Chapter Nine

P eyton stopped on the footpath in front of the grand townhouse and stared up from beneath the hood of her cape at its stone fa?ade, shadowed by early evening. Five bays wide, four stories tall, fronting one of the most exclusive squares in Mayfair… Dartmoor House.

She frowned. When she'd asked Devlin where they should start to find Horrender, she certainly hadn't expected this .

The butler stood at the front door, holding it open for her. "Miss Wentworth?" he called out to her with a bemused bow at her hesitation. "His Grace is expecting you."

Of course he was. But was she ready for this?

When Devlin sent a footman to her townhouse the morning after their confrontation in her room, he'd invited her for an informal dinner with his family. She'd laughed. He was mad, surely!

But he was also her only way to Horrender. If that meant walking through the fires of hell itself—or sharing three courses with his family, which might end up being the exact same thing—she had no choice but to do it.

She pulled in a deep breath and lowered her hood with shaking hands as she slowly made her way to the front door.

She pulled loose the tie at her neck and slipped off the velvet and silk-lined cape to hand it to a footman. Her gaze drifted around the entry hall and took in the gilding that decorated the walls and the black and white marble checkerboard floor. She didn't remember any of it.

The butler gestured her deeper into the house. "This way, if you please, miss."

She followed him through the stair hall with its cantilevered stone steps, its walls painted a delicate robin's egg blue to contrast with the elaborate white plaster work on the ceiling. Various rooms led off the central stair hall, but the butler led her to the front reception room and paused to rap his knuckles on the open door before stepping into the room.

"Your Grace," he announced. "Miss Wentworth has arrived."

Devlin stood at the drawing room fireplace, with his forearm resting across the marble mantel and a glass in his other hand as he stared down into the fire. He looked up as she entered, and for a moment, his gaze fixed on hers before slowly lowering over her with such deliberate scrutiny that she trembled.

Then he straightened, set down his drink, and came forward to greet her with a small incline of his head.

"Thank you, Jennings," he said to the butler, yet his eyes never left Peyton. "Please wait ten minutes, then tell the duchess that our guest has arrived."

"Yes, sir." The butler nodded and retreated from the room.

Peyton cocked her head. "Miss Wentworth tonight, then, am I?"

"If you want to be." He paused. "Or I can introduce you as Miss Chandler. The choice is yours."

"And how exactly do you envision that conversation with your mother going? ‘Hello, Your Grace. Yes, it's really me. Life is full of surprises, isn't it?' Although by then, she'll have most likely fainted."

An amused smile crooked at his lips. "It takes a lot more than that to frazzle my mother."

Peyton arched a brow. "More than a dead woman appearing in her dining room?"

Wisely, he ignored that. "Tonight can be whatever you want it to be." He crossed to the sideboard and the drinks tray and poured a glass of claret. He carried it back to her and extended it like a peace offering. "And you can be whomever you want to be."

She nearly laughed. "Your mother will recognize me the moment she sets eyes on me!"

"No, she won't. I barely recognized you." He lowered his voice. "Even after I was close enough to kiss you. You've changed, Peyton. No one would recognize that shy, gangly girl in you now." He took another long look at her, from head to slippers, and everywhere he looked, heat shivered across her skin. "You look lovely."

She should have known better than to trust a flattering duke, yet she accepted the claret with a murmured thanks. Then she asked, "And what reason did you give your family for inviting me to dinner?"

"The truth. That you're an old acquaintance who has recently arrived in London and doesn't know anyone else here."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "What are you scheming at?"

"What do you mean?" He retreated to fetch his glass of cognac from the fireplace mantel.

" This ." She gestured with her drink to indicate the house around them.

"There's no scheme." He gave the fire a jab with the iron poker for good measure before returning to her. "If you're determined to remain in London to carry out your revenge, then you'll need to ease your way back into society to make the contacts you'll need." His mouth grimaced. "There are better ways of doing that than half-undressing me at the opera and fleecing me of thirty thousand pounds."

"Thirty -one thousand," she corrected. "Don't expect me to give it back."

He said nothing as he took a slow drink of brandy, but his eyes gleamed. Good. Perhaps he'd realize they were still foes at heart. He might not have been involved with the attack, but he was still his father's son. A countless number of family dinners could never make her forget that.

