Her Reformed Rake (Wicked Husbands #3)(92)

Surely they hadn’t come for Daisy. Carlisle had told him to see to her himself. He thought he had time, for fuck’s sake. Time to align all the information into a proper picture. Time to go to Carlisle with undeniable proof of Daisy’s innocence so that the Home Office could exonerate her once and for all.

“What the hell is this, Griffin?” he rasped, every last bit of the exultation seeping from his body. He could not lose her, would not lose her now.

“Where is Her Grace?” Griffin asked in lieu of answering. His forbidding expression was one of a man going into battle.

“She is abed in her chamber.” He strode forward. “Goddamn it, Griffin. Why are you here?”

“She’s in danger, Bast. One of our double operatives contacted me. We haven’t a moment to waste.” His friend’s tone was calm, but his eyes told a different story.

If a man as hardened as Griffin was worried, the danger was real. Everything inside him turned to ice. Daisy was in danger. Their babe was in danger. Christ. His hands were shaking. But there was no time to linger. They needed to act, to get to Daisy, protect her.

“We’ll walk upstairs while you tell me what the hell is going on,” he demanded of his friend and brother in arms.

Shoulder to shoulder, they strode from the study, the four grim-faced men following in their wake. “Her lady’s maid is a Fenian,” Griffin said in low tones. “She is connected to Vanreid.”

Damn it. Sebastian scarcely recalled the lady’s maid, who had turned up at his household after Daisy’s departure from her father’s home. “You’re certain?”

Griffin nodded as they ascended the staircase, taking the steps two at a time. “She was the anonymous source feeding false information about Daisy to the Home Office.”

An anonymous source had been supplying information about Daisy. Damning and incorrect information. Why hadn’t that occurred to him? Of course. It all made perfect, bloody sense. And he had allowed the woman to enter his household, to remain close to Daisy. Close enough to strike.

A muffled scream sounded just then, followed by the report of a pistol. The air rushed from him. The scream had been Daisy’s.

No. No. No.

Sebastian broke into a run.

His heart pumping faster than it ever had, he took the stairs three at a time, racing down the hall. Dimly, he was aware of the pounding feet of Griffin and his men following in his wake. But he didn’t care. The earth could have opened upon itself and swallowed everyone but Daisy and himself, and he wouldn’t have given a goddamn.

Griffin appeared at his side, running to keep pace. “Damn it, Bast, let me go in first. I’m armed.”

Fuck. That was how much he loved that woman. For her, he would have run headlong into enemy fire without a weapon and without a second thought. For Daisy’s sake, it would be far better to allow an armed man into the chamber first. No one had a deadlier aim than Griffin.

He pointed to Daisy’s chamber door as they ran. “That one.”

Griffin held up a hand as they approached the door, withdrawing his pistol. With a swift kick of his booted foot, the door splintered open. He strode forward, gun drawn and aimed, prepared to do battle.

Sebastian wasn’t far behind as Griffin stopped in his tracks. “Your Grace?”

Daisy stood, looking like nothing so much as an avenging goddess of war, his bloodied knife in one hand and a pistol in the other. Her unbound hair cascaded wildly down her back, and she was clad in nothing more than a dressing gown that gaped badly at the top and bottom. But it wasn’t the robe that drew his attention. Rather, it was the damaged right sleeve and flesh beneath, torn open by the undeniable trajectory of a bullet. Daisy’s hand that clutched the pistol was drenched in dark, crimson blood that dripped onto the floor, soaking into the carpets.

Jesus Christ.

He raced forward, registering the slumped figure of another woman on the floor, also in a pool of blood. “Daisy,” he cried. “You’ve been shot.”

“She was trying to force me to go with her,” Daisy said in an oddly toneless voice. Her skin was pale, far too pale. The perfect white of fresh cream. She was going to swoon, he realized. The blood loss and shock combined would be enough to lay low even the most seasoned soldier. “Oh, God. My father is waiting in a carriage below. Sebastian, you must arrest him.”

His heart wrenched, and he was prouder than he’d ever been. His brave warrior. She hadn’t needed rescuing. She had bloody well rescued herself. Two of her majesty’s fiercest spies and a handful of Home Office brawn had not been able to accomplish what one tiny, fierce American duchess had.

Griffin kept his gun trained on the woman moaning on the floor. “Arrest her,” he ordered one of his men.

Sebastian didn’t waste a moment. He went to Daisy, gathered her in his arms, hauled her to him as tightly as he could. “Buttercup.” He pressed his face into her hair, inhaling deeply of her luscious, sweet scent. She was alive, and gratitude hit him with such ferocity that he trembled beneath its weight. If he had lost her… Christ, he couldn’t even bear to think it.

But she needed a doctor. The wound on her arm bled heavily. Her blood was warm and sticky, oozing onto him. “We need a doctor,” he called out tightly. “Quickly!”

“My father.” Daisy slumped in his arms. Her head lolled back, her eyes taking on the glazed, pinned look of one who had just witnessed a great trauma. He’d seen that look enough times to know it. “See that he’s arrested, Sebastian. Stop him from hurting anyone else. Please.”