Page 58 of The Duke and the Darkness

“He gained access to your house and was there long enough to plant several casks of gunpowder. He didn’t do that by himself. Someone helped.”

Her face paled. “Who would do something like that?”

Crewe shrugged. “Who else wants you dead?”

“No one. I’m already dead, remember?”

“Well, someone knows you’re not but wants to keep you that way,” Crewe persisted. “Permanently.”

She shook her head. “No one in London knows who I am except you three. Even the Duchess of Dartmoor doesn’t—” She cut herself off and turned toward Devlin, clutching at his sleeve. “That man last night in St Giles recognized that I was a Chandler. If he recognized me, then someone else could have, too.”

“Only because he saw you in person,” Devlin reminded her. “Unless you’ve been frequenting quayside taverns, no one else from that world would know you’re alive.”

From her dubious expression, she wasn’t convinced.

“You met him last night in St Giles?” Chase interjected.

“Yes,” Peyton answered. “For a few minutes around midnight.”

He shook his head. “Then whoever set the explosion wasn’t anyone you saw in St. Giles. They wouldn’t have had time to plant the gunpowder before you arrived home.”

“Then who?” She stepped away from Devlin and began to pace.

“No one else in London knows your true identity?” Crewe pressed. Then he hesitated before asking, “Not even one of your servants?”

She bristled at the implication that someone in her own household had attempted to kill her. “Only Wilkins and Proctor, but I trust them with my life.” She must have seen doubt in Devlin’s face because she stopped pacing and indignantly put her hands on her hips. “I’ve been with them for years. Why would they attempt to kill me now—here—when they could have done it in France years ago?”

Crewe shook his head. “Someoneknows. If I could discern the truth about a mysterious woman named Elizabeth Wentworth and her connection to the Chandler fortune, then so could anyone. And whomever he is, someone gave him access to your house.”

“But why?” Her face paled as her watery eyes rose to meet Devlin’s, her voice emerging raw and raspy, “What threat am I to Horrender?”

Devlin rested his palm on her shoulder to reassure her. “We won’t know for certain until we catch him,” Devlin muttered.

Peyton stepped away from Devlin to pace again. “How?”

Devlin rubbed at his nape. Damn that it was far too early to open a bottle of drink. “We use his fear against him.”

“Yes. By letting him know he didn’t succeed last night,” Peyton murmured. “By telling the world that I’m alive and well.”

An icy realization of where her thoughts were heading poured through Devlin. She was planning to offer herself up as bait.

“No.” He locked eyes with her, brooking no misunderstanding about this. “I won’t put you into further danger.”

“We don’t have a choice,” she argued. “This has to stop.Allof it. If revealing my identity is the only way to bring him to justice, then so be it.”

“And in the process expose all our fathers’ crimes?” Crewe shook his head. “I don’t mean to be cruel, Peyton, but your family’s gone. If we reveal the past, then both the Raines and Grenier families will also be destroyed by it.” Determination sounded in his voice. “I won’t let that happen.”

“Then place the full blame on my father.” She approached him and put her hand beseechingly on his arm. “Keep secret what the Dukes of Dartmoor and Crewe did and protect your families by letting my father take full responsibility.” Her mouth twisted with irony. “As you said, the Chandlers are all dead and can’t be hurt.”

Guilt darkened Crewe’s face. “I didn’t mean to imply that you—”

“My father was neither innocent nor naïve. He was willingly involved. Let the tarnishing of his name and reputation be his punishment.” She paused to pull in a shaking yet determined breath. “Let him find some sort of absolution by stopping all this before anyone else is hurt.”

Crewe cast a questioning glance at Devlin, who grudgingly nodded. Yet Devlin’s chest tightened with dread. Peyton was wrong. This wouldn’t end with only her father. All their sins would be dragged out into the sunlight.

Peyton turned beseechingly to Crewe and pressed, “Can you manipulate the proof you have against Horrender to mention only my father’s name?”

Crewe grudgingly nodded. “Yes.”