An incredulous look was punctuated by a gurgling scream, red blooming through his linen shirt on his abdomen and the cuff of his sleeve. The six weren’t fatal cuts, but the one slashing through his wrist meant he would never wield a blade with such finesse again, and the one severing his Achilles tendon would ensure he couldn’t walk. Or run.

Hitting the ground hard, Sarani rolled and vaulted to her feet, putting distance between them, feeling a solid wall of male enclosing her from behind. Rhystan’s crisp masculine scent of salt and sea surrounded her.

The assassin wheezed from his crumpled position on the floor. “Finish it.”

“I’m no murderer,” she said. “I have no power in Joor, but you will be tried for your crimes on English soil. Feel free to write to my lily-livered cousin from prison that if he sends any more of you, I will come for him.”

Sarani glanced up at the man holding her in his arms, blue-gray eyes scanning her body for injury. Movement flickered behind him as the police swarmed the foyer. She wiped her faithful blades on her skirts and returned them to their sheaths.

“Get me out of here, Rhystan.”

Twenty-Three

With shaking fingers, Rhystan poured himself a glass of whisky, but he could not even lift it to swallow. His nerves were shot to hell. When he’d been located at his club earlier that evening by the head of police himself, he had feared the worst, but nothing had prepared him for the sight of Sarani facing off against a man who even the untrained eye could see was a killer. He’d wanted to roar his rage, to tear the assassin apart with his bare hands, and only Sarani’s voice had restrained him.

Stay back, please.

He’d heard the soft command, the utter steel in her tone, and obeyed. And then, he’d waited, heart in his throat, watching her. The seconds had turned into lifetimes, but the moment she’d felled the man, he’d shot forward to gather her into his arms and make sure she was unharmed. Of course she wasn’t harmed—she was a warrior goddess, Durga incarnate.

After he’d taken her back to his house with strict instructions to Harlowe to see to her every need, he returned to Huntley House to take care of matters there with the police. The assassin had been taken into custody, the foyer scrubbed of blood, and servants sworn to secrecy. Ravenna was distraught, refusing to speak to their mother, who was her usual unemotional self, though strain was evident in her eyes. Both women had taken to their chambers.