Duke of Midnight

by Elizabeth Hoyt

  Nodding, Phoebe sipped the last of her tea and set her teacup down.

  Artemis watched the ladies as they rose. They thought they were simply giving her a present as friends, but the money for the dresses would come from Maximus, that much was clear.

  She’d slept with Maximus.

  Her mind caught on the thought, here in this respectable tea shop. She’d run her hands over his bare back, wound her legs over his hips, and clenched deep inside when he’d thrust his penis into her.

  He was her lover.

  To take a gift from him now was to make her no better than a bought woman. A bought woman was the lowest of the low. Little more than a whore. For a moment the breath stopped in her throat in panic. She’d become everything she’d been warned against. Everything she’d struggled not to be in the last four years. She’d succumbed both to her own weakness and the perils of her position.

  She’d fallen.

  And then she drew breath again, almost in a gasp. Because there was something liberating in reaching the depths. It was a strange place, true, new and foreign, the way murky with hidden perils, but she found she could breathe here. They’d been wrong all along, all those who’d warned her of this place. She could live here well enough.

  Perhaps even flourish.

  Artemis lifted her chin and rose from her seat, meeting the curious stares of her friends. “Yes, please, I would like a new dress. Or even three.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  On the night of the next autumn harvest, Lin ventured out into the dark bramble wood. She stood in a clearing, shivering, and waited until the moon rose, huge and round, in the sky. She heard a rushing, like a thousand voices sighing in lament, and when next she looked, there were ghostly riders urging their silent mounts through the clouds. Leading them was a giant of a man, intent, strong, his crown a silvery glow in the moonlight. She just had time to catch the flash of his pale eyes before the Herla King reached down with one great hand and took her.…

  —from The Legend of the Herla King

  The full moon lounged in the black velvet sky as Maximus crept into St. Giles that night disguised as the Ghost. He glanced up and watched as she draped herself in the wisps of white clouds, mysterious and coy and everything he could never have.

  He snorted derisively to himself and stole into a dark alley, ears and eyes alert to danger. What kind of fool longed for the moon? The kind that forgot his duty, his obligations, the things that he must do if he were to continue to call himself a man.

  No, not just a man, but the Duke of Wakefield. Romantic fools didn’t qualify for the job.

  Better to concern himself with the present. Which was why he was haunting St. Giles tonight. It had been far too long since he’d seen to his duty: the hunt for the man who had killed his parents. Night after night, year after year, he’d stalked these stinking alleys, hoping to find some trail, some clue to the identity of the footpad who had robbed and killed them. The man was probably dead by now, yet Maximus couldn’t give up the chase.

  It was the least he could do for the parents he’d failed so fatally.

  Maximus froze as the scent of gin hit his nostrils. He’d emerged from the alley. A man lay in the channel of the larger street the alley emptied into. Broken barrels gushed the nauseous liquid as the man groaned next to his weary nag, an overturned cart still hitched to the horse.

  Maximus’s lip curled. A gin seller—or perhaps even a distiller. He started forward, pushing down the roiling of his stomach at the stench of gin, when he saw the second man. He sat a great black horse just inside an alley kitty-corner to Maximus’s own, which was why Maximus hadn’t seen him at once. His coat was a dark blue, gilt or silver buttons glinting in the dark, and in both hands he held pistols. As Maximus emerged, his head turned, and Maximus could see he wore a black cloth over the lower part of his face, his tricorne hiding the upper part.

  The highwayman cocked his head, and somehow Maximus knew he was grinning beneath the black cloth. “The Ghost of St. Giles, as I live and breathe. I’m surprised we haven’t met before, sir.” He shrugged indolently. “But then I suppose I’ve only just returned to these parts. No matter—even if I’ve been gone for decades, you should know I still rule this patch of London.”

  “And who might you be?” Maximus kept his voice to a whispered rasp—as did the highwayman.

  They might disguise their voices, but the cadence of a gentleman was impossible to conceal.

  “Don’t you recognize me?” The highwayman’s tone was mocking. “I’m Old Scratch.”

