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

“Oh, yes, she’s quite looking forward to it, though I’m afraid the duke isn’t.” Miss Picklewood chuckled. “He hates house parties—really
any
party. Says it takes him away from more important things. I saw you with Maximus earlier.”

It took Artemis a moment to remember that Maximus was the Christian name of the Duke of Wakefield. Funny to think of a duke having a Christian name, but it suited him. She could see him as a ruthless Roman general. But of course Miss Picklewood would call Wakefield by his given name. She was a distant relation to the duke, and she lived with him and Lady Phoebe as a sort of companion for the young girl.

Artemis looked at the other woman with new interest. Miss Picklewood must be one of the women his house was full of. “He was helping me bring the punch to Penelope.”

“Mmm.”

“Miss Picklewood…”

“Yes?” The older lady looked at her with bright blue eyes.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard how you came to live with the duke and Lady Phoebe?”

“Oh, that’s simple enough, my dear,” Miss Picklewood said. “It was after the death of both of their parents.”

“Yes?” Artemis frowned at her lap. “I didn’t remember that.”

“Well, it was before your time, wasn’t it? Seventeen twenty-one, it was. Poor Hero had just turned eight and Phoebe was only a babe, not quite a year. When I heard—I was staying with an aunt of mine—I knew I had to go. Who else would look after those children? Neither the duke nor poor, dear Mary—Maximus’s mother, you know—had living siblings. No, I came down at once and found the house in chaos. The servants were all in shock, the men of business were nattering on about the lands and money and succession and not noticing that the boy had hardly risen from his bed. I took charge of the girls and helped Maximus as best I could. He was stubborn even then, I’m afraid. After a while he said he was the duke now and didn’t need a nanny or even a governess. Quite rude, but then he’d lost his parents. Awful shock.”

“Hmm.” Artemis looked over to where the duke was standing near Penelope, his eyes half hooded and impossible to read. “I suppose that explains quite a bit.”

“Oh, yes,” Miss Picklewood said, following her gaze. “It does indeed.”

They sat for a moment in silence before Miss Picklewood roused herself. “So you see, it can be quite a good life, nonetheless.”

Artemis blinked, not following her companion’s train of thought. “I’m sorry?”

“Being a lady dependent on the kindness of relatives,” Miss Picklewood said gently and quite devastatingly. “We might not have children of our own blood, but if one is lucky one can find others to help through life.” She patted Artemis’s knee. “It’ll all come right in the end.”

Artemis held very still because she had a quite mad urge to tear sweet Miss Picklewood’s hand from her leg. To stand up and scream. To run through the ballroom, out the front door, and keep running until she felt cool grass beneath her feet again.

This couldn’t be her life. It simply couldn’t be.

She did none of that, of course. Instead she nodded pleasantly and asked Miss Picklewood if she’d like another glass of punch.

Artemis drifted up into consciousness from a dream of a dappled forest and lay remembering. It had been cool and quiet, the moss and damp leaves under her bare feet muffling her footfalls. A hound or maybe several padded behind her, keeping her company. She’d come on a clearing through the trees, and anticipation had made her breath catch. Something was there, some creature that really shouldn’t have been in any English forest, and she wanted to see—

Someone was in her room.

Artemis froze, listening. Her room at Brightmore House was at the back of the house, small, but comfortable. In the
morning a maid came to light the fire, but otherwise no one disturbed her here. Whoever was in her room was not the maid.

Perhaps she’d imagined it. The dream had been quite visceral.

She opened her eyes. Faint moonlight from the one window showed her the familiar shadows of her room: the chair by her bed, the old dresser by the window, the small mantelpiece—

One of the shadows detached itself from beside the mantel. The shadow coalesced into a figure, large and looming, his head distorted by a floppy hat and the outsized nose on his mask. The Ghost of St. Giles.

He was rumored to rape and ravage, but bizarrely, she felt no fear. Instead a strange elation filled her. Perhaps she was still enthralled by her dream.

Still, best to make sure.

“Have you come to kidnap me?” Her voice emerged a whisper, though she hadn’t consciously thought to lower it. “If so, I hope you’ll do me the courtesy of letting me put on a wrap first.”

He snorted and moved to her dresser. “Why are your rooms apart from the family?” He, too, whispered.

He hadn’t spoken in St. Giles, and she really hadn’t expected him to answer. Curiosity made her stir from her nest of covers, sitting up.

It was chilly with the fire dead and she shivered as she wrapped her arms about her knees. “Room.”

He paused in whatever he was doing at her dresser and his head turned, the mask a menacing profile. “What?”

She shrugged, though his back was to her and
she
at
least could hardly see in the dim light. “There’s only the one room.”

He turned back to the dresser. “You’re a servant, then.”

Hard to tell from a whisper, but she rather thought he meant to provoke her.

“I’m Lady Penelope’s cousin. Well,” she amended, “first cousin twice removed, strictly speaking.”

“Then why do they put you here, away at the back of the house?” He crouched and pulled out the bottom drawer of her dresser.

“Haven’t you heard of a poor relation?” She craned her neck, trying to see what he was doing. He appeared to be pawing through her stockings. “You’re a fair distance from St. Giles tonight.”

He grunted and shoved the drawer in, moving to the one above it. That one held her chemises, all two of them; she wore the third.

She cleared her throat. “Thank you.”

He stilled at that, his head still bent over her drawer. “What?”

