Duke of Midnight

Page 25

“Oh, but—”
“Phoebe.”
The girl slumped. “Oh, all right.”
Maximus’s lips twitched. “Thank you.” He looked at the dogs sternly. “You lot stay.”
Artemis rose at his nod and bid Phoebe good night before following him from the room. He immediately mounted the stairs to the third floor.
“Was that necessary?” Artemis asked low as she trailed him.
“You do want to see your brother, don’t you?” he inquired rhetorically.
“Of course,” she said tartly, “but you needn’t have made it sound as if I were Phoebe’s keeper and that you have special instructions about her.”
He turned at the top of the stairs, so suddenly that she nearly ran into him. She halted a bare inch away, aware of the heat of him, the anger that seemed to always boil just beneath the surface.
“But I do have special instructions for you,” he said with simple clarity. “My sister is all but blind. Since you have inveigled your way into being her companion, you might as well act as one. I expect you to keep her safe. To deter her from her more dangerous outings, to make sure she doesn’t exceed what she can do without her sight, to always take at least one footman, preferably two, whenever you venture forth from my doors.”
Artemis tilted her head, studying him. His concern was real, but it also must be nearly stifling for Phoebe. “You find an afternoon at the fair too dangerous?”
“For one such as she, yes,” he said. “She might be easily lost in a crowd, easily shoved or jostled. There are pickpockets, thieves, and worse at the fair. A gently bred lady of means who cannot see is an obvious and easy target. I will not have her hurt.”
“I see.”
“Do you?” He didn’t move, but his sheer size seemed suddenly intimidating. “My sister is very dear to me. I would do anything to keep her from harm.”
“Even if your measures to keep her safe become a cage?” she asked gently.
“You speak as if she were like any other young girl her age,” Maximus growled. “She’s not. She’s blind. I brought in every doctor, every man of science, every learned healer from near and far, no matter the expense or trouble. I let them torture her with noxious medicines, all in the hope they could help her. None could keep her from going blind. I couldn’t save her sight, but I’ll be thrice damned before I see her further hurt.”
Artemis inhaled, his fervor both exciting and slightly frightening. “I understand.”
“Good.” He turned and led her down the hall. “These are my sister’s rooms.” He indicated a pale green door. “And here is the pink room where Phoebe wants you to stay.” He gestured to the next door down, which stood ajar. A maid hurried out, pausing only to curtsy deeply to Maximus.
Artemis peeked inside. The walls were covered in a deep rose-watered silk, lending the room its name. A canopied bed was bracketed by two carved tables topped by yellow marble, and the fireplace was surrounded by rose-veined marble.
“It’s delightful,” Artemis said truthfully. She glanced over her shoulder to the duke. “Are your rooms on this floor as well?”
He nodded. “Down this corridor.”
They turned into a passage and walked toward the back of the house.
“Here’s the blue sitting room—the one that Phoebe likes to use. And these are my rooms.”
The doors to his rooms were a rich forest green detailed in black.
“Come.” He led her to a small door paneled to look like the surrounding wainscoting. Behind it was a narrow staircase, obviously a servant’s stairs. They went down, spiraling into the dark, but Artemis followed him without fear.
Two floors below, and through a door cut into a stone stairs, he paused before a second door and looked at her intently. “No one must know he is here. I had to take him out as the Ghost. They’re looking for him.”
She nodded, her throat clogging. Four years. Four years he’d been locked up in Bedlam.
Maximus unlocked the door and opened it, revealing a long, low subterranean room.
“Your Grace.” It was the servant that Artemis had noticed at the dueling demonstration. He’d risen from a chair set beside a cot. And on the cot—
Artemis rushed forward, ignoring everything else. Apollo lay so still, his dear face made almost unrecognizable by dark bruises and swelling. What flesh that wasn’t maimed was very pale.
She fell to her knees beside him, reaching out one trembling hand to push the shaggy hair from his forehead.
“Craven,” Maximus spoke behind her. “This is Miss Artemis Greaves, the sister of our patient.”
“Ma’am.” The servant nodded.
“Have you called a doctor?” she asked without taking her eyes from Apollo’s face. She slid her hand over his unshaven cheek to his neck and searched. There. A flutter. The blood still beat within his veins.
“No,” Maximus answered.
She turned at that, her eyes narrowed. “Why not?”
“I told you,” he said patiently, his voice even. “No one must know.”
She held his gaze a moment longer before turning back to Apollo. He was right. Of course he was right. They mustn’t risk Apollo being discovered and possibly being forced to return to Bedlam.
And yet to see him like this and offer no care near killed her.
Craven cleared his throat. “I’ve been looking after his lordship, Miss. There’s not much else a doctor could do.”
She glanced at the man quickly. “Thank you.” She meant to say more, but something was caught in her throat. Her eyes stung.
“Weep not, proud Diana,” Maximus murmured. “The moon will not allow it.”
“No.” She agreed, swiping fiercely at her cheeks. “There’s no need for tears yet.”
For a moment she thought she felt a hand on her shoulder. “You may stay here with him for a while. Craven needs a respite in any case.”
