Page 18 of The Duke and the Darkness

Proctor listened intently, nodding her head and urging her to continue with each new detail she shared…except the part about the attempted seduction, at which Proctor said nothing because Peyton conveniently excluded it. After all, Proctor was too much like her own mother to discuss subjects like that.

“That’s wonderful,” Proctor said when Peyton finished the story with a description of making a clean exit. She slipped off the stool and removed the milk from the fire, then set about making an urn of chocolate for Peyton exactly as she liked it, including a pinch of cinnamon in the layer of butter cream on top. “It’s what you wanted—to make him pay for what he did.”

“Not as much as I’d thought,” she admitted. “It felt…wrong, somehow, taking his money like that.”

Measuring out the cocoa powder, Proctor paused to send Peyton a pointed glance. “That man murdered your parents.”

“He wasn’t one of the men who pulled us from the carriage.” She knew that with certainty. She clearly remembered those men, having seen their faces. They were too physically different from how Dartmoor had been then, when he’d still been the young Marquess of Truro. He’d been taller than those men, not so broad, not so stocky. His muscles had been sinuous, not bulky hard—he’d possessed the muscles of a young man who spent lots of time riding and fencing. The men who killed her parents had been older and rounder, possessing more brute strength than Devlin’s finesse. After all, in the weeks leading up to the attack, she’d spent hours watching him dance at balls when he hadn’t been aware that she was even present, and he possessed a natural-born athletic grace those men lacked.

“You’re splitting hairs now.” Proctor shot her a chastising glance as she stirred in the dark powder. “He might not havepulled your parents and you from the carriage, but he wasthere.He was part of it.”

Peyton frowned at the piece of croissant as she slowly shredded it with her fingers. Devlinhadbeen there, and she’d fought against him; the button she’d ripped from his waistcoat proved that. She’d torn it from his waistcoat during the struggle when she’d nearly been raped, and the tailor on Bond Street confirmed that it was exactly like all the others he’d sewn onto Dartmoor’s evening clothes. She’d remembered seeing those buttons herself earlier that same evening before everything changed, when he’d been staring at the opera singer and she’d been staring at him, so closely that she’d noticed every detail about him, right down to the shine of the silver buttons on his chest.

“Why was he there then,” Proctor pressed as she poured the chocolate into a long-handled chocolate pot, almost as if reading Peyton’s mind, “if not to hurt you and your parents?”

Peyton couldn’t answer that. It was that same question that always stopped her in her tracks whenever she tried to sort through the events of that night.Why? Why Devlin?Even after all these years, even after all the evidence she’d gathered that pointed at Devlin and his father, she still had no motive. But it hadn’t been a coincidence that he had been there that night. He knew their carriage was going to be attacked, most likely by hired porters from the docks or thugs from Seven Dials, and wanted to witness the carnage. Or worse—that he’d arranged the attack himself.

Yet even now, though, nagging doubts that had been growing inside her since her return to London rose in a chorus inside her head.

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

Her face dark with sympathy and grief, Proctor returned to the table and set down the now unwanted chocolate. She said quietly, “He tried to rape you.”

Peyton also wasn’t so certain of that any longer either, since seeing him again at Barton’s. At different times during the evening, she’d felt a visceral pull toward him, a rekindling of the old attraction. How could she be attracted to the man who had tried to rape her?Impossible.

Yet she’d seen his face the night of the attack, clawed a bloody scratch into his neck, ripped off his button—

He had been there, had attempted to rape her…hadn’t he?

Confusion swam inside her until she felt as if she might drown. Wilkins had been so adamant that Dartmoor was the one responsible for what had happened that night. Even the latest pair of investigators she’d insisted Wilkins hire to discover the last missing pieces of that night—and lay her final doubts to rest—had provided only more proof of Devlin’s involvement. It had taken ten years to arrive here, but now, finally, she could claim her revenge. Ten years of fear, anger, and grief so terrible that it had nearly consumed her. Her only way forward from the darkness had been a dedication to bringing justice to the man responsible.

So why were her instincts whispering that maybe she was wrong?

Proctor took Peyton’s hand in hers. “You know what kind of monster that man is. You cannot stop until he gets what’s coming to him.” Her eyes fixed on Peyton’s. “Or do your parents’ graves mean nothing to you?”

Grief struck her so fiercely she winced. “They mean everything.” She slowly pulled her hand away, for once not taking any solace in Proctor’s motherly gestures. Her chest burned, and she blinked hard. “Do they still—” She choked, then started again. “Are flowers still put on the graves?”

“Yes.” Proctor poured two cups of chocolate, but neither wanted any now. “The woman we hired is still putting flowers there every week. I’ve been checking up on her since we’ve returned, and a new bouquet is placed there every Sunday. On all three graves.”

Onhergrave. Perhaps that’s why Peyton risked herself as she did. What more did she have to lose when she was already dead?

“When this is all over,” Peyton promised, forcing herself to accept the cup of chocolate only because Proctor had gone to the trouble of making it, “that grave will be removed.”

Not one day too soon.

Chapter Five

The crowd partedas Peyton slowly made her way through the crush of opening night at the Theatre Royal. All of London society seemed to be in attendance, including the prince regent and his latest paramour. But then, it wasn’t every night that Domenico Scarlatti’s grand operaAmbletowas performed on the London stage.

A secret smile tugged at her lips as she took surreptitious glances at the crowd, not one of them realizing the private irony she found in that.Ambleto… Hamlet.

Tonight was act two in her own revenge play.

She leisurely climbed the wide marble stairs that swept their way up to the first floor, one slow step at a time. Every pair of eyes in the house seemed glued to her as she rose above the lobby floor, and curious whispers followed in her wake.

Good. For the past ten years, she’d hidden from the world. But now she delighted in appearing in it, just as any smart actress would who needed to be noticed.

She’d certainly dressed the part tonight, right down to the glittering rubies draping around her neck and dangling from her ears. Every one of the jewels was meant to sparkle beneath the chandeliers and set her apart from the crowd. So was the blood-red silk dress she wore. Exceptionally low cut in a Spanish style, the dress flattered her figure with its tightly fitted waist,so unlike those cylindrical-shaped English gowns with their high waists and puffy cap sleeves that had become all the rage. To Peyton, those gowns looked as if ladies’ maids had gotten confused and dressed their mistresses in the drawing room draperies. Not at all proper attire for a seduction.