Chapter Eleven

P eyton looked out the carriage window at the old tavern where they'd finally stopped. Fear tingled the backs of her knees. "What is this place?"

"The Plough," Devlin answered. Then he popped open the door and called out to the driver. "Drive around the corner and stop there."

The man did as ordered.

"Wait here," he told her.

He jumped to the ground and gestured to her tiger, who hesitated before stripping off his black jacket and handing it over to Devlin. Then he called up to the driver, who tossed down his caped greatcoat a few seconds later. He handed her the driver's coat. "Put this on and button it all the way. It will cover your dress well enough not to draw too much attention."

As she slipped on the tent of a coat and buttoned it as he wanted, she watched him exchange his jacket for the tiger's. The jacket was too small across his broad shoulders, but at least it wasn't the fine blue cashmere he'd been wearing.

When he helped her to the ground, instead of letting go of her hand, he held tighter to her fingers and led her back toward the tavern. The coat covered her from neck to ankle, with only her slippers giving any indication of the fine dress she wore beneath.

"What are we doing here?" she asked as he held the door for her.

"I want you to meet someone," he returned in the same low voice as she slid past him.

Once inside, he took her arm and walked her through the tavern, past tables crowded with men in rough workmen's clothes and women in coarse dresses. The stench of rotten ale stung her nose, so did the scent of burnt stew coming from somewhere inside the smoky, musty building. Devlin threw a coin to the barkeeper but didn't slow his pace as the man called out something to him that Peyton couldn't understand.

They reached a door at the rear of the tavern. Devlin rapped his knuckles against the wood panel.

The door opened, and a man the size of a mountain peered out. "Eh?"

"Caxton."

The mountain stepped back. Before Devlin could enter, the man ran his hands down Devlin's body, patting down his jacket sleeves and waist. Devlin passively held up his hands.

When the man reached for Peyton to conduct the same weapons check, Devlin stepped between them.

"Touch her," he warned in a low growl, "and I'll kill you where you stand. You know I can."

The guard hesitated, then nodded and moved back to let them pass. He closed the door behind them.

"You've a keen ability for making friends," Peyton muttered to Devlin in a low voice. "Has anyone ever told you that?"

He said nothing but slid her a warning glance and led her forward, down a set of stone steps into the cellar.

Peyton stopped just inside the doorway to a long basement room and realized why a mountain-shaped guard protected it. This wasn't a tavern cellar where they stored sacks of grain and casks of ale. It was an illegal gin palace—well, as much of a palace as a dark and dank cellar filled with cobwebs and mold could be. Not that anyone who was there cared how the place looked, based on the way men and women in working class clothes sat drunk on wooden benches lining the walls, while others hunched over small tables scattered throughout, playing at cards and dice in the smoky light of tallow candles. A few were too drunk to even sit and instead lay on the dirt floor where they'd collapsed.

Devlin guided her slowly through the cellar, slanting glances at the men at the tables and keeping his face inscrutable. When they reached the far end, he stopped at a table in the corner, pulled out a chair without invitation, and helped Peyton to sit.

Across the table, a man in a rough brown jacket glanced up from his cards. His gaze went first to Devlin, then fell to Peyton, where it remained for a long time before returning to his cards. He threw in his hand and gestured for the two men with him to leave. They collected their coins and walked away.

Devlin sat on one of the vacant chairs, looked at the small pile of coins in the center of the table, and threw in a couple of his own to make up for the profits he'd cost the man on the hand. The gesture wasn't one of kindness or remorse, she knew. It was a bribe.

"You're here awfully early," the man rasped out in a gravelly voice. Then he signaled for one of the bar maids to bring him a new cup of gin.

"I could say the same of you, Caxton."

"Cards are better played before the crowd's dead drunk." He tossed the bar maid one of the coins. "And bets best collected 'fore they're just plain dead."

Peyton wanted to crawl out of her skin. So that's how this gin cellar worked. The poor workers came here for a ha'penny dram of gin to forget their troubles for the night, and men like Caxton preyed on their vulnerabilities. Some of the imbibers would drink themselves to death before dawn. Yet the authorities would do as they'd done for the past century—turn a blind eye. Thank God the guard at the door seemed to keep the children and babies away, at least, although the same God only knew how many of the women slumped on the benches had left their children and babies at home alone.

"Why are you here? And with such a pretty little taste in tow, too." Caxton gestured his tin cup of gin at Peyton, then lifted it to his nose and sniffed. "Can't be for the drink."

