Saving Persephone (The Haberdashers Book 4) (17 page)

“I woke up with the pains twice more. I think the baby is coming.”

Sabre wasn't sure that there was anything else that her friend could have said that would strike quite that level of fear. Perhaps 'the French are invading'. She hadn't even thought what to respond before Jack spoke again.

“George, did you say Giddy is here?”

George also knelt down and took Jack's other hand. “That's right,” she said. “He's here and everything will be all right now.”

“If it all, well,” they heard Jack swallow audibly, “if it should all go badly, you will tell him that I love him.”

Sabre didn't even want to consider such things and stood up. “You will tell him yourself.” She set to pounding on the door with a panicked ferocity she didn't have to feign. “Guards! Guards! We need a midwife! The countess's baby is coming.” She realized what she was doing and said it all again in French. The guards took to talking amongst themselves. “Blessed Virgin Mary,” she complained, “are they a committee of cardinals out there? They can't seem to make a single decision without debating it.”

George pressed her ear up against the door. “I hear Miss Grant. She and another woman are to the other side of the guards, arguing to come in.”

Sabre stepped back and bellowed. “I'll pay a thousand francs to the man who opens this door!”

“You don't have a thousand francs,” Jack complained from her pallet.

“I'll borrow it from your husband,” Sabre said, quickly mollified by the sound of a key in the lock. “I'm sure he's good for it.”

* * *

Once the door opened, Imogen heard the duchess call out that any man who wanted to live needed to let them pass.

“Please,” Imogen said to the man closest to her. “Lay aside your swords. Let these women pass in peace.”

Instead of complying, they laughed and roughly grabbed both herself and the girl from the kitchens who had shown her the way down the steps. Not sure what else to do, Imogen shouted out to the duchess. “They're here! Your husbands have come for you! There were twenty men upstairs that I saw.”

The man holding her slapped her for her trouble. She was growing terribly tired of these men. But not so tired of them that she wanted what came next.

Sabre and George flowed into the hall like a deadly tide. Knives flashed in the lantern light, and shortly the two men in front of the door screamed and fell to their knees. The duchess claimed one of their swords and ran at the man holding Imogen. She wasn't sure if he failed to believe the tiny duchess could be a threat, or if he simply couldn't react in time, but he still had a hand around Imogen's arm when Sabre cut his throat. She felt his death, felt it down to her core, and it made her shake.

“Go see to Jack,” Sabre shouted at her. Imogen felt like she was far away again, sent away by the death and destruction, and shook her head in confusion. “The countess,” Sabre tried again. “The baby is coming.”

Oh sweet mercy, Imogen thought. A baby? In the midst of all this? She stumbled toward the room to see if Sabre had the right of it.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Robert and Gideon had drawn over a dozen men outside, and Robert was beginning to wonder if there might not be fifty before the day was done. Provided that he and Gideon survived it.

“They're loading shot at the back,” Gideon called over the clash of steel.

“I noticed,” Robert shouted back.

“Well are you going to
do
anything about it?”

“When it's time,” Robert replied.

The first man to load his shot raised his pistol, but not in time to beat Robert. Having already loaded and primed his pistols before they arrived, he drew the first from his vest and fired, seemingly casually with his left hand. The would-be shooter collapsed to the stone steps. Robert tossed the spent pistol away and drew another. 

Gideon grinned. “I always did say you were the best shot I know.”

“And here I thought you'd been referring to my talent at billiards.”

Sword fighting was grueling and sweaty work. Worse yet, Robert had no idea how Casimir and the duke fared inside the house. If he had been inside, he could have had more influence over the unfolding of their plan. Here, he was simply a soldier executing an onerous and quite dangerous task. Both he and Gideon already had enough cuts to require a surgeon, and would be beyond lucky to both make it out of the confrontation alive. They had finally drawn the vanguard of the men down to the stone wall where they planned to make their stand, so at least that had worked out. Now it was simply the near-endless task of wearing out a superior force.

