Page 77 of The Duke and the Darkness

He ground out in a low voice, “You’re ruining everything, all our plans, all those years of waiting and plotting… I won’t let you do that.”

“That isn’t your decision to make,” she corrected quietly. She owed him her loyalty for the friendship and protection he’d given her over the past decade, but she wouldn’t let him stop her. Her life depended on what happened now. “You should go. We’ll talk again in the morning.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’ve waited too long to return and worked too hard to put everything into place to let you interfere.”

A chill prickled across her skin. “What do you mean?”

“Seeking revenge against Dartmoor—you thought the idea was all yours. But you believed only what I wanted you to.” A strange expression lit his face—pride? “All those investigators you had me hire to find information about that night…you had no idea I’d hired them to work for me instead. Servants always know what their employers are doing, and I knew how your father had been moving money overseas. At my behest, the detectives tracked down all of it. You were told about the land properties and businesses because I couldn’t sell those without your signature on the deeds, but you never knew about all the bank accounts, or how I kept them for myself.”

Her mind spun. “No—you showed me all the papers, gave me the investigators’ evidence…” Then she’d oh-so carefully woven them together into the puzzle she worked inside her armoire like a spider’s web, each piece of information building upon the next and illuminating what happened that night.

No, what shethoughthad happened that night.

“I gave you reports I created myself.” His eyes gleamed. “All meant to make you believe Dartmoor was there that night, thathe was the one who tried to rape you. You were more than happy to blame him.” A dark laugh rose from him. “It was all so easy.”

The world tilted beneath Peyton, and she reached out to place her hand on the stair banister to steady herself.

“Why?” she rasped out. “Whywould you do something like that?”

“Because I needed Dartmoor out of the way. What better way to do that than to turn you loose against him?” He stepped toward her, and Peyton retreated around the banister toward the stairs. “You wouldn’t have left France if I hadn’t convinced you that Dartmoor was behind your parents’ murders, that the time was right for you to finally exact your revenge.”

He took another step, and Peyton glanced back at the stairs behind her. Every instinct inside her screamed that she had been cornered, yet she couldn’t bring herself to strike out, to attack as Armand had taught her. Wilkins had meant nearly everything to her for the past decade. For God’s sake, she’d trusted him with her life!

Now he was a complete stranger.

“Letting you destroy Dartmoor would have cleared the way for me to put the old business back together.My brother’sbusiness, with new peers to protect me and an accountant nearly as sly as your father to hide all the profits.”

His confession reverberated through her like a shot. She couldn’t believe—“Josiah Horrender…is your brother?”

“Step-brother.Was. He’s dead now. Dartmoor and Crewe have been chasing a ghost.” His ghoulish smile chilled her. “He fled to Ireland after the attack and got his throat slit. I was supposed to deliver you to him that first winter, then join him in restarting the enterprise.” He shook his head as if disappointed. “Instead, I had to rebuild it all myself. It wasn’t easy doing that from France, especially during the wars, but your money and my brother’s connections made it easier. Even then, I was nearlydiscovered. But I put an end to him, and then you had no one to turn to for protection but me.”

A horrible sickening rose into her throat. She knew who… Dear God, her grieving heartknew! “It was you,” she whispered, barely a sound on her numb lips. “You killed Armand.”

A jealous tone darkened his voice. “He’d gotten too close to you.”

The way he said that alarmed her, and the shouting inside her head turned to screams.Too close… He meant as her lover. Peyton swallowed hard and pressed her hand to her belly. She was going to be sick!

“And Betty Proctor,” she breathed out, unable to find her voice. “You murdered her, too.”

“No, not my Betty. I couldn’t have killed the woman who has been my right hand all these years, who convinced you that I was right whenever you began to doubt me. She’s waiting for me right now in Southwark.”

Peyton’s head swam. The betrayal by the two people she’d trusted most in the world was simply agonizing. “No,” she whispered. “That can’t be…”

“Such a pretty little fool you were.” He lowered a lascivious look over her, and she shuddered. “I couldn’t have hoped for a better distraction for Dartmoor than you.”

Unable to run past him for the door, knowing he would catch her before she reached it, she slowly shifted back toward the stairs. Her foot brushed against the bottom step, and her hand gripped the banister. She didn’t dare turn her back on him. The trust she’d placed in him over the years shattered inside her like glass.

“Except that you distracted himtoowell.” A cold fury pulsated from him. “Exactly when did you first lift your skirts for him, hmm? Was it the night you bested him at Barton’s, or was it in the opera box?” He cast another glance over her, this timenot bothering to try to hide his jealous anger. “Did you enjoy yourself, pet? Did you pant and beg and moan for it like a well-trained little whore?” The icy gleam in his eyes frightened her. “Or did he take you by force?”

When he reached up to trace his fingertip over her cheek, she turned her head away and swallowed hard to keep from casting up her accounts. “Donottouch me.”

Ignoring her, he continued, “I’ve heard some women grow to like their attackers. Are you one of those?”

“No,” she bit out fiercely. “I amnotone of those.”

“Pity.”

An icy warning cut through her belly. She didn’t want to fight with him. He had been her friend and protector, and she didn’t want to believe what he was telling her because she didn’t want to lose yet another person she’d cared about.