A cow lowed in the distance.
An errant raindrop struck Peter’s cheek. “I’m waiting.”
“Peter…Alcott…” Jackdaw was hesitant.
Peter wanted to leave it at that. Just make one more threat. Turn and stalk away.
Well, hewantedto beat the man to a pulp, but that wouldn’t do Celia any good.
“That’s right, ain’t it?”
Peter let his eyes dart over the bully-boys. All wary and subdued. It was tempting, so tempting, to leave.
But he understood that he was holding them with the force of his personality, with Leavenworth’s confidence, with JC’s marksmanship. The idiots would get back to their rooms and get drunk. They’d talk to their buddies, and they’d have to brag. Jackdaw would try again, and Celia and Marianne and Elinor would be pawns in an evil game. He had to end this tonight.
Peter stepped forward again. His hand was still in his pocket, Jackdaw’s were still to his side. All the other men were too far away to hear.
“Do you know who my father is?” One more step. “You don’t want to tangle with me.”
Jackdaw opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
Peter took one more step forward, and for the first time in ten years, instead of using the name he had made for himself, he introduced himself as the man he was born to be.
Jackdaw stumbled two steps back, mouth gaping, boot in a puddle. He swore. He glanced at his men, back to Peter. “Happens to be, I don’t wanna tangle with ye. I’d druther never see your fizog again, truth be told. And I vow on me mother’s grave, I don’t wanna go anywhere near that sister of yours. Never!”
Peter’s anger surged like a volcano. At the injustice of the world, at bullies who would prey on the weak and run from the powerful, at the part of himself who would rather take a job in Amsterdam than deal with his own wife. At the sloppy man with his bully gang here tonight, and at the lord in fine clothes who had held Celia down and ripped her bodice and left her frightened.
Peter hated.
Jackdaw was still babbling. Peter closed the distance between them. He hated and hated andhated. He pulled his hand out of his pocket. Jackdaw cringed, covering his head.
“Where I can see them!” Leavenworth yelled.
Jackdaw put up his hands, whimpering, but Peter hated him still. Hated the man who would have relished a fight if Peter didn’t have trained men with him. Hated the man who would have caught Elinor in his web and gloated over it.Hatedthe man who hurtCelia!
Peter slammed the butt of the pistol into Jackdaw’s skull. Not where it would knock him out, just where it would hurt for a good long time. Skulls are hard, so Peter put his weight into it.
And pistols are explosive, so Peter let it off.
Jackdaw fell like a rock, and his men scattered or dropped to the ground. Everyone yelled, but they were white-livered. Peter had shot over their heads.
Maybe not by much.
The clouds tore open, bursts of rain slamming their shoulders.
It was men like these who would hurt a woman, who would discount her opinions until she didn’t know her own mind, leave her blank-eyed and jumpy.
“All of you!” Peter hated and hated and hated. “Don’t you dare touchanywoman,ever!”
Peter fired his second shot. A little higher margin over their heads this time.
They wouldn’t obey him. His personal power would protect his own family, but not all the others. The bullies could go home and take out their frustration on their own wives. Someone lower down on the ladder with no man to defend her. He couldn’t stop them tonight, and he was powerless to make rules to save anyone. There was cold rain on Peter’s forehead and hot tears on his cheeks as he turned and stalked back to his own men.
It was the ultimate display of power and confidence, to turn your back on the enemy, but Peter knew that Leavenworth was watching and that JC’s aim had never wavered. Through thestreams of water, he saw his men waiting in a perfect vee. Leavenworth was at the back, the two men braced in front with one knee in the mud.
Trust. Dear God, what had he done to earn men like this?
What had he done to deserve Celia?
