Duke of Midnight

by Elizabeth Hoyt

  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…”

  They were within sight of Pelham House, and here Miss Picklewood stopped and looked wistfully up at the magnificent mansion. “Then you know the rest. Poor Mary died along with the duke, her husband. Well. Our relation was distant, you know. Quite distant. But Mary and I were bosom bows as girls, and when I heard about the tragedy I came at once. There was a time at the beginning when the lawyers and men of business were swarming ’round, when I thought someone would throw me out. Find another to bring up Hero and Phoebe. But then Maximus started speaking again and that was that. Even at fourteen he had the bearing of a duke. I showed him the letters his mother and I had exchanged, and he made up his mind that I should raise his sisters.”

  Miss Picklewood stopped to draw breath and for a moment both ladies stood staring up at Pelham House.

  Artemis turned to the older lady. “You said he ‘started speaking again’?”

  “Hmm?” Miss Picklewood blinked. “Oh, yes. I suppose not many remember now, but Maximus was so shattered by the deaths of his parents that he went mute for a full fortnight. Why, some of the quacks that came to look at him said his brain was addled by the tragedy. That he’d never speak again. Rubbish, of course. It simply took him time to come to rights again. He was quite sane. Just a sensitive boy.”

  A boy who, when he came to himself again, was no longer a boy but the Duke of Wakefield, Artemis thought. “It must have been horrible for him.”

  “Yes, it was,” Miss Picklewood said simply. “He witnessed their murders, you know. A terrible shock for such an emotional lad.”

  Artemis looked thoughtfully at the older lady. Emotional wasn’t a word she’d ever use to describe the duke.

  But perhaps he’d been a different person before the tragedy.

  “Goodness!” Miss Picklewood exclaimed. “I have gone off track. Your pardon, my dear. I’m afraid sometimes my words run away from me. I simply wanted to let you know that you and I aren’t that different, after all—we’re merely at dissimilar stages of life. I, too, can understand the temptations of our position. But you must learn to resist them—for your own good.”

  “Thank you,” Artemis said gravely, for she knew the advice was meant kindly.

  Miss Picklewood cleared her throat. “I do hope this little talk won’t come between us?”

  “Not on my part,” Artemis assured her.

  The elder lady nodded, evidently satisfied. “Then let us see if refreshments have been laid out for us.”

  Artemis nodded. Tea sounded good, and after that she meant to run Penelope to ground.

  She needed to return to London and Apollo. And Maximus.

  For though Miss Picklewood’s advice was wise, she had no intention of following it.<
br />
  BETHLEM ROYAL HOSPITAL—OR, as it was more commonly called, Bedlam—was a monolithic monument to charity. Newly built since the Great Fire, its long, low silhouette was all that was modern and grand. Almost as if the governors meant to put icing on the rot within.

  Or advertise their wares, Maximus thought cynically as he slipped through the magnificent front gates just as the clock struck midnight. He wore his Ghost of St. Giles costume tonight, for though he had no doubt he could affect Lord Kilbourne’s release as the Duke of Wakefield, it would take time.

  Time the madman evidently didn’t have.

  Over his head, twin stone figures writhed on the arched gate, one representing Melancholia and the other Raving Madness. Before him was a vast, open courtyard, made monochrome in the moonlight. On holidays the courtyard and building within was flooded with sightseers—all of whom paid a tithe to see the amusements of deranged madmen and madwomen. Maximus had never been himself, but he’d sat listening distastefully often enough as some fashionable lady described the titillating horrors she’d seen with her bosom bows. Over one hundred poor souls were incarcerated here—which meant that if he were to find Kilbourne amongst them, he’d need a guide.

  Maximus glided toward the massive front doors and found them, not surprisingly, locked. All the windows were barred to keep the patients safely inside, but there were several side doors for the delivery of food—and perhaps the inmates themselves. He selected one and tried the handle. It, too, was locked. So he tried the next obvious choice.

  He knocked.

  There was an interminable period of waiting before shuffling could be heard and the door swung open.

  Inside, staring at him with wide eyes, was a guard.

  Maximus immediately thrust his short sword against the guard’s throat. “Hush.”

  The attendant’s mouth opened in an oval of surprise, but he didn’t make a sound. The man was dressed in breeches, waistcoat, and a very ragged coat, his head covered by a soft hat. He’d probably been asleep. No doubt Bedlam was not used to receiving visitors in the middle of the night.

  “I wish to see Lord Kilbourne,” Maximus whispered. He was unlikely to ever meet this man again, but it never hurt to be cautious.

  The attendant blinked. “ ’E’s in th’ Incurables ward.”

  Maximus cocked his head. “Then take me to him.”

  The man started to turn, but Maximus pressed the sword tip against his throat warningly. “And don’t go alerting any of your fellow guards, mind. You’ll be the first to fly this life should I find myself in a sword fight.”

  The attendant swallowed with a small clicking sound and turned with exaggerated care to lead Maximus into Bedlam. He’d brought a lantern with him when he’d answered the door, and this gave a feeble light as they entered a long corridor.

  To the left were tall, barred windows overlooking the courtyard. To the right, a row of doors led away into the darkness. A square window was cut into the upper part of each door and inset with crossed bars. Faint sounds came from the inhabitants of this place: rustling and sighs, moans, and an odd, eerie humming. Somewhere a voice was raised in argument, but no other voice answered back. The air was thick with a miasma of smells: urine and cooked cabbage, lye and tallow, wet stone and feces. Something about the corridor and the place gave Maximus a sense of déjà vu, but he could not remember why.

  They were almost halfway down the corridor when footsteps echoed behind them. “Sully? Is that you?”

  The attendant—apparently, Sully—stopped and turned, his eyes widening in alarm. Maximus ducked his face into his shoulder so the nose of his mask couldn’t be seen in profile and peered behind.

