Page 24 of A Dark Duchess (The Dark Dukes #3)

N ot only had Denise agreed to her ridiculous role as instigator, she’d roped Don into playing second fiddle. Whomever Percy unleashed the Deime siblings on, they didn’t stand a chance at composure with those two needling like it was a personal mission from the Home Office.

Which, in fact, it was.

When Percy had informed her of his visit to the Home Secretary after their instruction in the broom cupboard, she’d been angry, knowing the man responsible for manipulating Percy since childhood currently held the title. But if the man offered to look the other way as three of the most prestigious aristocratic families played war, she’d hold her tongue, especially if pardons would be in order.

There’d been no time last night for one last embrace or talk. Danny and her sister received their missions via Charlotte and each of them had spent the remainder of the hours in seclusion to memorize their instructions and prepare for the next day.

And there’d been no sign of Percy all day. Not at breakfast when the three women—and Don—had joined the Duke of Lux and his wife staying at Fellow Hall. Not after lunch as they sat on the veranda overlooking the parks visible on the northwestern side of the estate. And not as the afternoon sun sunk low when the group of individuals dispersed to their designated posts without a word. Small talk had been far from anyone’s mind.

Percy’s instructions to the whole group had arrived just after tea: At half past four, move to your positions . Keep focused and alert at all times.

Danny checked and rechecked her rifle in the old bell tower, the clicking sound of the gun’s reload like a shot in the prolonged silence of the day.

Danny knew the gun was for her protection. Percy never expected her to pull the trigger on another person.

She was the lookout, and her instructions were clear. Danny picked up Percy’s note to her and read the contents again, loving the tight but beautiful lines he used to write it, so different from what anyone would expect.

Raise the flag if you spot the enemy. Green from the west, red for the south, blue for the north, yellow for the east.

Watch for movement at the treeline. The enemy will wear dark clothes to blend into the vegetation. Pay attention to the wildlife.

Be safe.

Upon making her way up the stairs and into the tower, the flags, the rifle, and ammunition had been skillfully placed at each corresponding gap in the wall as if left by a corporeal ghost.

Percy had thought of everything.

Danny couldn’t stop her gaze from straying to the maze, knowing instinctively Percy would be there.

Those last two words in his note ripped at her.

“Be safe.”

He’d be safe. He had to be. His boasting of skill and experience hadn’t been falsehoods.

But every minute watching the treeline was a minute for doubt to creep its way in.

What if this Nic was just as skilled? What if the enemy came on two fronts? What if the Merrys didn’t see her signal? What if they’d overlooked something crucial?

A sharp breeze whistled through the openings in the walls.

Flash.

Danny squinted at the woods.

Flash.

Stomach twisting, Danny let out a strangled cry as the setting sun flashed over metal in the woods to the west.

Snatching the red flag, Danny raced to the southern wall break, seeing the flash again from a different angle. She stopped.

The flash came again.

Danny hesitated. No trained gunmen would shift his weapon to catch the light.

Minding her gut, Danny used precious seconds to press her gun’s scope tight to her eye and traced the outline of something big and weighted swaying in the fading sweep of wind.

A weapon much worse than a group of armed men.

Danny’s heart stopped. “My God.”

She scrambled down from the tower, her toes skidding on the stairs and her shins screaming for a reprieve that wouldn’t come. Not now.

Not when her husband had forgotten to give her a signal for this.

Not when they had overlooked something crucial.

Not before she got to Percy and told him she’d located Nic Brandt’s bomb.

*

Avoiding Danny all day had done nothing to ease the dread in Percy’s stomach.

He’d been so busy running around, finalizing plans, and laying the final trap, there hadn’t been time. But now, sitting in the maze’s courtyard, standing under the very fountain that had reunited him and Danny after all those years apart, he’d been an idiot not to look on her face one last time, touch her skin, breathe in her scent, tell her how much he bloody loved her!

Nic better appreciate how quickly he planned to slit open his throat. For how much grief he’d put Danny through, Percy felt the uncommon desire to exact punishment at a glacial pace.

