In today’s WIP Wednesday, I’m looking at fights and other physical action of that nature. Please post your excerpt in the comments. Mine is from my latest work-in-progress. Driscoll has lured the sister of the lady that Hamner wishes to court away from the group with whom she is skating so he can accost her. Hamner arrives in time.
“Leave Miss Grenford alone, or I’ll rearrange your face for you, and then leave you to Lord Aldridge’s mercies,” Hamner warned Driscoll.
“What business is it of yours” Driscoll snarled. “The bitch was just playing coy, but she wanted me. Why else would she come to meet me?”
Hamner glared. “Good question. How did you inveigle her? She was not welcoming your attentions, that is certain.” He had seen blind panic on Miss Jessica’s face at the moment she realised Driscoll was not taking ‘no’ for an answer.
“She wanted it,” Driscoll insisted, but his eyes shifted away from Hamner’s. “She was pretending to protest. Women do that.”
“Leave her alone,” Hamner repeated.
“Come on!” Driscoll pasted on a smile. “All this fuss over a woman like her?” The smile slipped to a leer. “This is what they’re born to, Hamner, and every one knows it. Even the duchess will have to face facts in time. Aldridge is a man of the world. He indulges his mother, but he certainly doesn’t expect men to leave two such honey-pots alone.”
“You are mistaken, Driscoll. He expects it, and so do I.” Hamner grabbed the stupid man by the capes that adorned the shoulders of his heavy overcoat and pulled him closer, so he could hiss his final warning straight into the man’s face. “Leave. The. Grenford. Ladies. Alone.”
Driscoll struggled ineffectually, his face reddening in his anger. Still, he continued to sneer. “Want both of them, do you? What’s it like, tupping the Ice Princess? Does she freeze your d—”
Hamner dropped the man’s coat and stopped his foul mouth with a punch that sent him reeling backwards. Driscoll landed splayed in a snow bank, flecks of blood spattering the white beside his head. He opened his eyes and glared at Hamner, but made no effort to more.
Itching to haul the villain to his feet and repeat the blow, Hamner forced himself to remember the Grenford sisters. He should make sure they were unharmed. He should escort them home. “Remember what I said,” he ordered, and turned away, allowing himself a wince and a certain satisfaction. The bruising his gloved hand had suffered was a rather nice indication of the damage to Driscoll’s face.
When he looked back before rounding the corner of the path, Driscoll was gone.