Free The Tory Widow by Christine Blevins

raised her knee high and stomped a sharp heel down on her captor’s toe. Yowling in pain, Bagobones loosened his grip enough for her to wrest free.
    Greedyguts snatched the back of her dress and whipped her up against the brick wall, rendering Anne silent and still with the sharp edge of his blade pressed to the base of her throat.
    â€œArrah! She’s mine now.” His tarred tricorn slipped from his head and Greedyguts leaned in so close Anne could discern his breakfast—ale and fried kippers.
    The skin above Greedy’s left eye was pink, shiny and tight. The extent of this recently healed wound was made apparent by the loss of his hat, revealing wiry tufts of steel gray hair growing betwixt large patches of the smooth scar tissue that covered most of his bulbous pate.
    â€œAh now, brother.” Bagobones turned genial. “What say we splits this plunder—even shares—fair and square?”
    Greedyguts grunted in assent and Bagobones shoved a hand down the slit in Anne’s skirt that gave access to the pocket tied about her waist. With a practiced jerk, he freed it, emptied the contents into one palm and tossed the pocket aside.
    â€œFuck all! Naught but eight shillings and pence . . .”
    â€œShe’s stashed it somewheres . . .” Greedyguts shoved a hand down Anne’s neckline, his furry tongue poked from gap teeth as he foraged between her breasts for hidden valuables. Anne could not help but jerk away and she felt the bite of his blade. Bright blood beaded to trickle down and slide over the curve of her breast.
    Furthering his search, Greedyguts thrust his free arm under her skirts, and his roving hand stopped to cup between her legs. He bent his monstrous head and lapped the blood from her neck with one long swipe of his tongue, all the while keeping the sharp edge at her throat, strangling her scream to a pitiful whimper.
    â€œEight shillings . . .” he muttered. “Hoy, mate! Take m’ blade . . . keep her quiet while I butter her bun.”
    â€œThen I gets a turn,” Bagobones asserted. “Fair is fair.”
    The weapon exchanged hands. Bagobones stood duty at her left, licking his flaking lips and emitting a series of encouraging grunts while the stout man fumbled with his trouser buttons.
    The pitched scream she dared not unleash shrieked in her head. Anne pressed back against the rough brick wall, wishing she could will herself to seep through its pores and crevices and break through to the bright light she imagined on the other side. She stared past the greasy knotted kerchief tied too tight to Greedyguts’s thick neck, and let her eyes lose focus as he struggled to find a way through her skirts.
    Bagobones suddenly blurted, “Hoy . . . mate . . .” and the worried utterance snapped Anne back into awareness.
    Jack Hampton’s angry face loomed in clear, perfect focus just beyond Greedy’s shoulder. Swinging a wide arc, the barrel stave wielded in his two-fisted grip sounded a sickening thwack as timber met skull bone. Greedyguts flew from her line of vision.
    Bagobones pulled her in close, keeping the blade tight to her throat. “Back off, or I’ll cut her . . .”
    Jack stepped up, raising the club over his shoulder. “Throw down!”
    â€œSlit her windpipe, I will . . .”
    â€œThrow down— now! ”
    Anne ground her heel into her captor’s slipshod foot. Bagobones yelped and she pulled away, scuttling sideways as Jack leapt forward swinging, knocking the tall man to his knees with a brutal blow to the neck.
    Tossing the sword aside, Bagobones raised his stringy arms in shuddering supplication. “Quarter, sir! I beg quarter.”
    His request was answered by the ragged end of the barrel stave rammed into his gut. Bagobones doubled over with a miserable groan, and Jack dealt him a fierce, felling blow to the jaw.
    Anne snatched up her discarded pocket. Jack grabbed Anne by the hand