Page 30 of The Duke and the Darkness

She walked toward the main gate. She should have stayed and carried out the part of her plan that she’d originally intended when she’d first stolen the invitation—to destroy Dartmoor politically. Only a few well-placed comments and questions would be necessary to have other members of parliament doubting his loyalty and ethics, and a few nights of planting such doubts would have him removed from his Parliamentary committees, one by one, until he had no power left in the Lords except to cast meaningless votes.

But she couldn’t do that now, not without indisputable proof of his role in her parents’ murders. Apparently, the attack and secret life she’d led since hadn’t stripped her completely of her soul.Yet.

The same question swirled relentlessly through her mind. How could Devlin be the same person who had arranged her parents’ murders and attempted to rape her?How?At the theatre, when he’d kissed her so tenderly, when she’d looked up at him through a cloud of fear and confusion, an icy cold realization had slithered down her spine, and in its blistering wake came a brutal truth—

Because he wasn’t the same man.

Devlin had been at the attack, she knew that. But he wasn’t the man who had tried to rape her. He couldn’t have been, she knew that now. His body feltwrongand didn’t match the memory of that night that had branded itself onto her mind. He was too tall, too broad-shouldered and slender-waisted, his hands too large to match those of the man who had shoved her to the ground, climbed on top of her from behind, ripped off her dress—

God help her, she wasn’t certain anymore. And if she were wrong about his role in that, what else might she be wrong about?

Tonight had been her chance to find out, only for the opportunity to slip through her fingers.

As she left the pleasure gardens, she untied her mask and let it dangle from her hand as she made her way past the line of carriages waiting outside the main gates. Frustration warred with desperation inside her, all of it roiling together with mounting confusion…and with an inexplicable desire to be wrong about him.

She found her carriage, and the tiger held open the door for her as she climbed inside. “Go.”

The door closed behind her. She leaned her head back against the squabs, closing her eyes as the carriage jerked to a start and slowly rolled away from the gardens toward the new bridge. The night had not gone as well as she’d—

The door flung open, and a large man swung inside. As he landed on the bench across from her and yanked closed the door, he drew a pistol.

“You need better security,” he drawled. “The tigers didn’t even try to stop me.”

Dartmoor.

With her heart pounding fiercely, her hand slipped between the seat cushion and the carriage wall. She pulled out a loaded pocket pistol and pointed it at his chest. “Because I told them not to.”

*

Devlin locked gazeswith her, not daring to lower his eyes to her pistol. If she decided to kill him, her eyes would give her away first. But he knew she wouldn’t. Either of them firing ensured mutual destruction, and she’d already proven herself to be anything but rash.

“I’m impressed,” he drawled. “You always keep a loaded gun in the cushions?”

“I keep an entire arsenal in this carriage.” Her voice didn’t quaver. “You know who I am. Given my history, do you blame me?”

The brutal honesty he saw in her eyes cut him to his core, and he knew then without doubt…

“Hello, Peyton,” he said quietly. There was no pretending he didn’t know exactly who she was.

He hadn’t wanted to believe that a dead girl had come back from the grave to haunt him, preferring to believe she was just another part of Horrender’s new schemes. The alternative was less damning. But after watching her tonight, following her through the gardens because he knew she’d come looking for him again, there was no doubt left.

Slowly, he eased down the hammer of his pistol and tucked it back inside his greatcoat. “You have a lot of explaining to do.”

“I’m not the only one.” Following his lead, she lowered her pistol but laid it on the bench beside her, still within reach. “Where would you like to start? Because I’d like to begin with the night my parents were murdered before my eyes and I was almost raped and killed.” She paused, then repeated, “Almost. I still have no idea who that man was or why he didn’t succeed. But you do. You know because you were there.”

“I was.” He kept his face perfectly inscrutable. “He didn’t succeed in harming you because I stopped him.”

The soft inhalation as she caught her breath ricocheted inside the compartment as if she’d pulled the trigger after all. Her lips parted as she stared at him, yet the invisible mask she wore now was as good as the one she’d worn in the gardens for hiding whatever thoughts were swirling inside her head. But it couldn’t hide the glistening in her eyes, bright even in the shadows.

Then she whispered, the confession so soft that her words were barely audible over the rumble of carriage wheels beneath them, “I used to believe it was you.”

“It wasn’t.”

She stared at him as the bridge passed slowly beneath them, not moving, not blinking, hardly breathing…as if needing all her strength and will to simply absorb his quiet denial and not shatter like glass. “Then why were you there that night? Tell me what you did…everything.”

“If you tell me why you’re back in London and pretending to be Elizabeth Wentworth.”

Her eyes flared at the name. She didn’t confirm his accusation, clinging to a fighting spirit even in the midst of this fresh hell, but she didn’t have to. The look in her blue depths confessed everything.