Read Online Stroke of Genius by Emily Bryan - Free Book Online

fellows darting in to take punches at him.
    Each time one of them tried, he received a smart rap on the knuckles from Crispin’s walking stick.
    “Told you he were no easy mark,” one of them said, shaking his stinging hand. “Let’s shove off, Doyle.”
    “No, he gots to pay for damaging Cooper there,” the one presumably named Doyle said. He was a big hulking brute, easily Crispin’s match for height and weight.
    “But I think the bastard broke me hand,” the first one said. “I’m no giving him a chance to break the other one.” He loped away into the shadows, cradling his injured paw.
    Doyle and the downed Cooper shouted threats after their retreating friend and called his parentage into question for several generations.
    “I likes the look of his cuff links meself,” Doyle said, turning his attention back to Crispin. “Toss ‘em over, cripple, and we’ll leave you and your doxy to go free.”
    “Doxy!” Grace exclaimed. She’d intended to remain quiet, but honestly, she couldn’t let a slight like thatpass unchallenged. “I am no man’s doxy, and even if I were, I assure you I wouldn’t be his.”
    There! That should disabuse Crispin Hawke of any notion that she’d given a second thought to that kiss he’d pressed on her.
    “Suit yerself, luv,” Doyle said with a shrug. “We’ll take ye with us when we go, then.”
    “You most certainly will not.” She scrambled to her feet and gave the still-groaning Cooper a swift kick. “I’ll have you know that I’m Miss—”
    “Missing a bit of her brain pudding, but I like my women a little on the bovine side with respect to intellect,” Crispin interrupted, drawing their eyes back to himself. “Mistress Vache and I will be leaving this grove together and with my cuff links still in place, thank you, gentlemen. However, if you are adamantly determined about trying to remove them from me, might I suggest you make a concerted effort?”
    The trio blinked at him stupidly.
    Crispin sighed and shook his head. “Come at me two at a time.”
    “Oh, right,” Doyle said. “Get ‘im, lads.”
    Two of them rushed Crispin and Grace gasped, her heart pounding in her throat. Why had he egged them on? But at the last second, Crispin took a quick step back and the men butted noggins with each other with a loud thud. He whacked them both on their bottoms with his walking stick as they crumpled to the grass.
    Then he feinted a swing at Doyle. When the man moved to intercept the strike, Crispin whipped his cane around and jabbed the head of it full on the man’s breastbone, knocking all the breath from his lungs in one deft blow. Doyle sank to his knees, sucking wind.
    Grace blinked in surprise.
    “Come, Mistress Vache,” Crispin said, moving to her side with more speed than a man with a perpetual limp ought to possess. He offered her his arm. When she didn’t take it, he grasped her hand instead and pulled her along the path back toward the well-lit part of the park. Even though he leaned heavily on the cane now, his canting stride was long enough that she had to trot to keep up with him.
    “I don’t appreciate being called a cow,” she said between huffing breaths.
    “So you do command a modicum of French,” he said with a scowl. “If you don’t wish to be taken for a cow, then don’t act like one, vache. Are you truly so stupid you’d have given those miscreants your real name? Have you any idea what happens to well-heeled heiresses in certain parts of this city?”
    No, she didn’t, but she suspected she wouldn’t like it.
    “You might at least say ‘thank you,’” he said, still dragging her along.
    “I will if you will.”
    “And why should I thank you?”
    “Because I distracted those men for you when they had you surrounded,” she said, huffing to keep up. “I offered you help before I even knew who you were, so you have several reasons to be grateful.”
    When they reached the group frolicking around the Maypole, he stopped