Marcus kicked it away at the same time as he pulled back his arm and landed a hard fist into the man’s jaw. The attacker staggered backward from the strength of the blow. Marcus drew back his arm to deliver another punch.
The man dove for the knife, snatching it up as he rolled across the ground. He came up facing Marcus on the balls of his feet, crouching low and prepared to fight.
Marcus glanced around the alley. No weapons, nowhere to dash for safety, Danielle to protect—retreat was his only option. He grabbed her hand and ran. He pulled her down the alley toward the avenue, hoping the attacker was too cowardly to follow them into the moonlit street.
He hurried her to the waiting hackney. The driver stared in wide-eyed surprise as they ran toward him. Marcus threw open the door and shoved her inside the compartment.
He swung up after her and called out to the driver as he slammed shut the door, “The Queen’s House!” He pounded his fist against the ceiling. “Go, now!”
The carriage jerked to a start and pulled out into the street.
He grabbed Danielle’s arm and pulled her across the compartment toward him, putting her off-balance and halfway onto his lap. “Why are you meeting with men in taverns and alleyways?” He lowered his head until his mouth was only a hairsbreadth from hers and growled, “And what the hell happened to my sister?”
Eight
Dani yanked her arm away and sat back on the bench opposite from him, her breathing labored. Even in the darkness, she could see anger blazing in his eyes and was certain that it matched the intensity of the fear in her own.
“Why were you at that tavern tonight?” he demanded.
“I was meeting with the men I’d hired, to give them instructions,” she breathed out, too upset to find her voice.
“For what exactly?”
She refused to answer that. He was asking her to endanger all of Nightingale. Something she would not do.
“That man was going to kill you.” He leaned toward her, the hardness in him visible even in the dark shadows. “I’ve spent years studying how a man moves his body when he’s readying to attack, how he holds a weapon that he’s about to plunge into your gut. I can read the tension in the way he holds himself and know when he’s going to strike. Not if. When. And I saw all of that in your man just now. He wasn’t holding that knife ready in case someone else came upon you. He was raising it to strike. At you.”
Her stomach lurched. She’d been working with Kimball for years, trusted him to carry out his duties and not give her up, just as Jenkins wouldn’t—
But he’d turned on her. If Marcus hadn’t been there, Kimball would have killed her.
She pressed her hand against her belly. Oh God, she was going to be sick!
“Why would someone want to attack you, Danielle?”
Praying she didn’t cast up her accounts, she shook her head. She couldn’t tell him that. It would mean divulging everything about Nightingale.
“You might as well answer me. I have no intention of letting you out of this carriage until I know what you’re involved in, because I have a feeling that it also involved Elise. So I’ll keep us circling Westminster until the horses drop dead if I have to.”
“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—“I am a 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—”
“The men you’ve been meeting with,” he interjected.
“No. Jenkins and Kimball work with us only once the women have left their homes, if they need to flee London.” She idly traced a trembling fingertip over the edge of the bench seat beneath her. “Once a woman asks for help, we work together to help her. We usually relocate the women into homes with relatives who will protect them. But sometimes, we have to make the women disappear completely and create new lives for them, usually in America.”
She could practically feel the puzzled frown he gave her through the shadows. “How many of you are there?”
“Less than a dozen.” That was as detailed an answer as she ever planned on giving. “There are also contacts we work with outside the network, such as innkeepers and shopkeepers, who don’t know our real names or identities. People like Kimball and Jenkins, the two men tonight. They’re former smugglers who know how to get in and out of London and the ports unseen, who are only involved for the money.” Which brought its own layer of distrust. But she’d always thought money could buy a certain level of anonymity and protection, until tonight. “Every meeting is carefully arranged so that the contacts outside the network never learn the women’s true names or where they lived. It’s how we keep both the women and ourselves safe.”
“Is that what happened tonight, do you think? That one of the men discovered what you were doing and hired that man to kill you because he wanted revenge for you taking away his wife or sister?”
“Unlikely. Harming me wouldn’t tell them what happened to the women who had fled from them.”
“And Elise?” His icy voice sent a chill tingling through her. “She was part of your network, wasn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” Frustration and confusion pulsed from him. “For God’s sake, why would she be involved in something like this? Her husband was a good man. He never laid a hand on her.”
“Your sister was the most selfless person I’ve ever known. She would never turn her back on anyone in trouble, whether it had a direct effect on her own life or not. Those women needed her help. That was all she had to know to devote herself to them.”
“And it killed her.”
She shook her head and stared down at her hands, now folded uselessly in her lap. “She wasn’t working for Nightingale that night.” Dani knew that much with certainty at least. “I personally arrange all the vanishings. I know when they’re going to happen and how, if an additional transfer is necessary—I make all the final decisions. There was nothing scheduled that night.”
When his expression darkened, she knew he understood what she meant. “Elise arranged it on her own.” He leaned forward, his gaze piercing as he sought answers she couldn’t give. “That’s why you didn’t recognize John Porter’s name, because he wasn’t one of the men who worked for you. She’d hired him on her own and didn’t tell you.”
“Yes.” But that answer did little to ease down her rising guilt. “I believe so.”
He reached for her hand. When she tried to pull away, his fingers tightened around hers. Instead of letting go, he moved across the compartment to sit beside her and covered both of her hands with his.
“I need answers, Danielle.” He squeezed her fingers. “I need to know that my family is safe, and the only way I can do that is to uncover the truth about my sister.”
“I can’t give you any more answers.” She turned toward the window and the dark city beyond. “I don’t even know them myself.”
