Page 64 of Lord Carlisle's Enticing Lure
A shot rang out.
Giselle’s heart leapt into her throat. That came from the front of the cottage.
Clive wove, unsteady on his feet in the doorway. Was he shot?
Langley grunted and sank to one knee. Was he wounded?
Another shot rang out. Giselle turned her head. It came from the front of the cottage.
La Mère!It had to be she at the front door. But whom was she shooting at?
In the melee, Franchot pushed up from the slimy earth and began to run on all fours, like a monkey in a hurry.
“Get him!” Giselle yelled, but then he turned and headed for her. She threw her knife…and Franchot screamed, holding his bicep, the blood gushing even as he ripped the blade out and, teeth bared, headed for her.
He scrambled toward Giselle, his face warped in pain and hatred. He loomed over her.
Giselle kicked out at him, pushing back in the earth. Gaining no traction, she wrapped her fingers around a nearby sturdy stick.
Franchot growled. With the knife in one hand, he grinned like a madman and stabbed at her arms. Her legs, one, then the other. They stung, burned, and she flailed, aflame. Once. Twice more, he slashed at her legs.
She marveled, as if she floated up and away from her very self, and saw him cutting her, even through her skirts. And her blood, hot and sticky, soaked her skirts.
Pain shot up from her thighs. Blind with it, Giselle lost her breath as the man fell on top of her.
Pinning her down, Franchot squealed with success. “You die,” he promised in French as he fought to capture Giselle’s hand and sat on top of her thighs to raise her forearm. And there he slashed at her, cursing and aiming for her wrist.
Fury ran through Giselle like booming thunder. With her other hand, she hit at the man. His arm, his throat, his eye.
Of a sudden, Franchot stilled, mouth open, hands combing the air.
Giselle pushed away, out from under him, just as Clive stood above the crazed man who flailed, trying to pull the stick from his eye, yet crying and not daring to pull at it.
Giselle watched Clive. He leaned over the agent and saw his affliction. “I would not, if I were you, yank that out.”
The man blinked his one good eye. “This! This!” he screamed, flexing his fingers before his face. And then he fell, face first, into the cold, wet earth.
Clive rolled him over. The fall had driven the wood into his skull. “He’s dead.”
He went to Giselle and curled her close.
“My legs,” she said to him. “And…this…arm.”
He tore off his cravat, ripped up her skirts, and wrapped the cloth around one leg, cinching it so tight, she screamed.
“Langley, your stock!” He yelled to his friend. “She’s bleeding.”
“I don’t want to die,” she murmured to Clive as she plucked at his greatcoat.
“You won’t,” he ground out. “You’ll live!”
“With you.”
“With me,” he promised as he snatched Langley’s cravat from his hand and bound her arm.
Then the night went black and all pain died.
Chapter Twenty-One
