Page 25 of The Duke and the Darkness

“Go away,” he ordered. “And close the drapes on your way out.”

Silence answered that. He cracked open one eye. She was still there.

He sighed heavily. “What’s the matter, Meg?”

“You were outalllast night,” she repeated for emphasis. “Again.”

He shut his eye. “I plan on being out again all night tonight, too.” And the next night, and the one after that…until he found out who was after him and why.

“You’re on a cut, aren’t you?”

“I amnoton a drinking spree.”

“Foxed to the ears.”

“Not at all.”

“Like a wheelbarrow.”

Both eyes flew open, then narrowed suspiciously on her. “How do you know so much cant about drinking?”

She answered, deadpan, “I have Dartmoor for an older brother.”

“In whose life you shouldn’t be meddling.”

“I should when I’m concerned about him.” Her quiet words pierced him, bringing him as wide awake as the harsh sunlight. “And I’m concerned, Devlin. Mama and I both are.” She paused, just long enough to bite her bottom lip in that worried way which reminded him of the little girl she’d once been instead of the twenty-four-year-old woman she’d grown up to be. “You’re slipping back into your old ways.”

Thatput an end to any more sleep. It was as good as a dunking in cold water.

He rolled out of bed and faced her. It was his turn to cross his arms and give a chastising look. “I’m not slipping back into my old ways.”

She arched a disbelieving brow and raked her gaze over him, noting his wrinkled trousers. In his fatigue when he’d stumbled home at dawn, he’d been too tired to remove his clothes and had fallen into bed still half-dressed.

Her expression was damning.

“It isn’t what you think,” he defended himself.

“Then what is it?”

He couldn’t tell her. Their father had already hurt her enough, and she still bore the scars. Just as he did. She didn’t need to be punished further by dredging up dark memories.

“Just a night out,” he dodged, although not technically a lie.

He snatched up the dressing robe his valet had left for him across the foot of the bed and pulled it on to cover his back. Some scars were more visible than others.

“Like all the nights you spent away from home before Father died?”

Father.Margaret was the only society daughter Devlin knew who didn’t refer to her father as Papa. But then,Papawasan endearment, wasn’t it? And their father had never been endearing to any of them.

“It wasn’t like that,” he assured her before he crossed the room to the wash basin, knowing she was deaf in her left ear and might not be able to hear him once he’d moved away.

“Then what exactly was it that compelled you to tup a woman in a private box the same night you’d invited your fiancée and all her family to the theatre?”

He froze.Christ.The story was spreading already? The London gossip mill was churning at top speed if she’d found out about that when it wasn’t yet noon. Taking a deep breath, he poured the pitcher of water into the basin and reached his hands into the bowl to splash the cold water on his face, when what he wanted to do was dunk his entire head.

She followed after him and sank into the chair beside the washstand. A grim solemnity darkened her face as she waited, unmoving, for an explanation.

“I didn’t tup anyone, at the opera or anywhere else.” He splashed more cold water against his face in an attempt to chase away the lingering lightheadedness from lack of sleep.Whyon earth was he having this conversation with his sister? “And Lady Catherine is not my intended.”