  And he fired one of his pistols.

  Maximus ducked, the brick beside his head exploded, and the gin cart horse bolted up the street, dragging the broken cart behind.

  The highwayman wheeled his own horse and galloped away down the alley. Maximus hurdled the gushing barrels and raced after Old Scratch, his heart banging against his chest as his boot heels rang on the filthy cobblestones. The alley was darker than the street they’d left. He might be running headlong into a trap, but he wouldn’t have been able to not give chase even if the real Old Scratch had stood in his way.

  There’d been a glint at the highwayman’s throat. Something pinned to his neck cloth. It had almost looked—

  A shout, then the clear boom of a gunshot.

  Maximus hit the end of the alley at a dead run, nearly barreling into the flank of Captain Trevillion’s mount. The captain was fighting as his horse attempted to rear. One of his dragoons was down on the ground, blood welling from a wound on his stomach. The wounded man gasped, eyes wide and uncomprehending. Another dragoon, a pale young lad, was still mounted, his face white and shocked.

  “Stay with him, Elders!” Trevillion shouted at the boy. “Do you hear me, Elders?”

  The young soldier’s head snapped up at the tone of command. “Yes, sir! But the Ghost—”

  “Let me worry about the Ghost.” Trevillion had control of his horse now and Maximus braced himself for his attack.

  Instead, Trevillion gave him a sharp look and said, “He was heading north, in the direction of Arnold’s Yard.”

  With that he wheeled his horse and set spurs to the beast’s sides.

  Maximus leaped to a crumbling house, swarming up the side. The way to Arnold’s Yard was a maze of twisting, narrow lanes, and if Old Scratch was truly headed in that direction, then Maximus could move more quickly over the rooftops.

  Above, the moon had deigned to reveal her pale face, casting his shadow ahead of him as he scrambled over tiles and rotting wooden shingles, while below…

  Maximus caught his breath. Below, Trevillion was riding like a demon, skillfully guiding his horse around obstacles and leaping the ones he couldn’t avoid. It had been so long since Maximus had hunted like this, in tandem with another. Once, long, long ago there had been the others, young men, one just a boy. They’d sparred and fought, joked and wrestled. But somehow he’d grown apart, forever stalking the stinking streets of St. Giles alone. His quest hadn’t room for others.

  It was good, he realized as he panted and ran. Good to have someone at his back.

  He heard a shout from below and slid to the edge of the roof to peer over. Trevillion had come to an alley entirely blocked by an empty cart.

  The dragoon captain looked up, a shaft of moonlight catching the gleam of metal on his tall hat and illuminating the pale oval of his face. “I’ll have to find a way around. Can you go ahead?”

  “Yes,” Maximus shouted down.

  Trevillion nodded curtly without another word and backed his horse.

  Maximus ran. The rooftops were jumbled here. The buildings were from before the Great Fire. They listed, tired and crumbling, waiting for another fire or merely a strong wind to send them crashing to the ground. He leaped between two buildings so close that a grown man would have to turn sideways to sidle between them. He made the second roof, but his boot slipped. He fell, sliding on his hip nearly off the edge. He caught himself just as his boots flew into space. He c
ould hear the clatter of hoofbeats now. Trevillion couldn’t have found a way around so fast.

  It must be Old Scratch.

  Maximus twisted, peering beyond his dangling feet, and saw as the shadow entered the alley below. He didn’t give himself time to think.

  He let go.

  Whether by instinctive timing or simple good luck, he landed on Old Scratch. The highwayman just had warning enough to raise his arm in defense. Maximus caught an elbow to the side of his face, and then he fell to the horse’s haunches as the horse reared beneath both of them. Maximus slid, his booted toes brushing the ground before he kicked back up to straddle the horse. His weight pulling on the highwayman’s upper body, combined with the horse’s movement, should have dragged Old Scratch from the saddle. Somehow, the highwayman hung on with unnatural strength and skill. The horse’s front hooves met the cobblestones again with a teeth-crunching jolt, nearly throwing Maximus from his prey. Maximus punched at the man’s head, missing as the highwayman twisted like a snake. Maximus grabbed for his hat, trying to reach the scarf. If he could only see Old Scratch’s features.