* * *

Quince had never had much use for bullies. When he first arrived at school, one of the larger boys, Bruce, had liked to pick on him. Quince had been small for his age, quiet and fastidious in the way of children who had only ever known adults. Worse yet, he already had a title. Marquess. That seemed to irritate Bruce the most. “Little Marquess,” he would call out tauntingly before doing something horrid, like tripping Quince down the steps or dumping his books in the pond. It had always been something he could claim to be an accident, until the day a Prefect had caned Bruce upon seeing what really happened. Later that day, Bruce and his snorting cadre had held Quince down and worked on giving him a real beating. Well, they started to, but just when Quince had been sure he was about to cry, the one sin from which school boys never recovered, it was as though the hand of God had reached down and plucked Bruce away. Off the bully flew, higher and higher, tumbling away into the yard. Standing in his place, dark and foreboding, with a split lip and a scowl at the retreating Bruce, had been another boy from Quince's class. Classmates called him Wolfe. Son of an earl. Wolfe had his own friends, and Quince wasn't sure quite why the boy had helped him.

Turning his attention back to Quince, the boy offered him a hand up.

“You can't let them pin you down like that,” he said.

“I can't?” Quince was at a loss on how he was supposed to stop it from happening.

Wolfe shook his head. “If they're bigger, you need to be faster. If they're stronger, you need to be smarter.”

“Of course. How stupid of me.”

Wolfe sighed. “And if they're touchy, you can't be an ass. That's just asking for trouble.”

“You're obviously bigger and stronger, are you also touchy?”

The boy grinned at him. “Lucky for you, no.” He cocked his head to the side. “Are you fast and smart?”

“You only told me that I had to be faster and smarter.”

The larger boy hooked an arm around Quince's throat and pulled him in to rub a knot on his head. “You answered that one now, didn't you?” the boy asked. The move was teasing in a way that Quince was not at all used to. It spoke to an easy familiarity with other boys that was, in fact, completely outside his experience. When Wolfe pushed him away again, it was to walk companionably down to the dormitory together.

That day had changed the course of the rest of Quince's life. He had taken Gideon's advice, and worked to be both faster and smarter. Especially as he dearly loved being an ass to people who deserved it. Luckily, he had also grown bigger and stronger. He had taken up the sword with the singular obsession of someone who never wanted to suffer at the hands of others again, and later his prowess with the blade had even won him his wife. The very least he could do, he thought, to repay Gideon for everything from that day long ago to the life he enjoyed now, was ensure that the countess was safe. He had not trusted that Robert would put as much priority on Gideon’s wife as his own, but for Quince there was no question that both women must be saved. As such, he had no hesitation as he and Casimir moved through the house. Threats were eliminated, swiftly and without mercy. Servants who surrendered were instructed to leave through the back door, for if they were seen again they would also be killed.

While Quince danced with a deadly elegance, Casimir guarded his flank with brutal efficiency. They were, Quince thought, horrifyingly well suited to this work. Quince had just defeated the man in front of him, slicing through his side, when he heard footsteps on the stairs to his left. Casimir was too far behind to face the threat, a perception borne out by hearing the Pole spin yet another adversary forcefully into a wall before stabbing them. Quince took a step back to position himself better, main gauche toward the stairs. He dropped his guard as he and Sabre locked gazes. She stopped, looking both confused and pleased. The next moment, they asked each other the same question. “Where is the Dragon?”

She rushed the final steps up to him, looking warily around the room.

Seeing her, Casimir demanded, “Where is Gina?”

“Coming,” Sabre said briefly. Her dress was torn, muddy, and bloody. Her hair was disheveled, and she was breathing hard from running up the steps. But she was beautiful. Avoiding their blades, Quince stepped in to hug her against him and kiss the top of her head. She gave a small sigh and leaned her head on his chest for a moment. 

George appeared at the top of the steps silently. Casimir immediately hoisted her up and playfully shook her. “What have you been doing, wife?”

“Adventuring!” she answered with a smile. He lowered her to the floor again and kissed her in a way that would be called scandalous in any drawing room.

That was when they heard a shot ring out.

“Where is Jack?” Quince asked, concerned that the third Haberdasher hadn’t made her appearance behind George.

