In her heart, Dani was relieved, because now they could finally let go of the past and move on. Together.
The other lives Hartsham had worked to destroy were slowly being pieced back together. Venus’s Folly closed without warning; the building where it had been located was abandoned. And then there was Mrs. Slater, the woman Dani had once trusted enough to consider bringing into Nightingale. In the end, she’d gotten away—of a sort. The carriage in which she was being transported to Newgate was attacked. Merritt Rivers, who had been escorting her and had gotten caught up in the attack, reported that the men who stopped their carriage took the woman against her will, with her fighting and screaming while they shoved her into a second carriage and drove off into the night. Merritt had been unable to put up a chase. Neither she nor her husband had been seen since that night, although Home Office agents were still scouring the country for them, convinced that Scepter was behind their disappearance. Dani knew they would never be found.
The same would have happened to the woman at the town house, too, if Clayton hadn’t thought to spirit her away before he went to the warehouse, hiding her under guard in the last place Scepter would think to look for a prostitute—in the bedroom of the Right Reverend William Howley, Bishop of London.
So far, Scepter had left her and Marcus alone, but she feared that this wouldn’t be the last they’d hear of them.
“I have something for you.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the backs of her fingers. “I’ve been waiting all evening for the right moment to give it to you.”
“A gift?” Her chest panged with love at how wonderful he was. “You really shouldn’t have.” Truly…but she was also dying to know what it was.
“Not only should I do this, but I should have done it long before now.” He reached into the small opening of the fob in his trousers. “If I wasn’t such a nodcock, I would have done this the first evening I saw you again, right there in the garden at the party, looking so beautiful.”
Her throat tightened with emotion, yet she managed to tease, “By the glow of Roman torchlight?”
His lips pulled into a lazy half grin that sent her pulse spiking the way it always did. Knowing better than to answer that, he took her hand and slipped a ring onto her finger. “For you, my love.”
She stared at it, unable in her surprise to find her voice. Oh, it was simply beautiful…a gold band scattered with tiny pearls and delicate diamonds that glittered in the firelight.
“It was my mother’s engagement ring,” he said quietly. “She’d want you to have it.”
“I can’t accept this,” she whispered, although she stroked a fingertip longingly over it. “It belongs to Claudia or Pippa…” And breaking her heart that such a beautiful symbol of love could never be hers.
“My birth mother’s ring,” he clarified. “Claudia and Pippa have enough special pieces from their own mothers. This ring is meant for the woman I marry. It belongs to you, my darling.” He lifted her hand to place a kiss to the ring. “Now and always.”
The words from the night he’d first made love to her, when he promised her his trust and devotion…now and always.
“Marcus,” she breathed, blinking rapidly to clear away the tears. She couldn’t put to words how beautiful it was and how special it made her feel. How deeply loved and cherished. So she slipped her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly to her instead, never wanting to let go.
“I also have a second gift. An early wedding gift of a sort,” he murmured into her ear, “if you think you could bear it.”
Another gift? But she couldn’t imagine anything more wonderful than the gifts he’d already given her—this ring…and his love. “Yes?”
Releasing her, he stood to fetch a glass of port from the tray sitting on the mantel. He turned to face her, his gaze locking soberly with hers. Her heart pounded with sudden unease as she waited for him to speak.
“I contacted the prime minister last week,” he informed her. “Told Liverpool that I was courting a secret reformer.”
Knowing Marcus too well, she challenged, “You did not.”
His eyes glinted mischievously over the rim of the crystal tumbler as he took a sip, and for a beat, she wondered if she were wrong and the dashing devil had done just that.
“Well,” he admitted, “perhaps I didn’t put it that way exactly. But I did tell him that you were interested in pursuing legislation that grants more rights to women over their property and in petitioning the courts to make certain that penalties for abusing women were enforced.”
She swelled with pride and happiness, and with a sense of something so much bigger, so much more important, than she’d ever been a part of before.
“He said that he’d be willing to meet with you to discuss it.”
Excitement bubbled in her chest. “This is marvelous!”
“Only to discuss it,” he warned. “And probably only as a favor to me because he hopes to win me over to his side on the corn laws, which will never happen. Most likely nothing will come of it.”
Yet she smiled, happiness blossoming inside her. “Most likely not. But it’s a start.” One she very much planned to build upon over the years to come.
When she thought of the grueling work ahead of her, instead of the burden that had weighed upon her for the past four years, she felt energized and excited. Ready to take on the world! And she wouldn’t stop until real change was enacted to protect women. It would be her wedding gift in honor of Nightingale’s memory—to honor all the women they’d saved, and especially the ones they couldn’t.
She traced her fingertip lovingly over the ring. Grief panged in her chest and probably always would whenever she thought of the network and how it had once been. But when she’d told the women who had helped her that it was shutting down, most of them surprised her by volunteering to help with the new direction in which she wanted to focus her energies—not by helping women in secret but by attacking Parliament openly, sharing stories of battered women, and holding their abusers accountable.
A reformer, indeed. Lord Liverpool had no idea of the storm she planned on unleashing.