"You've heard the same rumors I have, I'm sure." The wooden chair squeaked angrily beneath his weight as Devlin shifted on it. "Horrender's back and rebuilding his business."

Caxton set down the gin without taking a sip. He played with the cards in his fingers, turning the ace of spades across his knuckles, again and again. "That's all they are so far, too, only rumors and grumblings. Nothing known for certain 'bout who or what…or why." He nodded at Peyton, then let the card fall from his fingers to the table. "You think it's a good idea bringing her here?"

Peyton stiffened. "I can hold my own in a fight."

His lips curled faintly as he looked at Devlin and jerked a thumb at her. "Does she know about the old business?"

"She knows enough," Devlin answered and rested his arm across the back of her chair, like a territorial guard dog. "Horrender," he said, moving the conversation away from Peyton. "Do you think he's returned?"

"Can't say for certain." He spat on the floor. "Haven't seen him with my own eyes if he has. But someone's been contacting the old players and trying to start up the businesses again, following in his footsteps. If not Horrender, then one of his cronies and one high up enough to know where the bodies are buried."

Peyton knew he didn't mean that figuratively.

"Why now after all these years?" Devlin pressed.

Caxton shook his head. "The wars are over, laws are changing, and the old guard is gone. You think anyone in Whitehall cares a damn what happens to us rats?" He scooped up the coins from the center of the table and stacked them in front of him. "A new brothel opened in Wapping just this past month, run by Horrender's old manager. The same with a second in Clerkenwell. A store front opened on Petticoat Lane, fencing the same kinds of goods as before. And I've heard children have started to come and go, just as they used to."

Devlin stiffened, not so much that Caxton or anyone who happened to be watching would have noticed. But Peyton knew. She felt the change in him.

"Don't mean it's Horrender, though," Caxton considered, rolling one of the coins over his fingers the same way had the ace. "Could be one of his lieutenants who's finally feeling his oats enough to try to put the businesses back together. A man who thinks he's Horrender."

"What do you think?"

He nodded at Peyton. "I think it's no coincidence that of all the tasty bits you could have brought along tonight, you brought her ."

Peyton felt her blood run cold. "What do you mean?"

Caxton palmed the coin and leaned across the table. "I know who you are, lass," he told her, his raspy voice low so the drunks around them wouldn't overhear. "That is, I know who you're related to. You're the spitting image of Eleanor Chandler. That means you're one o' her kin."

"How did you know Mrs. Chandler?" she asked carefully, keeping her voice even, her face blank.

"I worked for her husband." He set the coin spinning on its edge and leaned back in his chair. "I collected his money."

No, that couldn't be possible… What this man was saying, what Devlin had told her—she wanted to scream!

Yet she only stared across the table at him, not moving a muscle, refusing even to blink.

"So who are you to Mrs. Chandler?" Caxton leveled a hard gaze on her, and she prayed he couldn't see her relief that he hadn't assumed the truth. "Sister? Niece? Cousin?"

She ignored the weight of Devlin's hand slipping down to her shoulder in silent warning and answered, "Something like that."

"If you're thinking of tryin' to gain any money from the old business, you're mad to try it." Caxton took a long sip of his gin. "Whatever information you might have about Charles Chandler's role with the business won't do you a lick of good. The man was the devil with money. The best I've seen when it comes to hiding it and brushing away all traces of where it came from. That's why he and the old dukes made such a good partnership."

Her stomach roiled sickeningly, and she thanked God that in the dim light of the cellar Caxton couldn't see the blood seep from her face. Her chest felt as if a raw wound had been sliced into it, but her foolish heart somehow kept beating.

"If there's any blunt left, you'll never find it." Caxton leaned forward again, his eyes boring into hers. "And if Horrender has returned and you plan to blackmail him, God help you. I've seen what that man's capable of." He slipped a finger under his neckcloth and pulled it down so she could see his throat and the long knife scar that ran from ear to ear. He traced a finger across the scar to follow the path of the blade. "He'll do worse than this to you, pet. Count on it."

Pushing his neckcloth and collar into place, Caxton leaned back and signaled to his two fellow card players that his conversation was over and to return to their game.

"Take that tasty bit home now," Caxton ordered Devlin. His cold eyes swung to Peyton. "And forget everything you know about the old business, lass, if you want to grow old yourself."

