When no one was looking, Dani carefully set all the biscuits back onto the tray.
Around her, the ladies of the Foundling Hospital’s Women’s Charity and Guidance Committee drank tea, nibbled on impossibly small sandwiches and tiny cakes, and spent more time gossiping than discussing the children they were there to help. Not one of them realized that Dani’s entire world had changed.
Not even Claudia Braddock.
Marcus’s sister currently stood on the other side of the room, surrounded by a group of women and chatting away about her engagement and plans for her wedding. So far, Dani had managed to dodge her this afternoon. Whenever she’d seemed about to approach, Dani skillfully maneuvered herself away to another group of ladies or to the sideboards for more tea or another untouched biscuit. Her diversions had worked, and Claudia hadn’t been able to capture her alone, to corner her into a conversation about Marcus. Dani didn’t think she could get through it without her expression giving away exactly what she and Marcus had done. Or her uncertainty over what would happen next.
But she only had a little while longer yet to keep on her toes. With the tea winding down and several of the ladies beginning to say their goodbyes, she would soon be able to slip away from Claudia completely with nothing more than a kiss on her cheek and a promise to call on her and Pippa soon.
Easier said than done, though. Even in the middle of explaining how she wanted a wedding breakfast with a Venetian theme, Claudia’s attention would wander across the room to Dani, and she’d frown in perplexed concern.
But Dani didn’t have the heart to confess anything to Marcus’s sister, certainly not her feelings for him, and plastered on a bright smile that belied the roiling knot of emotions inside her.
“Oh, isn’t the food simply divine?” Mrs. Peterson reached past Dani for another biscuit. “I plan on asking Balfour’s cook for all the recipes. Do you think she’d mind sharing? Oh, of course not! She’d be thrilled to be asked, I’m certain.” She jabbed the biscuit in the air to punctuate her point as she scurried away to return to the group of ladies near the bay window who had been discussing hosting a garden party for the group’s next event. “You really must have another one of these cinnamon bites!”
“Yes,” a voice said from behind Dani. “You really must.”
Claudia.
Forcing her brightest smile, Dani turned to face her. “Actually, I think I might ask for the recipes myself so that—”
“You’ve been avoiding me,” Claudia accused in hushed tones so the two of them wouldn’t be overheard. But the other ladies had gotten into a squabble over plans for the organization’s next meeting and were too caught up in that to care what the two of them might be discussing. “As Marcus says, if the enemy won’t march to you, then you have to march to the enemy.”
Not letting her smile fade, she dropped her gaze to her teacup. “So I’m the enemy now.”
Claudia’s shoulders sagged. “That’s not at all what I mean. The exact opposite, in fact. But you haven’t been to Charlton Place since the dinner. We need you there, Danielle, and I don’t mean just for the wedding planning.” She tapped the edge of Dani’s saucer to capture her attention. “Marcus needs you.”
She couldn’t stop the short laugh that fell from her lips. “Your brother doesn’t need anyone.”
“More than you realize.” Claudia shook her head in bewilderment. “What on earth is going on between you two?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” But Dani’s traitorous cheeks flushed hot, and she had to take a long sip of her now-cold tea to hide as much of her blush as possible.
“Oh, I think you do,” Claudia muttered knowingly. “Since his return last winter, Marcus has been absolutely insufferable. He’s barely home at all, and when he is, he’s mostly sullen and grim, except when he’s with you. Then he has a spark of life in him, as if he’s back on the battlefield and ready to charge after victory for all he’s worth. But when he isn’t with you, he spends his time pacing in his study and sorting through Elise’s things in her room, as if hunting for something he’s lost.” She bit her bottom lip. “I think that you are that something he’s hunting.”
Dani choked on her tea and squeaked out between coughs. “Pardon?”