She nodded without turning. She didn’t dare.
The men’s footsteps retreated and she heard the door shut behind them. The candle flames wavered and then stood still again.
Still, like her brother.
She laid her head on his arm and remembered. They’d been children in a family broken by madness and genteel poverty, left to run wild by parents with other cares. She recalled wandering the woods with him, watching him catch frogs in the tall grass by the pond. She’d searched for bird nests in the reeds as he fought dragons with fallen branches. The day he’d been sent away to school had been the worst of her young life. She’d been left with Mama, an invalid, and Papa, who was usually off on “business”—one of his wild schemes to repair their fortunes. When Apollo had returned for the holidays she’d been relieved—so relieved. He hadn’t left her forever.
She watched his chest rise and fall and remembered and reflected. All her life things had been taken from her: Apollo, Thomas’s affection, Mama and Papa, her home, her future. No one had ever asked her opinion, garnered her thoughts on what she wanted or needed. Things had been done to her, but she’d never had the chance to do things. Like a doll on a shelf, she’d been moved about, manipulated, flung aside.
Except she wasn’t a doll.
What she might’ve once had: a home, husband, and family of her own was gone now. She would never have them. But that didn’t mean that she couldn’t decide to have something else.
That she couldn’t live her life as best she could. As best she wanted.
She could either spend the rest of her life being manipulated and quietly mourning what she’d lost, or she could create a new life. A new reality.
The candles had burned low when Craven opened the door to the chamber again. “Miss? It’s late. I can sit with Lord Kilbourne for the night while you go to bed.”
“Thank you.” She rose, stiff from sitting on the cold stone floor, and looked at the man. “You’ll let me know if he changes?”
“Yes, I will,” he said, and his voice was kind.
Artemis touched Apollo’s cheek and then turned to make her way up the stairs.
Up out of stagnation and despair.
Chapter Eleven
For one hundred years King Herla led his wild hunt, and all those who had the misfortune to see the shadowy riders in the moonlit sky crossed themselves and muttered a prayer, for death often followed such a sighting. On one night of the year, and one night only, King Herla and his hunt became corporeal: the night of the autumn harvest when the moon was full. On that night everyone who could hid in terror, because King Herla sometimes caught up mortals into his wild hunt, dooming them for eternity.
It was on such a night that King Herla captured a young man. His name was Tam.…
—from The Legend of the Herla King
Maximus was just sealing a letter in his sitting room when he heard the door to his bedroom open. Craven had already gone down to tend to Kilbourne, and the other servants had strict instructions not to bother him between the hours of ten at night and six in the morning. Maximus rose and crossed to look in his bedroom.
Artemis stood by his bed, her beautiful dark gray eyes calmly inspecting it.
Something within his veins began to heat. “These are my private rooms,” he said as he strolled toward her.
“I know.” She watched him without any fear. “I’ve come to give you back your ring.”
She unwrapped the fichu from about her neck, revealing the plain square neckline of her dress and the chain that disappeared into the valley between her breasts. Dipping a finger into the shadowy recess, she pulled out the chain and drew it off over her head. He just caught sight of something else on the chain—something green—and then she took the ring off before tucking the chain into a pocket and giving the ring to him. He stepped closer to her and took the ring between his fingers. It was warm from her body heat, as if she’d brought the ancient metal to life. Holding her gaze, he screwed the ring onto his left little finger. As he stared into her eyes she seemed to stop breathing and the color rose, delicately pink, in her cheeks, giving the illusion of vulnerability. Something in him wanted to seize her and lick the tenderness from her sweet skin.
He swallowed. “Why are you here?”
She shrugged one delicate shoulder. “I told you: to bring you your ring.”
“You come to a bachelor’s rooms—bedroom—well after dark all by yourself to give him a trinket you could just as easily hand him in the morning.” His voice was mocking. He wanted to break her suddenly. To make her feel the rage he did at the situation they had been placed in. Were it not for her history—and his—he might’ve courted this woman. Might’ve made her his wife. “Have you no care for your reputation?”
She stepped toward him until she was so close he fancied he breathed the same air as she and when she tilted her face up to look at him he saw that she wasn’t nearly as calm as he’d imagined.
“No,” she murmured, her voice a siren’s song, “none at all.”
“Then I’ll be damned if I will,” he muttered and kissed her.
THERE. THERE IT was again: that whirlpool pulling her in, sweeping away all the doubts and fears and sorrow, all her thoughts. Leaving in their place only feeling, pure and searing. He licked into her mouth with a hot, conquering tongue. Artemis stood on tiptoe, trying to get closer to him, spreading her fingers wide against the silk of his banyan. If she could, she would’ve crawled right into him, made a home for herself in his broad, strong chest, and never emerged again.
This man, she wanted this man, despite his wretched title, his money, his land, his history, and all his myriad obligations. Maximus. Just Maximus. She’d take him bare naked if she could—and be the gladder for it.
The man without the trappings was what she craved, but since his trappings came with him, she’d take them perforce as well.