Page 90 of Duke of Destruction
And then, it was only one heartbeat longer before Percy realized what was happening.
“Release her at once,” he said in a voice Catherine had never heard him use before.
They all moved at once. Catherine yanked at her arm, the earl spun toward this new threat, and Percy raced forward, his arm cocked back to punch.
Catherine’s balance was still not her own when Crompton released her. He was too drunk to raise a hand in self-defense before Percy’s fist careened into his jaw, and even as she stumbled, Catherine saw the blow land.
But she could not save herself. She slipped on the gravel and fell back, and all might have been well, if not for the arm of the stone bench, which came up to collide with the back of her head, which sported not even a bonnet to protect her from the strike.
So, there was just a sharp pain, bright like a flash of lightning.
And then there was nothing at all.
CHAPTER 22
“Go home, Seaton.”
The Duke of Godwin’s voice was not without sympathy, but Percy found he couldn’t tear his gaze from the gentle rise and fall of Catherine’s chest—the only indication that there was still life in her unmoving form—long enough to give an answer.
“No,” he said.
Rise. Fall.
She was breathing. She was breathing. She was alive.
The moments after she’d fallen had been the most frightening time of Percy’s life. It had been the time after he’d seen his brother go under the water, the moments in which he’d learned what it meant to be afraid—except it was worse, so much worse, because this wasCatherine.
He hadn’t seen her go down—he had hit the Earl of Crompton, then hit him again when the man tried to regain his feet, absolutely trembling with fury that the bastard had dared to set his hands on any lady, let alone Catherine.
Catherine, who had almost told him that she—that she cared.
“Catherine, are you?—”
The words had died on his lips when he’d seen her, looking so small and pale on the ground. Her eyes were closed, and there was a faint smear of blood on the arm of the stone bench.
Percy’s heart had stopped right in his chest.
“No.”
He had dropped, scrambling the last few feet to her on his hands and knees, not giving a single care for anything like dignity as he crossed her.
“Catherine,” he said, his voice catching in something near to a sob. “Darling, no, no.”
He had pulled her head into his lap, nearly shattering with relief when he saw that she was breathing, then almost breaking in agony when his hands met the sticky, red blood that was leaking into her hair, matting and tangling it before leaking onto his trousers. He’d ripped off his jacket and pressed the wad of fabric against the place on her head that seemed to be the most injured.
“Catherine, love, please wake up,” he had pleaded.
“Your Grace?”
It was Lady Ariadne at the back door, her face ashen as she took in the scene before them. She’d no doubt been summoned by Catherine’s scream, he realized in the distant part of him that was still able to conjure rational thought.
“It was Crompton,” Percy gritted out, glancing toward where the earl was groaning on the ground in a half-conscious sort of way. If Percy hadn’t needed to tend to Catherine, he would likely have gone over and kept pummeling the man until he never got up again. “And Catherine—please. Get a physician. Hurry.”
Lady Ariadne had gone even paler at that, so pale that Percy feared, for a moment, that she too would faint, but then she squared her shoulders and nodded.
And, for the first time in his life, Percy was grateful for the stubbornness that was synonymous with the Lightholder name.
After that, quite a lot of things started to happen very quickly.
