Duke of Midnight

Page 20

“Little bitch,” he breathed, his face turned fiery red, and he slammed his mouth against hers.
There was no softness in him. He claimed her lips like a marauder: hard and angry. If she’d once thought him cold as ice, well, that ice was burned away now by the fire of his rage. He shoved his tongue into her mouth, his breath a hot exhalation against her cheek. He tasted of wine and power, and something within her trembled in answer. His chest was pressed to her, and each frantic breath she took shoved her breasts into his waistcoat. He wasn’t gentle and he wasn’t at all romantic, and despite that she almost lost her way. Almost found herself wandering in the wildness of his lips. In the passion of his anger. She almost forgot everything.
She remembered the brother who needed her just in time.
She pulled back, gasping, trying to find words as his hands tightened, preventing her from escaping entirely.
He ducked his head to look her in the eye. “I don’t have to do anything you order me to do, Miss Greaves. I am a duke, not your personal lapdog.”
“And here, now, I am Artemis, not Miss Greaves,” she blazed. “You’ll do as I say because if you don’t I’ll make sure you’re the laughingstock of London. That you’re banished from England forever.”
His eyes flared wide with anger, and for a moment she was sure he was going to strike her down. He shook her roughly instead, sending her fichu slithering to the ground.
“Stop demanding. Stop trying to be something you’re not.”
The pain bloomed in her breast, so sharp, so cold, that for a wild moment she thought he’d stabbed her with a dagger rather than words.
He yanked her close, his mouth against her exposed neck. She could feel the scrape of his teeth, sharp with warning.
Artemis let her head fall back, her eyes closed, her lips suddenly trembling. Apollo dying. “Please. Please, Maximus. I’ll refrain from provoking you anymore. I’ll stay in the shadows with my stockings and shoes on and never swim in your pond again, never disturb you again, only please do this one thing, I beg you. Save my brother.”
His lips left her throat. She could hear Scarborough’s voice somewhere back at the ruins, still telling his silly children’s stories. She could hear a bird trilling a series of high, bouncing notes, suddenly cut off. She could hear the rustling of the eternal trees. But she couldn’t hear him.
Perhaps he wasn’t there anymore. Perhaps he was merely a figment of her imagination.
She opened her eyes in panic.
He was staring at her with a face entirely expressionless, as if made from cold stone. Nothing showed at lips or brow or cheek. Nowhere save in his eyes. Those burned with an impassioned fire, reckless and deep, and her breath caught at the sight as she waited for her—and her brother’s—fate.
A GODDESS SHOULD never have to beg. It was the one thought, clear and simple, that ran through Maximus’s mind. Everything else—his rank, the party, their conflict, seemed to fall away from that one truth. She should never have to beg.
He still tasted her mouth on his tongue, still wanted to crush her breasts against his chest and bend her until she bared her throat to him, but he made himself let her go.
“Very well.”
Artemis blinked, her sweet lips parting as if she didn’t believe what she’d heard. “What?”
“I’ll do it.”
He turned to go, his mind already making plans, when he felt her fingers clutch at his sleeve. “You’ll take him from Bedlam?”
“Yes.”
Perhaps his decision had already been made from the moment he’d seen tears in her eyes. He had a weakness, it seemed, a fault more terrible than any Achilles’s heel: he couldn’t stand the sight of her tears.
But her eyes shone as if he’d placed the moon itself into her hands. “Thank you.”
He nodded, and then he was striding in the direction of Pelham before he could linger and be drawn again into the seduction of her mouth.
He emerged into the sunshine and was almost surprised by the sight of his guests. His tête-à-tête in the woods with Artemis had seemed like an interlude in another world, a journey of days, when it had in reality been only minutes.
Cousin Bathilda looked up with a crease between her brows. “Maximus! Lady Penelope was wondering if you might show us the famous abbey well. Scarborough has been telling us that some poor girl flung herself into it centuries ago.”
“Not now,” he muttered as he brushed past her.
“Your Grace.” Bathilda had never been mother to him. His own mother had died when he’d been fourteen—old enough to no longer need a parental hand. Yet when Bathilda—rarely—used that tone and the courtesy of his title, he always paid attention.
He turned to face her. “Yes?”
They stood a little apart from the group. “What are you about?” she whispered, frowning. “I know Lady Oddershaw and Mrs. Jellett have spent the last five minutes muttering between themselves over you and Miss Greaves, and even Lady Penelope must be wondering what you can have had to say to her lady’s companion that necessitated dragging the poor woman off into the woods.” Bathilda took a deep breath. “Maximus, you’re on the very brink of causing a scandal.”
“Then it’s a good thing that I have cause to go to London,” he replied. “I’ve had word that a business matter cannot wait.”
“What—?”
But he had no time to make further ridiculous excuses. If Artemis was right and her brother was truly dying, he must get to London and Bedlam before the man perished.
The thought prompted him to start into a jog as soon as he was away from sight of the abbey. Maximus was panting by the time he made Pelham. He detoured by the stables to order two horses saddled, then ran inside the house. He wasn’t surprised to see Craven eyeing him askance at the top of the stairs.
“Your Grace seems out of breath. I do hope you’re not being chased by an overly enthusiastic heiress?”
“Pack a light bag, Craven,” Maximus snapped. “We’re going to London to help a murderous lunatic escape from Bedlam.”