  A figure was at the other end of the corridor, but surely he couldn’t tell at this distance who they were.

  Maximus poked Sully with his sword under cover of his cloak. “Remember what I told you.”

  “J… just me, Ridley,” Sully stuttered.

  “Oo’s that you got with you?” Ridley asked suspiciously.

  “My brother, George, come to have a bit of tipple with me,” Sully said nervously. “He’ll be no bother.”

  “Keep walking,” Maximus whispered.

  Ridley started down the corridor.

  “I… I’ll just show George to my rooms,” Sully called in a high voice, and then they were around the corner and running up a central flight of stairs.

  “Will he follow us?” Maximus demanded.

  “I don’t know.” Sully sent him a nervous glance. “ ’E’s a suspicious one is that Ridley.”

  Maximus glanced back when they reached the upper floor, but he couldn’t make out if anyone was trailing them in the darkness. He turned back to Sully. “Show me Kilbourne.”

  “This way.”

  To the left was a door. Beside it stood a stool and a key hanging on a hook.

  “Leech’s turn for the night guard,” Sully muttered as he took the key and fit it into the lock on the door. “ ’E’s probably drunk in ’is bed, though.”

  As Sully held high his lantern to open the door, Maximus could see the sign that hung over the lintel: Incurable.

  Beyond lay a long corridor like the one below, save that here the cells opened on both sides. The rooms had no doors to either shield the occupants or protect the visitor. The inmates within lay upon straw like stabled animals, and the stink of their manure was enough to make Maximus’s eyes water. Here was a white-haired, bearded venerable, his nearly colorless eyes staring sightlessly into the light as they passed. There, a young woman, pretty, save for the savage lunge she made at them when they crossed her doorway. A chain rattled and she fell back, exactly like a bitch choked by a collar. The youth in the next stall laughed, high and hysterical, scrabbling at his own face as he did so.

  Sully crossed himself and hurried to the last stall. He stopped and held his lantern high, illuminating a massive male body lying in the straw.

  Maximus frowned, stepping closer. “Is he alive?”

  Sully shrugged. “Was when we brought dinner ’round to the others. ’Course ’e didn’t eat it seein’ as ’ow ’e’s been asleep.”

  Not so much asleep as insensible, Maximus thought grimly. He went to one knee beside the man in the filthy straw. Viscount Kilbourne looked nothing like his sister. Where she was slim he was huge—wide shoulders, massive hands, legs that sprawled across the cell. Whether he was a handsome man or not was impossible to tell: his face was swollen and caked with dried blood, both eyes blackened, his bottom lip split and grown to the size and color of a small plum. This close Maximus could hear an odd, whistling wheeze as the big man’s chest struggled to draw air into his lungs.

  Kilbourne appeared near death. Would he even survive the move out of this place? He also looked as if he’d received no doctoring at all—even the blackened blood on his face hadn’t been wiped away.

  Maximus’s lips thinned grimly. “Do you have the key to his manacle?”

  “It’ll be hanging by the door.” Sully made to turn, but Maximus grabbed him.

  The guard quailed.

  “You come back within the minute or I find you. Understand?”

  Sully nodded frantically.

  Maximus let him go.

  Sully was back in less than a minute with an iron ring of keys. “Should be one o’ these—”

  “What’re you doing in here?”

  Maximus rose and whirled at the voice, both swords out.

  Sully squeaked and froze, his hands clutching the keys before him like a shield.

  The man who stood in the doorway to the cell paused with Maximus’s sword at his throat, his eyes wide. Maximus recognized the voice now as Ridley’s. He was a big man—nearly as big as the one sprawled at their feet—and he had the look of a bully.

  “Sully, take off the manacles,” Maximus ordered, careful to keep his eyes on Ridley.

  He heard the clank of the manacle falling to the floor.

  “You”—Maximus gestured to Ridley with his sword—“pick
up his feet.”

  “What d’you want with ’im?” Ridley sounded sullen, but he bent to grab Kilbourne’s feet. “ ’E’s near enough dead as ’tis.”

  “Give me the lantern and take his head,” Maximus said to Sully, ignoring Ridley.

  The first attendant looked doubtful, but he surrendered the lantern readily enough. With a grunt and a bit of swearing, both men lifted Kilbourne’s limp form.

  “Weighs a bloody ton, ’e does.” Ridley spat into the straw.

  “Less talk,” Maximus said softly. “If another guard comes, I won’t be needing you, will I?”

  That shut up the second attendant. They made their way back down the hallway and—with more difficulty—down the staircase. Maximus watched carefully that they didn’t drop Kilbourne, but otherwise didn’t help, preferring to keep his hands free in case more guards showed up.

  “Would’ve finished the job if’n I knew you was coming for ’im anyway,” Ridley muttered as they finally made the ground floor.

  Maximus slowly turned his head. “You did this?”

  “Aye,” Ridley said with satisfaction. “Always were mouthin’ off, th’ whoreson. ’E ’ad it comin’ to ’im, ’e did.”

  Maximus looked at Kilbourne, lying near death, his face unrecognizable, and thought: No one deserved that.

  “Surprised ’e lived through that first night,” Ridley mused, apparently under the impression that they were now fast friends.

  “Really?” Maximus asked in a flat tone. He looked at the rows of cells they passed, the long, wide corridor, perfect for viewing the inmates, and suddenly knew what this place reminded him of: the Tower Menagerie. The humans within this place were used for the entertainment of others, exactly like the exotic animals of the menagerie… excepting that the animals were better kept.

  “We gave it to ’im good, we did,” Ridley said in a voice that made Maximus’s skin crawl. “An’ if ’e ’adn’t passed out so quick, we woulda give it to ’im better, if’n you know what I mean.”