
He arched an eyebrow. “That is a question asked by a young woman who has never had sex in a carriage.”
Her mouth fell open, and she gaped at him. “I would hit you senseless if I you hadn’t just saved my life. You did save it, didn’t you? Everything happened so fast, it was all a blur. I heard shots and grunts, and bodies seemed to be falling everywhere around me. But I dared not look up to see what was happening. So, you saved me?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
