Chapter Five

T he crowd parted as Peyton slowly made her way through the crush of opening night at the Theatre Royal. All of London society seemed to be in attendance, including the prince regent and his latest paramour. But then, it wasn't every night that Domenico Scarlatti's grand opera Ambleto was performed on the London stage.

A secret smile tugged at her lips as she took surreptitious glances at the crowd, not one of them realizing the private irony she found in that. Ambleto… Hamlet .

Tonight was act two in her own revenge play.

She leisurely climbed the wide marble stairs that swept their way up to the first floor, one slow step at a time. Every pair of eyes in the house seemed glued to her as she rose above the lobby floor, and curious whispers followed in her wake.

Good . For the past ten years, she'd hidden from the world. But now she delighted in appearing in it, just as any smart actress would who needed to be noticed.

She'd certainly dressed the part tonight, right down to the glittering rubies draping around her neck and dangling from her ears. Every one of the jewels was meant to sparkle beneath the chandeliers and set her apart from the crowd. So was the blood-red silk dress she wore. Exceptionally low cut in a Spanish style, the dress flattered her figure with its tightly fitted waist, so unlike those cylindrical-shaped English gowns with their high waists and puffy cap sleeves that had become all the rage. To Peyton, those gowns looked as if ladies' maids had gotten confused and dressed their mistresses in the drawing room draperies. Not at all proper attire for a seduction.

Or in this case…a deception. After all, as Armand Marchand had taught her, a good soldier always dressed appropriately for battle. Tonight would be her second skirmish with the Duke of Dartmoor in the war she was waging against him, and she needed to be prepared.

Three nights ago, she'd begun her assault on his fortune. Tonight, she planned to go after his future.

Dartmoor was here somewhere amid the crush of bodies, which was why she moved so slowly up the stairs, each step deliberate and smooth. She wanted him to see her. Her presence tonight would make him reveal himself. He wouldn't be able to resist approaching her, demanding answers about the other night at Barton's, and then she would have him exactly where she wanted him.

Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly…

She hadn't seen him yet, but she knew he was here. She'd heard he'd planned on escorting Lady Catherine Carlow and her parents. Of course she'd heard. Servants' gossip was better than newspapers for reporting the latest on dit . Dartmoor really needed to hire servants who were more cautious in sharing information about their employer's whereabouts. But servants employed in the household of a duke did so love to brag about what their estimable employer was up to when he was out and about. In this case, they'd shared with Proctor how Dartmoor was still attempting to formalize his engagement to Lady Catherine by continued reminders to her father that he was a duke, one powerful enough to hire the box located next to the prince regent.

She reached the top of the stairs where more whispers and curious stares greeted her. Her heart pounded so fiercely that her chest ached, yet not a stray emotion registered on her face to show how uneasy she was venturing into society like this and putting herself at risk for being recognized. Attending Barton's had been different. Dark and smoke-filled, the club was used to patrons who wanted to keep their identities and activities secret. But here, everyone wanted to see and be seen, to be put on display for compliments or cuts. The crowd was ten times as big, the chandeliers twice as bright, and there was nowhere to hide from snooping eyes.

For the past ten years, she'd stayed away from London for fear of being recognized and having her life threatened. But she knew now her fear was unfounded. Dartmoor didn't recognize her, for heaven's sake, and she'd practically been in the man's arms at the card table. If he didn't recognize her, why would anyone else? She was a woman who was dead, after all, transformed like a butterfly from the caterpillar of a sixteen-year-old cocooned girl whom few had bothered to notice in the first place.

The crowd might have been curious about her, this stranger who so audaciously moved through them tonight in the devil's own colors, but none dared approach her. She was safe, hiding in plain sight. Yet knowing that didn't lessen her unease.

Drawing a deep breath, she walked on, just as deliberately as before. She turned toward the wide saloon that led to the private boxes and toward the one she'd rented entirely for herself for the evening.

Halfway down the saloon, she stopped.

Dartmoor.

He stood among the crowd at the end of the saloon, engaged in conversation with an older couple. Beneath the chandeliers, he looked rakishly handsome, with his blond hair just sandy- dark enough to give him a rogue's appearance even while dressed in Bond Street's finest. As if in intentional opposition to her attempt to stand out, he'd dressed in dark colors that blended into the crowd around him. Black jacket and trousers, black waistcoat—the sapphire pin in his white neck cloth was the only splash of color in all six feet of him.