"Consider tonight a stepping stone," he explained. "An evening of normal, polite conversation about the most mundane of topics."

"A test, you mean," she countered. "To see if your mother will recognize me or not." She tilted her head slightly as she called him out on his plotting. "Because if she does, then others in her social circle will, too, and I'll be no good to move within proper society. Visiting Barton's and the opera is one thing. But moving in respectable venues is something completely different. If anyone recognizes me, I won't be able to uncover any information for you."

"Yes, a test," he agreed. But no guilt registered on his face at being caught. Instead, he turned somber, "Of us , to let you know you'll have the support of the Raines family no matter what you decide for your future—if you choose to reveal your true identity or return to France."

"And when your mother learns that we've lied to her tonight?" she asked quietly against the rim of the crystal glass as she raised it to her lips to cover any stray emotions on her face.

"She'll be too overjoyed that you're alive to care."

"Dear Lord, you are mad," she muttered and shook her head. "Why are you doing this if not to tell your mother the truth about that night?"

"My mother can never learn the truth about that night," he warned, his voice low but firm. "Neither can my sisters."

The harsh realization hit her. "Your family knows nothing about what your father did, do they?"

"No, and I plan on keeping it that way."

"How…?" The word emerged as a breathless rasp. "How can she not have known what your father was doing? She lived with him. How could she not have suspected what he…?" Her voice trailed off beneath his grim gaze.

"Because my parents stopped having a true marriage long before that. They lived under the same roof but led separate lives." He finished off the cognac with a long swallow. "They did the best they could to have nothing to do with each other."

A typical society marriage, then, except…was that pain she saw in the hazel depths of his eyes? "Where did you fit into a home like that?"

"I didn't." He stared into the empty glass. "I was sent to Eton when I was thirteen. I stayed away at school as much as possible and spent holidays with friends whenever I could, then kept to myself whenever I had to return home, either here in London or at Wrentham Hall, our family's estate in Oxfordshire." He paused and turned the glass, as if imagining golden liquid against the crystal. "Oxfordshire," he mused, half to himself. "Which is why I went to Cambridge."

"But you didn't stay."

"University life was not for me."

She studied him closely. "But you thought being a mercenary for the Prussians was?"

"Well, when you put it like that…" With a grimace, he set the empty glass onto a nearby table. "My three best friends wanted me to go with them, and we all thought fighting in the wars would give us purpose."

"Did it?"

"Not all of us." He glanced at his glass as if considering whether to refill it. "Some of us realized we were needed more back here at home." He shrugged, although whether at the empty glass or at the past, she couldn't have said. "That's why I returned to London. My mother and sisters wanted me here."

Remorse tightened her chest. All this time, she had assumed he'd left the wars because he was too soft and spoiled to succeed at a military career. She'd been wrong about him in that, too.

She murmured, "That's why you were here at Dartmoor House that night."

"Mother made me attend her musicale. I think she was still attempting to hold together the last tendrils of what she thought a family should be."

"Yet you left with the opera singer."

He quirked a stiff grin. "She was beautiful and accommodating." When she started to give him the cutting reply that deserved, he interjected, "I was twenty-two, remember? Show me a bored, self-entitled twenty-two-year-old man who wouldn't have done the same, and I'll show you a priest."

She blinked at his blunt audacity. Then a small bubble of laughter fell from her lips, and her shoulders relaxed as part of the unease of being here ebbed away.

"I was nervous about tonight," she confided, slowly circling her finger around the rim of her glass. "For the first time since…" Her voice trailed off.

"I know," he said quietly.

She took a deep breath and nodded, then exhaled slowly as she looked around her. "But the house is different from what I remember."

"Because my mother redecorated it from top to bottom when Father died. She wanted to purge his presence from the place." He leaned against the sofa back and glanced around the room, as if attempting to see it through her eyes. Then he drawled, "Exorcism by wallpaper and chintz."

Her hand flew to her lips to stop the burst of laughter, but she couldn't help it. It also felt too good to suppress. She smiled at him from behind her fingers, only for her smile to fade.

