Page 67 of The Duke and the Darkness

“That is a grand understatement,” his mother murmured as she cast an assessing look over Peyton. “Are you certain you want to do this, my dear?Trulycertain? Once let loose, this secret can never be put back into the bottle.”

“I know.” She nodded firmly. “I have to do this. It’s the only way forward.”

Her eyes finally lifted to meet Devlin’s, yet only for a moment before looking away. The guilt and grief he saw was undeniable.

“Very well, then.” His mother gracefully stood, then helped Peyton to her feet. “We shall throw the biggest, best last-minute party England has ever seen! I’ll make a quick list of all we need to do and then set Jennings and Cook right on it.” She looked at the mantel clock. “There’s yet time to pay visits to several friends today and start the invitations flowing.”

“While you’re doing that,” Margaret offered as she linked her arm through Peyton’s, “we’ll be up in my dressing room, looking for the perfect dress.”

“And I’ll contact Lucien to let him know we’ll be borrowing his staff for the evening,” Devlin added. Although he didn’t have to. It had been Crewe’s idea in the first place to use Shay’s house and send in his servants to man the event.

“Thank you.” Peyton hesitated before impulsively throwing her arms around the duchess in a grateful hug. “Thank you so much!”

Then she was gone, hurried from the room by Margaret, who was already jabbering a mile a minute about the current London fashions and how Peyton should style herself. The two women didn’t look back.

“Good God…” His mother whispered, finally letting her grief show. “Peyton Chandler is alive.”

“Yes, she is.” Devlin reached for the tea tray to help himself to a cup. “And she needs us more than you realize.”

“I can only imagine. What she went through…” His mother’s face lost all color, and she trembled as she sank onto the settee, her knees giving out. “She didn’t say… Did she see her parents killed?”

“Yes.”

His mother was quiet for a long moment, then she whispered, “She must have been so terrified, not only during the attack but every day after.”

Devlin wordlessly stirred sugar into the tea. There was nothing good to say to that.

“To come back, after so many years… Why is she back? What brought her back to London now?”

She wanted to exact her revenge and completely destroy me.Instead, he shrugged and dissembled, “Us.”

“Then she shall have our help, however we can provide it.”

In silent agreement, he passed the fresh cup to his mother. Nothing fortified her better than tea.

But Devlin needed something far stronger. He headed toward the door. He had a new bottle of Bowmore whisky waiting in his study and planned to—

“You like her, don’t you?”

His mother’s words drew him up short.Nota question.

He faced her. “I want to protect her.”

She nodded faintly at that explanation, but her eyes narrowed. “Well, yes. But youlikeher, too. More than simply as an old acquaintance.”

Christ,he needed that whisky. He leaned his shoulder against the doorway, his casual posture belying the way his heart suddenly leapt into his throat. “She needs us.”

His mother eyed him over her cup as she lifted it to her lips. “I think she needsyou.”

“She doesn’t need me.” His heartbeat spiked despite his scoffing dismissal.

“She needs the protection of a duke to ease her through her announcement. With you and Crewe at her side, everyone in the room will know to take her seriously and not assume she’s attempting some kind of fraud. They’ll know she is truly who she claims, and if you accept her return to London—and from the dead—then so will the rest of society. There will be an inquest, I’m certain, and much,muchgossip and newspaper columns about her. She will need you and Crewe to remain at her side while she weathers the scandal.”

They would do exactly that because the weather she would face was going to be one hell of a storm. “As I said, she needs us.Allof us.”

She returned her cup to her saucer balanced on her knee. “Andyouneed her.”

At that, his foolish heart stopped completely.