“You saved my life the other night.” She pursed her lips, considering. “Or at the very least my virtue. And that of my cousin’s. I can’t think of why you might have done it, but thank you.”

He turned at that. “
Why I might have done it?
You were imperiled. Wouldn’t any man help?”

She smiled ruefully—and a little sadly. “In my experience, no.”

She thought he’d simply go back to searching her room, but he paused. “Then I’m sorry for your experience.”

And the odd thing was that she thought he meant it.
She pleated the coverlet between her fingers. “Why do you do it?”

“Do what?” He rose and began on the top drawer.

That held her few personal possessions: old letters from Apollo from when he’d been sent away to school, a miniature of Papa, Mama’s earbobs, the gilt flaking off and one of the wires broken. Nothing of interest, except to her. She supposed she should feel resentment that a stranger was laying hands on her meager possessions, but really, in the larger scope of all the things that had happened in her life, this was quite a small indignity.

He stilled. “You’ve half a loaf of bread in here and two apples. Do they not feed you that you must steal food?”

She stiffened. “It’s not for me. And it’s not stealing—not really. Cook knows I took them.”

He grunted and resumed searching.

“Why do you don the disguise of a harlequin actor and run about St. Giles?” She cocked her head, watching him. His movements were economical. Precise. Yet, strangely graceful for a man. “You know, there are those who think you a ravisher of women—and worse.”

“I’m not.” He shut the drawer and glanced about her room. Had years spent hunting in the night made him able to see in the dark? She could hardly make out the outlines of her room and it was her own. He chose the old wardrobe next, a piece that had been replaced with something newer and finer in one of Brightmore House’s guest rooms. He opened the door, peering in. “I’ve never violated any woman.”

“Have you killed?”

He paused at that, before reaching into the wardrobe to move aside her spare day gown. “Once or twice. The men deserved it, I assure you.”

She could believe that. St. Giles was a terrible place. A place where people were driven by poverty, drink, and despair to the depths of a human soul. She’d read reports in her uncle’s discarded news sheets of robberies and murders, of entire families found starved to death. For a gentleman to venture into St. Giles night after night for
years
to confront the demons unleashed by man’s worst state… he must have more than a trifling reason. She very much doubted he did it for excitement or on a dare.

Artemis inhaled on the thought. What sort of man acted as he did? “You must love St. Giles very much.”

He whirled at that, and an awful, loud laugh broke from his lips. “
Love.
Dear God, you mistake me, ma’am. I do it not for love.”

“Yet the citizens of St. Giles are the ones who benefit from your…” She trailed off, trying to think of how to describe what he did. Hobby? Duty? Obsession? “Work. If, as you say, you don’t harm except those who deserve it, then those who live in St. Giles are the safer for what you do, surely?”

“I care not how my actions affect them.” He closed the door to the wardrobe with finality.

“I do,” she said simply. “Your actions saved my life.”

He was standing, looking about the room. There wasn’t much left: the mantel and her bedside table, both without anything to hide something in. “Why are you so concerned with my actions in any case?”

Even in his whispered voice he sounded irritable, and she supposed he had a right. “I don’t know. I guess that you’re a… novelty, really. I don’t usually have the occasion to talk to a gentleman at length.”

“You’re Lady Penelope’s relation and companion. I
would think between balls, parties, and teas you’d have more than ample opportunity to meet gentlemen.”

“Meet them, yes. Have a true conversation?” She shook her head. “Gentlemen have no reason to talk to ladies such as I. Not unless their intentions are less than honorable.”

He took a step toward her, almost as if the movement was involuntary. “You’ve been accosted by men?”

“It’s the way of the world, isn’t it? My position makes me vulnerable. Those that are strong will always go after those they think are weak.” She shrugged. “But it isn’t often, and in any case I’ve been able to fend for myself.”

“You aren’t weak.” It was a statement, final and without doubt.

She found his conviction flattering. “Most would think me so.”

“Most would be wrong.”

They stared at each other and she had the idea that they were both somehow taking stock of the other. She certainly was. He wasn’t what she would have expected, had she bothered to think about what to expect from a masked harlequin. He seemed to be truly listening to her, and that hadn’t happened to her in a very long time.
Well, except with the Duke of Wakefield last night
, she silently amended.

The Ghost had understood her truth in a shockingly short period of time.

Then there was his
anger
—the underlying pulse of suppressed rage that seemed to vibrate through him. She could feel it, almost a living thing, pressing against her.

“What are you looking for?” she asked abruptly. “It’s rather rude for a gentleman to enter a lady’s room without permission.”

“I’m not a gentleman.”

“Really? I thought otherwise.”

She’d spoken without thinking and immediately regretted it. He was beside the bed in an instant, large, male, and dangerous, and she remembered at this inopportune moment what the creature had been in that clearing in her dream: a tiger. In an English forest. She almost laughed at the absurdity.

She was forced to tilt her head up to see him, baring her neck, which was never a good idea when in the presence of a predator.

He bent over her, deliberately planting his fists on the bed on either side of her hips, caging her in. She swallowed, feeling the heat of his body. She could
smell
him: leather and male sweat, and it should have repelled her.

Except it did the opposite.

He thrust his masked face into hers, so close she could see the glint of his eyes behind it. “You have something that belongs to me.”

She held very still, breathing in his exhalations, sharing the same air as he, like a very dear enemy.

His face dipped toward hers, angling, and her eyelids fell. For a very brief moment, she thought she felt the brush of something warm across her lips.