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Sapphire landed on both feet, but her ankle twisted as she hit the cobblestones. Blinding pain shot up her right leg and she pitched headfirst, falling to her knees. Planting her hands on the ground, she slid forward but successfully came to a stop before falling over on her side. She heard a driver shout and horses’ iron-shoed hooves grinding on the stones behind her as the carriage slid to a halt, the horses stopping only a few feet from where she lay.
“Y’all right, ma’am?” someone called.
“Get back in here at once!” Charles shouted at Sapphire. “Before you make a spectacle of yourself and embarrass me further!”
Trembling, heart pounding, Sapphire pushed up off the street with her raw hands and saw Charles’s polished shoes approaching her.
“What the hell is going on here?”
Sapphire sat up, her head spinning, her body aching in so many places that she wasn’t sure she could stand. She knew the second voice. By the light of the carriages’ oil lamps she saw Blake Thixton striding toward them.
“This is none of your concern, Wessex,” Charles shouted, his voice rising in pitch. Halting beside Sapphire, Charles thrust his hand out for her to take it, never removing his gaze from the American. “Let’s go, Miss Fabergine. Now!”
“I’d rather lie here and die on the street than go with you,” Sapphire spat as she slapped his hand away. Then, realizing the entire bodice of her gown was torn, exposing most of her breasts, she gathered the tattered silk and attempted to cover herself.
Blake took one look at Sapphire, stepped forward and struck Charles in the chin with his fist.
Sapphire gave an involuntary cry as Charles flew backward from the impact of Blake’s blow. Thixton took another step, leaned over Charles and grasped the lapel of his expensive frock coat, lifting Charles off the street. “If you ever touch this woman, ever speak to her again, I swear by my mother’s God that I will personally kill you—do you understand me, Charles?”
“My lord,” Charles cried in fright.
“Do we understand each other?” Blake repeated from between clenched teeth.
Charles nodded.
Blake released him and Charles fell back on the street, stunned. Sapphire could only sit there in shock. She’d never witnessed such rage, never seen two men fight before….
“Are you all right?” Blake asked, leaning over her.
Tears suddenly welled in her eyes and all she could do was nod.
He reached down and lifted her into his arms. She wanted to protest and tell him she could walk, but she wasn’t entirely certain she could. Her ankle was throbbing badly. Instead, she pressed her face into his coat and tried to stifle the little sobs rising from her throat.
“Take us to The Arms at once,” Blake barked to his driver.
Sapphire’s eyes tightly closed, she felt him carry her to the carriage. Inside, they sat, Blake still holding her in his arms. Again, she wanted to object, but suddenly she was so afraid for herself, for what could have happened, and was so ashamed she had allowed herself to get into such a situation, that all she could do was bury her face and cry.
“It’s all right,” he hushed, his voice uncharacteristically kind. He stroked her hair that had tumbled from her coiffure in her struggle with Charles. “You’re going to be fine. I won’t let anyone harm you again. I swear it.”
A short time later the carriage halted. “No, drive us to the back,” Blake ordered the driver. “No need for anyone to see you in this state,” he told her quietly.
She nodded. She’d stopping crying now but couldn’t bring herself to sit up and look the American in the eye. She was so embarrassed, so stunned that Charles could have…would have…It was almost too much to absorb, that she could have judged the man’s character so badly. When she remembered the names he had called her…the assumptions he’d made…Where…how had everything gone so terribly wrong?
The carriage rolled a short distance, and when the door opened, Blake stepped out into the darkness, still holding her in his arms. Sapphire hid her face, mortified to be seen in this state even by the groom or the driver. She kept her eyes closed and her face against Blake’s coat until he gently lowered her to a bed.
“Sapphire, can you hear me?” he asked, helping her to lie back on several pillows.
She nodded, her eyes still squeezed shut.
“I have to ask you.”
She felt the bed sink with his weight as he sat on the edge.
“Did he—”
She didn’t wait for him to finish because she knew what he was going to say. “No. But he tried to. That…that was why I had to jump.” Another sob rose in her throat and she fought to stifle it.
“Shh, it’s all right,” he whispered. “Pretty brave of you.” He drew his hand down her cheek and she instinctively turned toward it, needing the comfort of another human being.