Yet if he'd meant to hide, he'd failed. Because beside him on his arm stood a young lady in dandelion yellow muslin, as bright as he was dark.

So that was the woman he wanted to marry. Lady Catherine Carlow. She looked so…ordinary. Not at all the kind of woman Peyton would have picked for Truro. But he wasn't the Marquess of Truro anymore, was he? He was the Duke of Dartmoor now and all that name implied. Which meant no more scandalous widows, no more adventurous wives or opera singers. He had to project a veneer of respectability, after all, even if he was wicked to the core.

Lady Catherine would certainly help with that. By all accounts, her father, the Earl of Northrop, was one of the most respectable peers in England, while she had a sterling reputation to match. Overall, the Carlow family was conservative, scandal-free, as exciting as a rainy afternoon…utterly harmless. A middling peerage with a middling fortune that would benefit exponentially by marrying into a dukedom, and a dukedom that would benefit from an unblemished family name that stretched back to the Restoration.

Lady Catherine was the perfect choice for Dartmoor. But did she have any idea of the monster he truly was?

Not at all, judging from the pleasant way she smiled at him as he stood talking to the earl. Her mother stood at her other side, her back toward Peyton. Around them gathered a half-dozen or so assorted friends. Quite the crowd, all of them enjoying the evening.

But not for long. Not if Peyton had her way.

Before the night was over, the Earl of Northrop would reconsider his plans to marry his innocent daughter to Devlin Raines, and the poor girl would have escaped by the skin of her teeth. All it would take was a private box and a few mussed pieces of clothing to convince the earl and countess that Dartmoor had engaged in scandalous intimacies tonight, right behind the back of his intended, sitting only a few yards away. Their engagement would be off before it had begun.

Dartmoor glanced up, and their eyes locked across the length of the salon. For one beat, his face registered surprise. Then it vanished, his expression once more a carefully controlled mask.

"Come into my parlor," she whispered.

Then she turned toward the private box she'd reserved, knowing his eyes were following her.

"Thank you," she told the uniformed attendant as he opened the door. She gave him a coin. "Please go somewhere else for the evening. And leave the door open."

He nodded smartly. "Yes, ma'am."

She sat in the second row of chairs in the dark box, far enough back to watch the stage yet remain in the shadows, and patiently waited.

Most of the first act passed before a prickle of awareness tingled at her nape. She didn't hear him—she felt him slip inside the box and close the door, felt his slow approach through the shadows. Her heartbeat increased as it always did before a fight. Every inch of her tensed, every one of her senses came alert. Yet she kept her gaze straight ahead on the stage, not turning to reveal that she knew he was there.

The air around her stirred as he came up behind her. He rested his hand on the back of the chair beside her, then lowered himself to lean over her shoulder, bringing his mouth close to her ear. "Are you enjoying the opera?"

"Not yet." She didn't dare turn her attention away from the stage, although it was firmly on the man behind her. "Although I'm certain to find it absolutely scintillating before the curtain falls. And you?"

"I hate opera."

"But you love opera singers," she purred, remembering how he had stolen away with the Italian soprano at his mother's musicale. At the time, she'd thought that to be the most terrible part of her night—that the man she'd held an affection for, who barely realized she existed, had slipped upstairs with another woman. She'd been so very wrong.

"What warm-blooded man doesn't?"

She turned her head to gaze over her shoulder at him, bringing her mouth so close to his that the warmth of his breath shivered across her lips. She paused with her mouth right there, knowing she could kiss him if she simply tilted up her chin. When his gaze fell to her lips, she knew he was considering just that, and a soft thrill of triumph sped through her.

She turned back toward the stage. "Then don't let me interrupt your evening."

He chuckled, the sound tickling her ear. Yet there was no amusement in it. "Why are you here? It isn't for the opera."

There. The invitation she'd been waiting for. "I'm here for you." Slowly, she rose from the chair and circled around it to join him in the dark shadows in the rear of the box. "To continue our game."

"But there's no card game here, so you have no way to win more of my money through duplicitous means."

"I wasn't duplicitous. I warned you outright, remember? It isn't my fault you underestimated me."

"You led me to believe you had no money but the pile of winnings in front of you."

