Chapter Twenty-Five

P ercy knew nothing but the swiftness of his legs and the surety he was heading straight for a bomb constructed with more than one safeguard and a probable secondary ignition.

Risking a straight path to the bomb, Percy ran with confidence, knowing Danny would be watching his six and twelve and all his sides... which was why he was surprised when a man in a silk vest and familiar greying hair snuck up behind him without gaining a new hole to breathe out of.

He wheeled around, hand going for his knife.

Percy dropped his hand and cursed. "Ridley?"

What the hell was the old man doing here? Had something fallen apart on his end?

"Did the pardons not come through?" he asked.

"Pardons are safe." Ridley patted his breast pocket. "No need to worry." His usual grin looked seething. "The names of the Duke of Lux and the Duke of Camine were interesting additions. It's unlike you to involve other people."

"Is that why you're here?" Percy huffed. He didn't have time to deal with the other man's vanity right now. He could see the bomb in the trees from here, the weighted bag more than half-empty with the slit in the bottom for the sand to fall through.

Percy mumbled something compliant and completely hogwash to the other man about trust and remembering the chain of command.

His attention flicked back to the trees.

Why weren't there guards posted? Did Nic not trust anyone too close for fear of setting the thing off? Or were reinforcements waiting out of sight, given orders to ambush the first person who stumbled upon the device?

"I have a pressing matter, Ridley. If you'll excuse me?" Percy didn't wait for an answer. He aimed for a spot farther back to come at the bomb from an angle through the trees, hoping to displace any unsuspecting sentinels with a good blade to the spine before they became a problem.

Guess he'd have to do a solid pass through the entire surrounding area first before he'd get his chance at defusing anything. A delay he wouldn't have to make if those insipid Merry fuckers had been doing their jobs.

It would take time—time they lost with every moment—but he'd walk the whole estate if that was what it took to do this right.

He made it all of ten steps.

Percy stopped cold at the sound of a hammer cocking.

His mind raced, his muscles went rigid at the immediate danger, but it was the lump of muscle in his chest that had him frozen in place with the first realization of betrayal.

He glanced back at Ridley and the gun the other man had pulled from somewhere on his person.

For all his boasts of skill, Percy hadn't suspected once. The ploy of official orders, the offer to assist in hopes of learning the shortfalls, this ridiculous production. "It was you ?"

Ridley smiled. "Surprise, old friend."

Percy ran a hand through his hair, cursing, reeling, at a loss of composure. He'd known Ridley for half his life. "Are there even mercenaries, or was that all twaddle too?"

"Oh, my men are very real and well paid," Ridley said. "And with no connection to HO, there's no chance of help coming."

Jesus, he'd told Ridley everything about the Merry Men and his friendship with Gregori. Percy could only pray now his missive to Ridley's office detailing the discovery of explosives and change of trap from the docks to Fellow Hall had come after the rat bastard had set out to blindside him.

If Ridley was the one pulling Nic's strings, the entire play had changed. Ridley would never set off a bomb in London where the lack of forewarning would cast the Home Office in a poor light, especially over the man who ran it. Unless the real target was too unpredictable to track down.

Until a dukedom had rooted him in place.

Percy was a threat, had been since leaving the Home Office with all its secrets. But he'd never given any reason for a man like Ridley to question the looseness of Percy's tongue.

Something else was driving Ridley to take him out now. Percy's newfound status and pull in society? Didn't matter the reason. Because if the old goat was involved, there was a chance everyone could still walk away without bloodshed. Percy would take negotiating with a grasping bureaucrat over a homicidal maniac.

If he played his cards right, gave Ridley the inkling Percy knew more than he did, he could bluff a way out of this mess. He had to. The bag was emptying.

"Whatever you're scheming," Ridley said, "don't. You have no play here. This face-to-face was but a courtesy. I could have shot you in the back and been done with this headache at any time."

Percy shifted his weight for a more solid footing, waiting for any tears in Ridley's defense. "Gone soft for me after all these years, Ridley? I'm touched."

Focus , he told himself. Play the cards. "If you wanted an intimate kill, why the bomb, old friend?"

Ridley's brows rose, giving Percy hope. "Know about that, do you? You never cease to amaze." The gun twitched in his grip with the slightest hand tremble. "What else do you know, old friend ?"

Was that fear in his voice? Percy latched on to his opponent's weakness and went all in.

