Maiden Lane [6] Duke of Midnight (39 page)

His lungs began spasming.

He kicked to the surface and drew his lips back from his teeth clenched around the dagger to gasp.

He dived again.

Nothing. Nothing.

Nothing.

His eyes stung.

He tasted death on his tongue.

She couldn’t end like this. He wouldn’t allow it.

He went deeper.

Nothing.

His chest was screaming.

He saw no point in rising to the surface.

He looked up a last time and saw a white hand.

One beautiful white hand.

He clutched at her and pulled until she was in his arms and they began sinking under the weight of her sodden skirts. He took the knife from his mouth and inserted it under the neckline at the back of her dress, yanking out hard. The thin silk split under his knife all the way to the waist. He slit the sleeves and tore them from her lifeless arms, before dragging the dress over her hips. Then he kicked hard, and as they rose, she slipped free from the garment, like a selkie shedding its skin.

They rocketed to the surface.

He broke the water, gasping, and looked at Artemis. Her face was white, her lips blue, and her hair trailed lifelessly in the water. She looked dead.

Arms suddenly seized him and he nearly fought them off before he realized that it was Winter Makepeace and Godric St. John hauling him into a boat.

“Take her first,” Maximus managed.

The men pulled Artemis into the boat without a word
and Maximus clambered in after, falling gracelessly to the bottom of the boat. He immediately took her in his arms and cut off her stays. She didn’t move.

He shook her. “Artemis.”

Her head flopped back and forth limply.

Makepeace laid a hand on his arm. “Your Grace.”

He ignored the other man. “
Diana.
”

“Your Grace, I’m sorry—”

He swung back his arm and slapped her face, the sound echoing across the water.

She choked.

Immediately he flipped her so that her face was over the gunwale of the boat. She coughed and a great stream of dirty water fountained out of her mouth. He’d never seen such a wonderful sight in his life. When she’d stopped coughing, he hauled her back into his arms. St. John took off his coat and handed it over.

Maximus gently pulled it over her shoulders, wrapping his arms around her. He was never going to let her go after this. “What in bloody hell were you thinking?”

Makepeace cocked an eyebrow, but Maximus ignored it. He never, ever wanted to go through such agony again. He glared sternly down at the woman in his arms.

“I was thinking,” she rasped, “that you couldn’t get a clear shot with me in the way.”

He tucked her head under his chin, running his palm over her wet hair. “And so you decided to sacrifice yourself? Madam, I had not taken you for a halfwit.”

“I can swim.”

“
Not
in water-logged skirts.”

She frowned impatiently. “
Did
you shoot him?”

“I had much more important matters to consider,” Maximus snapped.

At that she tilted back her head and glared at him. “You’ve been hunting him for nearly
two decades
. What could possibly be more important than killing your parents’ murderer?”

He scowled at her. “
You
, you maddening woman. Whatever possessed you to…” Just the memory of watching her dive into the Thames made his throat close up. When he spoke again, his voice was rough. “Do not think to ever do that to me again, Diana. Had you not lived I would’ve joined you at the bottom of the Thames. I cannot survive without you.”

She blinked and her militant expression softened. “Oh, Maximus.” She laid her palm against his cheek.

And there in that wretched boat, dripping and shivering, with black smoke darkening the sky and ashes floating on the wind, Maximus thought that he’d never been so happy.

“I’ll find him again someday,” he murmured into her hair. “But once lost to me, I cannot find life without you, my Diana. Please, my love. Don’t ever leave me. I promise, on my mother’s grave, that I’ll never cleave to another but you.”

“I won’t leave,” she whispered back, her sweet gray eyes glowing, “though it is a pity you missed your chance with Lord Noakes.”

Makepeace cleared his throat. “As to that…”

“I shot him,” St. John muttered almost apologetically.

Maximus looked at him in astonishment.

St. John shrugged. “It seemed the thing to do, what with that gun to Miss Greaves’s head business and his
subsequently shouting after she’d gone in that he’d started the fire and wasn’t sorry. Oh, and also, he shot at you, Wakefield, when you were in the water. Didn’t seem very gentlemanly, and although he wasn’t a very good shot, there was always the possibility that he wouldn’t miss with a second one. He was aiming another pistol when I shot him.”

“It was a good action.” Makepeace nodded. “And a good shot. Must’ve been near seventy feet.”

“Closer to fifty, I think,” St. John corrected modestly.

“Even so.”

“But…” Both men looked over inquiringly when Maximus spoke. “But I never asked you to help me with Noakes.”

Makepeace nodded, his expression grave. “You didn’t have to.”

“You never had to,” St. John concurred.

T
HAT NIGHT ARTEMIS
lay nude in Maximus’s huge bed and watched as he shaved. She’d already had a lovely, hot bath and washed her hair twice. They’d dined in his rooms, a simple supper of chicken and gravy with carrots and peas and a cherry tart for dessert.

Nothing had ever tasted better.

