Page 51 of From London, With Love
“Tea?” she asked hopefully, trying to distract them from whatever was occurring within the folly.
As much as Malloryn would want to know all the details, the queen deserved a little privacy.
Judging from the guards’ faces, there was no hot tea to be found. Only the wretchedly cold drizzle of water dripping from the lip of her cloak down the back of her neck.
“Well, dash it,” she muttered, frowning a little as a strange sound caught her attention, something rhythmic and—
Hoofbeats echoed.
Gemma turned, palming her pistol and settling into a marksman’s stance. Two riders approached, clods of earth flying up behind them as they thundered toward her. She took a half-step toward them before she recognized the aquiline intensity of Malloryn’s expression and the broad shoulders of her lover.
“Gemma!” Malloryn yelled.
Instinct kicked into gear, and perhaps it was the urgency in his expression or some strange sense, but she whipped around, bringing the pistol up—
A blur of movement whipped into view a half-second before something smashed into her face.
Gemma slammed into the ground, the pistol flying from her palm. Heat and pain obliterated her thoughts. She brought her hands up, curling into a ball to protect herself as a boot drove into her ribs.
One of the guards. Hit her with some kind of weapon.
A pistol retorted.
Gemma lurched to her hands and knees, her childhood training kicking in. The guard had lifted his weapon again, and she threw herself into a roll, half-disorientated and staggering badly as she came up. Blood and ashes. Where was her pistol? Where was the other guard?
Down. Dead. She saw that much.
Oh, heck.
The queen.
She had a split second to make a decision. Driving herself upright, she lurched under the strike and slammed the flat of her palm up into the guard’s chin. His head snapped back, but she hadn’t put as much force into it as she’d have liked.
The world spun, and his weapon—some kind of truncheon—smashed down across her shoulder, tearing a scream from her lungs.
The truncheon whipped back the other way, and Gemma rolled beneath it. Too late. She was backpedaling, on the wrong foot, trying to adjust to her injuries….
Pain hammered through her ear, and this time when she went down, she stayed there. Ears ringing. Blinking through the white lights glittering in her line of vision.
Move. Or die.
She heard Master Rickard’s dry voice cracking through her memories. Saw again the line of children sparring in the Falcon’s training center, where she’d been forged into a child assassin.
Gemma rolled, biting her teeth against the pain. The guard took a menacing step toward her, then his gaze lifted and indecision flickered over his expression.
A shot ricocheted past.
Malloryn.
Obsidian wouldn’t miss.
“Gemma!” Malloryn yelled.
The guard turned away from her, sprinting toward the folly. The queen. Damn it! Gemma scrambled for her fallen pistol, water dripping down her face and obscuring what little vision she had. Malloryn and Obsidian were still too far away, and whilst her lover could snipe a man from several hundred yards with a decent rifle, he was merely competent at riding.
“Your Majesty!” she screamed, grabbing the pistol and cocking it as she staggered into the tree, using it to brace herself.
In the folly, both the queen and Sir Gideon both looked up just as Gemma lifted the pistol.
