Chapter Twenty

P ercy stood in the open doorway of his bed chambers, watching Danny brush her long hair in front of the vanity. He swallowed a lump in his throat and memorized the varying brown tones in her hair—rich chocolate underneath silky almond—not knowing the next time he'd have the privilege to drink in the sight of her.

Noticing his presence, her eyes met his in the mirror, and her slow smile had Percy's groin filling with hot need.

"I've been waiting for you for hours," she said, setting her brush down.

I've been waiting for you my whole life . Percy's nails dug into the doorframe to stop from going to her. This wasn't a time for emotion to take over.

At his silence, Danny glanced over her shoulder, and her eyes narrowed on his position still in the doorway. "Something has happened."

He nodded, loving and hating how perceptive she was. "I need to go underground for a while." Possibly six feet under.

Her attention felt hot on his profile.

He didn't dare meet her gaze.

"This has to do with your ex-partner, doesn't it?"

Jesus, the woman was a mind reader. He nodded again, swearing he heard her brain connecting the story of his past with his vague statement.

"I see," she said at last, and he didn't doubt she did.

Good , he thought. Better to leave things unsaid. Now when they parted ways, there'd be no question she could take care of herself if the worst happened.

Crossing the room, she dropped to her knees to pull a large trunk out from under her bed and began throwing miscellaneous garments inside.

Percy watched, his brain unable to connect her actions to his words. "What are you doing?"

"Packing."

He blinked. "I can see that. Why?"

She quirked a brow at him, the arch taunting. "I'll need at least a few changes of clothes if we're to leave." She stopped and scrunched her nose. "Unless we're literally going underground." Scrutinizing the trunk, she pulled out a white nightgown and replaced it with a brown skirt.

Percy wouldn't entertain the warmth swirling inside his chest at her lack of trepidation. The chit was so fearless, he could say he was going to bunker down in a volcano, and she'd probably pack swimwear and a parasol.

Steeling himself, Percy left all feeling from his voice when he said, "You're not coming."

She paused, slippers dangling from her fingers. Intentions now clear, her jaw clenched as she set the slippers down and turned to face him fully. "I will not stay here without you. Where you go, I go. This man must be brought to justice."

"Justice?" The woman was impossible. "You can't right every wrong, Danny. This isn't some cat in a tree."

"No, it's a man who wants you dead, and I will not allow it."

God, how those three words— not allow it —soothed his soul. At least one person would mourn him if he didn't come back. It was more than a wretch like him deserved.

Percy swallowed, battering those welling feelings into submission. "I have men stationed on the grounds. You'll stay here, under guard, until my business is concluded."

"No."

"This isn't up for discussion."

When she went back to packing without a word, Percy felt his belly fill with fire.

"Did you hear what I said, Danny?"

"I heard." She folded a second set of breeches and placed them beside the first.

"Damn it!" He crossed the room and tore the blouse she'd picked up out of her hands. "You're not coming with me. You'll be safe here—"

"Under guard, yes, I heard."

Her calmness was maddening.

"Then we're in agreement?"

"Of course not."

"DAMN IT!" He grabbed her by the arms and shook. "He wants you. Wants to hurt you to get to me. I won't waltz you straight to him."

"You don't waltz, Your Grace."

Defiance sparked in her eyes, a flame Percy didn't doubt was smoking against her carefully built calm. Knowing he'd get nowhere if tempers flared, he said, "Stop this, please." He wasn't above begging. He released her and ran a hand through his hair. "I can't protect you and fight him at the same time."

"And who will protect you , Percy?"

He scoffed. The woman was impossible. "I don't need protection."

"Everyone needs protection from something."

Knowing what he must do, Percy's patience snapped.

"What do you know of anything, my lady ? You with your privileged and happy family? Cosseted like a true aristocratic princess." He couldn't stop the words, even as they scalded. "How traumatic it must be to lose your favorite silver comb or scuff your new slippers. Alert the papers!" He drew the rage to him, shielded himself from the hurt and memories welling up. "Don't think I'm one of your precious servants, puppies, whatever weak creature you can rescue from fate's cruel grip. You know nothing about what it is to be alone. Go spout your nonsense about compassion and understanding to some eager pup who will listen, because all I hear is the incessant barking of a naive bitch. You will remain here!"

He turned away from her and the tears that would no doubt be in her eyes. What he'd said was unforgivable and he was the worst monster for voicing such blatant lies, but they were necessary. He'd known since parting ways with the Merry Men in St. Giles that Danny battled her own demons, but whatever trauma haunted her, she'd be all right.