"I know you've been working the system for a long time now."

Ridley flinched.

Percy was on the right track.

"I know you've opened doors for personal gain," he continued.

If the man got any paler, he'd be transparent.

Now the real gamble. Which card to push? Money? Power?

Both.

"I did some digging after our little reunion the other day, purely for selfish reasons, you understand?" Percy shrugged with as much swagger as he could muster. "Didn't want you changing your mind about those official orders once I held up my end." Percy shook his head, careful to watch the other man's smallest ticks. "What a naughty boy you've been, Ridley. Skimming funds, misuse of resources..." He put every ounce of confidence into his final draw. "I'm sure the prime minister will enjoy the report I sent this morning about your activities. Should arrive, oh"—he checked his timepiece—"before the good ol' boy wakes up for his usual midnight snack, I'd think."

For a moment, Percy thought he had him. Ridley certainly looked horrified, but that wide-eyed expression slowly twisted into one of confusion.

And then it cleared entirely.

Ridley's sight on the gun firmed, and the smile he offered was like a slash of a sharp blade across his face. "Nice try, Percy. Marks for creativity and superb guesswork. I have, indeed, been stealing money and using agents for my betterment for years." His eyes glinted with malice and cunning. "But if you discovered all my sins, you'd have uncovered your own active role in my machinations."

Percy recoiled. "I've never stolen from the department."

"That's not what the reports say."

Fucking hell! "You planted false evidence to incriminate me?" Percy gritted his teeth. The bastard didn't get to win like this. "Doesn't matter. I'll get free of this somehow and I will confess everything to the prime minister, reveal what you've done. Incarceration and torture have never frightened me."

Ridley slapped his leg with his free hand, a crude version of applause. "An unforgiving speech, old friend. Top marks again. I would have believed you too. The man cruel and cold enough to stab his closest friend in the back." Ridley's chuckle sounded like a devil's laugh. "But that was before you'd gone soft."

There was nothing but cold steel in Percy's veins now. Given the chance, he felt confident he could shred the worthless git with his bare hands. "Try me, old man. I'll show you my resolve and guard are as strong as ever."

But Ridley had one last trick to play. "Your guard. But what about hers ?"

Ridley's smile had icy dread sinking low in Percy's belly, especially when he followed Ridley's gaze to a figure emerging from the treeline, a figure in a familiar blue riding coat.

Danny.

And the man following her out of the woods wasn't any of the Merrys, not with the gun he held to the back of her head.

"No." Forget the prime minister, forget the maggot posing as his friend and mentor. This couldn't be happening. Danny was back up in the tower, safe.

His feet moved forward of their own accord, needing to see for himself that his eyes were wrong.

Ridley's tsk froze him in place.

Smug smile pulling his stubbled facial whiskers to one side, Ridley shook his head. "Should have disarmed me when you had the chance."

"Should have taken your knife and stabbed you through the eye in your office," Percy said, though his thoughts were far from the past, far from his present. What mattered was Danny's future. A future that was seconds from being blown away by the orders of a man he'd considered his friend.

For what purpose? There wasn't a purpose good enough for what Ridley meant to take from him.

Desperation seeped into his words just as they strangled any attempt at a plan. "Why, damn you? You wanted a legacy." Percy pointed to the south side of Grandfellow, where his quick calculations indicated they had less than twenty minutes before they'd all be blown to hell, Ridley along with them. "How will killing us all leave you with more than a roasted corpse and a short obituary?"

"Simple." With his one hand holding the gun steady, Ridley's other lifted to draw the wig from his head to reveal a patchwork of alopecia and a telltale line of powdered makeup where concealed skin at his forehead met a harsh contrast of yellowed scalp.

Percy's attention went to the older man's eyes—the discoloration he'd thought from tiredness—where now evidence of an aggravated state of jaundice was present.

"I'm dying." Ridley's laugh was hoarse and disbelieving. "After all the work, all the politics and backstabbing to finally be in my position. Liver failure, the physicians say."

That accounted for the abrupt reappearance of Nic. His partner was out of time.

"You couldn't wait any longer to ‘tie up loose ends,'" Percy said. But the old blackguard had meant he couldn't afford any skeletons coming to light. Which meant... "You were covering up our involvement in the French ambassador's assassination." Fucking hell, his treachery went back that far. "We weren't sanctioned to be there at all."