“You can’t use the name Nightingale anymore,” he murmured, raising the glass to his lips. “What will you call your new charity?”
She’d thought about that a great deal during the past few weeks. “Angel Wings,” she answered. “To raise up those who can’t do so on their own.”
He returned to his seat beside her. “With that name, the men in Parliament might think that your organization will be insubstantial enough to frighten away.”
“Then they are in for a rude awakening.” When he held out the glass of port to her, she accepted it, then finished what was left in the glass with a single swallow. She smiled devilishly through her fingers as she wiped the drops of sweet liquid from her lips. “Because we’re avenging angels, and God help those who stand in our way.”
His eyes shone at her, full of pride and love. As he leaned over to kiss her, voices in the hall interrupted them. He stopped, his mouth poised less than an inch from hers, so close that she could feel the heat of his lips tickling over hers. She held her breath, achingly waiting for him to kiss her.
“He insisted that I pose for him, right there in the Louvre Palace!” Harriett related her story to poor Mr. Trousdale as the two passed outside the door on their way to the drawing room. “So I said, ‘Antoine, I couldn’t possibly pose dans le nu for you!’ But he simply would not relent.”
“Did Watteau paint you, then?” Mr. Trousdale asked, not yet having learned that it wasn’t good to encourage Harriett in her stories.
“Well, I can never say, you understand, but I will admit that his Quellnymphe does look rather like me…”
Dani’s lips curled into an exasperated but loving smile for her aunt.
“Didn’t Watteau die before your aunt was born?” Marcus
asked.
She patted his hand. “We never let the truth interfere with a good story.”
“Of course not.” He leaned in to touch his lips to hers.
Footsteps pounded down the hall toward the library. “Nneeiigghhh-h-h!!!!”
With a groan of frustration by Marcus and a laugh by Dani, he sat back just as Pippa came skipping into the room, galloping her stuffed horse through the air beside her. She launched herself into the air and landed on the settee between them with a neighing laugh.
“No galloping in the house,” he scolded mildly, which went completely unheeded, as had every other admonishment he’d given her about not running indoors. “What are you doing awake at this hour? You should be upstairs in bed.”
She trotted the horse across her lap, jumping invisible fences on her knees. “Brutus couldn’t sleep.”
“Oh?”
She nodded, not moving her attention from the horse as she danced it across her night rail and kicked her feet beneath her. Her pink slippers bounced in the air, her feet not touching the floor. “There are people in the house for dinner again.”
Sadness panged in Dani’s chest as she realized what the little girl meant. “It’s all right, Penelope.” She wrapped her arms around Pippa and cradled her close. “No one will break into the house tonight. You’re safe here. Your Uncle Marcus has made certain of it.”
The girl’s slender shoulders relaxed, the only outward sign of her unease tonight as it faded beneath Dani’s assurances. She neighed again and nodded the horse’s head up and down in joint approval.
“So safe, in fact,” Marcus added as he reached across the settee and took Dani’s hand in his, “that Miss Williams is thinking of making Charlton Place her home, here with us.” He squeezed her fingers. “What would you think, poppet, if I married Miss Williams and she came to live with us?”
A knot of emotion tightened in Dani’s throat when the little girl’s face twisted into an uncertain expression, only for the moment’s fleeting panic to vanish when Pippa stuck out her bottom lip and demanded to know, “Would I have to let her ride Daisy?”
With his eyes gleaming mischievously, Marcus whispered into Pippa’s ear with mock secrecy yet still loudly enough that Dani could hear, “I’m pretty certain that Miss Williams has her own pony and wouldn’t need to ride yours.”
“Then I think I’d like that!” Pippa answered with a resolute nod. Then she neighed again and translated for the stuffed horse’s benefit, “So would Brutus.”
Dani laughed. They hugged her between them, and Marcus leaned over his niece’s head to finally bestow the lingering kiss he’d been attempting to give her since they sneaked into the library to be alone—the kiss her heart had been waiting to claim from the man she so dearly loved…now and always.
Epilogue
Three months later
“Good day, gentlemen,” Marcus called out to the group of a half dozen former soldiers gathered in front of the old armory as he rode his horse through the opened outer gate and dismounted. “Thank you for meeting me here.” He led his horse up beside theirs and tied it to one of the iron rings embedded in the ten-foot-tall brick fence encircling the outer yard. “My apologies regarding the horses. The mews aren’t yet completed, but I didn’t want to delay this moment any longer.”
Around him, his old friends exchanged puzzled glances as they waited for him to explain why he’d asked them here. He grinned, certain they thought him mad for calling them all here, and today of all days—his last in London before he and Dani departed on their wedding trip to Italy, to visit her parents and spend much needed time alone together.
But he wanted this settled before he left.
“What moment would that be exactly, General?” Pearce called out from the back of the group.
