The Wicked Deeds of Daniel Mackenzie

Couldn’t be. His head must have gotten pounded too hard.

Daniel kept punching, kicking, elbowing, grabbing, tripping. He had one of the men down, groaning, evening the odds a bit.

Over the shouts and sounds of furniture crashing he thought he heard Mac Mackenzie say, “This looks like a good game. Save any for me, Danny?”

Daniel couldn’t afford to take his attention from the three men he was fighting, but the room seemed to suddenly fill up with Scotsmen. Loud voices, grating laughter, kilts.

Cameron Mackenzie, towering over everyone, grabbed one man fighting Daniel by the neck and punched his face. The man grunted then crumpled.

Daniel shook his head, his ears ringing. What the devil?

With Mac was Bellamy. The big man with the scarred faced never smiled much, but he was smiling now as he dragged a man off the other fighter and started hitting him. A third Mackenzie, Ian, stood in the doorway, surveying the fight. Probably calculating the odds.

“Ian!” Daniel yelled. Blood came out of his mouth. “Get Jacobi. Hold him.”

Ian took a step back out of the room and vanished. Mac was laughing, swinging his fists. “And Hart says Paris isn’t fun anymore.”

“What the bloody hell are you doing here?” Daniel shouted.

“Helping you,” Cameron answered. “Don’t be ungrateful, Son.”

No more conversation. Fighting needed to be done. Even now that Daniel’s insane father and uncle and Bellamy were here to even things up, there was still a long way to go.

Daniel looked longingly at the door through which Jacobi had run. Had Ian caught him?

“Go!” Mac yelled at him, pushing Daniel to the door. “Cam and Bellamy and I have got this.” Mac laughed as he turned around and fended off a blow. “Like old times, Cam.”

Daniel made for the table where he’d left the stack of legal papers and found them gone. Damn Jacobi.

Daniel pushed his way out of the room and found the hall empty. So was the staircase and the room next door. He looked up the staircase and down. Which way?

He chose down. Jacobi might think he could still catch Violet outside. He wouldn’t, though. Simon had his instructions.

When Daniel reached the ground floor, Ian appeared at the end of the hall. Without a word, Ian seized Daniel by the shoulder and steered him through a door and down another flight of stairs. Silently they went through another door together at the bottom and into a kitchen.

A fireplace was stoked high at the end of the room, sending out soothing warmth. Jacobi crouched on the hearth, thrusting papers into the fire.

Idiot. Daniel could just have another copy drawn up. But that would take time, and Jacobi could find somewhere else to hide or try to send more men to put Daniel out of the way.

Daniel gave Ian a nod. Both men charged Jacobi at the same time. Jacobi saw them and got to his feet in alarm, scattering papers. Then he picked up a pistol that had been hidden under the papers, aimed it, and fired it at Daniel.

Daniel felt the bullet go into his chest. He ran two more steps, then his legs didn’t work, and he fell heavily to his knees. Ian was shouting, running at Jacobi, who shot again. Ian went down—hit or taking cover, Daniel couldn’t tell.

Daniel fell forward, onto his face, his cheek meeting the flagstone floor, and everything stopped.

Chapter 31

Violet heard the gunshot and was out of the carriage before Simon could stop her.

Violet had refused all Simon’s pleas that she return to the hotel to wait for Daniel, because one thing Violet had learned about Jacobi was that he was a snake. Whatever Daniel thought Jacobi had planned, Jacobi would have put ten more contingencies into place. So she’d stayed, no matter how hard Simon had talked.

She’d been astonished to see three Mackenzie men and Bellamy arrive in another coach and go into the house, Mac pausing to flash her his big grin and tell her they’d come for the rescue. Simon had stopped Violet rushing in behind them, but when she heard the shot, she couldn’t remain inside the coach.

Violet landed hard on the ground in her soft slippers, catching up the small train of the elegant dress. Simon tried to herd her back into the carriage, but Violet would have none of it. She ran for the front door.

When the second shot came, her heart lurched. The sound had come from, of all places, below her. Violet realized she stood near stairs that led down to the scullery, and the shot had come from behind the small windows there.

“Simon, this way!” she called, even as she ran down the flight of dirty, coal-stained stairs to the bottom.

Simon hurried down and pushed past her, reaching the kitchen door first. He turned the handle, and the door opened readily, not locked or bolted. Simon was surprised to find it unlocked, but Violet wasn’t. Jacobi always left himself many easy exits from a building.

Violet ran through a squalid scullery into a kitchen, and stopped.

Daniel lay facedown on the flagstone floor, a pool of blood spreading from under him. Ian Mackenzie had a hand over his own arm, crimson under his fingers. Rage lit Ian’s eyes, but he turned from Jacobi when he saw Violet in the doorway.

“No!” Ian shouted at her. “Go!”

Violet couldn’t move. Daniel lay motionless, his head turned on the floor, bruises and blood nearly black on his paper-white face. He wasn’t breathing. A dark, damp mark spotted the back of his jacket, the sign of a bullet. Jacobi stood by the fireplace, his face starkly pale, a mixture of horror and triumph in his eyes. He held a pistol.

Everything froze in place. Ian had shoved himself between Daniel and Jacobi’s gun, and Simon was in front of Violet, protecting her.