Page 83 of An Inconvenient Duke

The woman stepped into the lamplight beneath the small front portico. When she pushed back her hood to reveal her face, Dani finally recognized her.

“Mrs. Slater?” Dani took her arm and led her back inside the house. She couldn’t help one last searching glance into the darkness for a second carriage but found none. “What are you doing here?” And dressed head to foot in gray and black worsted wool, no less, looking nothing like a prosperous mill owner’s wife. The little hairs at Dani’s nape prickled with unease. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, Danielle!” Mrs. Slater grabbed her arm and squeezed it tightly, not letting go. “We desperately need your help.”

“We?”

“Beatrice and I—and the girl. We’re in trouble.”

The girl.The tingle at her nape shot like lightning down her spine. “How?”

Flustered and pale, Mrs. Slater rushed out the words. “We tried to rescue her on our own, but it all went so horribly wrong! Beatrice said that you could help us, that you’d done this sort of thing before.”

Dread strangled in her throat. Dear God…had Beatrice told her about Nightingale? “You—you know about the girl at the brothel?”

Mrs. Slater nodded emphatically. “Beatrice told me what she’d planned, and I couldn’t let her do it by herself.” Her fingers dug into Dani’s arm, and she lowered her voice, which vibrated with fear. “We went to the brothel tonight.”

“Youtwo went to the brothel?” An icy dread spilled through her. “By yourselves?”

“We had a man with us. The brother of one of my footmen. He agreed to go inside the house and sneak the girl out while we waited in the carriage a few streets away.”

Thank God that they were smart enough to do that. “What happened?”

“Someone inside the house saw Martin leave with the girl and alerted the men guarding the door. They chased after him. And then they chased after us.” She released her hold on Dani’s arm, one hand flying to her mouth and the other to her chest. “I was so terrified! The team was racing so fast over the cobblestones that I thought we would be shaken apart. We nearly tipped over at the corners.”

“But you got away.” Dani soothingly rubbed her hand up and down the woman’s arm to reassure her, although she also did it to ease her own guilt. She hadn’t simply refused to help the girl; she’d told Beatrice to rescue her herself. If she had known how the night would go, she never would have written that!

“Barely.” Mrs. Slater shook violently, unable to tamp down the lingering terror and agitation from the chase. “At one point, they nearly caught us. We had to leave the carriage and run on foot. That was when Martin left us.” Her voice broke with disbelief as she explained, “He just ran…ran away into the darkness and left the three of us there alone on the street. At night. With those men still chasing after us and the girl crying—crying so loudly! And she wouldn’t hush, no matter how much we begged…”

Dani hugged her and repeated forcefully, “But you got away. That’s what matters.”

“Yes.” Mrs. Slater swiped a hand at her eyes. “We’ve managed to avoid them for now, but they’re still out there searching for us. I know it!”

She placed her palm against Mrs. Slater’s cheek to make the woman focus. “Where are Beatrice and the girl now?”

“At the warehouse in the Strand where we were supposed to have met up with Mr. Jenkins so he could take the girl out of London. But he wasn’t there.”

“Which warehouse?”

“The one near the Golden Bell. Mr. Jenkins suggested it in his message when he agreed to help us. But he wasn’t there!”

“I know.” When a fearful tear slid down the woman’s cheek, Dani wiped it away. “But I’ll take care of you. Everything will all be all right.” Dear God, she hoped so! “You need to go back to the warehouse and wait with Beatrice. I’ll send a message to the other men I know like Mr. Jenkins, to have one of them come to the warehouse and collect the girl from you.”

“There isn’t time! That’s why Beatrice sent me here to you.” She grabbed Dani’s hand and tugged at it. “You have to come with me.”

“I can’t—”

“We don’t know what to do!” She wrung her hands in distress.

“If you wait at the warehouse, one of the men will come for you,” Dani explained, purposefully making her voice calmer the more agitated Mrs. Slater became. “He’ll know how to take care of everything.”

“If we wait, those men will find us and kill us!” Her face twisted with fear. “You have to come with me and help us—now.”

Mrs. Slater’s panic flooded into Dani and warred with the uncertainty inside her. Beatrice and the girl needed her, but Marcus was coming for her at any moment. Looking for an answer of what to do, she glanced out the open door at the dark street, still empty except for the hired hackney that continued to wait by the footpath.

Mrs. Slater clutched at Dani’s sleeve. “Please, Danielle! You’re the only one who can save this girl.”

As she bit her bottom lip, her gaze fell to the small travel bag waiting by the door. She’d filled it herself this afternoon, as she had with every other vanishing that Nightingale had ever committed. Two changes of clothes, a night rail, enough money for a few weeks’ room and board, documents that established a new identity—everything the woman at Pearce’s town house would need to escape and start a new life. Had Beatrice even thought far enough ahead to assemble this kind of escape kit for the girl? Did she know to hide with the girl at an inn under a false name if none of the men came to collect her from the warehouse tonight, an inn far enough away from the Golden Bell and the brothel that no one would see her and suspect who she really was?