Marcus smiled at him. Because of all the work involved with the armory and all the changes in his home life, Marcus hadn’t seen Pearce much since he stood as best man at his wedding, with Claudia as Dani’s matron of honor and Pippa as the flower girl. The poppet had wanted to ride her pony down the garden path, scattering the petals behind her, but Harriett had convinced her that Daisy would expect to eat her slice of wedding cake if the gray Shetland participated in the ceremony. Thank heavens Pippa hadn’t been willing to share her pudding.
“An opportunity,” he answered.
“Of what kind?” Merritt pressed, exchanging a sideways glance with Clayton.
Marcus crossed to the iron door, unlocked it, and shoved. Even repaired and freshly oiled, the metal hinges squeaked and rattled as it swung open, revealing the lamp-lit rooms beyond. He murmured, “The very best.”
He strode inside the armory. The men followed more slowly behind, only to stop at the edge of the octagonal main room beneath the central tower and gape at the building around them with equal parts curiosity and bewilderment.
In the past few months, the armory had been transformed. The mortar and brick had been painstakingly repaired throughout the three rooms on the ground floor and the dozen smaller rooms above, with dark walnut panels covering the bottom fifteen feet of the old brick walls of the central room. The fireplace, too, had been refaced with a massive marble mantelpiece, and a new stone floor had been laid throughout. In this room, thick red Aubusson rugs covered the octagonal floor, and pieces of heavy furniture in wood and leather were positioned throughout, along with a cabinet fully stocked with liquor and cigars. A dozen gas lamps brightly lit the room, along with a wrought iron gas chandelier hanging from the wooden beams crossing the tall tower above. A new glass dome over the old battlements let in the afternoon sunlight.
“Gentlemen,” Marcus announced proudly, “welcome to the Armory.”
The men stared at the building around them, trying to take it all in and deduce why he’d done this to a structure that most would have argued could have done more good by being razed to the ground. They wandered around the central room, glanced up the new stairs that circled up the sides of the octagonal tower to the floors above and the bedrooms where they could spend the night whenever they wanted.
But it was the rectangular rear wing leading off the main room that captured their attention. Marcus had dedicated that room to training and sparring, complete with a large space for swordplay, and had installed the same training equipment that Gentleman Jackson used at his saloon, along with more serious, deadlier pursuits. This was a room fit for soldiers who knew the fires of battle.
As if to reinforce that message, weapons of all kinds covered the walls. They weren’t arranged in those worthless geometric patterns that wealthy aristocrats used to decorate their entry halls in their country estates to make themselves appear more powerful. No, these hung in a systematic order for fighting. These weapons weren’t meant for pretty display; they were meant for hard use. Including killing, if necessary.
Clayton slowly circled the room, a puzzled expression sliding over his face. He asked what they were all thinking, “What the hell is this place?”
“It’s not Venus’s Folly, that’s for sure,” Pearce answered as he slapped Clayton on the back and stepped past him toward the refurbished sideboard and silver tray that held liquor bottles of all kinds, helping himself to a glass.
“I created it for us and for others I plan on inviting here, former soldiers we all know from the wars,” Marcus explained. “Think of it as our own private club where we can escape society and be among men who understand us and what we’ve gone through.”
The men solemnly nodded as they remembered the hell of the wars and the good men who had been lost at Waterloo, Toulouse, Leipzig…too many to count, not one forgotten.
In London, the wars were of a completely different kind. Since the peace accords, they were left unwanted by the army, but they were also unwanted in England. There were few jobs for soldiers who wanted to leave the army, and the War Office was brutally underpaying those who remain
ed in its ranks. Marcus had seen far too many men still wearing their ragged uniforms, begging on the streets for food. Those who had families were usually more fortunate, but even then, their loved ones didn’t understand them or the hell they’d gone through, didn’t understand why they suffered nightmares, startled at loud noises, dreaded crowds that pressed in upon them, hated the darkness…
Here at the Armory, at least, they could find refuge.
And, if they were willing, they could once again serve England. This time by fighting against a new enemy.
“A former general with a warehouse filled with this many weapons, gathering together former soldiers who had once pledged their loyalty to him…” Clayton tore his attention away from the weapons and arched a brow at him. “One might suspect you were planning a revolt.”
“Never.” At least not through force. Despite what Danielle thought, his days of waging war were over. The enemy had been routed…except for one. “I plan on stopping Scepter.”
Pearce froze, the glass of whiskey raised halfway to his lips. Clayton fixed his gaze on Marcus as if he’d just admitted to attempting to kill the king. The other men in the room—Alexander Sinclair, Duncan Scott, and the others who had served with him in the Coldstream Guards or fought alongside him in battle—frowned in confusion, not knowing recent events.
Only Merritt seemed pleased at the idea, a smile curling the corners of his mouth as he leaned a shoulder against the fireplace in a stance of complete approval.
“What’s Scepter?” Sinclair asked.
Clayton answered for Marcus even as he continued to eye the weaponry askance. “A secret enterprise with a reach across the criminal underworld.” Knowing he could trust the men in the Armory, he added, “Recent information gathered by the Home Office leads me to believe that they also have members in Parliament and the aristocracy.”
“Criminals in Parliament,” Duncan Scott drawled with a shrug. “What’s unusual about that?”
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