He turned back to his cards and coins, dismissing Devlin and Peyton completely.

Devlin stood and took Peyton's arm to help her to her feet. She didn't have the strength to pull away and leaned against him as he led her out of the cellar and back to the surface, then out of the tavern to the waiting carriage. She heard his muffled orders to the driver, all of her numb as he opened the door and helped her inside, then sat across from her and closed the door.

She deflated against the squabs and stared down at her hands as they rested on her lap, trembling unstoppably. The blood pounded so hard through her ears that the echo of it drowned out the noise of the horses' hooves over the streets and the turning wheels beneath them. She couldn't think, couldn't feel—could barely remember to breathe!

She squeezed her eyes shut to block out the terrible realizations that swarmed over her, threatening to consume her. Her father hadn't been an innocent victim of the attack. He'd been part of the evil. He'd worked to make it happen, hadn't said a word to stop it before that night, and even then…

In the past few days, everything she thought she knew and could depend upon had been destroyed. Her world had inverted, and she was certain about nothing now. Nothing. What was left now that she could believe in?

"Peyton."

Oh, the pain! How did she make it stop? She pressed her fist against her chest as if she could will her damnable heart to stop and finally end the misery. But it only kept beating, as if it didn't realize her world had just ended a second time. It took everything she had to crawl out of the ashes last time and survive. Oh God, how would she ever be able to do it again?

"Peyton. Look at me."

She gasped a trembling breath over numb lips and opened her eyes. Her gaze stung with hot tears as she stared at Devlin, who was little more than a dark silhouette in the shadows. For a moment, neither of them moved, letting the night press in around them in the cocoon of the carriage.

Then, slowly, he held open his arms.

A soft cry escaped her, and the last of the fight seeped away. She didn't have the strength to refuse the comfort and strength he offered. He was the only anchor she had left.

She carefully slipped from her seat and went to him.

He took her onto his lap and into his arms as she let the tremors overtake her. No sobs came as she clung to him. She was long past the point of tears, either for her father or herself, and her body felt like an empty shell with a hollow void in her chest where her heart had been. All she knew at that moment was Devlin's solidity, his strength and warmth, and she pressed herself against him to absorb as much of him as possible.

"It's going to be all right," he murmured as he nuzzled his cheek against her hair. "The past can't hurt you anymore."

Oh, he was wrong! She couldn't escape it. Tonight proved that. Every time she was certain she'd put a ghost to rest, another rose from the darkness. How many more ghosts would be unleashed to haunt her? "You don't know that."

"I do." He pulled back only far enough to look up at her and tucked a stray curl behind her ear. "Because I've been through what you're going through right now, learning what my father had been part of, discovering the web of lies and abuse he'd created…and I survived." He caressed her cheek. "So can you."

Peyton desperately wanted to believe that, as much as she craved the certainty and strength Devlin possessed. Slowly, she lowered her head and brought her lips to his.

He froze, except for the quick catch of his breath. For a moment, neither of them moved, and her heart beat off the agonizing seconds.

Then, his lips moved beneath hers, so softly that the movement was barely more than a featherlight caress, so faintly, she wasn't certain he was even kissing her back. But her numb body realized what her mind didn't and allowed his determination to seep inside her, and achingly, his tenderness filled the empty hollow inside her until she trembled.

He lightly trailed his fingers along her jaw to her ear, then down her neck to the collar of the coachman's greatcoat still engulfing her. His sensuous lips bestowed on hers a string of kisses that weren't quite kisses, light nibbles that weren't quite bites, and all of it stirred more feelings of reassurance and trust than desire. She knew the pleasure a man could bring to her and where such kisses could lead.

But tonight, what she needed wasn't physical release but absolution for the past, and only Devlin could give her that.

She slipped her hand to his nape and ran her fingers through the silky hair at his collar, not to titillate but to simply touch. She couldn't fight the urge to scrape her nails slowly over his scalp and revel in the solidity of him beneath her hands even as she drank in the wonderfully spicy taste of him on her lips. Her heart began to pound so hard against her ribs that she feared he could feel it…then didn't care if he did.

He slipped free the first button at her neck, and she didn't stop him, not even when he slowly undid the next one…and the next. The coat gaped open a little more with every inch his hand moved down her front. She stilled when he reached the button lying at the top of her legs as she remained perched on his lap, but he did nothing more than slip it free as he had done all the others and moved down to the last of the buttons above her calves. Acute disappointment gripped her that he'd not dared to take a more intimate touch. But when his warm hand slipped beneath her hem to rest on her stockinged knee, the resulting thud of need landed between her legs with a shudder.

