Page 84 of The Duke and the Darkness

“Spell your name.”

The girl scrunched up her nose. “M-A-R-Y.”

“Go!”

The children advanced a base, working their way around their improvised game of rounders. They had no ball, no bat, and only stations along the street to serve as bases, yet they were making a go of it. Instead of pitching to them, each child was asked a question that they should have learned in Sunday school. When they answered correctly, everyone advanced a base. If they answered wrong, the child in the lead could help. If the answer still wasn’t correct, then they all went back a base, and the lead child went to the back of the line. An out. ButPeyton made certain the questions were just hard enough to tax their brains without being so difficult as to frustrate them.

She’d felt the need to do something fun with the children this afternoon after her night at Brechenhurst. She owed it to them and to Mrs. Martin, who made her feel welcome here.

After the fight at the townhouse, she certainly didn’t want to stay there. Nor could she stay in a townhouse that was empty except for old toys and ghosts, although the fight with Wilkins had seemed to exorcise them, and Devlin’s strength and comfort had pushed them completely into the past. Yet she also couldn’t bring herself to stay at Dartmoor House with his mother and sisters. Oh, they would have welcomed her, surely…until they learned the truth about her father’s role in helping the old duke destroy so many lives. She doubted they could ever forgive her.

So she asked Devlin to take her to the one place she knew she would find comfort—Brechenhurst. After all, if it gave shelter to forsaken children who had no place else to go, then she would be right at home.

Mrs. Martin took her in without a single question, not even when she helped Peyton with a warm bath with salts meant to soothe the black and blue bruises forming across her body and brought her warm comfort food on a tray down into the basement bedroom. This morning, the kind manageress miraculously found a dress for her to wear because her own gown—no,Margaret’sgown, she couldn’t forget that she no longer had anything in this world to call her own—wasn’t fit to wear. The woman was a saint. A silent, non-judgmental saint.

Now, this afternoon, Peyton was doing her best to put the darkness of the past few weeks—and especially last night—behind her by playing and laughing with the children. It was more than just a game. It was her chance to say goodbye. She’d promised them that the child who answered the most questions correctly would receive a shiny coin and new coat, althoughshe’d already sent one of the shelter’s helpers to the market to buy new coats and shoes for all the children. Their new clothes would be waiting for them when they arrived back at the shelter this evening. So would a bag of shiny pennies for each of them.

But she would be gone by then, like a wraith in the night, leaving London as secretly as she’d arrived. It was for the best. The Raines family needed to heal, and they couldn’t do that if she were a constant reminder of past sins.

“My turn, miss!” A little boy who couldn’t have been more than five or six stepped up to bat.

“All right then.” Despite the sudden sadness that swept over her, she ordered, “Sing me a song.”

The boy thought a moment and then belted out the first verse of a sailor’s drinking shanty that left Peyton staring at him, wide-eyed.Goodness.Did the little bit of a boy even know what was meant by calling a woman Miss Laycock?

He grinned, knowing he was stirring up trouble.

“A miss,” she called out. “Back to the end of the line with you. And next time, try a nice hymn or nursery song, all right?”

The boy only grinned wider and moved to the back, where one of the other boys stole his hat, then rubbed his head in slight punishment for slowing up the game. The warning was clear. If he attempted to disrupt the game again or embarrass Peyton, he’d find himself pummeled in the alley by the other boys.

She turned to the next child. “Sing me a song—aproperone.”

The boy nodded and sang a few bits from a song he’d learned in Sunday school. Peyton applauded and sent him on. All the children advanced around the bases, with one coming back to the start.

“Score! A point!” All the children shouted and jumped up and down excitedly as the oldest boy made a mark in a patch of dirt at the side of the street. They’d been promised treats ifthey managed to score more than ten points. Peyton would make certain they did.

“Who won the Battle of Waterloo?” she called out to the next child.

“England!”

“Wellington!” the lead boy on base corrected.

“Excellent!” she called out. “A team answer. Go!”

Another child returned back to home and scored another point.

“Here’s a hard one.” Peyton leveled a challenging look at the girl who stood in line next. She was the oldest of all the girls and just on the cusp of being too old to stay at Brechenhurst any longer. Peyton made a mental note to give Mrs. Martin funds to find the girl a position as a maid so she might have a chance at a good life. “Recite a poem to me.”

The girl thought a moment. Peyton could almost see the nursery rhymes spinning through the girl’s head as she tried to choose one to share. She opened her mouth—

“She walks in beauty like the night.”

The deep, masculine voice came from behind Peyton, its velvet richness twining around her like a ribbon. She froze, not daring to turn around…Devlin.

“Of cloudless climes and starry skies, and all that’s best of dark and bright,” he recited softly as he stopped directly behind her, so close she could feel the heat of him down her back and smell that now familiar scent of leather, port, and man, “meet in her aspect and her eyes.”

He took her shoulders and gently turned her to face him, and the crooked smile that greeted her melted her insides. He’d always had that effect on her, even years ago when he’d been nothing but a careless young man who hadn’t paid her any attention whatsoever. But now that she knew the man he’dbecome… How could she ever love anyone else as much as she loved him?