She tsked her tongue and reached up to play with his cravat, ostensibly to straighten the knot. "You assumed that because you wanted to believe it. You, of all people, should know you cannot trust your eyes at cards, that you have to use all your senses to know what your enemy is thinking."

"Opponent, you mean," he corrected, yet he didn't put her hands away from him.

No. He was the enemy, and even more dangerous because she'd once loved him before he'd turned foe. There had been times that night at Barton's when it seemed as if they were still the same young acquaintances they'd been before. Back then, what she'd wanted most of all was to make him notice her as a woman.

Ironically, some things never changed.

"Surely you're not upset with me for being the better player," she purred. "I simply outplayed you." Or in this case, simply counted cards while successfully distracting him.

"You were attempting to seduce me."

"Not attempting." Succeeding. An old thrill spiraled through her, the same one that had plagued her ten years ago whenever he'd graced her with a short word or a passing smile. Oh, she'd been nothing to him then. But now… "I'd hoped the seduction was mutual."

"So did I," he murmured and punctuated his point with a caress of his knuckles across her cheek.

It wasn't a simple thrill that sparked through her then, but a deep and longing ache. She wasn't an innocent girl anymore, yet for a split second, the sensation unnerved her. And not because he was her enemy.

All these years, she'd been certain that Dartmoor had had a hand in murdering her parents, that he was the one who had attempted to rape her. But as she felt a feminine ache for him blossom inside her, the whispering doubts in the dark corners of her mind began to shout that she was wrong, and this time, they were too loud to ignore.

Confusion swirled through her. How could her body take such pleasure in his attentions if he'd attempted to force himself upon her? Surely it would remember, would be able to recognize the enemy…wouldn't it?

"And if I'd have won that hand?" He smiled, mistaking the sudden tension in her.

She forced herself to relax and pulled her concentration back to the present. Twisting her lips with chagrin, she leaned against him to whisper into his ear, "Then you would be the owner of a lovely little estate in Sussex."

He stopped her when she moved to shift back, gently taking her arms and lightly holding her against him. Her breasts brushed against his chest and traitorously increased the throbbing ache inside her. He raked a hot gaze over her. "That wasn't what I was referring to."

"I know." As if to make her point, she pulled at his cravat, twisting loose the knot and rumpling it as she stepped away.

Knowing never to take her eyes off the enemy, she slowly retreated two steps into the shadows, until her back pressed flat against the rear wall. She placed her palms against the paneling on either side of her, arching her back and thrusting out her breasts, the same way she'd seen the opera singer do that night at the duchess's musicale to draw the attentions of the young gentlemen. To draw his attention most of all.

Come into my parlor…

He didn't move, his eyes fixed on her through the subdued darkness of the box. For a moment, her heart plummeted in disappointment, and she felt like the same unwanted girl he'd ignored all those years ago. No, not ignored—she couldn't be ignored if he'd never realized she was there in the first place.

Then slowly, he accepted her unspoken invitation and followed. He closed the distance between them until he stood so close she could feel the heat of his front warming the top swells of her breasts above the low neckline of her dress. So close, but not touching. Yet.

He lowered his head, stopping his mouth just before it found hers. "Why did you go to Barton's that night?"

"To take your money."

"And that was all?"

"Wasn't thirty-one thousand pounds enough?" Even in the shadows, she could see the glint in his eyes that told her he didn't believe her. Yet she pressed on, not caring if he trusted her to tell the truth or not. "We could return to Barton's and set up another game, should you decide to give me even more."

He chuckled softly at her audacity and leaned closer, until she could just feel the brush of his waistcoat against the red silk of her dress.

She should have been panicking that she was trapped there, between the wall and his broad body, but inexplicably, she wasn't. Her only sign of nervousness was a single hard swallow, which he took as an invitation to trace his fingertip down her throat. His touch quickened her breath, which only increased when his gaze lowered to her breasts. Instead of his fingers following after his gaze, his hand dropped to his side.

An unfathomable pang of disappointment pierced her.

"I think I prefer the opera," he confessed huskily. "Far less dangerous."

"Not at all." She'd meant that to come out as a laugh. Instead, it emerged as a throaty whisper.

"Is that why you're here tonight, alone in this box?" He lowered his head to bring his lips to her ear. "You wanted me to come after you. Why?"

His warm breath tickled against her ear, and she trembled. Her reaction earned her a smile from him, one she could feel against her cheek.