Rather than answer, Sabre asked, “Where is Gideon?”

“He and Robert are out front.”

Sabre held Quince's arm in a surprisingly hard grip. “Jack is... She thinks the baby is coming.”

“But she isn't due for another month.” He knew the statement was pointless the instant he made it. “Where is she?”

Sabre pointed. “Still downstairs. Miss Grant is with her.”

“We must get Gideon,” Quince agreed.

“Are we sure she is safe?” Casimir asked.

George shrugged. “There are a lot of hallways in this place. I've no idea if there are more men down there.”

“I'll guard her while you all go help Gideon and Robert,” Sabre said.

“Are you sure?” George asked.

“I'm always sure,” Sabre said. “You know that. Now hurry. We don't need to let this child inherit the minute he's born.”

“It could be a girl, you know,” George said as she trotted toward the front of the chateau.

“We wouldn't be that lucky!” Sabre shouted back as she descended the stairs again.

Quince followed the Rokiczanas. He was terrified for his friend. Childbirth could be dangerous in the best of circumstances. An early birth in the cellars of a madman seemed to make it doubly so.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Gideon's arm was tired. Just now he wished that he practiced with the sword as often as Quince. Fury had taken him this far, but before long he was going to have to consider setting aside the sword and using his bare hands. That was when a voice called out over the courtyard.

“Why are you fighting so hard, Mr. Bittlesworth? I already have what I need.”

Gideon glanced over at Robert and saw that he wore his typically inscrutable expression, but his attacks became, if possible, even more brutal. The Dragon ordered his men to fall back, and Robert didn't pursue, standing instead with his sword lowered and chest heaving from exertion. Gideon wondered if Robert would draw and fire again, as the Dragon was unwittingly well within range of Robert's excellent aim, but his friend merely stared up at the man.

Gideon hadn't arrived at the duchess's townhouse in time to see the Dragon before, and had to admit that if he had ever met him the man was so unremarkable as not to be recalled. He was small and nondescript, save for his sneering expression. It was clear that the Dragon believed himself to have the upper hand. With ten armed men around him at his command, it had a certain logic to it.

“You thought to save your sister with just your friend the earl at hand? Although I am impressed that you found us, I am disappointed that you gave us so little fight.”

Robert still didn't respond, but his silence didn't seem to bother the Dragon overly.

“What a treasure your Miss Grant is. I can see how she tempted you into telling her all of your secrets. Given the time, she may yet tempt me to-”

That was when Robert fired. It was easy enough not to be alarmed when Robert drew a gun, because he did it with the casual ease that another man might use to shoo off a fly. Just a quick flutter of the hand, and it was too late when you realized death was on the other end. Although not death in this case, as the ball struck the Dragon in the shoulder, spinning him backwards. His men closed rank around him as he hissed in pain.

“Kill them both,” the Dragon raged.

“Come now,” said a voice from the doorway. “Didn't I warn you not to interfere with my affairs?”

Quince stepped onto the portico, sprayed with blood but somehow managing to look austere and ducal. A moment later, a volley of thrown knives flashed out from behind him, striking two of the Dragon's men unexpectedly. Having apparently seen too much in their first hour of their day, two more of them bolted. Four of them rushed toward the duke, but slowed their advance as the Rokiczanas appeared on either side of him. If George was out, then Gideon hoped his wife was not too far behind.

Seeing the shifting balance of power, the Dragon also ducked to the side, retreating toward the side of the chateau with his men trailing behind him. Robert and Quince pursued, but Gideon approached George.

“Where is Jack?”

“She's still downstairs. Sabre and Imogen are with her. I can show you where the stairs are.”

Gideon nodded and said to Casimir, “Help Quince and Robert.”

The Pole nodded. “Don't get lost, my love,” he said to his wife in farewell.

George showed him the stairs and then went back out to join her husband.

* * *

Robert thought he was perilously close to losing his temper again. That he might well cut through these sad brigands the Dragon used as guards, and beat the man into an unrecognizable pulp. Then he would find Miss Grant and do it all again. It was that rage, that possibility of losing control again, that made him hold back.