Page 54 of How to Fall for a Scoundrel

“Let me see it. But first, drop your cane.”

Harry released his hold on the silver-topped sword stick and let it fall to the grass, then reached into his waistcoat.

“Slowly,” Sofia cautioned. “Paolo and Luca are very good at throwing those knives. I haven’t forgotten what a tricky player you are, my love.”

The two thugs raised their weapons again, silently warning him not to draw his own blade from his coat, and Harry smiled at their suspicion. He slid his fingers into the front of his jacket, pulled the little book from the inside breast pocket, and flipped open the cloth wrapping so that the golden covers glinted in the dawn light.

“There,” he said easily. “I haven’t cheated you. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to see the money.”

Sofia tilted her head to one side with a wicked little pout. “Money? Why do I need to pay you when I can just take it from you?”

She withdrew a wicked little pistol from her skirts, which she cocked with a click and leveled at his chest.

Harry actuallysmiledat the threat, as if he’d fully expected her to double-cross him. Perhaps, Ellie thought, he was remembering rule number seven:If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.This Sofia was clearly a very slippery character.

“Always so greedy,” he chided. “But I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you. I’ve brought some friends of my own, you see.”

He slid the book safely back inside his jacket, then turned to the spot where Ellie was hiding—he must have known precisely where she’d stationed herself.

Ellie obligingly stepped out from behind the trees and pointed her pistol at the irritating woman’s heart.

“Good morning,” she said crisply.

Sofia gestured at her two accomplices, urging them to do something, but Tess and Daisy also appeared from their hiding places, each brandishing a pistol, and Sofia cursed softly in Italian, clearly realizing she’d been outmaneuvered.

Harry gave a charming shrug. “It seems we’re at animpasse.”

Sofia’s lip curled, but she didn’t lower her aim from Harry’s chest. “What do you suggest?”

“You should leave.”

“Without the book? I can’t do that. The man who’s paying me to deliver it will be most unhappy.” She slid Ellie a sideways, speculative glance, clearly weighing the odds of being hit from that distance, then turned back to Harry.

“I have to have that book.”

Whatever Harry had been about to say, it was interrupted by a dark-clad figure exploding from the undergrowth to Sofia’s left.

“Hoi!” he bellowed. “Over here!”

Sofia swung toward the noise reflexively, and her pistol went off as her finger tightened on the trigger.

Ellie recognized Ambrose at the same moment as Harry clutched his chest with a shocked, incredulous shout.

“You shot me!”

He staggered backward and fell hard against the tree, then crumpled to the ground as his legs gave out, and Ellie didn’t stop to think. She fired her own pistol at Sofia, just as Ambrose tackled the woman to the ground.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Ellie swore in impotent fury as her skirts got caught in the undergrowth.

She had to get to Harry.

Ambrose and Sofia were rolling over and over in the wet grass, the Italian screaming invectives as she hit at Hugo’s head and body with her pistol, but Ellie rushed past them and fell to her knees beside Harry.

Dread and terror coursed through her as she saw his pale face. He seemed to be choking, gasping for breath.

Dear God, where had he been hit? She had to stop the bleeding.