She set her drink aside and took a hesitant step forward. "Tell me exactly what your father and the Duke of Crewe were—"

"Devlin!"

A high-pitched cry echoed through the ground floor rooms, followed by running footsteps. Moments later, a young girl bounced into the room, her long blond hair flowing loose around her slender shoulders, and her pink dress accentuating the excited flush in her fair cheeks. In her hand, she carried a notecard.

She saw Peyton and halted, and her eyes—the same dark brown as Devlin's—grew round like saucers.

"Oh—apologies!" the girl said, a bit breathless from racing through the house. "I was looking for my brother. I didn't realize you'd already arrived."

A strong urge to flee pulsed through Peyton. She might have done exactly that if Devlin hadn't stepped to her side and taken her arm. Margaret and Teddy had never met her before. Although Peyton had heard stories about the two girls from her mother, who had been close friends with theirs, they had been too young when the attack happened to be in her social circle. But that didn't stop fresh fear from gripping her.

She was playing with fire, and Devlin seemed determined to stoke it.

"May I introduce my sister?" Devlin gave her arm a brief squeeze of reassurance. "This is my youngest sister, Lady Theodora. Teddy, this is…"

He paused, giving Peyton the opportunity he'd promised for her to reveal her identity.

But she couldn't. Instead, she forced a wide smile for the girl and said, "Elizabeth Wentworth. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Devlin lowered his hand away.

"How do you do, Miss Wentworth?" His sister bobbed a curtsey. "Welcome to Dartmoor House." Then, hostess pleasantries over, she turned directly to her brother. "Devlin, you'll never guess what arrived this afternoon." She held out the card. "An invitation to my friend Matilda's ball! It's her introduction. Oh, please say you'll let me attend!"

Devlin cast an apologetic glance at Peyton as he took the invitation and read it. His face remained carefully inscrutable. "You're only sixteen, far too young for a ball."

Theodora's shoulders deflated like a balloon. "I am not at all too young. All my friends will be going, and they're mostly all my age. Their parents think it's perfectly fine for them to attend. Besides, I've been taking dance lessons for the past year." Disappointment colored her voice even as she fiercely argued with him. "I know how to behave myself."

Devlin's brows rose at that.

"It's a ball ." She dragged out the word to five syllables, as if her brother had no idea what one was. "I couldn't possibly come to any trouble at a crowded ball."

At that, his brows nearly shot off his forehead.

Peyton bit her inside cheek to keep from laughing. What she knew was that Devlin had caused countless incidents of scandal at crowded balls across London and knew better than anyone what trouble a young miss could come to at one.

"You're too young for Lord and Lady Bannerigg's ball." Devlin handed back the invitation. "You've not even out in society yet yourself."

Hope skittered across her face. "Then give me an introduction? It doesn't have to be grand."

"Next year, as planned."

Her mouth clamped shut and her eyes narrowed as she glared at him, in that way that only younger sisters could give overly protective older brothers. "But Mattie is my dearest friend, and her introduction is this season. Waiting until next year does me no good."

"Me either," he grumbled.

Theodora crossed her arms and stared at him for a moment, then coolly reminded him, "You're going to have to let me into society at some point, you know. Because if you don't, I'll never be courted. Which means I'll likely never find a husband." She poked her finger into his chest. "Which means I'll have to live with you for the rest of your life!"

"God forbid," he muttered with exaggerated horror.

"Don't I know it," Theodora replied in the same exaggerated voice.

Biting back a laugh at their antics, Peyton moved her gaze between the two. She understood Devlin's desire to protect his sister, but she also remembered what it had been like to be a girl of Theodora's age, so eager to be part of the happenings, so impatient to grow up.

"Perhaps Lady Theodora doesn't have to miss her friend's introduction," Peyton posited gently. "True, she isn't out in society yet, but that doesn't mean she cannot attend if she goes as a guest of her invited family."

Hope glowed on Theodora's face. "I'd merely be attending with my family, not as a true guest…but at least I'd be able to attend. Oh, that might just work!" She looked at the invitation in her hand and bit her lip. "It would require having Mattie change the invitation—"

"To Her Grace, Duchess of Dartmoor, and Her Grace's family," Peyton explained. She might have been away from London society for ten years, but she still remembered how convolutedly it worked. "Then, your mother can attend and bring you with her, claiming she didn't want to leave you at home."

