Maiden Lane [6] Duke of Midnight (14 page)

She shot and all three footmen threw themselves prone to the ground.

“Oh, well done, my lady!” Scarborough shouted, for Lady Penelope’s arrow had hit the outer blue circle of the target.

The lady beamed in pride and stepped back graciously for Miss Royale’s turn.

The footmen looked besieged.

Miss Royale took up her bow and called to the footmen. “Best stand back. I’ve never done this before.”

“Never practiced archery?” Phoebe murmured.

“Grew up in India.” Mrs. Jellett had come to stand near them as she waited her next turn. “Heathen place. No doubt that explains her dark complexion.”

Miss Royale’s first two shots went wide, but she managed to hit the outer ring with her third one. She stepped back looking quite pleased with herself.

Fortunately, the remainder of the archery demonstration proceeded without incident, and although none of the ladies hit the inner red circle of the targets, neither did they maim one of his footmen, so, as Phoebe put it, “The afternoon must count as a victory.”

Maximus held out his elbow to Lady Penelope to lead her inside for refreshments. As they walked he bent to listen attentively as she recounted her exceptional success at shooting. He murmured praise and encouragement at the appropriate moments, but all the while he was aware that Miss Greaves had lingered behind at the archery field.

“Oh, I’ve left my gloves behind,” Lady Penelope exclaimed as they entered the Yellow Salon. The other guests were already taking seats.

“I’ll go fetch them for you,” Maximus said, for once trumping Scarborough.

He bowed and left before the lady—or the duke—could comment.

The halls were deserted as he strode toward the south doors. All the guests were in his Yellow Salon, and the servants were naturally in attendance there as well.

All the guests save one.

He saw her as he slipped out the south doors. She stood in profile across the green, her back straight, her stance that of some long ago warrior maiden. As he walked toward her, Miss Greaves drew back her bow briskly, aiming a tad high to account for the wind, and let her arrow fly. Before it had hit the target, she’d notched another and shot it. A third followed just as rapidly.

He glanced to the target. All three of her arrows were clustered together at the center of the red circle. Miss Greaves, who “did not shoot,” was a better shot than all the other ladies—and probably the men as well.

He glanced from the target to her and saw that she stared back, proud and unsmiling.
Artemis.
She was named for the goddess of the hunt—a goddess who had slain without remorse her only admirer.

Something quickened in him, rising, hardening, reaching eagerly for the challenge. She was no soft society lady. She might disguise herself thus, but he knew better: she was a goddess, wild and free and dangerous.

And a most suitable opponent.

He picked up Lady Penelope’s gloves and, unsmiling,
saluted Miss Greaves with them. She bowed to him, equally grave.

Maximus turned to the house, thinking. He had no idea how he would do it yet, but he meant to best her. He’d show her that he was the master, and when she’d admitted his victory… well, then he’d have her. And he’d hold her, by God. His huntress.

His goddess.

“And his eyes glowed with a red fire as if he’d newly come from Hell itself.” Penelope shivered dramatically at her own tale

Artemis, listening to the story of their encounter with the Ghost of St. Giles for what seemed like the hundredth time, leaned closer to Phoebe and murmured in her ear, “Or as if he had a slight infection of the eye.”

The younger woman clapped her hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle.

“Would that I had been there to protect you from such a fiend,” the Duke of Scarborough exclaimed.

The gentlemen had just joined the ladies in the Yellow Salon after dinner, and the guests were scattered about the room. The ladies mostly lounged on the elegantly carved chairs and settees while the gentlemen stood. Scarborough had immediately crossed to Penelope and latched on to her side upon entering, while Wakefield was prowling about the perimeter of the room. Artemis wondered what his game was. Surely he should be waiting attendance on her cousin? Instead, when she looked over, his brooding gaze caught hers.

She shivered. He’d been somehow more
intent
since her little show of archery this afternoon. Perhaps that had been hubris on her part, but she’d been unable to pass up the opportunity. She wasn’t another London society lady. She’d grown up in the country, had spent long days wandering woods, and she knew how to hunt. True, her game had always been birds and the odd squirrel before—not predatory dukes—but the principle was the same, surely? She would stalk him,
goad
him, until he had no choice but to save her brother. It was a delicate maneuver: she wanted to suggest she was quite ready to reveal him, but at the same time if she actually gave away his identity as the Ghost of St. Giles, she lost all her leverage. A fine game indeed, but at least she’d accomplished the first movement:

She had his attention.

“That’s quite brave of you, Your Grace,” Artemis said, raising her voice as she turned to the Duke of Scarborough, “offering to fight the Ghost of St. Giles. For I noted at the time that the Ghost was a rather large man. Why, he was almost exactly the same height as—” She glanced about the assembled party as if searching for a gentleman
of suitable height. When her eyes landed on Wakefield, he already had a wry expression. “Why, our host, the Duke of Wakefield, in fact.”

There was a fraught pause as Artemis held Wakefield’s narrowed gaze, before it was broken rather prosaically by Penelope. “Don’t be silly, Artemis. The Ghost was at least a foot taller than His Grace. Although I’m quite sure the Duke of Scarborough would have been able to defeat him.”

The last was a lie so obvious that Artemis didn’t even bother rolling her eyes.

“Certainly, His Grace would’ve been of better help than my brother,” Phoebe said, uncaring of her treachery.

“Phoebe,” Wakefield growled low in warning.

“Yes, brother dear?” Phoebe turned her blithely bright face to the duke, who was lurking like a tiger with indigestion in the corner. “You must admit that you did not show well with Scarborough yesterday.”

