Page 33 of The Dueling Duchess

“Hello, sweetheart,” a low voice said in French as a thick male arm snaked out of the doorway she was passing and grabbed her wrist. Two arms as thick as tree trunks slid around her torso and pulled her back, clamping her against a broad chest.

“Help!” Cecile shrieked, immediately kicking back with her heel, which must have made contact with something because her aggressor screamed.

“Sacré bleu!” he shouted when she kicked him again, shoving her forward so hard she tripped and slammed into the alley wall, barely catching herself in time to keep from smashing her nose against the rough brick. Suddenly free from his grip, she spun and bolted for the alley entrance, her feet skittering on the slick cobblestones.

“Not so fast, girly,” the man snarled, snagging her heavy cloak and yanking her back hard enough that he almost pulled her off her feet.

“Help me!” she yelled, having the foresight to yell the words in French, this time. “Please—somebody—”

A massive, not so clean hand clamped over her mouth and Cecile fumbled with her cloak tie while writhing and thrashing in his grasp.

But then his arm snaked around her waist like an iron clamp and pulled her tightly enough to him that she could feel the hard ridge of an erection against her lower back.

Terror shot through her like a bolt of lightning, reinvigorating her rapidly tiring muscles. “Mmmph! Mmmmmmmggrh!”

His meaty fingers muffled her screams so thoroughly that even she could barely hear them.

He chuckled, holding her arms pinned against her body with horrifying ease as he groped her with his other hand. “This is a nice little body you’ve got under here,” he said, cupping a breast and then sliding his hand down her belly, until he encountered her holster. “Oooh, and what’s this?” He traced the line of the belt to her right hip. “What the hell?” he muttered, loosening his grip for a fraction of a second so that he might turn her and inspect what he’d discovered.

That fraction of a second was all she needed, and Cecile slammed her head back as hard as she could.

There was a sickening but highly gratifying crunching sound.

He screamed and released her. “Aaaargh! You bitch!”

Cecile scrambled forward but, yet again, he caught her cloak and yanked her back as easily as reeling in a fish. “You just wait! I’m going to—”

“You’re going to take your hands off her, you bounder, or I’ll take you apart piece by piece,” a calm voice declaimed from the alley entrance.

It was the most execrable French accent Cecile had ever heard.

It was also the most welcome.

The man holding her grabbed her wrist but didn’t pull her any closer. “I didn’t know she was your woman,” he said, as if that excused his actions.

“Let. Her. Go,” Guy said with so much menace dripping from his words that his incorrect pronouns, tense, and bad pronunciation somehow didn’t matter.

“Fine—take her.” Her captor shoved her forward. “She’s not worth fighting over.”

Guy caught her and kept her from falling, the light behind him hiding his face in shadow. “Are you all right?” he asked softly.

Cecile nodded, too rattled to speak.

Guy turned to her aggressor and snarled in French, “Tu pars en enfer avant que je t’apprenne une leçon!”

You get the hell out of here before I decide to teach you a lesson.

Or at least she thought that’s what he wanted to say.

“Fine, fine!” The man threw up his hands and eased around them, then backed out of the alley, keeping his distance

“Are you hurt?” Guy asked once the attacker had disappeared around the corner.

Cecile shook herself from her terror-fueled fugue, disgusted that her first impulse was to either swoon or launch herself into his powerful arms. What in the world was wrong with her?

“Release me,” she said coolly, placing her hands on his chest and firmly pushing him away before brushing off her person with shaking hands.

“Release me,” he repeated in a flat voice.