"My first ball!" Theodora bounced in a circle. "Oh, it's going to be grand! The dresses, the chandeliers, the dancing—"

"No dancing," Devlin corrected firmly. "Not for you."

Theodora stopped and stared at her brother, suddenly on the verge of tears, as if he'd just given away her kitten. "No dancing?" Her arms fell lifelessly to her sides. "But—but…what's the point in a ball —" This time she dragged out the word to a good ten syllables at least. "—if I don't get to dance? It's not fair."

"Very well." When her face began to light up at winning him over, he added, "You can dance with me."

She glared at him and grumbled, "That is so very much not fair!"

Devlin acknowledged the fatalistic wisdom of that with a long sigh. "And so goes the world."

Peyton intervened by taking Theodora's hands and squeezing them. "But at least you'll be able to attend." She leaned forward to whisper into the girl's ear. "And if a respectable young man very politely asks your brother for his permission to dance with you, he might just say yes."

The girl impulsively hugged Peyton, who stiffened at the unexpected show of gratitude. Theodora stepped back but didn't release her hands. She beamed. "Oh, you are very welcome at Dartmoor House!" Then she spun on her heel and raced from the room. "Mama! Mama, I have news!"

"Look at what you've done." Devlin slid his gaze from the door to Peyton. "You've unleashed a monster."

Peyton countered, "But she's right, you know. Her first ball should be special."

"Then you should be forced to attend with us."

He was teasing, she knew. Yet the subtle nudge to put her further into society's embrace spun fear through her. "No."

Before he could say anything more, his mother, the Duchess of Dartmoor, glided into the drawing room, her hands extended toward Peyton in warm greeting. Behind her entered a bouncing Theodora, whose happiness over the ball was overflowing, and beside her came a pretty young woman who smiled but with a bit more trepidation than her younger sister and mother. She had to be Lady Margaret. Her resemblance to the duchess was undeniable.

"Mother." Devlin went to Peyton's side. "May I introduce you to Miss Elizabeth Wentworth?" He looked down at Peyton, but his face was unreadable. "Miss Wentworth, my mother, Her Grace the Duchess of Dartmoor."

The duchess beamed at Peyton. "Welcome to Dartmoor House. We're so happy to have you as our guest." She placed her hand on Theodora's shoulder to calm the girl and make her stop bouncing. "How are you finding your return to London, Miss Wentworth?"

"A bit trying, Your Grace." That was the God's truth. "The city has grown so much since I was last here."

"And when was that?"

The duchess was attempting casual conversation, but Peyton found it fraught with pitfalls. "A very long time ago." She dodged the specifics. "I was only a small girl then."

"Well, I'm so glad we're able to welcome back one of Devlin's old acquaintances. Aren't we, girls?"

Margaret smiled and murmured her agreement.

Theodora was too focused on the invitation she still clutched in her hands to notice that her mother had said anything at all.

"Miss Wentworth has spent a good deal of time in France," Devlin commented as a way to start conversation.

"You will have to tell me all about your time there and how it compares to England," his mother insisted congenially, "especially the fashions."

"Of course, ma'am," Peyton answered, "although I'm afraid I'm not very fashionable."

"Nonsense!" The duchess cast an assessing glance over Peyton's dress and hair. Then she stilled, her eyes narrowing on Peyton's face. "You seem so familiar… Have we met before?"

"No, Your Grace." Not technically a lie despite the spike of her pulse. No one knew her anymore.

But the duchess didn't seem convinced. Peyton held her breath, waiting for the woman to remember who she was and what—

The butler came into the room and gave a low bow. "Dinner is ready, Your Grace."

"Thank you, Jennings," Devlin called out, then gestured toward the hall. "After you, Mother."

The group made their way through the house to the dining room, with his mother and sisters leading the way. Peyton lingered behind as she fought to calm her racing heart and steady her breathing.

Devlin briefly placed a reassuring hand to the small of her back as he led her forward. But the touch did little to put her at ease. Tonight was her greatest test of the last ten years, and God help her if she failed it.