"One quick slit of a throat, an anonymous finger pointing at the figures in office, and I had all the political backing I needed to propel myself up to Home Secretary. All thanks to you." Ridley smiled. "The only ones connected to my treachery that day in France were you and Nic.

"I was certain when you escaped and didn't come back, you'd figured it all out." He sneered. "Imagine my distaste when it was that cur Nic who showed up at my door, demanding to know who'd set him up. A damned nuisance spinning everything and getting him back on a leash, so focused on his revenge and distractions in the slums. The boy never could say ‘no' to a riddle and a fine piece of skirt. Went mad somewhere along the way. Poor bastard."

Percy's insides coiled, the truth too twisted to imagine. "You told him I was the one behind his death warrant. That I had lied about the mission." He clutched his roiling stomach, feeling he might truly be sick. "Just like you told me he was killing people out of turn."

"And you believed every word without question." Ridley's glee was acid in Percy's chest. "When Nic was following my orders the entire time."

Orders based on lies.

He and Nic hadn't been enemies. They'd been pawns to advance a grasping man's career.

"You'll be happy to know I ended his suffering quickly," Ridley said.

Percy didn't see the blow of his words coming and was unprepared for the ramifications and violence on his person. Something akin to regret slammed into his chest, followed by a knockout kick of betrayal to the stomach. Air refused to fill his lungs, so all that came out was a whisper. "You killed him?"

Ridley shrugged. "The man was more than half-dead already when he dragged himself into my office, wounds festering and dripping with disease from the Thames. Didn't even fight back when I drew the knife across his throat."

A night bird called faintly across the field, happy and clear, but Percy's distracted mind couldn't focus.

Grief echoed through him like a distant rumble of thunder.

Nic was dead. Had been for more than three years.

Which meant the stealing of cargo from the harbor, Percy's re-conscription to the army, the thugs in the alley—all of it had been Ridley's doing.

The rumble of grief faded, leaving behind a charged silence. A loss, but, with it, came relief.

Truth was, Percy had mourned his lost friendship a long time ago. Nic had suffered as a child, had suffered all his miserable life: abandoned by desperate parents, raised on the streets, shaped by the coldness of humanity long into adulthood. His bloody end was inevitable for all the charlatans like them. The same fate Percy would have suffered if he hadn't found his odd but loyal family.

A family currently doing their part to take this sadistic bastard down behind the scenes. The cooling paperwork trail from the Birmingham East Office fire he'd put Hamish and Renard on would no doubt have already led them to the Home Office. If they were creative and patient, a few inquiries and they'd find the man on top.

Trust didn't come naturally to Percy, not for a man seasoned in the lies and betrayal of those he'd once seen as comrades. He had living, festering proof of the evils of human nature not five feet away. But he'd force his trust to take root now. He'd leave the mercenaries to the Merrys—wherever the fuck they were—and Ridley's exposure to obnoxious dukes.

The threat in front of him took priority.

As if sensing his resurgence in resilience, Ridley invited Percy with a raised hand to watch the two figures make their way across the park, still too far to discern faces.

Percy's inner balance shattered.

He scrambled for where he'd miscalculated. It had to have been an illusion. Danny would never have been caught. Not his clever girl.

But there was no mistaking that blue color.

That damn bird called again, having the audacity to chirp like nothing was out of place.

Everything was out of place with Danny in harm's way.

Percy could only imagine her state. How the hired man pointing a weapon at her, promising death, would raise all sorts of dark memories of her childhood abduction to the surface. Memories of a past Ridley would know about working closely with the House of Lords. Torture within torture.

Percy's hands trembled at his sides, his rage tempered by growing hopelessness. The heartless bastard would kill Danny in front of him, all because he couldn't accept his mortality.

That was his plan, anyway.

A plan Percy would see bleeding out at his feet, along with the man who'd dared threaten his wife.

Percy took his faithful knife from his coat, the familiar weight and knowledge its mate was close grounding him. Tightening his grip, the blade thrummed in his hand as if it knew too.

He'd trust in Danny to keep her head. She hadn't wavered in the alley with the Greens, and she wouldn't now, no matter how many guns were pointed at her. Though that didn't stop him from sending up a silent prayer to the Woman Upstairs. Something eloquent and pious:

Keep Danny from harm. Give the maggot holding her hostage a bout of cramping or diarrhea or sudden bleeding from the eyes and rectum so she may escape.

