“Reckon...” he repeated.
“Luke!”Danielle called from inside the dark room.
“She, ‘came after me’?” Luke asked in passing, following Danielle’s voice.
Sister Marie shook her head; her patience had expired.
Luke paused, catching the doorjamb with his hand and hanging back. “But there’s no emergency?” he demanded in a whisper. “Nothing is wrong? Danielle is not fleeing for her life? Do you mean that she came here... with... for the purpose of—? Why would she come here?”
“Now you have only four minutes, Captain,” intoned the nun.
“Luke!”Danielle hissed. Her arm lashed out, she fastened a hand around his bicep, and yanked him into the room.
Sister Marie closed the door behind them with a click.
Chapter 26
“Luke, keep calm,” Danielle lectured, pulling him into the room.
“You,”he accused, taking over the momentum and hustling her against the nearest wall. He caught her up, jerking her into his arms. He fell upon her, pressing his face into her neck. She embraced him, tears flooding her eyes.
“M’étoile,”he whispered against her skin, “m’étoile. God, I’ve missed you. Are you real?”
“Oh yes,” she said, laughing through her tears. “I am real. And I missed you, too. I’m sorry I was petulant in the letters. I missed you from the moment you left Ivy Hill.”
“I deserved petulant letters. I deserved far worse.”
But now he was kissing his way up her neck, crushing his lips to her skin; hands prowling, feeling every part of her. He came to her mouth and devoured it, kissing her so hard her head knocked against the wall. He made a sound of distress but didn’t stop; he cushioned the space with his hand. The kiss was unending. Dani roamed his body with hungry hands, assuring herself that he was whole, and hale, andhere.
“But did you just,” he panted, “did you simply...” another kiss, “were those two guards justknocked unconsciousby you and that nun friend of Elise Crewes’s?” Another kiss. “Is that what happened? The two of you saved me?”
Danielle nodded, not wanting to engage her lips in anything more than kissing him.
Luke pulled away. “But why, Princess? Why? What in the bloody hell are you doing in France?”
Danielle blinked up, trying to see his face in the dark room. “I came to rescue you.”
“Rescue me?”he repeated, sounding disbelieving, and accusing, and furious.
She nodded and captured his mouth again. He kissed her back, but only for a second. “But how did you—?”
“Stop,” she said. “No more questions. I came for you because I wanted to help you. Your letters were like a road map to how I might do it. We need only to reach you in time. Which we have.”
Remembering his surrogate father, she slapped her hands on his chest. “Have you recovered Mr. Welty?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding vigorously. “He’s alive, thank God. And we have him. We hid him inside a trunk and hauled him through a servants’ door.”
Relief washed over her. He’d done it. He’d rescued his father. And the man was alive.
Luke was saying, “I came back for—” And suddenly he stopped. He studied her. “When you say, ‘We need only reach you in time,’ who do you mean? Tell me it’s not simply you and the nun, running about this castle alone. Tell me you have an army with you, Danielle.”
“First of all, Sister Marie is very fierce, a trained fighter—actually more like a warrior than a nun. And she’s taken a vow to protect my family. Killian would not have left me alone in the castle without her.”
“Killian Crewes is here?”
“Yes, of course. And Lord Fernsby is here. Sister Marie, who you’ve met. And my brother, Prince Gabriel—or Gabriel Rein, as he prefers to be known. Oh Luke, I cannot wait for you to meet him. And his wife, Lady Ryan. But I digress. There were only a handful of days between when your last letter arrived and the night of this ball. I went to Killian and Elise and I told them in no uncertain terms that I would come for you.”
“Come for me,” Luke repeated, dumbfounded.
