Page 23 of An Inconvenient Duke

“Siege warfare, General?” She seethed breathlessly at his audacity.

“Whatever it takes, including telling your aunt. You’re keeping secrets from everyone, but there won’t be any more secrets if I tell her what you’ve been up to. No more midnight meetings in dark alleyways.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees, to punctuate his point. “No more trips to the Golden Bell to arrange vanishings.”

Her heart lodged in her throat. “How do you know about that?”

In the shadows cast by the glow of the lamps, he arched a silent brow, indicating that he planned to keep secrets of his own. The rest of his face was too dark to see his full expression, but she knew he would be wearing that soldier’s mask of his, the inscrutable countenance that so carefully hid his true thoughts.

“If that man was willing to come after you tonight, then he’ll be willing to do it again,” he continued, ignoring her question. “Perhaps in your own home.”

“No,” she whispered, forcing herself to breathe normally. “Kimball doesn’t know who I am or how to find me.” In that much, at least, she felt secure.

“Tell me why he wanted to harm you.” He waited patiently for her to answer as the horses trotted on toward Westminster. When several long moments had ticked by with no answer, he pressed, “Or would you prefer to tell your aunt?”

The night was closing in around her like a snare, yet she refused to answer.

“When I was on the Continent, I lost a lot of men,” he said as casually as if he were simply telling another one of his stories of camp life that he’d shared with her so many years ago, when she’d been nothing more than an infatuated girl. But so much had changed since then. “I would have done anything then to help them. So let me help you now.”

She longed to let him do just that, so much so that she ached at the temptation. How wonderful it would be to unburden herself, to let him carry even just a small part of the weight resting on her shoulders.

And yet…

“You can’t,” she rasped out. “Too much is at risk.”

“It seems to me that too much was already risked and lost,” he said quietly with a brother’s grief. “Let me help you. I’ll make certain that man never comes after you again.”

Let me help you… The same plea Elise had given when she’d asked to join Nightingale. He had no idea how brutally the memory of those words pierced her, or how much she wished he could do just that.

“What kind of trouble are you in, Danielle? How can I save you?”

Save her?She strangled back an ironic laugh that swelled up from the overwhelming emotions roiling inside her. “You misunderstand. I don’t need to be saved.” The burden, the endless lies, the unbearable secrets… She sucked in a deep lungful of air, gathering her courage to confide in him—“Iama savior.”

His only reaction was a stiffening of his spine. He stared at her in the darkness, saying nothing, as if he knew that a single word might change her mind and silence her once more.

“I run a charity—a network,” she began, turning toward the window. She couldn’t bear to look at him. She’d never told anyone else what she was about to reveal except the women who worked with her. She prayed that there would be absolution once this agonizing confession was over.

“Nightingale.”

She nodded, not surprised that he knew. “We help women who are being abused. Wives, daughters, sisters—women made to work as prostitutes, girls forced into slave labor in mills and factories, those who are beaten by husbands and brothers… We help them start new lives.”

“We?”

“Other women who are part of the network.”

Surprise crossed his face. “Society women?”

“Not all of them. A few.”

“Who?”

“I won’t tell you.” She’d take that secret to her grave, because some of those women were battered themselves but unable to escape. God help them if their husbands ever discovered what they’d been doing. “But when a woman asks for our help, we work together to rescue her.”

“A vanishing,” he murmured.

“Sometimes, yes, if there’s no other option. We help them to vanish into new lives, never to be seen again.”

He leaned forward intently. “How?”

“It’s not complicated, not really.” Telling him was difficult, but the words came more easily the more she shared, the burden slowly lifting. “When a woman decides that she can no longer tolerate her situation, she contacts Nightingale to ask for our help.”Tolerate?She nearly laughed. Most women only contacted Nightingale when they realized that their lives were in danger. “She’s heard about us because one of us is aware of her situation and has made contact with her. We don’t approach the women directly, but through other people, like barmaids, prostitutes, housemaids—”