The smell of tooth rot filled her nostrils as an unwashed man restrained her, and she fought not to retch when he pulled her against him. From her angle, she couldn’t reach the knife in her boot, but the piece of wood was right there. Without any hesitation, she inhaled, stood on her injured foot with a shudder, and stomped down on his instep with all the strength she had in her good leg. When his hold loosened, she shoved her elbow back, connecting with his stomach. Bronwyn didn’t waste time in grabbing the wood and swinging it like a cricket bat going for the boundaries. It cracked into the man’s ribs, and he crumpled with a grunt to the cobblestones of the square.

She turned, distracted by a pained shout from where Thornbury and his opponent were wrestling. The duke looked a little the worse for wear, his elbows up trying to protect himself from the relentless assault to his head. If one of those punches landed just right, he would be dead. She had to help him! Where was that gun? Bronwyn peered down at the stones where it’d been last and frowned when she couldn’t see it.

“Looking for this?”

Bronwyn whirled. It wasn’t the man she’d brought down who still lay in the fetal position, groaning and clutching his middle. It was another of the unwashed cretins, and he was pointing the discarded pistol right at her. Heavens, how many of the little bastards were there? She bared her teeth but moved her hands out to the side in reluctant surrender.

“Slow,” he warned her.

The sharp sound of cracking bone filled the air, and her stomach dropped in horror.

Please don’t be Thornbury.

Unable to help herself, she glanced over her shoulder. The duke was standing over the body of the man who was lying insensible on the ground, clutching a wrist that was bent at an unnatural angle. He was alive! Her relief was quick but eclipsed by a gurgle of fear when the man with the gun wrapped his arm around her neck and pressed the cold muzzle into her temple. Her blood turned to pure ice in her veins.

“Bronwyn, eyes on me,” the duke said.

The command was soft but she obeyed. Thornbury held his own gun pointed toward them, but there was no chance of her surviving a shot to the brain at such close range. She couldn’t take the chance to fight her way out of her attacker’s hold, knowing his finger was already on the trigger. One wrong move and he would fire.

Her breath hissed out in shallow pants as terror took hold in the pit of her stomach.

She was going to die.

“Drop it,” the person behind her snarled, using her body as a shield. “Or she’s got a head full of fuckin’ lead.”