“His Grace, the Duke of Scarborough, obviously has many more years than I practicing his fencing.” Wakefield bowed to the other duke so gracefully that Artemis wondered if he’d really meant the insult to Scarborough’s age. “And you, brat, should show more respect to your elders.”

The teasing tone caught Artemis off guard. He truly did care for his sister, she reminded herself. He might be overprotective, but he loved Phoebe. The thought unsettled her. She was blackmailing this man. She didn’t want to think about the softer, more human parts of him.

She girded her loins and readied another salvo. “Did you really find the Ghost so monstrously tall? Truly, I thought he had the height and the physical bearing of
His Grace. Indeed, were the duke a better swordsman, it might’ve been he we met in St. Giles.”

“But whyever would His Grace traipse about St. Giles?” Penelope asked in honest confusion. “Only ruffians and the poor go there.”

“Well, we were there, weren’t we?” Artemis retorted.

Penelope waved a dismissive hand. “That’s different. I was on a grand adventure.”

“Which nearly got you both killed, by the sound of it,” Phoebe whispered in Artemis’s ear.

“Come, my lady,” Scarborough said jovially. “Enough of this talk of scoundrels. You promised to sing for us, I remember. Will you do it now?”

“Oh, yes.” Penelope immediately brightened at the prospect of being at the center of attention. “I just need an accompanist.”

“I can play,” Phoebe said, “if I know the piece you’ll be singing.”

Artemis helped her navigate across the room to the clavichord.

“What would you like to perform?” Phoebe asked as she settled gracefully at her instrument.

Penelope smiled. “Do you know ‘The Shepherdess’s Lament?’ ”

Artemis stifled a sigh and found a seat. Penelope had a very small repertoire that consisted of rather sentimental and treacly songs.

Wakefield lowered himself beside her and she couldn’t help but stiffen a little.

“A miss, I think,” he murmured out of the side of his mouth as they watched Penelope tilt her chin very high and extend one hand. “You can do much better than that.”

“Are you challenging me, Your Grace?”

A corner of his mouth curled up, though he didn’t look at her. “Only a fool would provoke his nemesis. What in hell is she doing?”

Artemis glanced back to the musician and singer. Penelope had laid one hand on her stomach, her other still extended unnaturally, and assumed a tragic look. “That’s her performing stance, Your Grace. I’m sure you’ll become quite accustomed to it when you marry my cousin.”

The duke winced. “Touché.”

Phoebe began playing with a skill and dash beyond her years.

Artemis raised her brows in delight, whispering to the duke, “Your sister is a wonderful player.”

“That she is,” he said softly.

And then Penelope sang. It wasn’t that she was a
bad
songstress, per se, but her soprano voice was thin and on certain notes, quite sharp.

Then, too, the piece she’d chosen was unfortunate.

“ ‘Venture not to pet my woolly lamb,’ ” Penelope warbled, not quite hitting the right note on “lamb.” “ ‘For she is shy and too gentle for a man’s wicked hand.’ ”

“Do you know,” Mrs. Jellett said thoughtfully from behind them, “I do believe this song may have a double meaning.”

Artemis caught the duke’s sardonic gaze and felt the heat rise in her cheeks.

“Behave, Miss Greaves,” he murmured under his breath, his voice husky and deep.

“Fine words for a man who runs about St. Giles at night in a mask,” she whispered.

He frowned, glancing around. “Hush.”

She arched one eyebrow. “Why?”

The look he gave her was somehow disappointed. “That’s the way of it, then?”

There was absolutely no reason to feel shame. Artemis lifted her chin. “Yes. Unless you wish to do as I asked you this morn?”

“You know that’s impossible.” He stared at Penelope and Phoebe, though she certainly hoped he wasn’t paying attention to them since his upper lip was lifted in a curl of disdain. “Your brother killed three men.”

“No,” she said, leaning a little closer to him so that their words would not be overheard. She could smell the woods on him, incongruous in this overly ornamented room. “He was
accused
of killing three men. He didn’t do it.”

His face softened then in an expression she’d seen before—seen and loathed. “Your loyalty to your brother is to be commended, but the evidence was quite damning. He had blood on his person and the carving knife in his hand when found.”

She sat back, eyeing him. The blood part was well known as was the knife—but that it had been a
carving
knife was not. “I see your investigations were quite detailed.”

“Naturally. Did you think they would be otherwise?” He finally turned to look at her, and his face was hard and cold, as if they’d never wandered together at early dawn in a secluded wood. “Perhaps you ought to remember, Miss Greaves, that I make it my business to obtain what I set my sights on.”

She couldn’t very well get up and leave him without causing a scene, but she dearly wanted to. “Well, then,
in the interests of fairness, perhaps
you
ought to know, Your Grace, that I have no intention of yielding the field to you.”

Beside her he inclined his head a fraction of an inch. “Then en garde, Miss Greaves.”

Fortunately at that moment the end of Penelope’s ballad was signaled by a long, rather screeching, drawn-out high note that so stunned the audience it was a moment before anyone started clapping.

“How lovely,” Artemis said loudly. “Perhaps an encore—”

“Oh, but my brother has such a wonderful voice,” Phoebe interrupted, shooting Artemis an incredulous glance. “Will you sing for us, Maximus?”

Penelope looked a bit sulky at having the light taken away from her.

“No one needs to hear me,” Wakefield demurred.

“I do like a sweet feminine voice better than a deep masculine one,” Scarborough said.

Wakefield’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps a duet. I believe Phoebe knows several of the songs on the sheet music in the cabinet.”

He stood and went to a tall, intricately carved cabinet and started drawing out music, reading each title aloud as he did so Phoebe could choose the ones she knew by heart.