The sound of racing steps had Percy’s mind switching off and his body notching his first knife into place behind his head for a throw that would take his enemy in the ear. A move he’d made countless times and with fatal results.

He slowed his breathing and cleared his mind, counting, listening until the person was just beyond the opening in the wall.

Step . . . step, step.

Now!

The person rushed into the courtyard, and Percy’s knife clattered to the flagstones along with his stomach.

“Danny?” God damn it! “I could have killed you!”

At his outburst, she beelined for him, her eyes wild and her hair a mess. “Percy, thank God, I found you in time.” She stopped and looked around, her attention waning in apparent confusion. “Where are the Merrys?”

Percy shrugged noncommittally. “Around.”

Her gaze narrowed. “Why did no one stop me? I could’ve been anyone running through the maze.”

Percy sidestepped. “They’re well trained and know when to come out in the open.”

Unlike a certain duchess who was a damned beacon in that riding habit. Good God, what color was she wearing? Easy-to-spot, easier-to-kill blue?

Anger returning, he set his jaw and growled. “You were supposed to wait in the bell tower and out of sight . I made those flags so you wouldn’t have to come out in the open.”

“ You should’ve waited for backup.”

“There wasn’t time!”

“ Make the time.”

“Go back—”

“Be quiet and listen ,” she said.

Danny shook her head, muttering something about men being pigheaded, and Percy’s anger leached out at the picture she made.

She was gorgeous with her tight trousers that showed off her generous backside and her hair plaited down her back in one long, practical, but feminine braid. And while the ridiculous light-blue color of her outfit was im -practical for remaining unseen, the tones of sky and sea did set off the golden flecks in her dark eyes.

Done muttering, Danny pointed to the south side of the property. “I found something. It’s near the treeline, half-hidden in a bundle of birch trees.”

Percy whirled in the direction of her finger and took to the maze wall, finding prickly hand holds in the heath that bit through his thick gloves.

Peering over the top, he surveyed the trees to the south, looking once, twice, making out lines of white trunks in the fading light that didn’t look quite right on his third pass. He squinted and saw the faint outline of a pulley system and a heavy bag.

She’d found the bomb.

“Shit and fire,” he whispered. The bastard had somehow circumvented all his traps.

No one without a hawk’s gaze would be able to see it unless they knew it was there. No one except his exceptional wife.

Heart thudding the inside of his chest, Percy dropped back to the flagstones and planted a kiss on Danny’s lips. “You’re a marvel, wife.”

Give the woman simple instructions to locate the enemy and she found the ultimate weapon. He feared what would happen if she needed her rifle.

If Danny could stomach the bloodshed, she could pick off the first of the mercenaries entering the clearing around the mansion. Or cover him while he made his way to the site.

But as soon as an enemy got too close, the rifle would be useless.

“Here, take this.” He handed her a knife from inside his coat, one of two that had been with him since his first mission for the Home Office, a set that had never failed him. He still mourned the loss of the mate, lost forever in the thorny vines of Lady Leishire’s courtyard garden. “I assume you know how to use it?” He made light.

Danny smirked. “I do.” She pushed away the offered handle and extracted a different knife from the waistband of her trousers. “But I prefer this one.”

Percy blinked down at the familiar ivory handle, the silver design twinging through the white like streaks of lightning. He hadn’t lost it that night at the Leishires’ ball at all. The swelling of emotion wasn’t just for seeing the set reunited. “You kept it?”

Her mouth quirked in a teasing smile. “Once I knew how dangerous it was to confront villains in the dark, how could I not?”

Percy saw through her lie, saw it and felt his heart swell to bursting. “You kept it as a reminder of me.”

“Yes,” she said, something deep and warm and too much resembling affection in her eyes. “I kept it as a promise to myself that I would see you again.”

The pain in his chest tipped over the edge and into a place Percy couldn’t describe. How this perfect woman—lovely, brave, and loyal—had known their fates from the start was of no consequence. What mattered now was that he would make that same promise to himself now.

