Stop thinking about straddling him, half-wit, and focus!

Gingerly, she rolled her foot and winced. Curse her sodding ankle! They might have been in a much better position if she hadn’t gotten hurt and slowed them down. And now, they were trapped, and she wasn’t much help, not with a spent pistol and injured body.

Gritting her teeth, Bronwyn scowled. She wasn’t completely helpless! She still had a knife tucked into her boot, if worse came to worst. Looking around, she reached for a piece of wood that had broken off one of the nearby crates and shifted to crouch behind the wall.

She peered over. Thornbury was nowhere to be seen. But she did recognize the man keeping to the shadows with a gun in one hand—the ugly knave from the tavern. A shiver ran through her. He looked mean, and that pistol was cocked and loaded, ready to be used. He wasn’t a hired rogue like the other two men who had chased her. Despite his pugilist face, his eyes had been sharp. Intelligent. He’d known what she’d been there for.

She slid a finger over the folded page in her pocket wondering if one of the names from Thornbury’s report on Sommers’s accomplices included him. Once more the thought shot through her brain. Who had been the leak? Besides her and Wentworth, who else would have known the nature of what she carried?

Or that she was the informant.

That man had come straight toward her. He had known exactly who she was, even with her gentleman’s disguise and the fact that he hadn’t seen her leave the carriage house. Someone had described her to him. Someone on the inside.

Suddenly, in a blur of movement that made her gasp, the Duke of Thornbury flew from his hiding place and swept the man’s legs from under him. The gun in his hand skidded across the cobblestones. It wasn’t that far from her. It was a miracle it hadn’t gone off, but perhaps she could even the odds and get hold of it somehow. Thornbury was out of his league with that enormous brute. The two of them rolled in a flurry of fists and grunts. The man had a few stone over the duke and he knew how to fight. He used those ham-sized fists like a prizefighter.

She had to get that gun!

Bronwyn rolled her ankle, which didn’t ache as much though it was still tender, and sucked in a bracing breath. She crept out from behind the wall, only to be yanked back by her hair. Her eyes burned from the sting.

“Where do ya think yer goin’?”