"Doesn't every woman want that?" she tossed back. "I hear Dartmoor's quite the lover."

"You had better odds with the thirty-one thousand pounds." He straightened, breaking the faint contact with her, and his frown deepened as he studied her face. "What do you want from me? And I know better now than to believe you want to be taken to my bed."

She lifted her hand to his chest, to play with the buttons of his waistcoat, and prayed that he didn't notice the trembling in her fingers.

She was no longer na?ve when it came to men. Yet even with all her experience, seducing Dartmoor was proving harder than she'd imagined. She'd believed for years that he was the man who had attempted to rape her, and those feelings couldn't so easily be pushed aside. Neither could those niggling doubts that perhaps he hadn't.

The uncertainty threatened to consume her.

She forced a teasing smile. "What makes you think I don't want that?" With a soft laugh, she brushed her fingers through his thick blond hair. She'd done it to mess up his appearance, yet strangely, her fingertips itched to touch him. "Or that I'd expect a bed?"

"Because you wouldn't have fled Barton's like that." He touched her ruby earbob and slowly stroked it between his fingers. "You would have stayed to enjoy the night with me, then collected your winnings from Patton in the morning. So what do you want with me tonight?"

"Perhaps I've changed my mind about being intimate with you."

He laughed. Then he leaned in and touched his lips to hers.

Peyton inhaled sharply as a burst of electricity pulsed out to her fingers and toes, to the ends of her hair. It wasn't a kiss so much as a dare, she knew, yet a troubling part of her longed to turn it into so much more.

"No, you haven't," he murmured as he shifted away, smiling with self-satisfaction. "I can taste the hesitation in you."

Anger flared inside her—at him for being so presumptuous…at herself for not wanting to slap him.

In retaliation, she slipped free the top button of his waistcoat. Then a second. She was more determined than ever to punish him exactly as she'd planned tonight, and not spend a single second more in his presence than she had to.

When a third button came undone, his hand darted up to still hers in its downward progress.

"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded.

She gave a throaty laugh as she slipped back into her role of seductress. "Really, Dartmoor, if you don't know…" She finished that with a tsk of her tongue and a shake of her head. "It's a good thing I didn't linger at Barton's after all. I do so hate to be disappointed."

Instead of rising to that bait, he placed his forearm against the wall just above her shoulder and leaned in, searching her face. "I know you, somehow," he muttered, searching her face in the shadows. "Who are you?"

A warning pricked in her belly, yet she commented flippantly, "You know a great many women, if the stories are true."

"They're not."

"Pity." She slipped her fingers away from his and deftly undid another button.

He stopped her again, this time stunning her by lifting her hand to his lips and placing a kiss to her palm. She shivered, and her lips parted in surprise.

"You're a very beautiful woman."

Her traitorous heart skipped . Damn him . She could not be affected by him as a woman. Not him ! Yet how many nights when she'd been a girl had she dreamt about hearing those exact same words fall from his lips? How could she thrill to hear them now, knowing what she knew about him?

Yet she did. And those doubting whispers began to shout out again, louder this time, that perhaps she was wrong…

"But your beauty won't save you if you cross me. If you're attempting to come after me or my family, if you harm one hair—"

"I would never harm them." She would never harm innocents. Especially family.

Yet disbelief flickered in his eyes. He'd obviously learned his lesson and wouldn't underestimate her again, which made tonight even more of a challenge. One she had every intention of winning.

His eyes turned steely black in the darkness. "Who sent you after me?"

"No one." She'd sent herself.

He lowered his face until his eyes were even with hers, until his warm breath teased at her lips. "Was it Horrender?"

She blinked. "Who?"

She had no idea who that was, nor did she care. The only person who concerned her at that moment was Lady Catherine Carlow, to make certain the woman believed she and Dartmoor had been intimate in the box. Which shouldn't be too hard … The last button slipped free, and his black waistcoat fell open, revealing the white shirt beneath.

Holding her hands to stop her, he searched her face. "If not Horrender, then who? What do you want from me?"

"This." She rose up onto her tip-toes and brought her mouth hard against his.

He stiffened, stunned at her brazenness, and she seized the moment. Her wandering hands tore at his cravat and slipped it off from around his neck, then set to pulling at his shirt to leave it hanging half-untucked around his hips. With one hand reaching up to further mess his hair, her other hand grabbed at her own dress to skew her bodice and wrinkle her skirt.

