Chapter Thirteen

D anny pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes, wishing to erase the wanton images of her arousal from Percy's mind, and more than that, destroy her instinctual reaction to life-threatening danger.

The cobblestones had bruised her tailbone, and the smell of waste churned her stomach, but the pain was nothing compared to the knowledge she belonged here in the gutter.

Percy crouched beside her, his knives back to whatever hidden pockets lined his coat. His voice was soft, his touch gentle when he said, "Danny."

"Don't look at me!" She curled her knees to her chest and buried her face into her hands. Dismissing her disgusting obsession when it was another layer of desire between the two of them was one thing. But he must know now, Percy had seen how broken she was to moan and find pleasure at the hands of such miserable men.

"I'm so sorry, Danny. I didn't mean to frighten you."

The antipathy in his voice pulled her rioting emotions into line. She looked up, not caring about the tears staining her cheeks when his eyes held nothing but shame. Did he not realize what had happened? He thought she was appalled at his heroism?

"You saved me, Percy. Saved us both. I am the creature to fear here. I stood there like a useless doll, a victim of my own..." perversion , she almost finished.

The waves of humiliation crashed down upon her over and over, washing the past week's joy away. Her mama scorned her for denying so many marriage proposals, but who would want a wife who didn't work properly? That night at the Leishires' ball, cornering Percy in the courtyard, she'd felt a connection, a similar darkness swirling in him. How naive she'd been to think she'd found the place she belonged.

"You should have let them take me."

"Don't say that!" He dragged her to her feet, his face a thundercloud of rage. His mouth worked, but nothing came out. Emotion flashed across his face, a lightning storm of hurt, anger, sadness, and confusion.

He crushed her to him, and his pounding heart matched her own.

"I should never have let this happen," he said, voice unsteady. "But... damn it! I don't know how to fix this."

She couldn't be fixed. Everything—therapies, laudanum, unrelenting prayer—and nothing had worked.

There was more to her taste for knives, too much to explain. If the effect of the break was unforgivable, the cause was unmentionable. Percy may have believed he was uncouth and unworthy of love and loyalty because of a past he found distasteful, but he'd fought for his country and for survival.

She was nothing but a coward. Worse, her reasons for pleasure were the greatest betrayal of decency. No man would agree to a wife like her.

"You're shaking," he whispered against her hair as he tightened his arms around her.

His hard chest felt like a wall, protecting her from the world outside and the ugliness from within. "How can you touch me?"

The man should have been backing away slowly and hoping her corruption wasn't catching.

He stiffened. "Do you want me to let go?"

Never .

She wouldn't voice the desperate plea in her mind. Pressing her profile into his shoulder, she shook her head and felt him relax.

They stayed like that, wrapped in each other's arms, completely different from their embrace ten minutes ago, but still intimate, though things between them had changed again, in a way Danny wasn't yet ready to face.

"Fucking quims! Look at this mess."

Percy swung around, knives already in hand at the new arrivals.

Two more men stood in the alley: one, a giant with a bald head. The other, a whip of a man with his hood up, securely hiding his face from sight.

The hooded man toed one of the twins, a derisive snort coming from the depths of the shadows. "Freddy," he said to the bigger man. "That other must be George. Fucking Greens overstepping their lines again."

"Not just the Greens," the big man said, gaze falling on Danny and Percy.

The hooded man turned, lightless eyes seeming to flash. "Percy." He shook his head. "Of course it's you. This is your doing, I take it?"

Percy swallowed. "Just out for a stroll. A fine day for it, don't you think?"

The other man wasn't interested in pleasantries. "This isn't your turf anymore, Vengeance . Pops banned you from the rookeries after your last rampage."

"Hardly a rampage." Percy sniffed and jerked his chin in the direction of the two unconscious men. "They'll live." His gaze narrowed on the cut on Danny's arm like two slits in the curtain to hell. "Though I may remove a few appendages before their bodies arrive at the clinic."

"Gonna chop up the bodies this time? The coroner will be thrilled," the hooded man said mockingly. "Are you the one pilfering from the docks too?"

Percy quirked a brow, though the easy expression looked strained. "Someone steal the board up your arse, Syd?"

"Barrels of sand, stolen right off the ships." Syd crossed his arms over his chest, the moleskin tightening over lean arm muscles. "Whatever agreement the Duke of Camine has with the harbormaster, it won't be long before the captains take action to protect what's theirs. Might want to remind your master of that."

Danny's head was spinning, attempting to keep up with the conversation. The Duke of Camine was stealing cargo? And Percy was part of it? But what would anyone want with a bunch of sand?

"It wasn't us," Percy said. "We can look into the situation if the Merrys are spread too thin?"

"‘We'?" Syd regarded Danny. "Quite a fine partner you've found." Danny could feel those hidden eyes assessing. "She's injured."

