Duke of Midnight (Maiden Lane #6)(11)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

Artemis held very still because she had a quite mad urge to tear sweet Miss Picklewood’s hand from her leg. To stand up and scream. To run through the ballroom, out the front door, and keep running until she felt cool grass beneath her feet again.

This couldn’t be her life. It simply couldn’t be.

She did none of that, of course. Instead she nodded pleasantly and asked Miss Picklewood if she’d like another glass of punch.

Chapter Three

Now one hot day whilst hunting, King Herla came upon a clearing with a cool, deep pool. He dismounted and knelt to drink from the pool, and as he did so he saw reflected in the water a strange little man riding on a billy goat.

“Good day to you, King of the Britons,” called the little man.

“And who might you be?” asked King Herla.

“Why, I am King of the Dwarfs,” said the dwarf, “and would like to make you a bargain.”…

—from The Legend of the Herla King

Artemis drifted up into consciousness from a dream of a dappled forest and lay remembering. It had been cool and quiet, the moss and damp leaves under her bare feet muffling her footfalls. A hound or maybe several padded behind her, keeping her company. She’d come on a clearing through the trees, and anticipation had made her breath catch. Something was there, some creature that really shouldn’t have been in any English forest, and she wanted to see—

Someone was in her room.

Artemis froze, listening. Her room at Brightmore House was at the back of the house, small, but comfortable. In the morning a maid came to light the fire, but otherwise no one disturbed her here. Whoever was in her room was not the maid.

Perhaps she’d imagined it. The dream had been quite visceral.

She opened her eyes. Faint moonlight from the one window showed her the familiar shadows of her room: the chair by her bed, the old dresser by the window, the small mantelpiece—

One of the shadows detached itself from beside the mantel. The shadow coalesced into a figure, large and looming, his head distorted by a floppy hat and the outsized nose on his mask. The Ghost of St. Giles.

He was rumored to rape and ravage, but bizarrely, she felt no fear. Instead a strange elation filled her. Perhaps she was still enthralled by her dream.

Still, best to make sure.

“Have you come to kidnap me?” Her voice emerged a whisper, though she hadn’t consciously thought to lower it. “If so, I hope you’ll do me the courtesy of letting me put on a wrap first.”

He snorted and moved to her dresser. “Why are your rooms apart from the family?” He, too, whispered.

He hadn’t spoken in St. Giles, and she really hadn’t expected him to answer. Curiosity made her stir from her nest of covers, sitting up.

It was chilly with the fire dead and she shivered as she wrapped her arms about her knees. “Room.”

He paused in whatever he was doing at her dresser and his head turned, the mask a menacing profile. “What?”

She shrugged, though his back was to her and she at least could hardly see in the dim light. “There’s only the one room.”

He turned back to the dresser. “You’re a servant, then.”

Hard to tell from a whisper, but she rather thought he meant to provoke her.

“I’m Lady Penelope’s cousin. Well,” she amended, “first cousin twice removed, strictly speaking.”

“Then why do they put you here, away at the back of the house?” He crouched and pulled out the bottom drawer of her dresser.

“Haven’t you heard of a poor relation?” She craned her neck, trying to see what he was doing. He appeared to be pawing through her stockings. “You’re a fair distance from St. Giles tonight.”

He grunted and shoved the drawer in, moving to the one above it. That one held her chemises, all two of them; she wore the third.

She cleared her throat. “Thank you.”

He stilled at that, his head still bent over her drawer. “What?”

“You saved my life the other night.” She pursed her lips, considering. “Or at the very least my virtue. And that of my cousin’s. I can’t think of why you might have done it, but thank you.”

He turned at that. “Why I might have done it? You were imperiled. Wouldn’t any man help?”

She smiled ruefully—and a little sadly. “In my experience, no.”

She thought he’d simply go back to searching her room, but he paused. “Then I’m sorry for your experience.”

And the odd thing was that she thought he meant it. She pleated the coverlet between her fingers. “Why do you do it?”

“Do what?” He rose and began on the top drawer.

That held her few personal possessions: old letters from Apollo from when he’d been sent away to school, a miniature of Papa, Mama’s earbobs, the gilt flaking off and one of the wires broken. Nothing of interest, except to her. She supposed she should feel resentment that a stranger was laying hands on her meager possessions, but really, in the larger scope of all the things that had happened in her life, this was quite a small indignity.

He stilled. “You’ve half a loaf of bread in here and two apples. Do they not feed you that you must steal food?”

She stiffened. “It’s not for me. And it’s not stealing—not really. Cook knows I took them.”

He grunted and resumed searching.

“Why do you don the disguise of a harlequin actor and run about St. Giles?” She cocked her head, watching him. His movements were economical. Precise. Yet, strangely graceful for a man. “You know, there are those who think you a ravisher of women—and worse.”

“I’m not.” He shut the drawer and glanced about her room. Had years spent hunting in the night made him able to see in the dark? She could hardly make out the outlines of her room and it was her own. He chose the old wardrobe next, a piece that had been replaced with something newer and finer in one of Brightmore House’s guest rooms. He opened the door, peering in. “I’ve never violated any woman.”

“Have you killed?”

He paused at that, before reaching into the wardrobe to move aside her spare day gown. “Once or twice. The men deserved it, I assure you.”

She could believe that. St. Giles was a terrible place. A place where people were driven by poverty, drink, and despair to the depths of a human soul. She’d read reports in her uncle’s discarded news sheets of robberies and murders, of entire families found starved to death. For a gentleman to venture into St. Giles night after night for years to confront the demons unleashed by man’s worst state… he must have more than a trifling reason. She very much doubted he did it for excitement or on a dare.