...and if your magnanimousness has time, make the two-faced, mangle faced rat hoarder facing me drop dead.

Ah . . . ahem.

Percy waited a second, two. When Ridley didn't clutch his chest and turn into a lifeless bag of flesh, Percy shrugged. That was what he got for never attending church.

Ridley chuckled at Percy's defense and lifted his gun. "A bullet is still faster than a knife, Percy, my boy. Certainly, I taught you that?"

"You taught me many things, old man, except how to survive." Percy enjoyed how Ridley stiffened. The man may have twenty years more experience and a lifetime of insanity over him, but Percy had her . The gap between them could swallow oceans.

"If the French couldn't kill me with an army, you can't possibly believe you'll have better luck?" he said.

"You did always exceed expectations," Ridley acknowledged. "But you've never bested me, not once."

Percy flipped the knife, catching the tip between his thumb and pointer. "Guess it's time to change that."

He'd see this done. He had a promise to keep and a wife waiting.

That was all the motivation he needed to charge.

Getting on with age or his disease taking its toll, Ridley didn't pull the trigger fast enough. Pushing the muzzle down, the gun fell from his grip without going off.

They lunged at the same time to recover the weapon, but Percy rolled at the exact right moment, lifting the gun and standing in one fluid motion.

Catching Ridley on his knees, Percy trained the gun in the center of the man's forehead and tasted his first sip of victory. "It's over, Ridley. You're done."

But Ridley had one last hand to play. "We both are."

Too late, Percy pulled the trigger. But Ridley had already given his man the signal.

A second gunshot rent the air.

Percy whirled, heart shattering. "DANNY!"

She crumpled to the grass on her stomach, her arms flung out as if to break her fall.

Percy ceased existing. For a suspended moment, there was nothing but silence and blue against a bed of green.

The ringing in his ears cut off and the sound of the breeze through the trees was deafeningly loud.

He glanced around to find his bearings. The details of the night's mission were coming back piece by piece.

Ridley's man had already reached the treeline, fleeing after witnessing his benefactor shot between the eyes.

Percy didn't give chase, didn't signal the Merrys to throw the net. He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. He may have returned to the world around him physically, but his mind remained far, far away.

Danny lay so still.

Why was she so still? His fearless woman wouldn't fall so easily. Not by anything short of her favored goddess's smiting.

And Athena would never fell such a devout woman of justice.

"Get up," he whispered.

He laughed at how eerie his voice sounded. Then laughed more at Danny lying in the grass.

How ridiculous this was. To make such a spectacle at the end.

They'd won. Ridley was gone. Nic was gone. Their life would be peaceful.

How could she just lie there when they could finally begin the rest of forever together?

"Danny—" His step forward met with a complete lack of strength. His kneecaps hit the dirt, an impact that should've hurt, but the only thing Percy felt was numb.

Not just numb—hollowed.

And the truth of the lifeless figure before him filled the space like nails to the eye.

"No." To any goddess listening, he added, "God damn you, NO!"

He stared down at his hands and the gun clutched tightly in his right one. He'd made a promise to come back to her. It had been the most important promise he'd ever made. She'd known that.

But he couldn't fulfill that promise, not if she was...

His Danny, his heart, his soul, the very meaning to his treacherous life, was dead.

With her gone, there was nothing left for him.

As if sensing his utter defeat, Ridley's man reemerged from the treeline, his frame small, but his hood dark and forbidding. The man's face didn't matter. The approaching figure could be Satan's own malformed henchman with milky-white glazed eyes and blood-dripped claws for hands, and Percy wouldn't have fled.

Hell already held him, but not his soul.

That was lost with her, and with her gone, the Devil himself had no bargaining tool.

He watched the slow trek of the hooded figure, his broken mind seeking out any lingering threads of her . Her spiced smell still lingering in the air, her soft breathing, even his approaching executioner had a similar way of lengthening his strides when in a hurry.

Percy's mind fought for focus, narrowing in on the man's lean legs and subtle gait. The figure didn't walk just ‘similarly.' He walked exactly like Danny.

Percy found his feet, the pins and needles sensation a welcome pain as he propelled himself forward.

The hood fell, revealing the figure's face, and Percy let out a strangled cry.

He closed the distance and pulled her tightly to his chest, not caring if this was real.

