“I have no intention of doing so.”
He shook his head as she slipped away. Lilybet Wherlocke would fit very well into her newfound family. Creeping back to the house, he suddenly saw Bevan crouched beneath the window drawing a square in the dirt. It took Bened a moment to realize his brother was marking out the positions of everyone in the room. Just seeing the five figures huddled near the fireplace made his heart ache. He did not even try to understand how Geoffrey must feel as he sat there and knew that he, the woman he loved, and all of his children were facing death. It was a horror too large for Bened to want to even imagine.
“Bevan, what we need is for you to slide in through the door to this room. Then go after the man closest to you and disarm him or hit him or whatever takes your fancy and allows you the most time to then hurl yourself to the ground. The confusion that will cause will allow us to get in through the window and deal with the others.” He looked at Simeon. “Is Geoffrey the sort of man who will have the wits left to do what is needed to best protect his family when we do this?”
“Without a doubt,” Simeon replied. “Man was a soldier for a while so he will recognize an attack on the enemy and probably guess that they could try to take some of his with them. He will do whatever he can to cover his family even if it is with just his own body.”
“Let us hope he finds a better alternative. Look carefully at the drawing Bevan made so you know what you are headed into. I will go through the window first and take down as many as I can as you come in through the door. The faster we get this done, the less chance any of the family getting hurt.”
Bened watched closely for his brother’s man to fall, guessing that he would take the one right inside the doors. Quick, easy enough, and would surely pull the attention of the others his way. They would see that they had just lost the man watching their backs. The fact that they would not see how it was done would, he hoped, make them afraid enough that they would not be quick to see the more tangible threat coming at them through the window and door, or react to it in time to save themselves.
The man’s head snapped back and he yelled in shock, twisting this way and another to try to see who had struck him in the face. He yelled even louder when his pistol and knife were snatched from his hands, leaving him defenseless against something he could not see. His friends started to yell as well for they could see that their friend was being hit but could make out nothing but the pistol moving by itself, the butt connecting hard with the man’s head at least three times before he started to fold and sink to the floor.
Bened slipped into the room as the men searched for what had knocked the fourth man down. He hoped they could not hear Bevan’s heavy breathing as easily as he could, then briefly caught Geoffrey’s eye. Something in the way the man looked at him told Bened Geoffrey could be trusted to get his family out of the dangerous situation breaking out all around them.
One by one they took down the four men. It had not been as easy as he had hoped. Bened and each of the others in his crew were bruised and battered, but they were soon tying up the enemy. Augusta had chosen truly hardened men this time, and ones with the kind of skills that hinted their training came from some of the king’s own officers. He walked over to where Geoffrey was settling his still-trembling wife and three children in seats near the fire, noting that at some point in the battle he had scraped his knuckles against someone’s face.
Geoffrey glanced at his knuckles and smiled, a hint of satisfaction in the look. “One decided he should end us. Less to worry about as he fought whatever the bloody hell took the first man down.”
“That would be my brother,” said Bened as he looked toward where he could see Bevan sitting in a chair and dabbing at a cut lip with a handkerchief. “Odd that bloody lip did not give him away,” he muttered.
“I did not see him,” said Geoffrey. “How could he have just walked in and taken down that man and I not see him? It looked as if the pistol was slapping the man senseless all on its own.”
“Because he did not want to be seen so he was not.” Bened shrugged at the man’s confused look. “Have no way to explain it clearly.”
“Not sure you could even if you had time to do so.”
“There is that to consider. Are any of you hurt?”
“No, just a few bruises. This is because of Augusta, is it not? She obviously did not want to wait to see if she could just evict me.”
“She wanted to but the Wootten man of business said she could not.”
“I threatened her with going to him and to the magistrate. Feared I put her in the position to do this. ’Tis a bit of a comfort to know I was not the only one telling her that, although I suspect Sanders was less blunt, more gentlemanly and evasive.”