Duke of Midnight

Page 15

Why not? he wanted to ask. Surely Miss Greaves’s station as Lady Penelope’s companion didn’t preclude hobbies of her own—even silly ones like ladies’ archery? Except it might very well do. Her position was a sort of genteel modern-day slavery, reserved solely for the most vulnerable of the gentler sex—those without family of their own. Lady Penelope could keep Miss Greaves busy from morning to night if she chose, and Miss Greaves would be expected to be grateful for the servitude.
The thought made his mood darker.
“I also enjoy riding, sketching, dancing, and singing,” Lady Penelope prattled on. She tapped his sleeve with one flirtatious finger. “Perhaps I can demonstrate my voice for you—and the other guests—this evening, Your Grace?”
“I would be delighted,” he replied automatically.
Behind them he heard a slight choking sound. He turned his head and glanced back to see Miss Greaves with her lips twitching. He had a sudden suspicion regarding Lady Penelope’s supposedly lovely singing voice.
“Oh, look, the Duke of Scarborough is helping with the targets,” Lady Penelope continued. “He told me last night that he likes to hold an annual contest at his country estate for athletics such as running and archery, so I suppose he’s quite the expert. No doubt that’s why he’s so skilled at fencing as well.” She seemed to realize her comments weren’t the most politic and sent an annoyingly sympathetic glance his way. “Of course, not everyone has the time to practice fencing or indeed any other athletic endeavor.”
The slight gasp that came from behind them most definitely sounded like a choked-off laugh this time.
“Oh, I’m sure His Grace has other, more cerebral skills,” came Miss Greaves’s voice in suspiciously dulcet tones.
Lady Penelope looked as if she were deciphering the word cerebral.
“I spend a great deal of time in Parliament,” he replied in what even to his own ears sounded like a damnably pompous tone. “I’m glad to see that you’ve regained your voice, Miss Greaves.”
“I never lost it, I do assure you, Your Grace,” Miss Greaves responded sweetly. “But are we to understand that you don’t practice fencing at all? If so, your performance yesterday—at least at the beginning of your duel with the Duke of Scarborough—must be a veritable miracle. I vow, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you fought with a sword nearly every night.”
He turned slowly on her. What was she about now?
Miss Greaves met his gaze, her own face serene, but there was a wicked gleam at the back of her eyes that made a chill run up his spine.
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, Artemis,” Lady Penelope said plaintively after a rather awkward beat.
“May I help you don your arm guard, Lady Penelope?” Scarborough asked behind Maximus.
Maximus cursed under his breath. He hadn’t noticed the ass sidling over.
Miss Greaves tutted. “I’m quite shocked by such language from a distinguished parliamentarian, Your Grace.”
“I’m sure that you are anything but shocked, Miss Greaves,” he snapped without thinking.
The corner of her lush mouth quirked in her not-smile, and he had a black urge to take her hand and pull her into the copse. To plunder that enticing mouth until she either smiled frankly or cried aloud in pleasure.
He blinked the erotic image away. What was he thinking? This was the gray little companion of the woman he meant to marry—and a blackmailer to boot. He shouldn’t be feeling anything for her save revulsion.
But revulsion was not the word that came to mind when she leaned a little closer, ridiculously attractive in her dowdy brown frock, and whispered, “You’d better move quickly, Your Grace, or Scarborough will snatch Lady Penelope out from under your nose. He is the more dashing duelist, after all.”
And she sauntered over to stand by Phoebe before he could make a suitable retort.
Maximus scowled and glanced at the ladies readying to shoot. Scarborough had somehow managed to position himself behind Lady Penelope, and with both arms wrapped about her, was tying on her arm guard. Maximus wanted to roll his eyes. Really, why fight for a lady so silly as to fall for such an obvious ploy?
Because it was for the dukedom.
He squared his shoulders and marched toward the couple. “If I might?” Ignoring both Scarborough’s frown and Lady Penelope’s sly smile, he swiftly and competently tied the arm guard on her arm. Stepping back, he couldn’t help but glance to where Miss Greaves and Phoebe stood.
Miss Greaves gave a mocking salute.
He scowled and turned back to make sure his other guests were prepared to shoot.
“We gentlemen assume the role of audience today,” Scarborough said jovially as they stepped aside.
Maximus drifted toward Phoebe and Miss Greaves as Lady Noakes took up her bow.
“Hiding in the back row, Your Grace?” Miss Greaves murmured as he drew near.
Lady Noakes shot her arrow.
“Oh, dear,” Miss Greaves said.
“It went wide, didn’t it?” Phoebe said.
“Nearly hit Johnny,” Maximus said grimly.
“Your footman jumped rather nimbly,” Miss Greaves mused. “Almost as if he’d been given lessons by the Ghost of St. Giles.”
Maximus shot a narrow-eyed look at her.
She smiled—really smiled, teeth and all—back. And despite the circumstances—her blackmail, the people all around them, his anger—he caught his breath in admiration. When Miss Greaves smiled her entire face lit and became utterly beautiful.
Maximus looked away, swallowing.
Phoebe giggled. “I can see why you sought refuge back here with us, dear brother. Self-preservation is the better part of valor, I think.”
They watched in silence as both Mrs. Jellett and Lady Oddershaw shot rather wildly, though Mrs. Jellett’s arrow found the target through some fluke of the wind that seemed to surprise even her.
Maximus cleared his throat, loath to admit either his own cowardliness or his guests’ lack of talent with a bow and arrow. “Lady Penelope has a fine form.” The lady was angling herself as she drew her string back.