Grasping the blade of her knife, Percy let the edge slice into his palm and vowed with every beat of his heart, every drop of blood in his veins—hell, every drop dyeing the stones at their feet. “I will see you again, Daniella Cole.”

She paled at the blood, but her reply was steady. “I’ll be waiting.”

Percy stepped back, her strength and resolve rejuvenating his own, and wrapped his hand with the edge of his coat. “Go now, Danny.”

She went without a word, turning into the maze with confident steps.

Percy knew a moment of true pride watching her walk away, not once looking back.

That was the woman he’d married, the woman he’d asked to be his partner.

Fuck, who was he kidding? He was lucky enough that she’d chosen him, trusted him. He hadn’t pursued her. She’d deigned to accept what meager offerings he’d foolishly taken ages to give. She’d found him much like she’d found that knife and waited, not knowing if he’d come back or that he’d come up to snuff. Thank God she’d had patience. Thank God she’d seen worthiness in him when he couldn’t see it in himself.

Whatever sins he carried, the past he’d survived, he would do what he must to be a better man, starting with keeping his promise. Because Danny deserved his everything and a lifetime was a perfect start.

He hadn’t meant to survive this reckoning, not really. Deep down, he’d resigned himself that this would be the end of him, the end of all the ugly he’d wrought on the world.

But there was more growing inside him than death and destruction. It had been growing now for some time. A seed of hope had been planted in the bowels of his darkness by a young, defiant lady who didn’t let her fears define her.

If it were possible, Percy’s love grew, until that seedling inside burst through the cracks in his armor and overtook everything else.

He felt reborn, alive, like the darkness once dominating his entire life flinched away in decimated defeat.

All because of her.

Settling his mind, Percy wove his way through the maze and out onto the clearing. Heading for the southern forest, Percy shoved away his former training. An agent didn’t cling to attachments or let emotions hamper his mission. But that wasn’t him anymore.

Percy let his emotions rise to the surface, filling him to the brim and then some: love, fear, happiness, hope. What he’d once taken as a liability became an infinite source of strength. Though the time for rash decisions and heavy promises was over.

Now the delicate work began.

*

Percy’s promise weighed on Danny’s chest like an elephant on an ant hill.

Keep walking , she told herself. Don’t stop . If she did, that pressure would crush her into dust.

That glimmer in his eye, Danny wouldn’t delude herself into believing Percy had finally realized his worth. A man berated all his life, his proposed inadequacies thrust in his face by people without compassion, wouldn’t magically come to his senses. But he had seemed grounded, as if understanding the true devastation his death would reap with risky maneuvers.

He’d take his time now, assess and reassess before jumping headfirst into something foolish.

A good thing too because Danny had just told the greatest lie of her life.

She made for the woods on the opposite side of the clearing from the bomb, having made a secondary discovery during her early perfunctory survey of the area.

Sensing her intent, the person hiding in the towering oaks uncurled from their crouched position and waved from the upper branches, unrecognizable except for a familiar dark hood.

Danny gritted her teeth, not allowing her fear to take control.

Percy had shouldered most of the risk and all the planning, leaving himself a too-easy target. He may have been skilled, but even Danny saw half a dozen ways he’d be caught in the web of his own making, even with his newfound caution.

Danny trudged ahead, her gaze fixed on the trees where the Merry Men’s gang leader had spotted her progress and jumped down from the branches to intercept her.

Heart galloping, Danny didn’t retreat. There was no time for hesitation. She was not some obedient wife or damsel in need of protection. She was a woman with a mind and a hundred-yard center shot, and a duke who’d offered her a partnership in life. And right now, her partner was letting his fear for her safety leave a blind spot.

Danny kept walking. Because she was that strong woman, because she had her own skills, and because she was sick and tired of playing it safe while everyone else took turns playing a not-so-innocent game of assassin roulette.

Danny didn’t stop at the respectable distance when she should have. Didn’t bow to her nerves and let her confidence slip. Her gaze fixed on the face hidden in shadows, she walked up to stand toe to toe with the leader of the most ruthless gang in Dockside.

And struck a deal to set her own haphazard plan in motion. She prayed her instincts weren’t wrong.