"Danny." He didn't brush the tears from his cheeks, wouldn't break the contact long enough to do anything that would keep her from filling his arms. "Danny." He murmured her name again and again. A prayer or a chant, her name on his lips slowly brought his consciousness back to his mind and life back to his body.

He pressed his face into her hair. "You're alive."

Her fingers wound in his curls and held tightly. "We both are."

"But I saw you fall." I saw you die.

"Not me." She leaned back to give him a smug smile. "You saw my double."

"Double?" His eyes widened. He glanced back at the body lying on the ground and then back with understanding. "You pulled a ‘Frenchman's Switch'?"

Danny grinned. "More like an ‘Englishwoman's Switch.'" She planted her hands on her hips. "I gave you the signal. Twice."

The bird calls.

Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, she was a miracle.

"But who played the fake?" Camille was too tall, Charlotte's features were too light, and none of the women servants at Grandfellow were under the age of ancient. "Who's left?"

Percy turned to the slumped person in blue, the body now rising to its feet in a nightmare of seamless movements, as if the clothes on its back were too big and slid along a smaller figure. His mind less frenzied, he now saw the woman's hair was not the shade of almond and chocolate, nor her eyes the warm and honeyed gaze of his one and only love.

And when the woman finished brushing the grass and dirt from wrinkled trousers and looked up with a smug smile, Percy had no recollection of the dark-haired woman or such blue eyes that brightened with humor.

No recollection at all, until the woman spoke.

"After all we've been through, Your Grace, call me ‘Sydney.'"

Percy stared at the woman's face—fair skinned, rosy cheeked, decidedly feminine —sure his eyes were out of their sockets. "You're a woman?"

Syd— Sydney —Laundry smiled wolfishly. "Not as clever as you thought you were, ehh?" She nodded to Danny. "Not like your wife here."

He'd known Syd for years, and Percy had never suspected anything but a grumpy phallus under that hooded ensemble. He adopted Syd's favorite curse. "Fucking quims."

Syd smiled. "Exactly."

Somehow, Danny had uncovered the Merry leader's secret and gotten her to agree to play dress up and risk her life on a charlatan's con. Miracles of miracles, he rounded on his wife. "When did you find out?"

Danny ducked her head. "I had my suspicions in Charlotte's drawing room when Camille and Renard reacted to me mentioning Syd as a ‘he.'" She shrugged. "After that, it was following my hunch and asking Syd directly in the woods."

Syd winked. "Bold and effective. You'd make a fine Merry."

"She will not be involved in any gang activity." Percy growled, still reeling. For fuck's sake, what else had he overlooked over the years?

Syd rolled her eyes. "Not like there's much activity anymore." She scrunched her nose, looking reluctant to admit, "Guess we all have you to thank for the Greens falling, anyway. The Merry Men now control everything north of the Thames as far as Charing Cross."

They'd hit the Greens at the warehouse, then. Percy gritted his teeth to keep from cursing. "That's why you were late?" They'd risked the entire operation!

Syd showed no remorse. "Good thing, too. We stumbled upon the outer guards and took them out so that bastard couldn't box us in or call for backup." She eyed him like a roach under her shoe, but her expression turned to admiration as they settled again on Danny. "That's where your lady love found me too."

Percy's irritation ebbed. Secrecy, tardiness, and botched positions: The only reasons none of them were currently cooling in a coroner's office was because nothing had gone to plan. And he was an arse not to kiss the slimy wench's feet for her role in protecting Danny.

Extending his gratitude along with his hand, Percy said, "Thank you, Syd."

Eyeing his hand like a serpent ready to strike, Syd took it and said as rudely as ever, "You owe me, killer, and I still don't like you."

Percy laughed. "Noted. And the feeling is mutual."

Danny eyed them with a frown. "Strangest friendship I've ever seen."

"We're not friends," they said together.

"Ri-ight," Danny said. "You'd think a few kind words would set the world into chaos the way you two carry on."

Percy didn't deny the charge. Chaos wouldn't be the worst of it. The rest of his mind switched back on as his stomach bottomed out. "The bomb—"

"Someone called ‘Pops' went to disarm the bomb," Danny said. "The man appeared confident."

Percy relaxed and nodded. "Markus was a captain for the Dragoons. The man knows his way around all kinds of nasty things. Good thing too. I'm not sure I could muster the strength and brain power to dispose of a three-ton incendiary device."