Chapter Nine
King Herla and his men traveled back to the land of humankind, but what a surprise met them when at last they saw the sun. Brambles hid the entrance to the cave, and where once there had been fertile fields and plump cattle, now a strange, thorny forest had grown, and in the distance they saw the ruins of a great castle. They rode until they found a peasant to question.
“We have no king or queen here,” stuttered the peasant. “Not since noble Herla King disappeared and his queen died of grief—and that, my lords, was nigh on nine hundred years ago.”…
—from The Legend of the Herla King
Artemis could hear voices as the duke met his guests at the abbey ruins. The tones rose and then fell, and then it was nearly quiet enough that she might imagine that she was by herself in the little wood. Alone and safe.
But she was no longer a girl with fanciful dreams. She knew she must face the real world—and the rest of the guests.
She took a deep breath, smoothed down her hair, and before she could waver, made for the abbey.
It wasn’t very bad—not nearly as bad as the morning after Apollo was arrested. Then she’d had to walk through the village green to fetch a bit of beef from the butcher. He’d closed his doors and pretended not to see her outside and she’d had to walk home empty-handed, with the loud whispers of people she’d thought her friends in her ears.
The guests turned and stared as she emerged from the woods, and Lady Oddershaw and Mrs. Jellett put their heads together, but Phoebe smiled at the sight of her.
One genuine smile of friendship was worth a thousand false faces.
“Where have you been?” Penelope asked when she reached her. “And where is your fichu?”
Artemis felt the heat rise in her cheeks—and her too-bare throat—but there was nothing for it but to brave it out. Casually she put her hand to her neck—and discovered the chain with the emerald drop and Maximus’s ring was exposed as well. Had Maximus seen his ring? If he had, he’d given no indication. She tucked them both back into her bodice as casually as she could. The ring was merely a signet ring—like many others in England. Hopefully it wouldn’t be recognized.
“Artemis?” Penelope was waiting for her answer.
“I saw a bearded titmouse and wished for a closer look.”
“With the Duke of Wakefield?”
“He has an interest in nature,” she said, entirely truthfully.
“Hmm.” Penelope looked suspicious, but was distracted by a whispered word from Scarborough. The guests were gathering their things in preparation for returning back to Pelham House.
Phoebe started for Artemis, but Miss Picklewood laid her hand on her charge’s arm and directed her to accompany Miss Royale.
A confused expression flitted over Phoebe’s sweet face, but then she smoothed it into social politeness and took Miss Royale’s arm.
“Miss Greaves, will you walk with me?” Miss Picklewood asked in a tone that suggested an order rather than a request. “The path is so uneven.”
“Of course,” Artemis murmured as she linked arms with the older lady.
“We haven’t had a chance to speak in quite some time,” Miss Picklewood said softly. They were at the back of the line of returning guests, a position that Artemis felt sure the other lady had maneuvered them into. “I hope you’ve been enjoying the country party?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Artemis answered warily.
“Good, good,” Miss Picklewood murmured. “So often I’m afraid people come to these country parties and leave their, shall we say, higher principles behind in London. You wouldn’t believe, I know, my dear, but such scandalous goings-on I’ve heard about!”
“Oh?” Artemis thought herself inured to innuendo, but the problem was that she rather liked Miss Picklewood and so cared for her opinion. The older lady’s words made her ears burn.
“Oh, yes, my dear,” Miss Picklewood said ever so gently. “And of course it’s always the most innocent who become entangled in gossip’s net, as it were. Why, a married lady—especially if she’s titled—can get away with all sorts of things. I won’t enumerate them, for they aren’t for innocent ears. But a respectable young matron who might not be titled or have any weight in society must be very, very careful.”
Miss Picklewood paused as they picked their way around an outcropping of rock, then said, “And of course, it’s quite beyond the pale for an unmarried lady to engage in any sort of behavior that might seem untoward. Especially if such behavior might make her lose what was otherwise her only position.”
“I understand,” Artemis said tightly.
“Do you, dear?” Miss Picklewood’s tone was gentle, but underneath there was iron. “It’s the way of the world that the ladies in such cases are always to blame, never the gentlemen. And it’s also the way of the world that dukes—however honorable they might be otherwise—have no reason but the nefarious to take young, unmarried ladies of little means into secluded places. You must have no hopes there.”
“Yes.” Artemis breathed in quietly, making sure her voice did not shake. “I do realize.”
“I wish it were otherwise,” Miss Picklewood exclaimed quietly, “truly I do. But I think it doesn’t do for ladies such as we to be anything but utterly practical. Too many have stumbled into disaster thinking otherwise.”
“Ladies such as we?”
“Of course, dear,” Miss Picklewood said comfortably. “Do you imagine I was born with gray hair and wrinkles? I once was a comely young girl like you. My dear papa loved to play at cards. Unfortunately he was never very good at it. I did have several offers from gentlemen, but I felt we wouldn’t get on well, so I went to live with my Aunt Florence. Quite a persnickety old lady, I’m sad to report, but a good heart underneath it all. After Aunt Florence I went to my brother’s house. You would think the closeness of blood would make the connection dearer, but such was not the case between my brother and me. Possibly our mutual antagonism was made worse by my sister-in-law, a dreadful penny-pincher who resented another mouth to feed in their household. I was forced to return to my aunt. And then…”