“I’m not a nodcock, Danielle. I’ve seen the way that man looks at you, how his entire demeanor changes when you’re near—how he spent every minute of that supper with Adam, your aunt, and me pretending that he wasn’t completely captivated by you. And the way he looks at you whenever you’re with Pippa…” She looked away as her voice trailed off, but not before Dani saw the glistening in her eyes. “I thought before that he needed a sense of purpose in his life. But I was wrong. What he needs is so much more than that.”
“He needs time to find—”
“He needs you.”
Dani paused for one brutally painful beat, so desperately wishing that were true. Then she repeated, reality slicing at her belly, “He doesn’t need anyone.”
“He does. He’s just too proud to admit it.”
Her shoulders fell in exasperation. “You don’t know that.”
“I do. In your heart, you know you do, too.” Claudia clasped Dani’s hand. “Please—come visit us at Charlton Place.” She paused meaningfully. “Better yet, find a way to be there permanently.”
Her throat tightened with emotion. “Claudia, what you’re implying—”
“Yes, I know. But if you’re at Charlton Place, then maybe he’ll be there, where he belongs, instead of haunting that old armory.”
Dani’s gaze flew up to hers. She whispered, “You know about the armory?”
“I bribed our coachman to find out where he’d been the night when he didn’t return from Vauxhall. In the past, he would come home to tuck Pippa into bed, then go off again somewhere, usually not returning until dawn. But he always came home. Until the night he went for supper at Vauxhall.” Claudia smiled conspiratorially, not at all surprised that Dani knew of the armory. “Until you were with him.”
She didn’t know whether to blush or turn pale.
“I was beginning to think that place was just like his heart—impenetrable…unless you know how to get inside.” Claudia reached into her reticule and withdrew a key, then took Dani’s hand to press it into her palm and close her fingers around it. “This is a key to the armory.” Her eyes sparkled. “And you are the key to his heart. So unlock it, please. Bring him peace and save him from himself.”
Dani folded her fingers protectively over the key. “It isn’t that simple.”
“But it is. I know my brother. He thinks that life should be run like an army, with clear choices between right and wrong, definitive answers to every problem, and the enemy always easy to identify. It frustrates him to no end that the world doesn’t really work that way. So whatever you do, don’t let him treat you like a soldier. Stand up to him. Don’t let him order you about. And make him realize that he loves you, which the rest of us already know.”
Dani stared at her, struck speechless. She’d greatly underestimated Claudia Braddock’s audacity. And her intuitiveness.
When a group of women called out for Claudia, chattering on about using the gardens at Charlton Place for their next luncheon, she kissed Dani’s cheek and left to rejoin them.
“I can’t do that,” she breathed out after her, so softly that she was certain that Claudia couldn’t hear as she walked away. How could she make him do that when all he wanted was to keep waging war? Even in matters of love.
She set down her unwanted tea on a nearby card table before her shaking hands could spill it. Then she squeezed shut her eyes for a moment’s peace to gather herself.
“Danielle, are you all right?” Beatrice McTavish, Lady Hartsham, sidled up to her and gripped her elbow. Concern darkened the woman’s face.
Dani obligingly smiled, pushing down the sharp bite of betraya
l that sparked inside her from their last conversation at Vauxhall. Despite all that Beatrice had done by hiding information about Elise, the woman truly was sympathetic. “Only a bit of a headache. Too much tea and biscuits, I fear.”
That lie did nothing to ease Beatrice’s concern. “Are you sure? You left so suddenly the other night at Vauxhall, and without a parting word, too. Mrs. Slater said you’d suddenly taken ill and needed to leave. She gave us your apologies.”
Oh, Dani could have kissed that woman! Apparently, she’d found a kindred spirit in Mrs. Slater.
Beatrice’s mouth twisted, and nervously, she lowered her voice. “It was what I said about Elise, wasn’t it? I upset you.”
The woman had no idea how much.