"She'll be fine," Percy said too brightly. "Nothing my friend and I can't handle."

"Does your friend have a name?"

"Untitled, I'm afraid." Percy shifted to block Danny's view, and her from the others. "Call her whatever you will. Only fifty-fifty she'll answer, anyway." He glanced at her over his shoulder, his expression tight. "Isn't that right, Betty? Belinda?"

Rampage, huh? She gratefully latched on to a spark of anger, anything to wash away the residual shame swirling inside. "Are you sure it's not Butcher ?" Danny asked.

Percy winced and lowered his voice so only she could hear. "It's a long story. Now is not the time."

Jack the Ripper, the Demon of Whitechapel, Leather Apron, the Duke of Grandfellow: If terrorizing London was what he meant by following orders... "You killed prostitutes?" she whispered back. "What did they do, spit on the army?"

"Your lack of faith in me is insulting." He threw a grin towards the two other figures before answering quietly, "They were foreign agents and quite skilled, I'll have you know."

"That's..." Danny had nothing to say to that. "Unexpected."

Percy clapped his hands together and maneuvered them towards the mouth of the alley without turning his back. "Thank you for your rescue efforts, lads, but as you see, we are well and should be going."

Syd didn't need to move to stop them in their tracks. "You shouldn't bring proper ladies 'round these parts, Percy. Anything might happen to them when you're not looking."

The hulking man at Syd's side cracked his knuckles and smiled viciously.

As Percy's entire back muscles flexed, hard enough to break walnuts against, Danny came to the horrifying realization that Percy was afraid of these two and was doing his best to keep them from learning her name.

"I don't know what you mean," Percy said, never taking his eyes off the two men.

Syd snorted. "With that bustle and those earrings, every criminal from here to West End could pick her as an easy mark."

Percy stepped forward, friendliness gone. "I'm a messenger for the duke, a man Markus respects. If it's compensation you want for setting foot back on your turf, fine, but the girl stays out of this."

"The Merrys don't want your blunt. And the understanding between Pops and the duke is for him, and him alone." Syd glanced the big man's way, and a silent message passed between them. He turned on his heel, the big man in tow.

As they passed, Danny held herself perfectly still, taking her cue from Percy. When Syd spoke again from behind them, his voice was harder than steel.

"Stay out of St. Giles, Percy. Next time, we won't hesitate to take you out like the rest of the trash. This is your last warning."

Not ten seconds after the two men turned out of sight, Percy said, "Let's get out of here."

Danny didn't argue. Pulling her fallen hair back into a rushed coif, she followed Percy through a maze of decreasingly dirty and narrow streets, saying nothing until they'd left the acidic smell and uneasy feelings behind and stepped onto a main thoroughfare teeming with carriages and the more familiar scent of soap and horse.

Her mind was abuzz. Those men in the alley were gang members; it was the only explanation. She was not so sheltered she was unaware of the rampant brawls over imagined territory in the worst of the slums, but to think they'd stumble upon not one gang but two, in the middle of the day, the last being a couple Percy knew, and more alarming, the two knew Percy.

"Say something," Percy said at her side.

What was there to say? I knew you had ties to criminals for your job, but those two men have me trembling through three layers of linen. He'd mentioned ‘foreign agents,' which meant her suspicions about the Home Office were spot on. Dealing with unsavory characters must have been a hazard of the job, but no one should grow familiar with those icy stares and committed threats.

Danny had a most irrational desire to wrap Percy in her arms like a child and hold him until he remembered what it was to feel safe.

"The smaller man didn't like you much." Nor the big, for that matter.

Percy winced. "Syd doesn't like anybody. Can't afford to when you run the best gang in the rookeries."

Danny didn't hide her surprise. "Syd is the leader? He's so slight." When the two had passed, Danny had been shocked to realize she was a solid three inches taller.

"Never go by appearances, Daniella." There was no teasing in Percy's voice. "Underestimate the smallest man and you will die."

Danny wouldn't make light, not when the spark in his eyes had gone out. "I'll remember."

"Good."

He offered her his arm and they kept pace on the left side of the sidewalk, passing costermongers and piemen selling everything from fruits and vegetables to mutton and eel.

The reality of danger, not two alleys over, had Danny itching beneath her skin, but she wouldn't give in to fear, nor let it claim her optimism. Today's outing and conversation would not tarnish under the light of realization.

What had transpired between her and Percy had been carnal, inevitable, like two strikes of lightning clashing in the dark. She wouldn't hope that he'd see past her demons, not when he struggled with his own so viscerally. All she could do was express how little that mattered to her now.

The shame still clawed at her, tearing at her mind to drag her into a dark mental space too horrifying to return to reality. But Percy hadn't run away. He'd stayed, held her while she'd fallen into that bottomless pit, and then pulled her back into the light.

