Chapter Thirteen
Danny pressed theheels 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 hadseenhow 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.Iam 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?”
