Page 13 of An Inconvenient Duke

Snatching up his hat from the hall table, he hurried back upstairs to Elise’s room. He had a wedding to prepare for…and now the perfect excuse for staying close to Danielle.

Five

Dani read the note that had been delivered to her that morning and bit her lip.

“Bad news, miss?”

Forcing a smile, she glanced up at her maid’s reflection in the dressing table mirror as the woman pinned up her hair. Unfortunately, she also caught her own reflection. And cringed.

Oh, she looked a fright! Dark circles surrounding puffy red eyes, pale skin, bloodless lips…but she wasn’t surprised, given that she’d spent last night weeping into her pillow.

Her maid stilled as she placed a pin, frowning in concern. “Miss?”

Alice had been with her since Dani returned from school when she was eighteen and embarked on her first true season. But even though her maid was now one of her closest confidantes and one of the few people she trusted with her secrets, she wouldn’t place the burden of Elise’s death onto Alice’s shoulders.

“It’s nothing important,” she dismissed, folding the letter and tucking it away into the pocket of her pelisse. “Just a note from Lady Hartsham.”

Beatrice McTavish had been irksome of late, sending all kinds of notes. But from the excitable tone behind them, Dani assumed that Lord Hartsham had once more been attempting to control his wife’s activities and so had been making the woman nervous. Again.

“Is it about Nightingale?” Alice whispered.

Dani darted a paranoid glance at the door to make certain no one had come in and overheard the name of her secret charity. Especially Harriett. The viscountess knew absolutely nothing about what Dani had been up to in the past four years since her father accepted a diplomatic position in the Court of St James’s and her parents left for Italy. If her aunt ever found out—especially if she discovered that she was the reason for it all—she’d suffer apoplexy right where she stood.

Or more likely, knowing her aunt, she’d want to help. Which absolutely couldneverhappen.

No. Danielle had to keep Nightingale a secret. Too many lives were at risk. Including her own. She owed that loyalty to Elise’s memory and to all the women still in need.

Even now, a brewer’s wife in Ealing was waiting for her help. Thank goodness she’d already planned to meet with Jenkins and Kimball tonight to make arrangements. The former smugglers, who knew her only as Nightingale, would gladly accept the generous payment she’d offer in return for their services in escorting a desperate woman out of London.

“I need you to deliver a note.” Although they were alone, Dani lowered her voice. “To confirm tonight’s meetings.”

“Aye, miss.” Alice nodded, knowing how to contact the men through the innkeeper’s wife at the Golden Bell Tavern along the Strand by using false names and taking a circuitous route to return home. Neither the two men nor the innkeeper’s wife knew Dani’s true identity or those of the other women involved. That was exactly how she planned on keeping it.

Her shoulders sagged. The whole situation had become far too perilous. This wasn’t at all what Nightingale was supposed to have been, but it had grown out of control. Now it was a burden that weighed upon her, one made nearly unbearable by what Marcus had revealed last night.

A vanishing. When Marcus had said that, she knew he’d told her the truth, that Elise’s death had been exactly as he suspected. He wouldn’t have known to use that word unless it was in the note, which wouldn’t have existed at all unless Elise had established her own network behind Dani’s back. To know that she had a part in her best friend’s death had shattered her insides like glass, right there in Marcus’s arms.

Elise had lied to her. The stubborn, reckless woman had gone and done exactly what Dani had warned her not to do. She’d put her life into unnecessary danger—

No. She’d gotten herself killed.

Sickening nausea roiled inside her. Last night, when Marcus revealed that to her, she’d wanted to flee, to cry and curse and scream! But she’d been trapped within his arms in the middle of the party, with nearly every pair of eyes in the room on them while he’d unwittingly taken Elise from her once again. And this time, so much more brutally.

So she’d fled behind her only possible defense—her temper. But that anger had come naturally once she realized why he’d asked her to dance, once she felt betrayed.

He’d wanted answers, but she couldn’t give him any. Not when so many other lives were at risk. This secret she would take to her own grave. Just as Elise had. Too much had been sacrificed to betray those women now.

“Danielle!” Her aunt’s shout rattled the windows on all four floors of the Bedford Square town house.

Dani rolled her eyes. Who needed a call bell around Harriett?

“Join me for breakfast!”

With no other choice, she yelled back, “Coming!”

“I don’t think you are!”

Despite herself, Dani couldn’t help but give a faint giggle when Alice burst into laughter. The release of that small laugh was a godsend given the weight that pressed in upon her. And thank God for it, because there had been a point last night when she wondered how she would be able to live with her guilt over Elise.