Page 82 of The Duke and the Darkness

“Not nearly enough to persuade her to remain in London,” his mother interjected. “I agree with the girls. She needs to stay—weneed her to stay.” Her face softened on him. “Allof us.”

His sisters nodded, while his mother continued to watch him curiously. He’d never been more under scrutiny in his life.

“Margaret and Theodora,” his mother called out over her shoulder to his sisters, her eyes never leaving him, “why don’t you give me a moment with your brother, please? I’d like to speak to Devlin alone.”

Normally, such a request would have brought grumblings and whines from both sisters at the thought of being excluded, but this morning’s extraordinary revelations had them behaving. Margaret gave his hand a squeeze as she passed him on her way toward the door. Teddy, always wearing her heart on her sleeve, threw her arms around him and hugged him.

“See?” she said. “I told you I’m more mature than you give me credit for.”

He placed a kiss to the top of her head. “Absolutely.”

Her eyes gleamed. “Does this mean you’ll finally let me learn to drive?”

“Absolutely not.”

Teddy let out a loud sound of aggravation, clenched her fists at her side, and marched out the door after Margaret. “We haven’t finished talking about this!”

“Oh, yes, we have.”

She sent him an aggravated glare over her shoulder, then loudly shut the door. He could hear her angry footsteps stomping away down the hall.

“She’s right, you know,” his mother said quietly as he joined her on the sofa. She leaned forward to pour them both fresh cups of tea. “About Peyton.”

“To help with whatever restitution we can provide?” He shook his head. “She most likely wants to put the past behind her and move on.”

“I didn’t mean that, although having her help would be a wonderful idea.” She stirred in a dollop of honey and held out the cup and saucer toward him. “I meant asking her to stay.”

“I have asked her.” He took a sip of the tea and welcomed the earthy warmth down his throat. “She wants to return to France. She thinks her future lies there.”

“Perhaps you didn’t ask her the right question.” She raised her own cup to her lips and peered at him over the rim. “Did you ask her to marry you?”

He choked on his tea. Sputtering, he scrambled to sit up. He turned toward his mother and gaped at her between coughs.“Pardon?”

“If she doesn’t think she has any reason to stay in London, then perhaps we need to show her she does. A grand reason.” His mother calmly reached for one of the tiny lemon biscuits resting on a plate on the tea tray and placed it onto his saucer. “Youneed to show her, Devlin.”

He blinked. Had news of what her husband had done addled her brain? “You want me to marry her?”

“Yes.” With that blunt answer, she settled back against the sofa as if they were discussing nothing more important than the weather. “You’re a good pairing. There’s certainly physical attraction between the two of you. I’ve seen the way you look at each other.”

He set down his tea on the table and promptly came to his feet. “I am not having this conversation with my mother of all—”

“Heavens, Devlin! Where do you think you came from—a stall at the market?”

“Yes.” He shot her a hard look over his shoulder as he strode toward the bookcase in the corner. It was time for something far stronger than tea. He pulled down the fake front of a row of books that turned the shelf into a liquor cabinet and retrieved the bottle of Glenturret hidden inside. “As did everyone in my family.” No fresh glasses sat inside the hidden shelf, so he turned back toward the tea tray and unceremoniously poured his tea into Margaret’s abandoned cup. “And all my friends.”

“Even Lucien?”

He paused before splashing the golden liquid into his cup. “No. Lucien was the unintended consequence of Lucifer bedding a hellhound, then being left at the front door of Bladdenham Park like a changeling.”

Devlin’s caricature of his friend’s creation was only half facetious. No one worked harder at crafting a blackguard’s reputation than Lucien Grenier, Duke of Crewe. But then, no one had greater reason to.

That was one secret the Raines women would never learn about.

His mother thoughtfully rubbed the tip of her index finger around the rim of her cup. “Peyton Chandler is…well…”

Beautiful, intelligent, feisty yet feminine…the most wonderful woman he’d ever met in his life.None of which his mother needed to hear coming from his lips.

“Troubled,” she finished with a small frown.