Devlin broke the kiss and rested his back head against the squabs to gaze up at her. With both hands, he gently took the greatcoat and slowly stripped it off her shoulders and down her back, until it draped over his legs. She still wore her evening dress and all the layers of undergarments, yet she now felt strangely bare, and when his gaze raked over her, from lips to lap, she felt downright naked.

"Trust in me, Peyton," he cajoled in a husky voice that twined around her like a ribbon, tying them together.

"I do," she breathed and meant it.

The soft sound was lost beneath the rumble of carriage wheels, but the faint flare of his eyes told her he'd heard.

When he rose up to kiss her, there was none of the tender reassurance of before. This time, she tasted his desire, and she welcomed it, parting her lips and sinking against him with a deep sigh.

The tip of his tongue outlined her lips before slipping between them. Long licks across her inner lip alternated with smooth glides across her tongue and matched the unhurried sweep of his hands to the short row of buttons on the back of her bodice. Her dress loosened with each pearl button he slipped free, and electricity pulsed across her skin at his touch.

She leaned into him, pleading for more. For once, she wasn't confused about him. She trusted him; he hadn't harmed her before, she knew that, and she instinctively knew he wouldn't harm her now.

Her eyes closed with sweet surrender.

He continued to kiss her as his hand slipped beneath her dress to untie her short stays. Desperate for the breath he was stealing away by removing even less clothes than her own maid would have before bed, Peyton tore her mouth away. But she didn't shrink from his persistent kisses that found her neck and made her flesh shiver. His lips rested tantalizingly against the pounding pulse at the base of her throat even as his hands brushed lightly beneath her dress and corset. Her chemise might have not been there at all given the way the heat of his hands warmed through it and into her skin.

"Devlin," she murmured, although she couldn't have said if his name was meant in protest or encouragement. But when he rubbed his palms over her breasts and made them ache for more, the mewling that fell from her lips was all pleasure.

"You are alive, Peyton." He lazily strummed his thumbs over her nipples and made them harden against the soft cotton of her chemise. His dark gaze watched his hands as they languidly teased her breasts, as if he had all night to do nothing more than this. God help her, she would have let him. "You're warm and humming with life, pulsating with it…and so very beautiful because of it."

She didn't stop him when he tugged down her bodice and placed his mouth to her breast—she didn't want to stop him. His lips closed around her nipple through her chemise and sucked. At first, the sensation was so light she barely felt it, only for the pull of his lips to increase its intensity, little by little, until he'd taken her nipple completely into his mouth and was laving it hungrily with his tongue. A wet circle formed in the cotton fabric. When he blew a stream of cold air through it and onto the nipple beneath, she let out a startled gasp that transformed into a low moan when he closed his warm mouth over her again.

A liquid heat bubbled low in her belly.

Then he moved to the other breast and began the sweet torture all over again. The heat in her belly sank lower and lodged achingly between her legs.

"Can't you feel it?" His deep voice rumbled against her breast and into her chest. "All that life in you, all the promise of wonderful things to come… Embrace it, Peyton. Take comfort in it."

She couldn't find her voice to respond. All she could manage was a breathless, "Show me how…"

He placed a kiss to her lips that was so filled with reassurance that her eyes stung with emotion.

His hands slid tantalizingly down her body to the hem of her skirt and slipped beneath. When his palm changed directions and moved back up her calf, a shiver stirred in its wake that blossomed goosebumps over her bare thigh above the lace of her stocking. His fingers stroked along the curve of her calf and teased at the back of her knee. As with his kisses, he was in no rush, and the desire he roused inside her wasn't so much a flaming need but a decadently slow burn. He emphasized that by the unhurried sweep of his finger beneath her garter and a torturously slow circle around her leg.

She knew he didn't want to frighten her, didn't want to hurry in this first encounter after all the secrets between them had been revealed. But she needed his touch in a way she'd never needed another man's comfort before. She wanted exactly what he'd promised— to feel alive again.

"Devlin," she whispered and shifted on his lap to part her legs as far as possible beneath the confines of her skirt in invitation to be touched.

Even then, though, he didn't rush. The slow brush of his hand up her inner thigh was simply torturous, compounded by the ever-gentle assault of his lips on hers in featherlight kisses that were barely kisses at all, in whispered words only slightly more than mere breaths.

