Duke of Midnight

Page 23

Artemis cleared her throat. “I know that Wakefield is very fond of Lady Phoebe.”
“Of course, of course,” the duke rumbled.
“In fact, I suppose he would be very grateful if someone were to volunteer to travel with his sister.”
Penelope wasn’t a complete widgeon. She immediately understood Artemis’s hint—understood and didn’t much like it. “Oh, I couldn’t. Why, with you and my maids and all my luggage, we barely fit in the carriage on the way here. It’s simply impossible.”
“That is too bad,” Artemis murmured. “Of course, Phoebe could take her own carriage and only you could travel with her.”
Penelope looked horrified.
“… Or I could go.”
“You?” Penelope squinted, but it was a calculating squint. “But you’re my lady’s companion.”
“No, you’re right,” Artemis hastily demurred. “Such an extravagant gesture of kindness would be too much.”
Penelope frowned. “You really believe Wakefield would think me extravagantly kind?”
“Oh, yes,” Artemis said, wide-eyed with sincerity. “Because you will be. And if you lend me for the time that Miss Picklewood is away, why, Wakefield will hardly be able to thank you enough.”
“Oh, my,” Penelope breathed. “What a very good idea.”
“You are beneficence itself, my lady,” Scarborough announced as he bent over Penelope’s hand, and winked at Artemis.
Chapter Ten
At the peasant’s words, one of Herla’s men leaped from his horse, but when his feet touched the ground, he crumbled into a pile of dust. King Herla stared and remembered the Dwarf King’s warning: none of them could dismount before the little white dog or they, too, would turn to dust. He gave a terrible cry at the realization, and as he did so, both he and his men faded into ghostly forms. Then he spurred his horse and did the only thing left to him: he hunted.
Thus King Herla and his retinue were doomed to ride the moonlit sky, never quite of this world or the next.…
—from The Legend of the Herla King
“Will he awake?” Maximus stared down at the madman later that morning.
Viscount Kilbourne was hidden away in the cellar under Wakefield House, having been smuggled in along the secret tunnel. Maximus and Craven had set up a cot down here, close to a brazier of glowing coals to keep him warm.
Craven frowned at his motionless patient. “ ’Tis uncertain, Your Grace. Perhaps if we were able to take him to a more salubrious place above ground…”
Maximus shook his head impatiently. “You know we cannot risk Kilbourne being found.”
Craven nodded. “ ’Tis said on the streets that Bedlam’s governors have already sent for soldiers to hunt down the Ghost. Apparently they are quite embarrassed at the escape of one of their inmates.”
“They ought to be embarrassed by the entire place,” Maximus muttered.
“Indeed, Your Grace,” Craven replied. “But I still fear for our patient. The noxious fumes from the brazier, not to mention the damp of the cellar—”
“Aren’t the best conditions for an invalid,” Maximus cut in, “but discovery and a return to Bedlam would be much worse. He wouldn’t survive another beating.”
“As you say, Your Grace, this is the best we can do, but I don’t like it very much. If we could but send for a physician more learned in the healing arts—”
“The same objection applies.” Maximus paced restlessly to the opposite wall of the cellar. Damn it, he needed Kilbourne to wake for Artemis’s sake. He remembered her shining, grateful face, and he couldn’t help but think she wouldn’t be so grateful now if she could see her brother’s condition.
“Besides,” Maximus continued, returning to Craven’s side, “you’re as good as if not better than most of the university-educated doctors I’ve seen. At least you haven’t a peculiar fondness for disgusting miracle draughts.”
“Hmm,” Craven murmured. “While I am of course gratified by Your Grace’s confidence in me, I must point out that most of my doctoring has consisted of tending to your gashes and bruises. I’ve never had to deal with a patient with a head wound and broken ribs.”
“Even so, I trust you.”
Craven’s face went completely blank. “Thank you, Your Grace.”
Maximus gave him a look. “Don’t let’s get maudlin, Craven.”
Craven’s craggy face twitched. “Never, Your Grace.”
Maximus sighed. “I must make an appearance upstairs, else the servants will begin to wonder where I’ve gone. Come at once, though, should he regain his senses.”
“Of course, Your Grace.” Craven hesitated, studying the unconscious man’s face. “I think, though, we will have to find another place to conceal Lord Kilbourne when he wakes.”
“Don’t imagine I haven’t already thought of that problem,” Maximus grunted. “Now if I only knew where to secrete him more permanently.”
With that dispiriting thought he turned and made his way to the upper floors. Craven would stay and nurse Kilbourne in the cellar while Maximus would return periodically as he was able throughout the day. He’d spoken only the truth: there was no one else to trust with the task save Craven.
As Maximus made the upper hall he was waylaid by his butler, Panders, who, fortunately, was too well trained to ever ask awkward questions. Panders was an imposing man of middling years with a round little belly who normally never had so much as a hair of his snowy white wig out of place, but today he was so perturbed his left eyebrow had shot up.
“Begging your pardon, Your Grace, but there is a soldier in your study who is quite insistent that he see you. I have informed him that you are not receiving, but the fellow will not be sent away. I had thought to call Bertie and John, but though they are stout lads, the soldier is naturally armed and I should not like to see blood upon your study carpet.”
