Page 139 of The Marriage Method

It was a formidable weapon, if she said so herself.

“Should we be writing this down, my love?” she queried her husband.

Miles looked as though he was about to lose what remained of his composure. His fists were still clenched and a muscle was flexing spasmodically in his jaw. “No need, dearest,” he said. “I’ve committed it to memory.”

“I have only one final question,” Nell said to the madam.

“What’s that, then?” Mrs. Pritchard asked.

“Why did you take Miss Brent? With a lady at the bottom of the Thames and a reporter drugged in your attic, it seems an unholy risk.”

“Taking risks is half the game in my business,” Mrs. Pritchard said. “She was an uncommonly pretty lass. Elegant-like. That’s why I did it. She’d have made me money.” The razor traced Nell’s throat. “So would you have done. There’s a fortune to be made in a face like yours. Even if you are a crippled schoolteacher.”

“Not only a schoolteacher.” Nell met Miles’s eyes across the distance. She dropped him a wink. “I’m the heavy artillery.”

With that, she went limp in Mrs. Pritchard’s hold. The madam instantly attempted to pull her backward—just as Nell had intended her to do. It was a maneuver Nell had practiced countless times in the Academy’s athletic room with Gemma Sparrow. One Nell had long perfected. She tucked her left shoulder and bent her left leg and, with a duck of her head and a half spin under Mrs. Pritchard’s arm, she freed herself from the foul woman’s grasp.

It was a fleeting victory. No sooner had Nell broken loose than Mrs. Pritchard came for her, the straight razor brandished in her upraised hand.

Miles charged forward to put himself between Nell and her attacker. Innes charged, too. The two men met in a fearsome exchange of blows.

Amidst the tumult, Mrs. Pritchard lunged at Nell.

Nell sidestepped the attack, the fingers of her left hand curling over her thumb. There was no time to retrieve her cane. Nor even a hairpin. Dropping her weight onto her back foot, she drew back her fist and punched the woman square in the nose.

Mrs. Pritchard screamed as blood spurted from her nostrils.

Nell hit her again, and again, calculated self-defense giving way to blind fury.

This was the woman who had abducted Miss Brent. Who had murdered Miss Fawn-Purvis and Mr. Cowgill. And now she wanted to hurt Nell, and possibly Miles, too.

Nell wouldn’t have it. She wouldn’t let her. Anger flooded her senses. She wasn’t aware the fight was over until a strong arm encircled her waist, pulling her back against the warmth of an equally strong body.

“You’re all right,” Miles said gruffly. “It’s over.”

Nell turned in his grasp. As he enfolded her in his embrace, it was all she could do not to burst into tears. “What about Innes?” she managed to ask.

Miles held her fast against him. “Out cold,” he said. “Just like his sister.”

Nell shot a glance back at the madam. The woman had slumped down in an unconscious heap against the wall, her face a bloody mess. Innes was nearby on the floor of the stable. His countenance was in a similar state. “I didn’t get to see you fight him,” she said.

“You were occupied.”

“I was, rather.” She hugged him fiercely. “Oh, Miles. It’s too dreadful.”

Miles’s arms tightened around her in a painful grip. “I thought she was going to—”

“She didn’t.”

“Your throat is bleeding.”

“It’s nothing, I promise.”

“If I had lost you—”

“I was in no danger,” she said. “Not really.”

“Good God. Must I thank Miss Corvus for that maneuver of yours? And those levelers you delivered to Pritchard. Was that your version of good science?”