Maiden Lane [6] Duke of Midnight (27 page)

The dragoon captain grunted, looking tired. He was leading his horse, having entered the alley from a very narrow lane.

Maximus rose, glancing from the narrow lane to Trevillion’s rangy mare. “I’m surprise you didn’t get stuck in there.”

The other man raised a sardonic eyebrow. “I think Cowslip’s surprised, too.” He gave the mare an affectionate pat on the neck.

Maximus blinked. “
Cowslip
?”

Trevillion glared. “I didn’t name her.”

Maximus grunted noncommittally. He supposed he hadn’t any leg to stand on, considering the names his sister had given his dogs. He bent to examine the ground close to the wall of the opposite building.

“What are you looking for?”

“He dropped his dagger. Ah.” Maximus bent and picked up the knife with satisfaction, stepping closer to the dragoon and the better moonlight.

The dagger was a two-edged blade, a simple, narrow triangle, with hardly any guard and a leather-wrapped handle. Maximus turned it in his hands, peering for any sort of mark without result.

“May I?”

Maximus looked up to see the dragoon captain holding out his hand. His hesitation was only a split second long, but he saw Trevillion’s knowing glance anyway.

Maximus handed over the dagger.

The dragoon examined it and then sighed. “Common enough. It could belong to almost anyone.”

“Almost?”

A corner of Trevillion’s thin lips cocked up. “He’s an aristocrat. I’d bet Cowslip on it.”

Maximus slowly nodded. Trevillion was an intelligent officer, but then he’d always known that.

“Did you get a look at his face?” the captain asked, handing him back the dagger.

Maximus grimaced. “No. Slippery as an eel. He made sure I couldn’t catch hold of that scarf.”

“Outwrestled by a man older than you?”

Maximus glanced up sharply.

Trevillion shrugged at his look. “He had a small bit of paunch about his middle and he sat his saddle a bit stiffly. He’s athletic, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he were older than forty.” He considered a moment as if thinking over what he remembered of the highwayman, then nodded to himself. “He might even be older than that. I’ve seen men on the far side of seventy riding to the hounds without problem.”

“I think you’re right,” Maximus said.

“Was there anything else you noticed about Old Scratch?”

Maximus thought about that glint of green at the highwayman’s throat and decided to keep that hint to himself. “No. What do you know of the man?”

“Old Scratch is without fear—or morals, as far as I can see.” Trevillion looked grim. “He not only robs both rich and poor, he doesn’t hesitate to harm or even murder his victims.”

“How broad is the area he frequents?”

“Only St. Giles,” Trevillion said promptly. “Perhaps because he meets little resistance or because the people here are more vulnerable and not as protected.”

Maximus grunted, staring at the knife in his hands. A highwayman who hunted only in St. Giles and said he’d not been back for many years. Could he be the man who’d murdered his parents so long ago?

“I have to return to my men.” Trevillion placed his boot in Cowslip’s stirrup and swung himself up into the saddle.

Maximus nodded, tucking the highwayman’s dagger into his boot, and turned.

“Ghost.”

He stopped and looked at the captain.

The other man’s face gave nothing away. “Thank you.”

I
F ONLY APOLLO
could talk.
Artemis frowned as she crept down the darkened hall that night, Bon Bon trotting at her heels. It was past midnight, so everyone ought to have been asleep in Wakefield House—well, everyone save Craven, who she’d left guarding her brother. The valet never seemed to sleep. One presumed he must be fulfilling his duties to Maximus, yet he somehow managed to care for Apollo as well.

Artemis shook her head. Craven was a capable nurse—though she didn’t like to think how he’d come by his experience—yet Apollo still couldn’t speak. Otherwise her brother seemed to be getting better, but every time he tried to utter a word, his throat only produced strangled sounds. Sounds that quite obviously caused him a great deal of pain. She just wished he could tell her he was better in his own words instead of scrawled handwriting.

Then she might believe him.

The corridor outside Maximus’s door was deserted. Still she looked nervously around before she tapped at the door. She might have decided to embrace her path as a fallen woman, but it seemed it was hard to quell the fears of a lifetime.