  The highwayman turned almost all the way around in the saddle, gold and green glinting at his throat. A knife flashed. Maximus hit out with a gloved hand, felt a tug, and the knife clanged against the bricks on the nearby building. But he’d had to let go to defend himself. The horse lurched forward as the highwayman put spurs to its side and at the same time Maximus felt a hard shove.

  He tumbled to the ground, heavy hooves flying close to his head. Instinctively, he ducked and rolled as the sound of hoofbeats retreated.

  For a moment he lay against a wall gulping air.

  “You let him get away.” The voice was Trevillion’s and slightly out of breath.

  Maximus looked up with a glare. “Not on purpose, I assure you.”

  The dragoon captain grunted, looking tired. He was leading his horse, having entered the alley from a very narrow lane.

  Maximus rose, glancing from the narrow lane to Trevillion’s rangy mare. “I’m surprise you didn’t get stuck in there.”

  The other man raised a sardonic eyebrow. “I think Cowslip’s surprised, too.” He gave the mare an affectionate pat on the neck.

  Maximus blinked. “Cowslip?”

  Trevillion glared. “I didn’t name her.”

  Maximus grunted noncommittally. He supposed he hadn’t any leg to stand on, considering the names his sister had given his dogs. He bent to examine the ground close to the wall of the opposite building.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “He dropped his dagger. Ah.” Maximus bent and picked up the knife with satisfaction, stepping closer to the dragoon and the better moonlight.

  The dagger was a two-edged blade, a simple, narrow triangle, with hardly any guard and a leather-wrapped handle. Maximus turned it in his hands, peering for any sort of mark without result.

  “May I?”

  Maximus looked up to see the dragoon captain holding out his hand. His hesitation was only a split second long, but he saw Trevillion’s knowing glance anyway.

  Maximus handed over the dagger.

  The dragoon examined it and then sighed. “Common enough. It could belong to almost anyone.”

  “Almost?”

  A corner of Trevillion’s thin lips cocked up. “He’s an aristocrat. I’d bet Cowslip on it.”

  Maximus slowly nodded. Trevillion was an intelligent officer, but then he’d always known that.

  “Did you get a look at his face?” the captain asked, handing him back the dagger.

  Maximus grimaced. “No. Slippery as an eel. He made sure I couldn’t catch hold of that scarf.”

  “Outwrestled by a man older than you?”

  Maximus glanced up sharply.

  Trevillion shrugged at his look. “He had a small bit of paunch about his middle and he sat his saddle a bit stiffly. He’s athletic, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he were older than forty.” He considered a moment as if thinking over what he remembered of the highwayman, then nodded to himself. “He might even be older than that. I’ve seen men on the far side of seventy riding to the hounds without problem.”

  “I think you’re right,” Maximus said.

  “Was there anything else you noticed about Old Scratch?”

  Maximus thought about that glint of green at the highwayman’s throat and decided to keep that hint to himself. “No. What do you know of the man?”

  “Old Scratch is without fear—or morals, as far as I can see.” Trevillion looked grim. “He not only robs both rich and poor, he doesn’t hesitate to harm or even murder his victims.”

  “How broad is the area he frequents?”

  “Only St. Giles,” Trevillion said promptly. “Perhaps because he meets little resistance or because the people here are more vulnerable and not as protected.”

  Maximus grunted, staring at the knife in his hands. A highwayman who hunted only in St. Giles and said he’d not been back for many years. Could he be the man who’d murdered his parents so long ago?

  “I have to return to my men.” Trevillion placed his boot in Cowslip’s stirrup and swung himself up into the saddle.

  Maximus nodded, tucking the highwayman’s dagger into his boot, and turned.

  “Ghost.”

  He stopped and looked at the captain.

  The other man’s face gave nothing away. “Thank you.”