He frowned, his mind working backwards. "But the ‘French—Englishwoman's Switch,'" he amended at both women's clearing throats, "is an illusion ploy. Why did you fire the gun?"

Danny and Syd shared a glance. "We'd only meant to reassure your captor that he held the upper hand until you made your move."

"Then how did the gun go off?"

"I was hit." Danny pulled out a rock from her pocket, small and rounded and with a drop of blood.

Percy's gaze cut to the scrape on Danny's wrist and his mind made the connection. "Oh." Fucking hell!

"Where do you think it came—" Danny's question cut off as her gaze flicked up to someone on the hill.

"Your Grace!" Everyone turned as Mr. Brinkley raced down to meet them, the old groundskeeper breathing heavily from the exertion, but his face bright with young adventure. He stopped and caught his breath before he addressed Danny. "Thank heavens you're all right, Your Grace. We were all in an uproar when that shot rang out."

"And that's my cue to leave," Syd said, doing just that with a quick farewell to Danny and an invitation to come visit when Her Grace got sick of her "pain in the ass, can't tell a ruse from a rooster" duke.

"I like her," Danny said when it was the three of them.

"What a surprise." Not minding Mr. Brinkley, Percy pulled her into his arms and pressed a kiss to her temple. After his scare, he may commission the very leash he'd admonished so she could clasp it around his neck and keep him at her side for always. "You like anything that's unlovable."

" You're not unlovable."

God, he hoped that was true. Since he'd be keeping his spleen, innards, and his reason for existence for the foreseeable future, his most pressing mission now was to make his lovely duchess fall madly in love with him.

Her loveliness looked about the grounds. Aside from the cooling body the Merrys dragged in the direction of a waiting coach, there was nothing amiss.

"How did you manage all this?" she asked, awe evident in her tone. "How did you know the mastermind would show in person?"

*

Percy sighed. "I knew whoever was in charge would never leave research of the grounds and staff to someone else. Every agent knows to pay attention to discrepancies between architectural plans and any additions before infiltrating enemy territory. Luckily for us, the very man who taught me such basics conducted himself in the same manner."

His fingers curled into white-knuckled fists, and Danny felt Percy's betrayal, imagining it was one more ache in a lengthy line of painful regrets.

Percy's fingers relaxed. "That traitorous bastard lost by his own teachings."

Thinking over his plan, Danny stared at him in disbelief, having heard or seen nothing as much as a mallet outside the kitchens. "You planted false prints of Fellow Hall?"

Percy chuckled. "Good God, no. That would take far too much time. I'd have had to find a decent draftsman and register the updates through the county committee."

"Then how did you make it look like Grandfellow was under improvements?"

Percy clapped Brinkley on the back. "We changed the names of all the parks, officially."

With all her previous research helping her brother turn a good portion of Bromley Estate into a protected nature reserve, Danny knew name changes went through the same office in the archives as new construction. Anyone taking note of the files coming through would see the name of the estate, but none of the details since the committee seat dealt with the landowners personally.

The plan was perfect in its simplicity.

Percy offered Brinkley his hand and pumped with vigor. "Those bastards were taken down by the greatest name-giving groundskeeper in England."

Brinkley's ears went red at the praise. "It was all brilliant, Your Grace."

Danny shook her head, heartily in agreement.

"Now that I know Her Grace is all right, I should get to the others to ease their concerns," Mr. Brinkley said.

Percy glanced towards the house and rubbed the back of his neck. "Start with the main house, would you?" He couldn't seem to meet either of their gazes. "Call off the duchess's family and send them home."

Mr. Brinkley frowned but obeyed with a farewell bow. "Yes, Your Grace."

When he'd gone, Danny laced her fingers with his, needing contact. "You were holding something back."

Percy ducked his head, his expression contrite. "Hard habits. How about I spend the rest of my life making up for it?"

"Then it's over?" Danny asked, hardly believing.

He wrapped her in his arms, pressing her close so she felt the steady beat of his heart.

"Yes, my love. It's over."

She sighed and relaxed against his chest. "Thank God for that. But don't think I'm done with you, sir. You have much to answer for."

Percy chuckled. "I'm ready to face any forms of torture you design. What would you have me do, my lady?"

"What you promised." Danny's fingers worked inside his coat and trailed down his stomach to the growing ridge in his trousers. "Take me to bed, husband," she commanded.

Percy's lips curled upwards. "Yes, my love."