“Nothing at all like that.” No, it involved murder, lies, and your husband… Shifting the key to her other palm, Dani held up her injured hand with its bright pink scar across her palm, and chagrin twisted her face. “When the fireworks started, I foolishly rushed outside to view them, tripped, and cut my hand.” All the while being shot at and fleeing for my life… “His Grace insisted that he escort me away to have it immediately tended to.” Only to spend the night ravishing me… “It was quite the evening. Truly.” Truly.
Beatrice frowned. “But His Grace claimed that you’d left because the fireworks had upset you. That you thought you’d heard gunfire. I told my husband that the duke must have been wrong, that you’d never be that silly.”
“No.” She forced a smile. “Never.”
Beatrice let out a hard sigh of relief and smiled. “Thank goodness it wasn’t anything I said. As I told you, it’s been so long since Elise died, and I simply don’t remember anything specific from that time, except how horribly shocked I was. How we all were, including Hartsham.” Her hands fidgeted with her skirt. “If I gave you any other impression than that, I am sorry for the misunderstanding. That was not at all my intention.”
“Of course not.” Dani was certain it wasn’t. As anxious as the woman was, she would never intentionally implicate her husband. But she’d given away enough that Dani knew for certain that the earl had played a part in Elise’s death. The question now was…how much?
Beatrice glanced apprehensively at the rest of the group to make certain none of the ladies were paying the two of them any mind. “But I’m glad that you brought up Elise, actually.”
Dani’s pulse stuttered. “Oh?”
“I’ve heard about a girl,” she whispered. “One from the brothels, who needs to be rescued.”
Dani bit back a guilty groan. “Beatrice, please—”
“Her name is Jenny,” Beatrice rushed out. “She was drugged and taken from her family in Manchester, right from the mill where she worked and with the blessing of the mill’s owner, just a few days ago. She’s going to be forced into prostitution at a brothel in Seven Dials called the House of Delights. She needs your help.”
“We can’t. Nightingale doesn’t have—”
“Elise would have rescued her.”
The accusation pierced Dani like a blade, and her wounded hand went to her chest to physically press down the swirling emotions aching inside her. Yes, exactly the kind of girl Elise would have rescued…only to die doing so. To take that kind of risk—she could never ask the other women in the network to put their lives in danger like that.
“We don’t vanish women from the brothels. You know that,” she said as firmly as she could, only to sound incredibly weak to her own ears. “It’s too dangerous. And if this is the same place where Elise was working to rescue the women, then…” Then it was also deadly.
“It isn’t. Elise vanished girls from brothels far more dangerous than this one.” Beatrice looked offended. “I would never ask you to do something like that. Elise shouldn’t have done that either.”
“And your husband?” She fought to keep the anger and bitterness from her voice. “What part is he playing in this?”
“None at all. I heard about the girl from Elaine Slater.”
Unease pricked at the backs of her knees. “Mrs. Slater knows about Nightingale?”
“No. She knows that I still have acquaintances in the mills in Manchester and thought I could help. That’s why she mentioned the girl to me. Her husband returned from his trip to the midlands and told her that he’d heard rumors about this girl. Elaine knows nothing about Nightingale.”
Knowing that Hartsham had nothing to do with this didn’t ease the sting of frustration and helplessness at what Beatrice was asking of her. “Nightingale personally removes every woman to make certain nothing goes wrong when she leaves, and we can’t do that at a brothel. We simply don’t have access to the women when they’re behind those walls.”
A desperate worry distorted Beatrice’s features. “Not even if you send inside one of your hired men to fetch her out for you? Surely no one would notice a man like that entering the house and asking about a specific girl. Once she’s away from the brothel, you can vanish her as usual.” Her eyes turned pleading. “I can’t do this myself, Danielle, or I would. I’ve never done a vanishing. I don’t have access to the network or its resources—I wouldn’t even know how to hire men like the ones you use. I need Nightingale’s help.”
Beatrice’s plan might work. Dani could ask Jenkins to do it and pay him to be responsible for every aspect of the vanishing, from start to finish, from the time he removed the girl from the brothel until he took her out of London and back to Manchester. She’d never asked this of him before, but he’d been working with her long enough that she trusted him to accomplish it. And keep his silence.