  IF ONLY APOLLO could talk. Artemis frowned as she crept down the darkened hall that night, Bon Bon trotting at her heels. It was past midnight, so everyone ought to have been asleep in Wakefield House—well, everyone save Craven, who she’d left guarding her brother. The valet never seemed to sleep. One presumed he must be fulfilling his duties to Maximus, yet he somehow managed to care for Apollo as well.

  Artemis shook her head. Craven was a capable nurse—though she didn’t like to think how he’d come by his experience—yet Apollo still couldn’t speak. Otherwise her brother seemed to be getting better, but every time he tried to utter a word, his throat only produced strangled sounds. Sounds that quite obviously caused him a great deal of pain. She just wished he could tell her he was better in his own words instead of scrawled handwriting.

  Then she might believe him.

  The corridor outside Maximus’s door was deserted. Still she looked nervously around before she tapped at the door. She might have decided to embrace her path as a fallen woman, but it seemed it was hard to quell the fears of a lifetime.

  Artemis waited, shifting from one foot to another, disappointment seeping through her breast as the door remained silently closed. Perhaps he hadn’t meant to see her again. Perhaps he’d thought it only a one-time event. Perhaps he was bored with her now.

  Well. She wasn’t yet finished with him.

  She tried the handle and found the door unlocked. She quickly pushed it open and entered, closing it just as quickly behind her.

  Then she looked around.

  She hadn’t the time to examine his rooms last night—she’d been otherwise distracted. Artemis went to the connecting door through which Maximus had emerged the night before. It led to a sitting room-cum-study. Percy stood from where he’d been lying before the banked fire and stretched before coming over to greet both her and Bon Bon.

  Artemis patted his head absently as she examined Maximus’s sitting room. Books lined the walls and overflowed into neat stacks on the floor; an enormous desk was completely covered with papers, also in neat, cornered stacks. The only thing, in fact, that looked at all out of order was a globe on a stand, which appeared to be draped with Maximus’s banyan. Artemis bit her lip to quell their upward curve at the sight. She wandered to the globe, giving it a gentle spin, banyan and all, before setting her candlestick on the desk and trailing her fingers across the papers. She saw a news sheet, a letter from an earl mentioning a bill before parliament, a letter in a much less refined hand pleading for monies to send a boy to school, and a scrap of paper with what looked like the beginnings
of a speech in a bold hand—Maximus’s, presumably. For a moment Artemis studied the speech, tracing the words and feeling warm as she followed the clear points he laid out in making his argument.

  She laid aside the paper and saw the corner of a thin book peeking out from under one pile. Carefully, she pulled it out and looked at the title. It was a treatise on fishing. Artemis raised her brows. No doubt Maximus had scores of streams on his properties, but did he ever have time to fish? The thought sent a pang of melancholy through her. Did he sneak peeks at his fishing book in between all his duties? If so, it shed a curiously vulnerable light upon the Duke of Wakefield.

  Artemis picked up the fishing book and, curling into one of the deep chairs before the fireplace, began to read. Both dogs came to settle at her feet, curled together, and then quiet descended on the room.

  The book was surprisingly entertaining and she lost track of the time. When next she looked up and saw Maximus lounging in the doorway to his bedroom watching her, she didn’t know whether it had been five minutes or half an hour.

  She stuck a finger in the book to save her place. “What time is it?”

  He tilted his head to the side, peering at the fireplace, and she saw that a clock sat on the mantelpiece. “One in the morning.”

  “You were out late.”

  He shrugged and pushed away from the doorway. “I often am.”

  He turned to walk back into his bedroom and she set aside the book, rose, and followed him, leaving the sleeping dogs behind in the sitting room. He wore the same coat and waistcoat that he’d worn to the supper at home with Phoebe.

  She found another chair and sat to watch as he peeled off the coat. “Were you out as the Ghost?”

  “What?”

  She nearly rolled her eyes. As if she couldn’t guess where he’d been all this time. “Were you running about as the Ghost of St. Giles?”

  He doffed his wig and placed it on a stand. “Yes.”