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Was that a fuckingpiratebehind him?
For one second, he thought a joke was being played upon him, except for the vicious intent of the words, both in meaning and tone, and the very sharp, very well-placed knife ready to slit his throat.
No. The hand ripping at his hair, too small. The voice, too high.
But savage. All of it.
“Jules—no, no, no.” Victoria’s hands flailed in front of her as she scrambled to her feet.
Jules?
Her stepmother?
“Did he hurt ye, Vicky? Did he hurt ye? I’ll slice him here and now and we’ll never speak of the scourgin’ dung again.”
“No—no—no—he didn’t hurt me.” Victoria jumped to her feet, staggering forward as her hands hovered over the blade at his neck, her stare on the person behind him, her voice soft and calming. “No. Ease. Ease it off his neck. Ease it, Jules.”
He could feel the tip of the blade pricking through his skin, warm blood starting to flow.
Victoria’s head tilted to the side, her face pleading. “Just ease. Ease back, Jules. He didn’t hurt me. I swear it. He didn’t hurt me. Never. I wanted what happened. I made it happen. He didn’t hurt me.”
Ever so slowly, the fingers gripping Rafe’s hair spread wide, unthreading from the strands. The blade shifted away from his throat, yet the curved tip of the steel dragged across his neck, scratching a clear warning into the skin.
It took a long, full moment before the person behind him took a step away, boot crunching into crisp leaves.
He jumped to his feet, spinning.
Deuced devil.
It was Jules. He didn’t believe it until he saw it. Victoria’s little stepmother, seething, her knuckles white, even though she held the curved blade with the perfect amount of looseness to wield it properly.
She knew what the hell she was doing.
Had he truly just been jumped by Victoria’s tiny, delicate stepmother?
His look ran up and down her body. At the fitted wool pelisse in shades of blue layered over a simple wool dress. Her auburn hair coifed into a simple chignon. Her breath heaving, death in her glaring blue-green eyes.
Tiny. But not so delicate. Not delicate at all.
Victoria said her stepmother had lived at sea—but this woman—she was a bloody pirate under that veneer he’d seen in the castle nursery.
Lady Troubant could have killed him in that moment. Killed him before he could even lift a hand in defense.
He glanced to his right at Victoria.
Weak.
She was making him weak. Unprepared. Vulnerable.
Jules shifted her glare from him to Victoria and her eyes softened when they landed on her stepdaughter. The pirate gone. The adoring stepmother solidly back in place. Her words came out choked. “Vicky, what have you done?”
“I’m sorry.” Victoria’s voice was small, contrite, her hands twisting in front of her belly.
Jules heaved a sigh, her shoulders lifting high and staying cocked. “But to be compromised? We don’t even know this man. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking this was the only way it was ever going to happen.” Victoria took a step toward Jules, the stump he’d just been sitting on looming in between them.
“You know it just as well as I do, Jules. No man was ever going to touch me if Uncle Reiner and my father had their way. This.” She looked over her shoulder at Rafe. “This was inevitable.”