“You have to try.” He cupped her cheek in his palm and gently turned her face to look at him. “Please.”
Nodding faintly, she began in a voice that was little more than a whisper, “I told Elise about Nightingale because I needed her help with the money. We couldn’t use a bank because women aren’t allowed to open an account without a man to sign for them, and we couldn’t use our household accounts without husbands or relatives seeing. Except for Elise. Her husband was dead, and you were away at war. No one was at Charlton Place to question why large sums of money were being moved through the accounts.”
“That was all she did, help with the money?”
“With Nightingale, yes. We all had our own responsibilities. I arranged the vanishings, other women made certain the women had everything they needed for their new lives, and Elise served as the bank. It worked well, for a while. But you know how your sister was. She wanted to do things. Secreting out money wasn’t nearly enough for her.”
“No, it wouldn’t have been.” He tenderly stroked her cheek. “What happened?”
She tightened her fingers around his hand as he continued to hold hers, and she tried to explain in a way he would understand. “There are certain women whose situations are so dangerous that helping them puts their lives at risk, and ours. If we attempt to help them and something goes wrong, they might be hurt even worse. Or killed. Sometimes we simply can’t help them,” she admitted in a guilt-rasped whisper. “But Elise wanted to rescue everyone, and as soon as possible. We argued about it. When I refused to change how Nightingale operated, she wanted to start her own network so she could arrange her own vanishings. I told her that it was too dangerous, that she would be putting her life at risk—” She choked. Swallowing hard, she finished, “She promised me that she wouldn’t.”
“But she did anyway, didn’t she?”
She nodded, lowering her face so he wouldn’t see her grief. “I believe so.”
“And she hired John Porter to help her, a former smuggler like the men who work for you?”
“I suppose, but…” When she hesitated, he stroked his thumb over her bottom lip in entreaty for her to continue. “But he might be connected to a brothel.”
He paused, his thumb stilling as it looped up to lightly trace the outline of her lips. “Why do you think that?”
“The women who are in the most dangerous situations are usually connected to brothels. They’re forced to sell their bodies and are beaten by the managers if they don’t. But it’s all about profit for the owners. If they discovered that someone was helping their women escape and hurting their profits…”
“They’d put a stop to it,” he finished grimly.
When she nodded, he leaned forward and brought his lips to her forehead in a gesture of understanding and gratitude for trusting in him.
“Marcus, I’m sorry…” She buried her face against his shoulder as she clung to him, not caring how weak she must have seemed. Not caring about anything except how much she needed to absorb his strength to keep from breaking down completely. “It was my fault that she died.” In her grief, she could barely speak the words. “I asked for her help—she died because of me.”
“It isn’t your fault,” he murmured into her hair, his arms tightening around her.
Oh, how much she wanted to believe that! But simply saying it didn’t make it true.
She squeezed her eyes shut. She’d told him all she was willing to share, and still it wasn’t enough to bring solace. There was nothing left that she could do or say to give him the peace he sought, or bring any to herself.
“Danielle,” he whispered, his voice an agonized rasp. Then his lips touched hers.
She inhaled sharply at the unexpected contact. It took a moment for her to realize what was happening, that Marcus Braddock was kissing her.
No, not a kiss. Nothing as simple as that. It was so much more.
The comfort he gave her soothed the raw edges of her grief and provided an absolution of the guilt she carried and most likely always would. She drank him in, wanting desperately to end the pain. As she let go of his lapels and brushed her hands over his waistcoat to feel the power and life pulsing within him, she wanted nothing more than to find a way to be engulf
ed by his strength and steely hardness. To find a way to capture the solace she knew he was capable of giving—
“Marcus.” His name was a plea against his lips.
In response, he deepened the kiss. She knew as his mouth moved more insistently against hers that he was seeking his own comfort in her, and the sweet touch of lips to lips transformed from a soothing caress into shared consolation. And then into need.
He shifted her in his arms, bringing her onto his lap as his mouth captured hers, now more demanding in claiming this taste of her. His hand slipped to her nape and tugged her down to him, until her breasts flattened against his hard chest.
She lay against him so scandalously, yet she couldn’t bring herself to stop him. Hadn’t she wanted this since she was sixteen, to be in Marcus’s arms? Hadn’t she always been jealous of the other women she’d watched him dance with, take for drives through the park, smile at flirtatiously, and whisper God only knew what kind of sinful things into their ears that made them laugh so wickedly? Now that she was the woman in his arms, his kisses were just as wonderful as she’d imagined. Heavenly.
When the tip of his tongue coaxed at the seam of her lips, she couldn’t deny herself this pleasure and opened her mouth in invitation.
His tongue slipped between her lips to claim all of her kiss. He made slow but deep and exploring sweeps into her mouth, then encouraged her to kiss him back by giving a velvet-soft stroke over her tongue.
More nervous than she wanted to admit at this new way of kissing, she repeated the little movement. But her unschooled tongue twined around his in a motion far more wanton than she’d intended.
A low groan rumbled from the back of his throat. He began to thrust his tongue between her lips in a sinfully seductive motion that stole the air from her lungs. Sweet heavens. An intoxicating warmth bloomed low in her belly, and she melted against him, completely losing her battle to resist.
Slow and deliberate, each thrust of his tongue now came as a decadently smooth and unhurried slide between her lips. A restless ache settled between her legs, intensified by his other hand that moved reassuringly in slow strokes over her back, in caresses that were somehow both so innocent yet surprisingly erotic that she shivered.
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