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As soon as her bottom hit the floor, Jacqueline yanked up her skirt and grabbed her remaining pistol. Aiming for the nearest of the men bending toward her, she fired it pointblank in his face. Hot blood sprayed across her, blinding her for a moment as she dropped the spent weapon.
Frantic, she reached for the knife concealed in her sleeve, but bruising hands grabbed her wrist, preventing it. Kicking with all her might, she tangled her legs with her assailant’s and, with all her strength, twisted, using her body as leverage.
With a roar like that of a bear, the big brute came crashing down atop her.
There were shouts as another shot rang out, followed by more screams, but she had no time to look. The air was being crushed from her lungs. A leer twisted her attacker’s mouth as she struggled beneath him, and the light of lust entered his eyes.
Sparks clouded her vision as she raised her arms over her head. Triumph filled her as her fingertips edged beneath the lace cuff and touched her dagger’s flat, string-wrapped hilt. Pulling hard, she heard the sleeve tear as she unsheathed the blade. With all her might, she sent it slicing in an arc across her assailant’s face.
His pained howl was followed by another as she rolled over with him and drove her dagger’s tip through the hands he held to his bleeding face. Grasping the haft with both hands, she threw her whole weight against it and heard a sickening crunch as the blade sank deep into his eye socket. The man shuddered and then lay still.
Will’s voice cut through the haze. “Sally, behind you!”
A woman’s scream was cut off by the crack of gunfire. Turning, Jacqueline stared in horror as Boucher tossed aside a pistol and grabbed Marian from the ruffian who held her captive. Sally lay crumpled at her feet.
“Stop, or I’ll kill her!” shouted Boucher, pulling a knife from her bodice and holding it to Marian’s throat. Jacqueline began to slowly rise, but Boucher spied her and, grabbing the little girl’s hair, jerked her head back to expose her long, white neck. “I swear I will slit her from ear to ear if you move again!”
Again, she heard Will’s voice from just behind her. “Let them go, and I’ll come peacefully. I’m the one who burned your brothels. I’m the one who hunted you. All she’s done is care for those I liberated. What can she, a woman alone, do to you?”
“She knows my face,” snapped Boucher. “And I’ll thank you to remember that I am a woman alone.” She snorted. “As usual, you men always assume we women are helpless, harmless, and fragile. I promise you, I am none of those things. Neither, I suspect, is she,” she said, fixing Jacqueline with a cold stare.
Boucher drew Marian closer, as if she were a shield. Glancing down to her left, she aimed a kick at one of her fallen comrades. A pained groan was the only response from the heap. “Gil, you fool,” she barked. “It missed, or you’d be dead already. Now get up, and earn your keep!” Still clutching Marian tight to her bosom, she turned to her other lackey. “Fergus, get him up.”
But as Fergus moved to do her bidding, another voice spoke. “I think you had better tell him to stay where he is.”
Jacqueline bit back a gasp. Tavistoke! She turned to see her school’s founder step from behind Will, who was shielding Emma with his body.
Lord Percival Falloure, Marquess of Tavistoke, sauntered forth, looking for all the world as if he’d stopped by on his way to a masque ball at the palace. In his gold-embroidered lavender silk jacket, he would’ve been laughable save for the gun in his hand, the bloodstains on his cravat, and the cold fury in his eyes. “I’ve waited a long time for this.”
Surprise flickered across Boucher’s haggard features, followed by doubt and suspicion. “And you are?”
“The real Archangel,” said Tavistoke softly. Without taking his eyes off the enemy, he addressed Jacqueline. “Miss Trouvère, my apologies for my late arrival. I wish this meeting was under more pleasant circumstances, but it’s good to see you alive and whole.”
“How did you even know where to find us?”
“I told Loxdon yesterday I’d keep an eye on the school. By the time I and a few of my friends arrived, Boucher already had it surrounded. I sent for reinforcements. They arrived just before I followed the carriage here. The school is being secured even now.” His voice hardened. “It’s over, Boucher.” He took a step forward.
“Stay where you are!” Boucher again tightened her hold on the little girl, Marian, who wriggled and whined in protest. “Shut up!” hissed her captor, pressing the blade of her knife harder against her throat.
A droplet of red snaked its way down the girl’s neck, and Jacqueline stopped breathing for a moment.
Her enemy’s burning gaze swung to meet hers. “You played well, indeed, whore. I thought your beau was the man I sought—perhaps he is, and this is but a ruse. It makes no difference. I’ll see them both dead, and you as well, and that will be the end of it. You see, I never show all my cards at once, either.”
Without taking her eyes off her, Boucher bellowed a command. A moment later, two more men entered, both armed with pistols, one aimed at Tavistoke and the other at Will. “Where are the others?” Boucher demanded, releasing Marian to Fergus and exchanging her knife for a fresh pistol.
Jacqueline’s spirits sank as one of the newcomers handed Fergus a gun, as well, while the other answered his employer that Billy and George had gone to investigate a noise and should return any moment.
This is it. Now we die.
But then Tavistoke began to chuckle. “No one is coming. ‘Billy’ and ‘George’ are dead, and I’ve loosed the horses—from both carriages. You’ve no way to escape.”
Boucher’s face darkened. “It won’t matter. I’ll still have you.” She raised her pistol, leveling it at him. Instead of pulling the trigger, however, she shifted her aim—toward Jacqueline. “But first, I think I’ll take care of the whore.” Fixing Jacqueline with eyes like ice, she sneered. “In truth, it’s you I wanted most. If not for you, none of this would have happened.”
…
Will’s heart all but stopped as Boucher took aim at his beloved. Taking the gun Tavistoke had shoved into the waist of his breeches before revealing himself, he raised it, aimed, and fired in one smooth motion borne of having done it countless times.
Boucher’s body jerked, and her eyes widened in disbelief as a scarlet stain began to spread from her midsection down one side of her gown. But she didn’t fall, nor did her gun arm drop. “Kill them,” she gasped. Clutching her side with her free hand, she again took aim at Jacqueline.
