Page 82 of An Inconvenient Duke

Then he steeled himself to do the one thing he’d sworn he would never do—put her into danger. “One last vanishing, then.” He placed a kiss to her lips, still hot and trembling from his kisses. “But you’ll do it with my help and the help of the Home Office.” He tilted her chin up until she looked him in the eyes. He wanted no misunderstanding about this. “I’ll be by your side every minute.”

She stared at him for a long while, long enough that the flush of making love eased away from her cheeks. Long enough that he suspected she might change her mind and refuse him after all.

But then, with a capitulating sigh, she kissed him.

“Yes, Marcus, I accept your terms of surrender,” she whispered, sending joy soaring through him. “I will marry you.”

* * *

An hour later, Dani hurried up to her room and to the writing desk positioned beneath the window, where she took out a piece of the plain stationery that she used to send messages for Nightingale. Quickly, she scratched out a letter to Beatrice. As she wrote, the burden of Nightingale lifted, but the guilt remained as strong as ever. She knew now that it always would, along with grief that it had ended, but she also knew that she’d made the right decision.

I cannot rescue the girl you told me about—I am so very sorry. If you want to help her, you will need to do it yourself. Contact a man named William Jenkins through the innkeeper’s wife at the Golden Bell Tavern at the Strand and Fleet Street and tell him that you are with the network. Pay him well, and he will smuggle the girl back to Manchester for you. With faith in you…

She paused to read over the letter, then signed it,

Nightingale

Her hand trembled. It would be the last time she ever penned that name.

“Miss?” Her maid Alice hurried into the room, her face pale and worried. “The viscountess is downstairs, stirring up all kinds of fuss over hot chocolate and baths for you. Is there a problem?” She glanced over her shoulder and lowered her voice. “With Nightingale?”

“No.” A twinge of sadness struck her as she blotted, folded, and sealed the envelope. “There will be no more problems with the charity.”

Alice frowned, not understanding.

“Take this and deliver it to Lady Hartsham.” She held up the note. “Then send word to the Golden Bell as you usually do to notify Mr. Jenkins to expect a message about a vanishing.”

“Yes, miss.”

“Take no risks, but hurry back,” Dani called out as Alice scurried from the room. Her eyes fell onto the music box. “We have a vanishing to plan for.”

The very last one she would ever do.

Twenty-Five

Wringing her gloved hands, Dani paced the length of the entry hall. Her long coat swished around her legs with every step of her laced-up half boots and made her flushed with heat, but she didn’t dare remove her outer layers. She had to be ready to leave immediately, the carriage due for her at any moment—

The long case clock in the drawing room struck half past nine, and her shoulders sagged.

No, the carriage was past due.

She craned her neck to glance out the sidelight at the street. In the darkness, she couldn’t see anything beyond the halo of light cast by the oil lamp hanging over the door. With a frustrated groan, she began to pace again.

Thank goodness Harriett had gone out tonight to a concert with Mrs. Peterson so she didn’t need to explain her behavior. Not that she could have given an explanation anyway. Not until Hartsham had been arrested and she knew that all the people she loved would finally be safe.

Where on earth was Marcus?

He’d sent a note to her that morning to inform her that Hartsham had finally contacted him about the woman and to give her instructions about tonight. She was to wait at home. After the woman had arrived at nine o’clock and been placed securely under the Home Office’s guard, Marcus would secretly leave Brandon Pearce’s town house in Bedford Square and come for her in an unmarked carriage. He would take her to Bedford Square, where she would wait while Clayton Elliott finished questioning the woman and securing whatever statements they needed to act against Hartsham. Then, Dani would bring the full resources of Nightingale into play one last time to create a new identity for the woman, rush her out of London to the docks at Greenwich, and put her on the first ship bound for America. They would give her the chance at a new life. How she chose to live it was entirely left to her.

With that, their trap for Hartsham would be sprung. And not a moment too soon.

In his note, Marcus had warned her that if the situation at the town house with the woman grew complicated, he might have to send another man in his place to fetch her—his friend Merritt Rivers, who had served with him in France and had now staked out a notable career as a barrister, a man who by all reports could be trusted to protect her with his life. But she wanted Marcus at her side tonight. And every night for the rest of her life.

Oh, wherewashe?

Motion caught the corner of her eye through the door’s sidelight. In the dark shadows of the street beyond the lamp’s glow, a carriage stopped suddenly in front of the house.Oh, thank God!She flung open the door to rush from the house, only to halt in midstep at the threshold when the door of the hired hackney opened and a woman hurried to the ground, gathered up her skirts, and dashed up the front steps toward her.

“Miss Williams, thank goodness!”