Page 90 of An Inconvenient Duke

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 Ididtell 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!”

“Onlyto 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 posedans le nufor you!’ But he simply wouldnotrelent.”

“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 hisQuellnymphedoes 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!!!!”