She'd come to care for him. The man who teased her and laughed at the prim and proper. The man who taunted her body into the most delirious sensations of eroticism. And the man who fought enemies in the dark to protect her from harm, even when she could see how much the violence ate at him.

The world could be ugly, people more so, but in the end, everyone was surviving the only way they knew how.

He was one of them, and she was too.

As far as commonalities went, she prayed it would be enough.

*

Percy's body relaxed as they moved farther away from the slums, though the hard set to his jaw remained.

He was lamentable. He should never have brought Danny within spitting distance of the rookeries. Syd had been right, the savage bastard. They were both far too well dressed to remain unnoticed, and even dirt smeared and wearing a sack, no one could mistake Danny's rigid spine and fine speech as anything but elite.

If he'd been thinking at all, he would never have agreed to a friendship between them. But the woman's presence ripped all rational thought to shreds. Not that their friendship would remain intact. Silent and gaze distant, she was probably concentrating all her fierce will on keeping from hysterics.

He'd been a fool all along thinking he could rescue her in the Crystal Palace from two-faced ladies and all past regressions would be wiped away. And that look of worthlessness on her face after the two thugs had been disarmed, he knew the feeling well.

"So . . ."

Percy admonished himself for how he held on to her one word with bated breath. When she said nothing else, he prompted, "Yes?"

She cocked her head, her lips tilted in unfathomable humor. "Vengeance? Butcher? How many names have you had in your career?"

Percy's shocked laugh was a release he needed, and a painful reminder setting expectations for Lady Daniella made him that much more a fool.

"I gained a new name every time I reinvented myself. First, to sound tough as a child, then as a man of rank in the army, and much later, as an evil shadow in the dark." He winked. "I told you I was famous."

His good humor vanished, remembering how close she'd come to harm. Gaze zeroing in on the wound on her arm, his chest tightened past the point of pain and went straight to unbearable. "Your arm needs bandaging."

She covered the cut with her hand. "The bleeding stopped. I'll be fine." Her small smile squeezed the heart in his chest. "Good thing your talents include disarming thugs." At his continued silence, she said, "I am fine, Percy."

Be he wasn't!

This was what he got for thinking he could keep something so innocent and beautiful close. Had he really been so naive as to think a monster like him could keep her safe?

"What I've done is deplorable, even in the name of serving my country," he said.

"Your actions were sanctioned. If you hadn't done what was asked, someone else would have, and probably with less skill and mercy."

Mercy? She couldn't be so blind. "I'm no better than those thugs in the alley, threatening your life on a whim to commiserate with my past."

Danny stopped, right there in the open street, and said with passion, "You don't scare me, Percy. I pray I never understand what it is to take a life, but I can imagine the types of people who do it leisurely.

"I know you. I know who you are. Whoever those men were, you don't hide in the shadows anymore. The lives you've taken were necessary, even I can see that. You aren't a man to go blindly into anything. You were given orders."

"The bloodied hands are mine, Danny."

She gripped his face, refusing to let him look away. "Which makes you the strongest man I've ever known."

He shook his head, successfully extracting himself from her warm hands. He focused on the bustling street vendors and customers perusing the stalls, and he envied their simple lives. "Don't make me out to be a hero. Killing is easy when you're used to it."

"Lie to someone else, Percy. I see the deaths haunt you."

Percy stilled. His body reflexively made to flee from the attack, dive out of harm's way, but there was no escaping her words. She'd always seen him, even when he couldn't see himself.

Haunt him? He was haunted. He could laugh and lie and carry on like a man without a care in the daylight, but at night, when the shadows wrapped themselves around him, he remembered the faces, the screams, worse: The silence when his victims weren't given even a last cry of torment and outrage at what he'd taken from them for simply being on the opposite side of politics.

"Wherever you've gone," her soft voice called. "Come back to me."

Percy's visions of blood and darkness wavered, then brightened, until all he saw was her shining face.

"I'm here," she said, lightly cupping his face with her hands. "You're safe with me."

There was that feeling again—the same warming and aching in his chest from the night in her bedchamber—a most pleasing pain Percy didn't know what to make of.

Trust. Compassion. She gave so much without realizing and asked only for his honest, vile self, like she saw the person beneath the monstrous exterior.

She hadn't earlier, he reminded himself. She'd collapsed and shook with the terror of his true face. But then she'd accepted his embrace and Percy swore in that moment she'd accepted all of him come what may. Trust. Compassion. Loyalty .

For a street urchin turned assassin, who'd never stayed in one place long enough to grow attached to anywhere, never felt safe enough to sleep with both eyes closed, the hand of connection she offered him in camaraderie and comfort had a distinct feeling of coming home.

And if the woman who wished to see the world in black and white—evil versus good—didn't see him as a dweller of the former, perhaps he'd try his hand at being worthy of the latter.