All the while, her mouth was on his. She fiercely kissed him, alternating between biting at his lips and sucking, daring to dart her tongue into his mouth—doing everything she could to make him look thoroughly mussed when he left her box. She reached a shaking hand toward his fall—

He grabbed her wrist and stopped her. Breathing hard, with a faint expression of irritation darkening his face, he demanded, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Kissing you." Her own irritation sparked then. Why wouldn't he cooperate and let her seduce him? He was a rake, blackguard, scoundrel…wasn't he? "Surely the infamous Dartmoor knows what do to when a woman kisses him." Then, to bait him, she challenged, "Doesn't he?"

"Yes, he does," Devlin drawled, shifting closer. "This."

Peyton tensed, readying herself for his assault, preparing to use the fighting skills Armand had drilled into her—

But there was no attack, not like that. Instead, he cupped her face in his hands and leaned in slowly to kiss her…gently, softly…so very tenderly. The surprise of that ripped her breath away.

So did the confusion he spun through her. He shouldn't be kissing her like this, not when he could be forcing himself on her. He was a monster, a man who had coldly murdered her parents and then came after her. But…he wasn't doing that. They were alone in the box, the door undoubtedly locked. For all he knew, she wouldn't be able to stop him if he forced himself on her, and the musicians and singers on stage were so loud that no one would differentiate her screams from those on the stage if she tried to cry out for help. But he wasn't even trying! Why wasn't he?

Instead, he coaxed each slow kiss from her, cajoling her with his sensuous lips to kiss him back just as softly, just as tenderly.

A soft whimper for mercy fell from her lips. The doubts and confusion overwhelmed her, and she began to shake beneath his unexpected embrace as each kiss remained as tantalizingly gentle as the one before.

But he gave her no quarter to sort through her confusion, and his fingers on her cheeks began to tenderly stroke her soft skin. Each featherlight touch sent her spinning back in time until she felt as she had before that horrible night, when she was still innocent of the darkness. When she still had a bright and shining life ahead of her. When he was still the most alluring man she'd ever seen… Before her world had ended.

Slowly, her lips responded to his and returned the luxurious kiss with the same decadence as he gave it. Not sweet— nothing about this kiss was sweet. It was sultry and sensuous with a lingering heat that only flamed hotter beneath the unhurried desire he conveyed. As if he had all the time in the world to do nothing more than stand there and kiss her, to savor her the way some men savored port…one luscious taste at a time.

"Truro," she whispered, caught up in his spell.

He froze, his fingers stilling against her face. His mouth lingered above hers, poised to take another achingly tender kiss. Instead, he demanded, " Who? "

Her eyes flew open. Reality slammed into her, and with a startled gasp, she stared up into his face. The same face that had hovered over her the night of the attack—the same dark eyes and hair, the same deep concern…

The memories of that night flooded back in crashing waves, drowning her with their intensity and relentless confusion. Flashes of her mother's face, her father's body writhing as the life was cut from him—the pain of her own fingers digging into the wood of the carriage and forcing splinters beneath her nails as she clawed to keep from being pulled outside by the attackers and devoured by the darkness.

Panic flashed through her, and the desperate need to flee gripped her. She wanted to run away as fast as she could, to escape and never stop running—the same horrible desperation she'd felt that night. She'd long ago suppressed all those emotions, all those terrible memories, just to survive. But now they came rushing back in a tumultuous riot, upended by the attraction she still felt for him. Even now. Even knowing he'd played a part in that night, yet perhaps not the one she'd always assumed—

"No… no! " She shoved at him to force him back, to find room to breathe. "I can't—"

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 at her forehead with both hands. She couldn't think through the confusion and panic. Couldn't think !

"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! He couldn't be 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'll never be all right!"

*

Devlin pulled back as 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 simply couldn't be. The two women were nothing alike. There was nothing in this woman of the awkward, shy, and homely girl whose 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 was not getting 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.

Whoever the woman was, she was gone, once more slipping away like a ghost into the fog.

Who the hell was she? Because that dark beauty who was working to destroy him couldn't possibly be the shy Peyton Chandler he remembered. Impossible. She was dead, for God's sake! He'd seen the graves with his own eyes.

But apparently, the dead were rising, and he feared this ghost had returned from hell to take his soul.