Page 23 of The Duke and the Darkness

He was too close! She couldn’t catch her breath. She shoved at him again. When he didn’t move, panic seized her, and she punched at him with her fist.

He grabbed her wrists to stop her. Concern darkened his face. “What’s wrong?”

He reached for her shoulder, just as he’d done the night of the attack—

“Don’t!” she cried out, ripping her hands away from his. “Don’t touch me!”

She shoved past him and stumbled toward the door, still facing him and instinctively keeping the enemy in sight. He’d been there that night, damn it!

Her left hand flew to her lips, which were hot and wet from his kisses. She couldn’t believe she’d let him kiss her like that, that she’d enjoyed it—

Dear God, what had she done? She stopped, her back against the door. Yet he made no move to lunge for her. He simply stood there, a damnable look of concern on his face. She scoured ather forehead with both hands. She couldn’t think through the confusion and panic. Couldn’tthink!

“What’s wrong?” he asked calmly.

“You’re not who…” she whispered as he continued to stare at her with that dark look of worry that now filled her head and wouldn’t let her go. He was a monster! Hecouldn’tbe concerned about her.

But his expression distorted beneath the memory of that same concerned face from ten years ago, until she couldn’t tell where the memory ended and this moment began.

“Are you all right?” He reached for her arm. “Let me—”

Yanking her arm away so fiercely her sleeve ripped, she hissed out the brutal truth through clenched teeth before she could stop herself, “I’llneverbe all right!”

*

Devlin pulled backas if she’d slapped him and stared at her, stunned. A sharp memory pierced him, one so dark and distant, so horrible—

Impossible.

No, she couldn’t be… That girl was dead. He’d seen for himself how close to death she had been after the attack, had been told the next morning by her mother’s maid that she had died during the night. He attended the funeral a few days later with Crewe, when three coffins were lowered into St Martin’s churchyard.

For Christ’s sake,she was dead!

Any icy dread pulsed through his veins as he stared at her, chilling him though to his bones. She wasn’t—she simplycouldn’tbe. The two women were nothing alike. There was nothing in this woman of the awkward, shy, and homely girlwhose death had shocked London. And nothing of that girl he recognized in this enthralling woman.

And yet… “Peyton?”

Her eyes flared wide with terror. Then she threw open the door and raced from the box.

“Stop!” He charged after her. She wasnotgetting away from him. Not this time.

She ran into the wide gallery that was crowded full with operagoers pouring out of their boxes for intermission—

And straight into Lady Catherine, hitting her so hard that the two women both staggered backward.

Devlin arrived a half-second behind her. He was close enough that his left hand was on her arm to stop her, his right resting on the small of her back in an attempt to stop her from spinning around and striking him but which everyone in the crowd immediately assumed was a touch of familiarity. Especially given the red and swollen state of her lips and how her hair had come loose in her struggle to flee the box, along with the ripped sleeve of her dress, her tellingly wrinkled skirts, and her bodice pulled so low that she nearly spilled out of it. Especially given his own state of undress. Every pair of eyes that saw them leaving the box together assumed they’d just had sex.

Clearly, so did Catherine and the circle of friends and family surrounding her. Bewilderment swept over her stunned expression, followed immediately by mortification. And betrayal.

A flash of red caught the corner of his eye. The woman was getting away. He started after her to stop her, to learn for certain who she was, what connection she had to the Chandlers. Because she simply couldn’t—

“Dartmoor.” Northrop stepped in front him, blocking his path. “I demand an explanation!”

“So do I,” he growled and started around him.

The earl grabbed his arm and hissed low enough not to be overheard by the gawking crowd around them, “How dare you embarrass my daughter like this?”

Clenching his jaw, Devlin stopped and dropped his arms to his sides, letting the woman get away.Christ.He had no choice unless he wanted to get into fisticuffs with the earl right there in the opera house. As laughter and snickers rose around him from the crowd, he blew out a frustrated and angry breath, then raked his fingers through his hair.Control…control…control…He internally repeated the old mantra that Titus had taught him and focused on his breathing, when what he wanted to do was toss the earl onto his arse and charge after her.