She was too good to walk away. His duchess, the woman who'd risked her neck to climb a tree, who'd scraped her hands and knees to save that devil-spawned cat, she wouldn't hesitate to put herself in harm's way for a lost cause like him.

Let her hurt. Let her cry. She was better off without him. She'd survive , which meant everything. Marrying her had been the most selfish thing he'd ever done: selfish, cruel, dangerous. Someone as good and delicate as her would be crushed or worse, killed, when she learned she couldn't save him.

But when she responded, it was not delicacy in her voice.

"Don't you dare use my upbringing to put a wedge between us!"

Percy whirled around and watched her approach, her gaze blazing, a goddess's fury made flesh.

"This is about your insecurities and inability to let someone else in." She poked him with a finger right over the ache in his chest. "You don't get to walk away from me, understand? Spouting I couldn't understand because I was born wealthy and privileged. You're feeling sorry for yourself." She advanced, pushing him back, that inner fire searing his skin. "And don't you use such language at me. Ever. Again. Just because you didn't mean a word doesn't reason I will tolerate you, or anyone else , speaking to me as you just did. I am worth more than such abuse and so are you!"

Percy was frozen by her presence and her insight. He could look clear over her head—she was so slight—and yet he could see nothing aside from her face, fierce and beautiful and so full of honesty, it ripped his angry shield in two as if it were nothing but gauze.

She saw through him. She always had. But still she stood beside him, against him, whatever was right and good, even when it meant she risked her own happiness and more.

"Danny." Her name burned his throat. "There's no future with me."

She shook her head, her brown eyes fathomless. "There's no future without you."

Her words nearly brought him to his knees. He wasn't deserving, not of her loyalty or her regard. But he did deserve the lesson.

Danny knew her own mind and made her own decisions. She was a crack shot and an untapped talent for espionage. If he hadn't seen the red of her blood that day with Lord Pickles, he'd swear she wasn't human. But she was mortal, flesh and blood and even more glorious because she disregarded her fragile vessel for the sake of her steadfast morals. She was a fucking monster herself, and he'd been stricken with insanity to think he could stand against a warrior queen who'd give no quarter.

He admitted defeat and hung his head. "Apologies, my lady." When this was all over, if they survived, he'd fall at her feet and pledge his eternal fidelity.

She huffed. " Now I am angry."

Percy's head shot up to see her roll her eyes.

"You say you're sorry when you should be kissing me." She threw her hands in the air. "Men!"

She'd forgiven him just like that? Percy's heart squeezed. She was too good for him, always seeing the good in him . "I can't let you do this. If something happened to you—"

"Me?" Danny grasped his face in both hands. "Do you know what would happen to me if something happened to you? I'd be destroyed, in agony, a miserable pile of broken bones eaten by wild dogs."

Percy wouldn't read into her impassioned speech. She would be left in the uncomfortable position of leaving Grandfellow if he passed without an heir, but Lord Bromley would see to her care. She couldn't feel more than gratitude for him. "You'd fall out of that big oak tree?"

"Percy."

"When you say my name like that, all exasperated, it makes my heart flutter."

"I can help," she pressed. "I'm a good shot and I won't fall to pieces under pressure."

They both knew she was better than a good shot. "Nic won't succumb to your—while entirely delicious—charms. He won't hesitate to kill you."

"I've faced death before."

Percy shook his head, determined to make her see reason. She wanted to help, fine. But he'd find a task that would keep her as far away as possible. "Syd and Zans would never have really harmed you. Robbed you and sold off your pistol to the nearest arms' men at a criminally inflated price, yes, but even gang leaders must eat."

"I don't mean in St. Giles." Danny bit her lip, drawing his attention like a fly to a honey pot. Silence descended on them, as if the very air around them knew her next words would negate every preconceived notion he had. "I was kidnapped when I was a child."

Everything stopped. Lips forgotten, Percy's focus narrowed to the way her fingers curled into fists, a feeling of dread pooling in his gut.

"My father's wealth and public stance on women's suffrage made him enemies in the House of Lords." Her fingers turned purple from the force of her clenched fists. "One lord in particular wouldn't accept the audacity that his property would have rights and acted.

"It all happened so fast. One minute I was alone in the garden, the next..." Her fist went to her throat as if imagining hands there. "I remember trying to scream, but they held me too tight. I thought I'd faint from the lack of air. I think I did."

Percy watched the light in her eyes fade, knowing she'd gone back to the past.

"The warehouse where they kept me smelled of gunpowder and fish." She raised her shaking hands before her face, but her gaze wasn't focused. "The ropes around my wrists and ankles rubbed my skin raw, but I didn't cry because I knew the men wouldn't like it. I knew not to draw attention to myself, but it didn't matter in the end."