At the beginning of this recitation Maximus had felt a thrill of alarm, but by the end of it, he had begun to have an idea who his visitor was. So it was with calm aplomb that he told Panders, “Quite right. I’ll see to the man myself.”
His study was at the back of the house—situated so that he might not be disturbed by the hubbub of the street or the frequent callers whom Panders usually dealt with quite adequately.
Today’s visitor was another matter.
Captain James Trevillion turned as Maximus opened the door to his study. The dragoon officer was tall with a long, lined face that lent him an air of austerity, even though he was much the same age as Maximus.
“Your Grace.” Trevillion’s nod was so curt that in any other man Maximus might have taken insult. Fortunately he was long used to the dragoon’s lack of obsequiousness.
“Trevillion.” Maximus murmured and took a seat behind his massive mahogany desk. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit? We met just a fortnight ago. Surely you haven’t managed to stop the gin trade in London in that short a space of time?”
If the dragoon captain felt any resentment at Maximus’s sarcasm, he hid it well. “No, Your Grace. I have news regarding the Ghost of St. Giles—”
Maximus interrupted the officer by waving an irritable hand. “I’ve told you more than once that your obsession with the Ghost of St. Giles does not interest me. Gin is the evil in St. Giles, not some lunatic in harlequin’s motley.”
“Indeed, Your Grace, I am well aware of your thoughts on the Ghost,” Trevillion said with composure.
“Yet you persist in ignoring them.”
“I do what I think best for my mission, Your Grace, and between the Ghost and this new fellow, Old Scratch—”
“Who?” Maximus knew his voice was too sharp, but he’d heard that name before: the drunken aristocrat in St. Giles who had been robbed—he’d said his attacker was Old Scratch.
“Old Scratch,” Trevillion replied. “A rather vicious highwayman who has been hunting in St. Giles. He’s much newer than the Ghost.”
Maximus clenched his jaw as he glared at the man. A little over two years ago he’d caused the 4th Dragoons to be outfitted and brought to London to assist in the veritable war on gin in London. He’d handpicked Trevillion himself, for he wanted an intelligent, brave man. A man capable of making important decisions on his own. A man resistant to both bribes and threats. But the problem was that the same qualities that made the dragoon captain excellent at his job also made him damnably stubborn when he saw what he perceived to be a lawbreaker in his territory. Trevillion had been near obsessed with the Ghost almost from the start of his mission.
The irony of having his own nemesis in his pay was not lost on Maximus.
Trevillion shifted, clasping his hands behind his back. “You may not be aware, Your Grace, that the Ghost of St. Giles broke into Bedlam last night, assaulted a guard, and effected the escape of a murderous madman.”
Ah, of course Trevillion would be interested in the matter. Maximus leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers before him. “What do you propose I do about it?”
Trevillion looked at him for a long moment, his face perfectly impassive. “Nothing, Your Grace. It is my job to capture and detain the Ghost of St. Giles so that he doesn’t do further harm in St. Giles or, indeed, the rest of London.”
“And this latest event will somehow help you capture him?”
“Naturally not, Your Grace,” the captain said with grave respect. “But I find it interesting that a footpad that usually is to be seen only in the same place he is named after ventured so far east as Moorfields.”
Maximus shrugged, feigning boredom. “The Ghost has been, I believe, sighted at the opera house near Covent Garden. That is outside St. Giles.”
“But very close to St. Giles,” Trevillion replied softly. “Moorfields is clear across London. Besides, that particular Ghost retired two years ago.”
Maximus stilled. “I beg your pardon?”
“I have made a study of the Ghost of St. Giles, Your Grace,” Trevillion said with the calmness of a man announcing that it looked like rain. “By examining the movement, actions, and minute physical dissimilarities, I have come to a conclusion. There are at least three men who play the Ghost of St. Giles.”
“How…” Maximus blinked, aware that the captain was silently watching him. The man Trevillion sought—the man who could expose Maximus’s secret—lay four floors below them at this very moment. He pulled himself together and frowned. “Are you sure?”
“Quite.” Trevillion clasped his hands behind his back. “One of the Ghosts was much deadlier than the other two. He often wore a gray wig beneath his floppy hat, and he had a tendency to not worry about his own safety—more so even than the others. I believe that man retired this summer. One Ghost never killed, as far as I am aware. His hair was his own, a dark brown, and he wore it clubbed back. I have not seen him for two years. Most probably, given his occupation, he is dead. The third is still quite active. He wears a white wig and he’s ferociously adept with the sword. I consider him the original Ghost since he was the first I ever saw—on the night that the old Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children burned to the ground, he helped with the apprehension of the madwoman known as Mother Heart’s-Ease.”
Good God. For a moment Maximus could only stare at the man. He’d been the one to capture Mother Heart’s-Ease.
Fortunately Trevillion seemed to take no note of his speechlessness and was continuing. “It is my theory that it is this last Ghost—the original Ghost—who broke into Bedlam last night. The madman the Ghost liberated must be someone very important to him.”