Page 45 of The Duke and the Darkness

“To Seven Dials.” He glanced out the window at the dark city and mumbled, “Back to where it all started.”

Chapter Eleven

Peyton looked outthe 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 apalace 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 woulddrink 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.”