Danny hugged herself and went silent, not needing to voice the words, except for one last heartbreaking sentence. "I was ten."

It was those last three words that broke him.

Action. Abduction. Assault .

This was why she'd fallen apart in the alley. He'd thought she had cracked under the pressure of being accosted, but it was only after her reaction to the knife, her moan of pleasure, that the fierce warrior mask she'd worn had collapsed.

It didn't take a trained assassin to make the connection; her abductors had used knives—as a means of threatening or something unimaginable—and she had coped however she could. Instead of terror, her fear had turned to pleasure.

Ten. Percy knew intimately what abuse like that did to a child.

Predatory growls rumbled through his chest, and Percy offhandedly realized the sounds were coming from him. Whoever this lord was, he better pray whatever prison he had the good fortune to live out the rest of his scummy life in was unreachable by land.

When he responded, his voice sounded far away. "Were you harmed physically?" She'd been a virgin on their wedding night, he knew, but there were other ways to harm a woman. He wouldn't ask about the damage to her mental state. He knew the answer to that already.

Knew it and accepted it. Accepted her because there wasn't a single goddamn thing that wasn't beautiful about his wife. An inflated need for justice not only drove her, but it had also molded her, as it damn well should have. Knowing now what she'd gone through, there was no end to the justice she deserved. He'd line up a hundred monsters for her to slay if it took the shadows from her gaze.

"No, they never touched me. My papa paid the ransom, and I was left on the Yard's doorstep," she said, and Percy took his first easy breath.

Only to have her knock the wind out of him.

"We'll overcome our pasts, Percy. For our sake and for the sake of our future children."

At the thought of little dark-haired children, climbing trees and terrorizing that haunting creature, Mrs. Smith, Percy buried his face in her hair, those held-back feelings breaking free and leaving him lightheaded. Old hurts rose to the surface, screaming how the happy ending wasn't for the likes of him. But for her, he held on to hope. If she'd survived something so truly ugly and still found things to smile about, he'd learn to skip through foxglove meadows and recite poetry like a damn bard.

"I swear I'll try." His teeth clenched. "But I'm not a good man, Danny."

Hands brushed against his chin, her touch as soft as her words. "Good is for God to decide in the end. The only thing that matters is that you don't shut me out. We're in this together for better or worse, husband. And Lord above knows I'm no saint."

Percy shook his head. "I won't have you say such things. For all you do for everyone else—"

"You have it wrong." Danny's mouth turned down at the edges. "I'm not a savior or a saint. Everything I do is out of selfishness and fear. When I see someone in need, helping isn't my first response. My first thought is to run as fast and far away as I can. But I choose to stay and choose to face the danger for my own good." She pressed a fist to her chest, choking out words like they hurt to voice. "Don't you see? I must save them, Percy, because If I can save others..."

Percy's heart wrenched in understanding, understanding her and, through her, better understanding a piece of himself. "Saving others means you can save yourself."

When her gaze lifted to his, her eyes glistened with unshed tears. "I'm sorry I'm not perfect. I've always been scared. Ever since that night, I haven't known a moment without it. But with you..." She threw back her shoulders and determination turned her expression fierce. "You make me stronger. The fear is still there, but I no longer cower at my own response. You've shown me the beauty in my flaws. I don't need to be ashamed of who I am."

Percy stood stunned. There was no question she could handle the coming storm. Not only did she face those fears every day, but she had grown stronger despite them... Fear. He'd learned the word as a child. A word filled with dark worry. But through her eyes, from her mouth, Percy finally understood the courage that went hand in hand.

"You have so much good in you," she went on. "You may be a villain to yourself, the rest of the world can believe the lie, but you've been my savior. And I have every intention of staying and showing you the beauty you carry inside. I can and will be your partner, Percy. Someone you can trust."

Jesus, was that what she was worried about? He cupped her face in his hands. "I do trust you, Danny. And you are my partner. I'm an absolute ass for making you question that for a second."

She smiled. "Glad that's settled." She placed a kiss on his lips, leaving the lingering taste of honey scones behind. "But, Percy, my forgiveness isn't selfless, either."

He leaned forward, eager for another taste. "Meaning?"

Her nails on his cheek dug in. "Think to handle me again, and I will lock you in a closet with Lord Pickles."

God, he loved her. Fierce, flawed, perfect her.

He chuckled and brought her fingers to his mouth. "Clawed to death by a feline? My ghost would never live down the shame."

"Then you agree?"

"For the peace of my soul? I believe I must." For her, for what she'd just offered him—a future—he'd shred his nails dragging himself out of the deepest pits of hell.