Page 34 of The Duke and the Darkness

“Then you need to find yourself a new guard,” he drawled and stepped back to lean his shoulder casually against the wall beside the armoire. “He’s not doing a very good job if he’s allowed you to be alone with me in your bedroom.”

“Armand isn’t in London,” she murmured. “He disappeared last year and is most likely dead.”

Devlin felt like a damn fool. “I’m sorry.”

Her only acknowledgement of that was a faint nod. “But he taught me the most important lesson of all.”

“Which is?”

“That those men didn’t kill me that night. And if they didn’t kill me, then…”

“Then?” he prompted.

She shoved the armoire doors open wide. She dropped her arms to her sides and stepped back to take it all in.

“Then they made a huge mistake,” she finished, her voice icy cold.

Devlin pushed himself away from the wall and stared. He’d thought the weapons were stunning. But this—Good God.

On the inside panels of the two wide doors were pinned bits and pieces of writing, notes, newspaper clippings, bulletins, and pages torn from account ledgers. Each grouping was connected to the others by pieces of string, all of it forming web-like circles of information. The pin holes in the wood suggested she’d worked it over and over, moving around pieces and adding to it until the puzzle was complete.

“I’ve spent ten years collecting every bit of information I could about that night, putting it all together, making connections.” Her eyes swept over it as his did, as if trying to see what he saw. But Devlin simply couldn’t fathom it all. “I hired investigators—Bow Street, private detectives inside France, the occasional random thief-taker. They brought me bits and pieces of information. So did Wilkins. He knew about the funds my father had hidden overseas, how to find the properties and claim them.”

Unease curled up Devlin’s spine. How close had Wilkins come to learning about her father’s criminal enterprise? “He was the footman, you said?”

“Yes. And footmen overhear everything, including what they’re not supposed to, which is how he knew about the overseas accounts,” she mumbled as she stepped forward to examine the information she’d pinned to the door. “You saw him downstairs. He’s not happy about having you here.”

Undoubtedly.“Because he thinks the same way you do—that I was responsible for the attack.”

“Yes.”

He waited for her to say she’d changed her mind about that—about him—but that absolution didn’t come. Instead, she reached for a keepsake box sitting on the fireplace mantel and set it on her desk in front of him.

“What’s that,” he asked sardonically, “your gun powder supply?”

“My heart,” she whispered and opened the lid. Random items lay inside—a piece of lace, an amethyst bracelet, a brass sealing wax stamp, a snuffbox, other pieces of jewelry—not weapons. “These belonged to my parents. It’s all I have left of them.” She reached into the box. “And this.”

She held up an old silver button, heavily tarnished until it was almost black. But his heart jolted as he recognized it. It was one of his.

“I ripped it off your waistcoat that night. It’s proof you were there.” Her eyes glistened with pain even as she lifted her chin into the air. “Tell me what happened that night.Allof it. I’ve been trying to put it together for so long…”

She turned back to the armoire and ran her fingers down the left panel’s trail of information.

“We were at Dartmoor House for your mother’s musicale.” She tapped her finger on a drawing of the townhouse. “Everything was normal and fine, except that you surprised everyone by being there.”

“I’d recently returned from fighting on the Continent,” he explained. “And my mother still had hopes I’d find my way into proper society.”

“The performance had finished,” she continued, “and guests were having refreshments in the drawing room. Others lingered in the music room. My father, yours, and the late Duke of Crewe had gone into your father’s study, which they often did after dinners and other soirees. I was with my mother in the drawing room, while you had slipped away upstairs with the opera singer. I saw you leave with her.” Her voice lowered into a disapproving grumble. “Not very clandestine of you.”

He fought back a grimace.

She murmured thoughtfully, “About half an hour later, the men in the study ended up in a fierce argument…raised voices, angry threats, pounding fists.”

His eyes narrowed on her. “How do you know that?”

She slid him a chastising glance. “Servants know everything that goes on inside a house. Your father should have paid your footman more to keep his loyalty.” She turned back to the doorpanel as she added, “Or at least not to spy on him from the servants’ passage behind the bookcase.”

Damnation.Devlin would block that passageway himself tonight.