“It’s rather a miracle that no one was killed,” she said. She’d been very glad of that news, even after spotting a very familiar set of broad shoulders among the crowd at the dock. “Do you think anything remains of Harte’s Folly?”

“Last I heard it was still smoldering,” Maximus replied without turning. He frowned at his reflection in his dresser mirror. “But I understand that the theater is completely gone as well as the musician’s colonnade. They might be able to save some of the plantings, but whether Harte will
rebuild…” He shrugged. “The gardens are probably a lost cause.”

“It’s too bad,” she murmured. “Phoebe loved Harte’s Folly, and I rather liked it, too. It was such a magical place. Why do you think Lord Noakes set it alight in the first place?”

“Presumably to cover the fact that he’d just murdered his nephew,” Maximus replied.

“What?” She thought about the blood on Lord Noakes’s hands. “Poor man!”

“Well, he was trying to blackmail his uncle,” Maximus said drily. “If he’d just told me that he’d gotten the pendant from his uncle’s house in the first place, he’d be alive right now.”

“Mmm.” She picked at the coverlet. “Well, I suppose I wouldn’t have been going to Harte’s Folly again in any case.”

“Why not?” he asked absently. “Was the play not to your liking?”

“We didn’t get that far.” She sighed. “Penelope had rather a fit when we first arrived and caused a scene. I’m surprised no one told you.”

He turned slowly. “What?”

She looked at him. “She called me a whore.”

“Damn it.” He scowled at his hands. “That rather destroys my plans.”

“Plans for what?”

“When I was swimming through that foul water, I decided.” He went to his lockbox and opened it. “I was going to have it remade before I asked you. It seemed symbolic somehow.” He glared at her. “Now I’ll just have to do without.”

She raised her eyebrows. “I’m sorry?”

Then Maximus did something very strange: he went on one knee before her.

“This isn’t right at all,” he said, continuing to glare as if he found it all her fault.

She sat up. “What are you doing?”

“Artemis Greaves, will you do me the honor of—”

“Are you insane?” she demanded. “What of your father? Your conviction that you must marry for the dukedom?”

“My father is dead,” he said softly. “And I’ve decided the dukedom can go hang.”

“But—”

“Hush,” he snapped. “I’m trying to propose to you properly even without my mother’s necklace.”

“But why?” she asked. “You think my brother is mad.”

“He seemed sane enough to me the last time I saw him,” Maximus said kindly. “He tried to attack me.”

She goggled. “Most would take that as confirmation of his madness.”

He shrugged, reaching into the lockbox for the pendant she’d worn about her neck for so long. It lay next to the other six emeralds, all recovered now that the last had been taken from Noakes’s dead body. “He thought I’d seduced his sister.”

“Oh.” She blushed, still uncomfortable with the thought of Apollo knowing about… that.

“I know that this is rather disappointing,” he said as he slipped off his signet ring and threaded it on the chain the pendant still hung on. “But I intend to make you respectable.”

“Not because of what Penelope said?” she protested.

“No.” He put the necklace over her head, settling the
ring and the pendant between her breasts with care. The brush of his warm fingers made her nipples peak. “Well, yes, in a way. I don’t want you to think that I would allow anyone to call you such. I vowed it to myself when I was searching for you underwater. That if I could get you out alive…” He cleared his throat, frowning. “Anyway, you can wear the necklace at the wedding.”

“Maximus.” She took his face, making him look up at her. “I don’t want to marry you simply because you want to protect my name. If—”

Her heartfelt protest was interrupted by him lunging at her and taking her mouth. He kissed her thoroughly, openmouthed, until she had trouble remembering what exactly they’d been talking about.

When he broke the kiss, he still held her tight, almost as if he were afraid to let her go. “I love you, my Diana. I’ve loved you, I think, since I discovered you walking barefoot in my woods. Even when I thought I couldn’t marry you, I fully intended to keep you by my side forever.” He pulled back to look at her and she saw to her absolute astonishment that there was a trace—a very
small
trace—of uncertainty in his expression. He smoothed a thumb down the side of her face. “You mustn’t leave me. Without you there’s no light in the world. No laughter. No purpose. Even if for some silly reason you don’t wish to marry me, promise me at least—”

“Hush.” She cupped his face in her hands. “Yes, I’ll marry you, you foolish man. I love you. I suppose I’ll even wear your mother’s extravagant necklace—though it won’t look nearly as good on me as it would’ve on Penelope. I’ll do anything you want, just so that we can remain together. Forever.”

He surged up over her at that, capturing her mouth, surrounding her with his strong, possessive arms.

When at last he allowed her to draw breath she saw that he was frowning sternly at her. “We’ll marry in three months. You’ll wear the Wakefield emeralds and the earbobs I’ll have made, but mark me well, you are confused.
No one
would look better in those emeralds than you. Your cousin might be a pretty face, but
you
, my darling, courageous, maddening, seductive, mysterious,
wonderful
Diana,
you
are the Duchess of Wakefield.
My
duchess.”