She’d forgiven him just like that? Percy’s heart squeezed. She was too good for him, always seeing the goodin 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. Shewouldbe 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, asif 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 hispropertywould 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. Acceptedherbecause 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 justiceshedeserved. 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.”