Artemis waited, shifting from one foot to another, disappointment seeping through her breast as the door remained silently closed. Perhaps he hadn’t meant to see her again. Perhaps he’d thought it only a one-time event. Perhaps he was bored with her now.

Well. She wasn’t yet finished with
him
.

She tried the handle and found the door unlocked. She quickly pushed it open and entered, closing it just as quickly behind her.

Then she looked around.

She hadn’t the time to examine his rooms last night—she’d been otherwise distracted. Artemis went to the connecting door through which Maximus had emerged the night before. It led to a sitting room-cum-study. Percy stood from where he’d been lying before the banked fire and stretched before coming over to greet both her and Bon Bon.

Artemis patted his head absently as she examined Maximus’s sitting room. Books lined the walls and overflowed into neat stacks on the floor; an enormous desk was completely covered with papers, also in neat, cornered stacks. The only thing, in fact, that looked at all out of order was a globe on a stand, which appeared to be draped with Maximus’s banyan. Artemis bit her lip to quell their upward curve at the sight. She wandered to the globe, giving it a gentle spin, banyan and all, before setting her candlestick on the desk and trailing her fingers across the papers. She saw a news sheet, a letter from an earl mentioning a bill before parliament, a letter in a much less refined hand pleading for monies to send a boy to school, and a scrap of paper with what looked like the beginnings of a speech in a bold hand—Maximus’s, presumably. For a moment Artemis studied the speech, tracing the words and feeling warm as she followed the clear points he laid out in making his argument.

She laid aside the paper and saw the corner of a thin
book peeking out from under one pile. Carefully, she pulled it out and looked at the title. It was a treatise on fishing. Artemis raised her brows. No doubt Maximus had scores of streams on his properties, but did he ever have time to fish? The thought sent a pang of melancholy through her. Did he sneak peeks at his fishing book in between all his duties? If so, it shed a curiously vulnerable light upon the Duke of Wakefield.

Artemis picked up the fishing book and, curling into one of the deep chairs before the fireplace, began to read. Both dogs came to settle at her feet, curled together, and then quiet descended on the room.

The book was surprisingly entertaining and she lost track of the time. When next she looked up and saw Maximus lounging in the doorway to his bedroom watching her, she didn’t know whether it had been five minutes or half an hour.

She stuck a finger in the book to save her place. “What time is it?”

He tilted his head to the side, peering at the fireplace, and she saw that a clock sat on the mantelpiece. “One in the morning.”

“You were out late.”

He shrugged and pushed away from the doorway. “I often am.”

He turned to walk back into his bedroom and she set aside the book, rose, and followed him, leaving the sleeping dogs behind in the sitting room. He wore the same coat and waistcoat that he’d worn to the supper at home with Phoebe.

She found another chair and sat to watch as he peeled off the coat. “Were you out as the Ghost?”

“What?”

She nearly rolled her eyes. As if she couldn’t guess where he’d been all this time. “Were you running about as the Ghost of St. Giles?”

He doffed his wig and placed it on a stand. “Yes.”

He took a small dagger from his boot and set it on the dresser.

Her eyebrows rose. “Do you always carry that?”

“No.” He hesitated. “It’s a souvenir from tonight.”

Had he fought then? Rescued some other poor woman attacked in St. Giles?

Had he killed tonight?

She examined his expression, but she found him impossible to read at the moment. His face was closed as tight as a locked room.

The waistcoat came off next and was thrown carelessly over a chair opposite to where Artemis sat. She wondered if he usually had Craven help him undress—most aristocrats did, but then he seemed very comfortable in his movements. She remained silent and at last he glanced over at her.

He sighed. “I was hunting a particular footpad—the one who killed my parents. I thought I might’ve finally found him…” He trailed off, shaking his head bitterly. “But I failed. I failed as I have every other night I’ve hunted. I wasn’t even able to get close enough to see if it was the right man.”

Artemis watched as he stripped his shirt off with a violent movement, revealing those broad shoulders. How many nights had he returned to his house alone, having lost what had seemed a promising trail to his parents’ murderer?

He picked up a pitcher of water from his dressing table and poured into a wash basin. “No words of sympathy?”

She watched him splash water on his face and neck. “Would anything I say make a difference?”

