Brushing his hands off, he shut and latched the window. The irritating tingle was still lurking on the back of his neck despite the fact that his enemy was sprawled three stories down with what Bened knew were probably several broken bones. Then fear rose up so quickly in his chest he gasped. Primrose.
He yanked on his pants, grabbed his pistol, and hurried to her room just as a man’s cry of pain echoed in the hall. Throwing open the door, he stopped and stared. She had been attacked just as he had feared but she obviously did not need his dramatic rush to her rescue. That stung for he realized he had rather fancied playing the hero for her. A man was sprawled on the floor while she stood over him with an ash shovel in her hand. As he waved away the people who had rushed into the hall at the sound of the shot, quietly telling one of them to fetch the magistrate or one of his men, he stepped into the room and shut the door.
Primrose nudged the man on the floor with her foot but he did not even twitch. She then looked at Bened as he walked over to stand by her side. Every thought left her head when she saw that he was bare-chested again.
“What did you do to his ear?” Bened asked as he saw the mangled remnants of an ear on the side of the man’s head.
“That was my new puppy’s doing.” She gasped and ran to the little dog that was just rousing herself. “She leapt right off the bed, sailed through the air, and latched on to his ear.” She patted the little dog even as she checked for any injury but found none. “Most of the damage was done when he yanked her off for I think she had those little teeth tightly gripping that ear.”
“He is missing a lot of it but I don’t see it anywhere.” He looked at the dog, which was licking its chops. “I do not believe we will be finding it in the room, either.”
Primrose looked at her puppy and grimaced at the blood splattered on the white fur. “Oh, puppy, did you eat it?” The puppy licked her face. “Oh, no, no, no. No licking with the tongue that ate a man’s ear.”
She put the little dog down and then hurried over to the washbowl to wash her face. She was vigorously rubbing her face dry when she caught Bened staring at her. Primrose began to feel a little foolish, set the towel aside, and walked back to where the unconscious man sprawled.
“What do we do with him?”
“We wait for the magistrate and his men to take this one and the one who tried to get into my room. They tried to kill us.”
“Where is the one who tried to get into your room?”
“Sprawled on the ground.” He started out of the room. “There will be a few men marching in and out of here in a few moments,” he warned her before shutting the door after him, and she hurried to tug on her robe.
It was more than a few, Primrose decided much later as the last of half a dozen men walked out of her room. She had only briefly been embarrassed by being seen by so many in a state of dishabille, but it was, after all, the middle of the night and her robe was actually very modest. Every single one of them had stared at her dog in surprise when they heard what had happened to the man’s ear and then grimaced when told there was no retrieving the missing piece. Primrose had been very hard-pressed not to laugh.
She was just deciding to go back to bed when Bened walked back into her room carrying all his belongings. “What are you doing?”
“Making sure you are not alone,” he replied as he set his bags down in the far corner of the room. “Even though you are protected by a man-eating dog, the animal cannot stop a bullet. You did very well, so did the rat . . .” He paused for her protest.
“Puppy,” she said, and then muttered a curse when he grinned.
“. . . but I think you know there was a measure of good luck involved.”
“A very large measure. You also arrived very quickly.”
“Not quickly enough to have stopped him from shooting you if you had not awakened and got out of the bed.”
She shivered. “Very well then but where will you sleep?”
“I can sleep in the chair.”
She looked at the small chair near the fireplace. It was a good size and cushioned but it would make a horrible resting place for such a big man. “No, you will end up all cramped and crooked if you try to sleep there. You take the bed.”
“I am not taking the bed from a lady.”
“Fine. Then you sleep on top of the covers and I will sleep beneath them.”
He thought about that for a moment, knew it was going to be a torment to be so close to her all night long, but nodded. “Agreed.” He frowned when he saw her crawl into bed and the puppy leapt up to join her. “The dog sleeps with you?”
“Yes, my man-chewing beast sleeps in the bed. I do not think she takes up much room.”
He shed his shirt, yanked off his boots, and grabbed his blanket. “Odd that she went for his ear. Most attacking animals go for the throat.”
Primrose could not help it, she giggled. “I think that was what she was aiming for but it appears her having one eye does indeed cause a problem and her aim was off.”