A whimper fell from her lips. He lightly squeezed her inner thigh in a wordless urge to be patient. His hand drifted upward in slow caresses toward the throbbing ache at her core, moving so agonizingly slowly… The anticipation aching inside her became unbearable.

"Please," she whispered and closed her eyes as she rested her cheek against his.

When his fingertips finally touched her core, she shuddered against him. He caressed her as gently as he had kissed her, the tease of his fingertips as light as his lips. Thank God it was, or she might have shot right out of her skin from the sheer joy of it. Good Lord, he was barely touching her! Yet desire pulsed through her with a wanton need that left her panting.

He leisurely stroked the length of the damp cleft between her legs, fanning both heat and wetness beneath his fingertips until her folds were silky smooth and slippery. With every pass, his fingers delved slightly deeper, until one slipped inside her tight warmth.

The gasp on her lips faded into a throaty moan. She knew he could feel her wetness with every slow, slippery caress in and out of her tight core, knew he could feel her aching arousal, but she simply didn't care how wanton he thought her. He was right—she felt alive. For the first time in years, she could feel her blood coursing through her body and reveled in the pulse of electricity out to the ends of her hair and the tips of her fingers and toes, and she didn't want him to stop.

When she was a girl, when she'd been so infatuated with Devlin that she turned scarlet if he did so little as glance in her direction, she never would have imagined him doing such a thing to her. But now…oh, now she wanted this—wanted him —with every ounce of her being.

Her body shamelessly bore down on his fingers as they continued to thrust inside her, coming faster and harder now to feed her growing desire. Soft mewlings of yearning and encouragement rose from her lips, and she arched herself against him to meet each wonderful slide inside her.

"More," she begged, her arms wrapped fiercely around his neck and her fingers grasping at his soft hair. "Oh, please, Devlin…more!"

A second finger joined the first and stretched her intimate lips wider. The sensation of being filled shivered deliciously through her, and she writhed against his hand, unable to sit still. Biting down a cry of pleasure, she rolled back her head as he pumped harder and faster into her.

She was barely aware when his second hand slipped down between them and spread her folds open wide, exposing her most sensitive place to his touch. His thumb teased the hard bead he found there, flicking against it lightly like the flutter of butterfly wings, then squeezing—

Her hips bucked as a jolt of electricity sparked through her so intensely that she gasped for breath. She was so close to shattering in his arms that a begging whimper for just that fell unbidden from her trembling lips. She could do nothing more than cling to him as he gave her what she so desperately craved and stroked her a second time, this time holding her open wide as he simultaneously rubbed the hard heel of his hand against her clitoris and thrust his fingers deep inside her.

A fierce cry tore from her. As blinding pleasure rushed over her, she threw back her head, and her body spasmed uncontrollably against his. He held his fingers deep inside her tight heat while her folds quivered around his hand, drawing out her sweet release even longer. She collapsed against him and panted hard to catch back her breath. Only when the tide of pleasure began to fade and the roar of her heartbeat in her ears faded did she realize that he was whispering sweet words of reassurance into her ear.

She shifted back only far enough to stare down into his eyes as they looked back at her in the shadows, as filled with desire as her own must have been. There were so many more pleasures they could give each other, so many more intimacies to share. She craved exactly that. She wanted nothing more at that moment than to continue to feel alive. With him.

When he slowly slipped his fingers from her warmth, the loss of him flooded through her and left an emptiness in his place, and she realized for the first time that the carriage had stopped. Her desired-fogged mind faintly registered that they had arrived at her townhouse and that he was now buttoning up her bodice and fixing her dress so she could look presentable to leave the carriage.

But leaving him tonight was the very last thing she wanted.

Come inside with me, come to my bed… She brushed trembling fingertips along his jaw. Make love to me in every possibly wicked way you can imagine. She rested her palm against his chest and felt the fierce pounding of his heartbeat beneath her fingertips. Make me burn with need for you, then bring me to tears with agonizing release, over and over…

She threw all caution to the wind by whispering, "Devlin, I want you to—"

An ear-shattering explosion tore through the townhouse. The carriage team startled and bolted a few feet down the street until the coachman could wrestle them back under control, tossing both Peyton and Devlin to the floor. But Peyton didn't wait for the carriage to stop before darting out the door and racing toward the house.