Page 27 of The Duke and the Darkness

Apparently, the dead were refusing to stay buried.

A hand gently touched his shoulder. When he turned his head to look at Margaret, tears glistened in her eyes, and she choked out, “I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you.”

“Nothing is going to happen to me, except returning to bed as soon as you shuffle out of here.”

“Devlin, be serious.” His attempt at humor did nothing to lighten the grimness on her face. Or the knot her expression twisted in his gut.

She shouldn’t be worrying about him. She should have been off enjoying her season, spending an indecent amount of money at shopping, or wasting time with all the men who were pounding down his door to court her. After all, wasn’t that why he’d put himself through hell, so that his sisters and mother could have the happy, normal life they deserved?

“Last night was simply a misunderstanding.” He tossed the towel over the basin and turned away from the mirror, unable to stand another glimpse of himself this morning. “I am not returning to old ways.”

She frowned dubiously. “Then why is Lucien Grenier waiting downstairs in your study with noon still several hours away?”

Averygood question. One with answers he had no intention of giving.

Instead, he affectionately tucked a curl behind her ear, the way he’d done since she was a child. He doubted he’d ever be able to think of her as a grown woman. The day when he had to walk her down the aisle and give her away to her husband would simply kill him.

“Meg, you know that I would never do anything to intentionally harm you, Teddy, or Mother.” When she turned away, he took her chin and made her look at him. “But you have to trust me when I tell you that last night was not at all as it seemed and that I have everything under control. All right?”

She nodded, albeit grudgingly, her worry for him still visible in her eyes.

He placed a kiss to the top of her head, then strode out of his room before she could ask him any more questions he couldn’t answer, or cause her more worry.

Because right then, he had enough worry pulsing through his veins for both of them.

Crewe rarely came to Dartmoor House, which he claimed was too respectable an address for his well-honed blackguard’s reputation. When he did, he certainly never came before four in the afternoon. Something was wrong.Hadto be, to bring Lucien here this early.

He feared he knew what that something was.

“Devlin!” Theodora stuck her head over the banister from the landing above, stopping him halfway to the ground floor. Her pretty face beamed hopefully. “Mama says that Crewe’s waiting in your study. When you’re done talking to him, can you take me out for a drive? It’s too lovely a day to stay inside, don’t you think?”

He knew what she wanted, and it wasn’t a turn in the fresh air. “I am not teaching you to drive a phaeton, Teddy.”

Instantly, her hopefulness changed to irritation, and she scowled. “Why not?”

With a tired sigh, he rattled off the usual litany of objections he gave whenever she raised this topic. Which seemed to be all the time lately. “You’re too young, it isn’t safe, and it isn’t what respectable young ladies do.”

“But Princess Charlotte drives a phaeton.”

“Princess Charlotte is also going to be Queen of England. Rules of propriety don’t apply to royalty.”

“That is so unfair!”

“More than you realize,” he muttered beneath his breath and continued down the stairs.

She leaned out over the railing to call down to him, “You treat me like I’m still in braids in the schoolroom. But I’m seventeen!”

“Still a miss too young to drive.” He reached the entry hall and threw out a peace offering. “Ask me again when you’re eighteen.”

“When I was sixteen, you said to ask when I was seventeen!”

“I was never good at math.” As he walked out of her sight, he heard her give a frustrated cry and rolled his eyes. His life would be so much easier if his youngest sister didn’t know how to count. Or how to read a calendar. God help him when she finally grew old enough to have a season and be courted. On the brighter side, he still had plenty of time for Margaret to send him to an early grave before then.

Sixteen.The same age Peyton Chandler had been the night her parents were murdered. The same night she’d nearly been raped. If he’d been slower that night, if he’d arrived just a few minutes later—

Sixteen.Christ.

Devlin strode into his study to find Crewe helping himself to the cognac in the liquor cabinet. He gestured at the mantle clock. “A bit early for that, don’t you think?”