Deep inside him he knew he was no match for Boudicca, but he had to act while he had the slight advantage of surprise. The thought was still in his mind when he sprinted forward, head down, across the room, crashing shoulder first into Boudicca's stomach. Boudicca was caught off guard, but it made little difference, almost no difference at all. She took the full force of the blow, grunted from the sudden shock, and although she reeled back a few steps, she remained standing. Before Pitt could recover his own balance, she clutched him with both arms under his chest, swung around in a half circle and threw him against a bookcase, his back shattering the glass doors. Incredibly, he managed somehow to remain erect on wobbly legs instead of crashing to the floor.
Pitt gasped in agony. His whole body felt like every' bone was broken. He fought off the pain and charged again, catching Boudicca with a bruising uppercut with his fist that drew blood. It was a blow that should have knocked any woman unconscious for a week, but Boudicca simply wiped away the blood streaming from her mouth with the back of one hand and smiled horribly. She doubled her fists and moved toward Pitt, crouched in a boxer's stance. Hardly correct posture for a lady, Pitt thought.
He stepped in, ducked under a savage right-hand slash and hit her again with the last of his remaining strength, He felt his fist drive home against flesh and bone, and then he was pounded by a tremendous blow that caught him in the chest. Pitt thought his heart had been mashed to pulp. He couldn't believe any woman could hit so hard. He had hammered her with a punch that had more than enough momentum to break her jaw, yet she still smiled through a bleeding mouth and repaid him with a driving backhand that drove him into the stone fireplace, forcing all the breath out of his lungs. He fell and lay there grotesquely for several moments, engulfed in pain, As though in a fog, he pushed himself to his knees, then came to his feet and stood swaying, gathering himself for one final move.
Boudicca stepped in and brutally caught Pitt in the rib cage with her elbow. He could hear the sharp snap of one, maybe two ribs cracking, and felt the stabbing pain in his chest as he crumpled to his hands and knees. He stared dumbly at the design in the carpet and wanted to hold onto the floor forever.
Perhaps he was dead and this was all there was to it, a floral design in a carpet.
Despairingly, he realized he could go no further. He groped for the fireplace poker, but his vision was too blurred and his movements too uncoordinated for him to find and grasp it in his hands. Vaguely, he saw Boudicca lean down, take him by one leg and hurl him crazily across the floor, where he collided with the open door. Then she walked over and picked him up by the collar with one hand and smashed him a hard blow in the head just above the eye. Pitt lay there, teetering on the edge of unconsciousness, swimming in pain, sensing but not really feeling the blood flowing from a gash above his left eye.
Like a cat toying with a mouse, Boudicca would soon tire of the game and kill him. Dazedly, almost miraculously, drawing on a strength he didn't know he possessed, Pitt somehow struggled slowly to his feet for what he was certain would be the last time.
Boudicca stood there beside the body of her father, smirking with anticipation. Complete mastery was etched in her face. "Time for you to join my father," she said. Her tone was deep, icy and compelling.
"There's a nauseating thought for you." Pitt's voice came thick and slurred.
Then Pitt saw the malice slowly fade in Boudicca's face and felt a hand gently ease him aside as Giordino entered the Dorsett family study.
He stared at Boudicca contemptuously and said, "This fancy maggot is mine."
At that moment Maeve appeared in the doorway, clutching a pair of blond-haired little boys by the hands, one on either side of her. She looked from Pitt's bleeding face to Boudicca to her father's body on the floor. "What happened to Daddy?"
"He caught a sore throat," muttered Pitt.
"Sorry I'm late," said Giordino calmly. "A couple of servants proved overly protective. They locked themselves in a room with the boys. It took me a while to kick in the door." He didn't explain what he did with the servants. He handed Pitt the nine-millimeter automatic taken from John Merchant. "If she wins, shoot her."
"With pleasure," Pitt said, his eyes devoid of sympathy.
Gone was any display of confidence in Boudicca's eyes. Gone too was any anticipation of merely hurting her opponent. This time she was fighting for her life, and she was going to use every dirty street-fighting trick she'd been taught by her father. This was to be no civilized boxing or karate match.
She moved wolflike to position herself to deliver a killing blow, mindful of the gun in Pitt's hand.