He froze, water dripping from his chin as he leaned over the basin, his back still toward her. “What do you mean?”

She shivered and tucked her feet into the chair beside her, pulling the edge of her wrap over her bare ankles. “You’ve hunted for years now, in secret and alone. Done so without praise or censure. You are a force unto yourself, Your Grace. I doubt anything I said or do would move you.”

He shifted finally, swiveling his head to look at her over his shoulder. “Don’t call me that.”

“What?”

“Your Grace.”

His reply made her want to cry, and she didn’t know why. He was… something to her now, but it was all so complicated, made more so by his title and all it entailed. If only he’d been a pleasantly poor man—a solicitor or merchant. Penelope wouldn’t have been interested in him then. Artemis wouldn’t bear the guilt that she was hurting her dear cousin. They could’ve married and she would tend his house and cook their meals. It would’ve been so much more simpler.

And then, too, she would’ve had him all to herself.

He turned back to the dresser without a word, picked up a flannel cloth, and rubbed it with soap. He raised one arm, the muscles flexing on his back in a rather spectacular show, and washed himself along that side and under his arm.

He dipped the cloth into the basin and repeated the
performance on the right side as well before finally glancing over at her just as she shivered again.

Maximus scowled and dropped the cloth into the water. He stoked the fire, making it flame high. Then he strode to his wardrobe and plucked out a lap rug, came to her, and arranged the plush folds over her legs.

“You should’ve told me you were cold.” His hands were infinitely gentle.

“Your water is cold,” she murmured. “Doesn’t it bother you?”

He shrugged. “I find it bracing.”

“Then bring your cloth here.”

He looked at her curiously, but did as she bade.

She took the wet cloth from him. “Turn around and kneel.”

He arched one brow, and she remembered that she was ordering a duke to kneel before her. But he wasn’t just that anymore, was he? He was Maximus now.

Maximus, her lover.

He turned and lowered himself. The fire burnished his broad back, highlighting muscle and sinew.

Slowly she drew the wet cloth between his shoulder blades.

He bowed his head and arched his back.

She took the hint and rubbed the cloth gently over the damp hair at the top of his neck before drawing the cloth down his spine.

He drew in a breath. “I was fourteen when they died.”

She hesitated only a fraction of a second before she smoothed the cloth back up his spine.

“I…” His shoulders moved restlessly. “I didn’t know what to do. How to find their killer. I was angry.”

She thought about a boy deprived of his parents in such a shocking way. “Angry” was probably a great understatement.

“I spent the next two months doing what I had to. I was the duke.” His shoulders bunched and flexed. “But every night I thought about my parents—and what I would do to their murderer when I found him. I was fairly tall for my age—nearly six feet tall—and I thought I could defend myself. I started going into St. Giles at night.”

Artemis shuddered at the thought of any boy—for a fourteen-year-old youth was still a boy to her mind—going into St. Giles after dark, no matter how tall he might be.

“I had a fencing master and I considered myself quite good,” Maximus continued. “Still, it wasn’t enough. I was badly beaten and robbed by a footpad one night. I got two black eyes. Craven was quite angry.”

“You had Craven even then?”

He nodded. “Craven had been my father’s valet. I suspect he made inquiries. The next day as I lay in bed, I had a caller.”

She drew the cloth gently over his shoulders. “Who?”

“His name was Sir Stanley Gilpin. He was a business partner and friend of my father’s—not a particularly close one, actually, as I found out later.”

“Why did he visit?” She’d finished washing his back, but she was loath to stop touching him. Gingerly she stroked a bare finger over the bunched muscle at his neck. It was so hard.

“That’s what I wondered,” he said, swiveling his head a bit. She couldn’t tell if he disliked her touch or not, but he didn’t protest, so she laid her hand against his skin,
feeling the heat. “I’d never met him before. That first day he stayed an hour, talking about Father and other, more inconsequential things.”

“First day?” she questioned softly, daring to place both hands on his back. “He came back?”

“Oh, yes.” He bowed his head and arched his back into her hands, like a giant cat urging her to stroke. “He came back every day for the week that I was abed. And then at the end of that week he told me he could train me so that I wouldn’t be beaten the next time I went to St. Giles to look for my parents’ murderer.”