But there were lines she’d sworn never to cross, and if she attempted to rescue this girl, she wouldn’t simply be stepping over that line—she’d be obliterating it. The need to protect the network warred inside her with the desire to help, just as it did with every vanishing lately.
“I—I have to think about it,” she dodged answering. “I want to help, but…”
“There isn’t time. That’s why I’m coming to you now.” Beatrice grabbed her arm and held her tightly, not letting her walk away. “She’s been auctioned off.”
“Auctioned?” A sickening hollow began to burn in the pit of Dani’s stomach. Selling virgins to the highest bidder…an all too common and depraved practice. Yet it still shocked her.
“For her virginity.” Her expression darkened with disgust and helplessness. “She’s scheduled to be delivered in only a few days. She has to be rescued before then.”
In so little time? Impossible! “I can’t hire someone that quickly.” Or make proper arrangements for the girl’s disappearance once she was out of the brothel. Every bit of this would be impromptu, and Dani had never allowed that to happen before. She’d always protected the people who had worked with her and the women they’d rescued by meticulously planning everything down to the last detail, planning that often took weeks. “Beatrice, what you’re asking—”
“I know. But, Danielle, she’s only twelve.” She swiped a hand at her eyes. “The same age as my daughter. How do I look at Anne every day, knowing that there is another girl out there, just like her, who is going to be raped? As a mother, how can I not try to save her?” Her watery gaze fixed accusingly on Dani. “How can you not?”
Guilt seared through her. “I—I have to think about it,” she repeated, far more softly this time.
Beatrice nodded faintly as disappointment clouded her face, and she turned away as if she couldn’t bear to look at Dani. “I understand.”
“No, you don’t—I want to help, but that’s all I can promise right now.” She reached out to squeeze Beatrice’s arm. “But I will contact you as soon as a decision has been made.”
“Thank you.” Beatrice glanced down at Dani’s damaged hand, and her expression turned troubled. “Take care of yourself. I don’t want you to be hurt.”
Dani’s heart tugged, believi
ng her. “I will. I just—”
She stopped. Her hand. The warning about Marcus that had been niggling at the back of her mind now began to scream.
“Beatrice, you said that His Grace claimed that I’d been upset by the fireworks… When did you speak to him? Did you run into him out somewhere in Mayfair?”
“Heavens, no. You know how reclusive the man has become.”
She was beginning to suspect that she didn’t know him at all…
“He met up with Hartsham at the club the next afternoon.”
Dani flashed numb, all the way to the tips of her fingers and toes, only for the sensation to be instantly replaced by something much harsher. By betrayal. Marcus had promised they’d go after Hartsham together.
His duplicity burned in her veins. “He met up with Hartsham?”
Beatrice nodded. “So he could apologize for leaving the gardens without giving his goodbyes. But it makes sense now.”
“Yes, it does.” In a very anger-inducing way.
“His Grace wanted to protect you.”
“Apparently, even now,” Dani bit out. And enough for Marcus to maneuver behind her back to catch Hartsham by himself. I promise that we’ll go after Hartsham together… Oh, she’d been such a fool to believe him!
Beatrice frowned. “Pardon?”
“Nothing.” She clenched the key in her hand as she turned to leave. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a battle to wage.”
Twenty-Two
“Miss! I insist! You simply cannot—” The butler’s voice was drowned out by the angry stomp of feet.
At the unexpected commotion in the hall, Marcus glanced up from the stack of correspondence on his desk that he was sorting through as a way to distract himself from the fact that Hartsham had yet to send word about the woman he’d asked for. Pippa was in the park with Mrs. Davenport, and Claudia was out at a charity event of some kind. For once, he had the house to himself.
Or had, until Danielle appeared in the doorway of his study, flushed of face and breathing hard enough that her breasts heaved beneath her bodice with every breath she took.
An Inconvenient Duke Page 21