Page 17 of The Duke and the Darkness

“Well, we’ll do better than that!” Proctor stripped off her hat and coat and laid them across a chair in the entry hall. “We’ll go down together and make breakfast ourselves.”

Peyton blinked. “We’llmake breakfast?”

Proctor paused when she realized what she’d said, then nodded fiercely. “Cook makes it every day. Can’t be that difficult.”

Fighting back a smile, Peyton looped her arm through Proctor’s. The two women walked through the house to the servants’ stairs in the rear and down into the kitchens.

As they went, Proctor related what she’d seen that morning on her walk down the street to the park and back, how the flower seller was putting out his baskets and the butcher most likely shorting orders of beef.

Peyton listened with affection. She owed this woman everything.

Ever since Peyton could remember, Proctor had been her mother’s maid, and not much difference in age from Mama, which was most likely why Peyton now saw her as a second mother, one who had sacrificed her own life for an adopted child. In their years of self-exile in France, she’d taught Peyton how to be a proper woman—how to take care of her hair and skin, how to choose dresses and accessories, how to deport herself—all the things she should have learned from her own mother and from her own lady’s maid when she was old enough to have one. How could she have survived all those years without Proctor, to say nothing of those first few dark days after the attack? Proctor had nursed her back from the edge of death and dragged her back into the light.

Peyton had repaid her the best she could by elevating her to the status of an aunt and giving her a separate set of rooms within her home, her own maid to attend her, and a generous allowance. She’d given the same kind of luxuries to Wilkins. The two had become her family.

“And then the butcher said, ‘My! That’s the finest rump I e’er seen!’” Proctor stopped just as they reached the kitchen, placed her hand on her hips, and shook her finger, re-enacting themoment. “SoIsaid, “Mr. Butcher, you’d best be talking about a roast!’”

Peyton laughed, her hand flying up to her lips to keep back her laughter. Only Betty Proctor could be that audacious on her morning walk.

Useless in the kitchen, Peyton sat on a little stool pulled up to the long worktable and let Proctor scurry about the space, looking into all the cabinets and pantries, to make them breakfast. Learning to cook was most definitely not a skill Peyton’s schooling had prepared her for. But then, her girlhood hadn’t prepared her for a lot of skills that she later found necessary, such as shooting pistols and wielding knives. Her chest tightened. How much different would her life be if she’d remained that same girl who needed to know nothing more dangerous than how to watercolor, play the pianoforte, and dance without stepping on her partner’s feet? It was impossible to even contemplate that now.

“We’ll have ourselves a right fine breakfast.” Proctor fetched a bowl of strawberries from the cold pantry and set them on the table in front of Peyton, along with a hunk of cheese and a knife. “And prove to Cook we’re capable of taking care of ourselves! How about some eggs?”

She reached for the metal basket of eggs on the wall shelf with a smile. Then she halted and frowned at the eggs, realizing she would have to cook them.

“Maybe not eggs,” she mumbled as she put them back.

Peyton stifled another laugh.

Proctor set a plate of croissants from the breadbox on the table and then plopped onto a stool across from Peyton just as the young kitchen maid came back inside from the service yard in the rear. Surprised to see them, she nodded her good morning greetings, then busied herself with putting a pot of milk over the fire to heat to make chocolate.

“Now then.” Proctor reached for the knife to cut off some cheese. “What’s so wrong that you can’t sleep?”

Peyton lowered her eyes to the croissant as she broke it in two with her fingers. “I met Dartmoor last night, face-to-face…and he wasn’t the monster I thought he would be.”

For a long moment, Proctor didn’t move, didn’t speak. Then she gestured at the kitchen maid and ordered, “Go down to the butcher and tell him that I’ve changed my mind. I want that roast after all.”

The girl frowned. “But Cook’s planning to—

“Go on! Be away with you then—shoo!”

With an irritated twist of her lips, the maid grabbed her coat and hat from the hooks beside the door, then slipped out the rear door.

“What happened?” Proctor pressed quietly once they were alone. “Did he recognize you?”

Peyton shook her head with a frown. “Not at all.”

Proctor set down the knife, and her fingers pulled idly at a piece of cheese, crumbling it without realizing it. “Then your plan didn’t go well?”

Her frown deepened. “The evening went exactly as planned.”

“Then why aren’t you happy about it?”

“Because it doesn’t feel at all the way I thought it would. I thought I would hate him, that I would recoil and be sick from being near him. But I wasn’t.” No. The exact opposite, in fact. There had been times during the evening when the years had seemed to disappear, and she’d forgotten the events of that night, if only momentarily. Andthatbothered her more than she wanted to admit, as did the swirling doubts about him that gnawed at her belly.

“Tell me,” Proctor insisted.

As she slowly ate the croissant, one nibbling bite at a time despite not having an appetite, Peyton related what happenedlast night, about meeting Devlin at Barton’s and besting him at cards. Exactly as planned.