Page 53 of An Inconvenient Duke

Beatrice turned deathly pale, the stricken expression on her face made more intense by the flickering wicks of the lamps. Her hands began to shake so badly that she couldn’t grasp the sequins beneath her fingertips. “Yes,” she admitted.

Betrayal pulsed through Dani at what Beatrice and Elise had done, that they’d both gone behind her back and were keeping such secrets from her.

Beatrice’s eyes glistened. “But she didn’t want you to know. She was afraid that you’d try to stop her.”

Dani nodded stiffly. She would have done exactly that. But there was no time now for grief, no time to give in to the hurt of being deceived by her dearest friend and the countess, someone her family had always trusted. Now she had to focus on uncovering as many answers as possible for Marcus. “And the women she was helping?”

“They were the ones you’d turned down for Nightingale.”

Guilt stabbed her, so fiercely that she winced. “The prostitutes?”

Beatrice gave a jerking nod. “I’d heard about girls from the Manchester mills who had been drugged and brought to London, to be forced into the brothels in Southwark. I told Elise about them, how frustrated I was that Nightingale wouldn’t help them—I wanted to save them and send them back to their families.” Her voice was low and raw, desperate, and pleading for understanding. “I had no idea that Elise would try to rescue them herself, or I never would have told her about them. I promise you that, Danielle.Never.”

“I know,” she answered, believing her. Beatrice McTavish had never been one for acts of bravery.

“When I learned what she was doing, I tried to convince her to stop, but…”

Her stomach roiled, and she pressed her hand against her abdomen to fight down the sickening hollow forming in her belly. “But?”

“But there were more women waiting in the brothel who—” Beatrice glanced across the box, freezing in place as if she’d seen a ghost.

Dani turned to look.

William McTavish, Earl of Hartsham. Her husband. He stood in the corner, surrounded closely by several of the gentlemen as they finished off the last of the port.

As Beatrice stared at him, her expression hardened so suddenly that Dani’s breath strangled in her throat. She glanced between the two, not understanding why Beatrice should suddenly grow so afraid. No…so bitterlyangry. Because the earl hadn’t looked their way, hadn’t paid them any attention as he went on talking and laughing with the men—

“Do not ask me about this again, Danielle. What happened to Elise was horrible,” Beatrice rasped out. She turned away, crumpling the mask in her fist. Then she took one more glance over her shoulder at her husband and warned, “Make certain the same doesn’t happen to you.”

That cool threat slithered down Dani’s spine, chilling her to her soul. She knew the truth then. Sheknew…

She looked across the box and met Marcus’s gaze, too stunned to hide the shock that surely radiated from her.

As he returned her stare, his face turned to stone.

Boom!The first of the fireworks exploded over the gardens in a burst of light and a shower of sparks. Cheers flew up from the crowds.Boom boom!The explosions shot off like artillery fire and lit up the night in shimmering waves to the loud oohs and aahs from the spectators.

Inside the box, the guests scurried for the best views. The women hurried toward the door, while many of the men vaulted the railing into the alley, hooting and cheering as they went, bottles of champagne clenched securely in their hands.

Keeping her gaze locked with Marcus’s, Dani pushed her way through the crowd to his side. He took her arm and led her from the box, careful to keep her from being jostled and bumped in the stampede to watch the fireworks.

“You have answers,” he murmured as he steered her toward the shadows of the rear stairs behind the box and away from the crowd. “Tell me.”

She grabbed his arm and stopped him, her fingers digging into his sleeve. “It’s Hartsham,” she choked out. “He killed Elise… Marcus, it was him!”

He stiffened, but disbelief flickered in his eyes as he narrowed them on her. “Her husband? She told you that?”

“Not exactly.” She fisted the kerseymere in her hands, desperate to hang onto him as an anchor in the storm engulfing her. “But it’s him! What she said,howshe said it—”

The board behind her head splintered with a deafening bang.

“Get down!” Marcus grabbed her and shoved both of them to the ground as a second bullet tore into the building right behind where she’d been standing. “They’re shooting at us!”

She lifted her head to glance around in panic. The world swirled in a cacophony of noise and movement all around them, and she saw nothing but a blur of lights and flashes of fireworks. The sounds of the gunshots were drowned out by the booms of the fireworks and the noise of the band. No one in the crowd heard or saw—

He let out a curse and grabbed her wrist. “Run—now!”

Scrambling to his feet, he pulled her up with him and ran, keeping her between himself and the gallery to shield her. She struggled to race beside him to keep up with his long strides. When they reached the end of the building and lost what little protection it provided, he pulled her in the direction of the main gates, and they wove their way against the coming crowd as it pushed toward the Grand Walk.