“Oh, indeed,” Miss Greaves said earnestly. “She practices on her form quite often.”
They watched in silence as Lady Penelope’s arrow hit the rim of the target and bounced off.
“Her aim is another matter, of course,” Miss Greaves murmured.
Maximus winced as Johnny crept cautiously into the field to retrieve the arrows shot so far. The footman was a braver man than he.
“She’s going for another shot,” Scarborough said, and indeed Lady Penelope had assumed her archer’s stance again. She made a very fine figure, he noticed dispassionately: the cherry-red ribbons twined in her ebony locks fluttered in the wind, and her profile was almost Grecian.
She shot and all three footmen threw themselves prone to the ground.
“Oh, well done, my lady!” Scarborough shouted, for Lady Penelope’s arrow had hit the outer blue circle of the target.
The lady beamed in pride and stepped back graciously for Miss Royale’s turn.
The footmen looked besieged.
Miss Royale took up her bow and called to the footmen. “Best stand back. I’ve never done this before.”
“Never practiced archery?” Phoebe murmured.
“Grew up in India.” Mrs. Jellett had come to stand near them as she waited her next turn. “Heathen place. No doubt that explains her dark complexion.”
Miss Royale’s first two shots went wide, but she managed to hit the outer ring with her third one. She stepped back looking quite pleased with herself.
Fortunately, the remainder of the archery demonstration proceeded without incident, and although none of the ladies hit the inner red circle of the targets, neither did they maim one of his footmen, so, as Phoebe put it, “The afternoon must count as a victory.”
Maximus held out his elbow to Lady Penelope to lead her inside for refreshments. As they walked he bent to listen attentively as she recounted her exceptional success at shooting. He murmured praise and encouragement at the appropriate moments, but all the while he was aware that Miss Greaves had lingered behind at the archery field.
“Oh, I’ve left my gloves behind,” Lady Penelope exclaimed as they entered the Yellow Salon. The other guests were already taking seats.
“I’ll go fetch them for you,” Maximus said, for once trumping Scarborough.
He bowed and left before the lady—or the duke—could comment.
The halls were deserted as he strode toward the south doors. All the guests were in his Yellow Salon, and the servants were naturally in attendance there as well.
All the guests save one.
He saw her as he slipped out the south doors. She stood in profile across the green, her back straight, her stance that of some long ago warrior maiden. As he walked toward her, Miss Greaves drew back her bow briskly, aiming a tad high to account for the wind, and let her arrow fly. Before it had hit the target, she’d notched another and shot it. A third followed just as rapidly.
He glanced to the target. All three of her arrows were clustered together at the center of the red circle. Miss Greaves, who “did not shoot,” was a better shot than all the other ladies—and probably the men as well.
He glanced from the target to her and saw that she stared back, proud and unsmiling. Artemis. She was named for the goddess of the hunt—a goddess who had slain without remorse her only admirer.
Something quickened in him, rising, hardening, reaching eagerly for the challenge. She was no soft society lady. She might disguise herself thus, but he knew better: she was a goddess, wild and free and dangerous.
And a most suitable opponent.
He picked up Lady Penelope’s gloves and, unsmiling, saluted Miss Greaves with them. She bowed to him, equally grave.
Maximus turned to the house, thinking. He had no idea how he would do it yet, but he meant to best her. He’d show her that he was the master, and when she’d admitted his victory… well, then he’d have her. And he’d hold her, by God. His huntress.
His goddess.
Chapter Seven
If the Herla King’s wedding had been grand, the Dwarf King’s nuptials were magnificent. For seven days and seven nights there was feasting and dancing and storytelling. The cavern sparkled with gold and jewels, for a dwarf has a deep and abiding love of the treasures that come from the earth. So when King Herla at last presented his wedding gift there was a roar of approval from the dwarf citizens: he offered a golden chest, twice the size of a man’s fist, spilling over with sparkling diamonds.…
—from The Legend of the Herla King
“And his eyes glowed with a red fire as if he’d newly come from Hell itself.” Penelope shivered dramatically at her own tale
Artemis, listening to the story of their encounter with the Ghost of St. Giles for what seemed like the hundredth time, leaned closer to Phoebe and murmured in her ear, “Or as if he had a slight infection of the eye.”
The younger woman clapped her hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle.
“Would that I had been there to protect you from such a fiend,” the Duke of Scarborough exclaimed.
The gentlemen had just joined the ladies in the Yellow Salon after dinner, and the guests were scattered about the room. The ladies mostly lounged on the elegantly carved chairs and settees while the gentlemen stood. Scarborough had immediately crossed to Penelope and latched on to her side upon entering, while Wakefield was prowling about the perimeter of the room. Artemis wondered what his game was. Surely he should be waiting attendance on her cousin? Instead, when she looked over, his brooding gaze caught hers.
She shivered. He’d been somehow more intent since her little show of archery this afternoon. Perhaps that had been hubris on her part, but she’d been unable to pass up the opportunity. She wasn’t another London society lady. She’d grown up in the country, had spent long days wandering woods, and she knew how to hunt. True, her game had always been birds and the odd squirrel before—not predatory dukes—but the principle was the same, surely? She would stalk him, goad him, until he had no choice but to save her brother. It was a delicate maneuver: she wanted to suggest she was quite ready to reveal him, but at the same time if she actually gave away his identity as the Ghost of St. Giles, she lost all her leverage. A fine game indeed, but at least she’d accomplished the first movement: