Page 129 of The Bastard's Iberian Bride
Her cousin’s eyes lit. “Excelente. But do you know how to use it?”
“I will use it on you if you try to hurt me.”
The woman stepped one foot out of her bonds. “I shall sit right here while you search for a piece of wire—”
A door below crashed open and men’s voices echoed.
“Shhh.” Filomena slipped the bonds around her feet and her hands. Paulette did the same, concealing her gripped knife behind her back under a rucked up fold of her skirts. When she looked up, her cousin’s head had fallen in a fake swoon.
She swallowed. She must look weak. She would draw him closer. She closed her eyes and tried to conjure Jock’s lessons. Stab up with the knife, watch for the ribs. Or go in the back, for the kidneys. Or, dear God, the eye.
The door opened and her heart stopped. Agruen’s knife pressed into Bink’s neck.
Bink quirked a lip and gave a shake of his head, sending her his strength. His strength—would she ever feel the power of those strong arms again? Real tears pricked her eyes.
She nodded and bit her lip. “What are you doing, Gibson?” she asked. “You were supposed to turn over the letter, not bring it.”
Her cousin’s head did not move. A sterling performance, that.
“Did you not want him to come, Paulette?”
“I don’t wish you to take my finger. But now that he’s here, and you have that useless letter, let us all go. I’ll even let you keep my mother’s useless ring.”
“Ah, but it’s not useless.” He jerked his head and his minion came and took over guarding Bink.
His hands were pulled tight behind him as if he were already bound.
Agruen yanked a blood-stained letter out of his pocket and two rings. “If this is even the letter. So much fresh blood, by-blow. I hope it is yours.”
Her pulse quickened. Bink’s coat showed a rip and dark splotches. Hehadbeen wounded.
Bink laughed. “Else you wouldn’t have taken my wife, Dickson.”
The sharp crack of the minion’s fist on his jaw made Paulette jump. Her skirt slipped just as Agruen came up behind her.
Her pulse pounded in her ears like a troop of men climbing a flight of wooden stairs. The narrow slats of the chair wouldn’t hide the knife. She must strike now. Stab up…the kidneys—
“You are a traitor, Agruen.” Filomena had lifted her head a fraction, and her words came out dark, echoing with pain, and drawing the villain’s full attention. He moved closer, his back to Paulette.
“Perhaps we’re done with you now, Fil.”
Paulette eased in a breath, and tried to measure a target under his layers of coats.
“No. If you want to decipher that code, you need me. Paul would have put it in Spanish or Portuguese, and, as I remind myself, you do not speak either language so well. Or at all.”
He looked at the letter. “As long as you don’t mind dying thereafter.”
His gaze swept the room and he laughed. “All of you.”
His helper cleared his throat.
“Not you, you fool.” Agruen pulled out a chair near Fil and perused the letter. “Ah, the blood hasn’t touched the writing. How poignant.” He took the rings, matched them together and studied the markings formed on the inner band. “Paper,” he shouted.
His assistant shoved Bink into one of the dirty brown armchairs and went into the adjoining room. It trulywasjust the two men against their three. Bink’s feet were not yet bound. Theycouldovercome them. Theymust.
“What’s it say?” Bink asked.
Agruen frowned. “Shut up.”
