Duke of Midnight (Maiden Lane #6)(13)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

Artemis frowned. How had the Ghost known she had his ring? She hadn’t told anyone besides Wakefield, not even Penelope. For one wild moment she imagined the Duke of Wakefield donning the motley of a harlequin.

No. That was just absurd. More likely the Ghost had either known he’d dropped the ring in her hand or simply guessed by process of elimination.

Artemis sighed and tucked the ring and pendant back under her chemise. Time to dress. The day had begun.

MAXIMUS CROUCHED ON the sloping roof of Brightmore House, fighting the urge to reenter Miss Greaves’s room. He hadn’t found his ring—his father’s ring—and the insistent beat to return was strong in his chest. Under the impulse to take back what was his, there was a subtler, softer cadence: to speak again to Miss Greaves. To look into her eyes and find out what made her so strong.

Madness. He shook off the siren’s call and leaped to the next house. Brightmore House was in Grosvenor Square; the white stone buildings around the green in the middle were new and close together. It was child’s play to travel by rooftop to the end of the square and then slither down a gutter into an alley. Maximus kept to the shadows for the length of the short alley and then once again took to the rooftops.

Dawn was near and people rarely looked up.

Had she pawned his father’s ring? The agony of the thought made him gasp even as he ran along the crest of a roof. He’d searched her room and meager possessions and the ring hadn’t been there. Had she given it away? Dropped it somewhere in St. Giles?

Surely not, for she’d made a point of boasting about having it in her possession at the ball. But she was poor—that much at least was starkly evident after seeing the room her cousin had gifted her. A gold ring would fetch enough money for some small luxury.

He waited at the edge of a crumbling building, watching as below a night soil man labored with two foully full buckets.

Then he jumped to the next roof.

Maximus landed silently, despite the distance across the alley, the only sign of his exertion the slight grunt as he rose. He remembered his father’s hands, the strong, blunt fingers, the dark hairs on the backs, and the slight curve of the right middle finger, broken as a child. His father might’ve been a duke, but he always had a healing cut or abrasion or bruise on his hands, for he used his hands without any regard for his rank. Father had saddled his own horse when he’d been too impatient to wait for a groom, sharpened his own quill, and loaded his own fowling piece when hunting. Those hands had been broad and scarred and had seemed, to Maximus as a boy, to be utterly competent, utterly reliable.

The last time he’d seen his father’s hand, it had been covered in blood as Maximus had removed the signet ring.

He dropped to the street and saw that his feet had brought him to St. Giles. To the spot where it had happened.

To his left a worn cobbler’s sign squeaked over a door so low that all but children would have to duck to enter. The sign was new as was the shop—it had been a tavern selling gin all those years ago, beside it a narrow alley where barrels of gin had once stood. Maximus flinched, glancing away. He’d hidden behind those barrels, and the stink of gin had filled his nostrils that night. When he’d taken the mask as the Ghost, this had been the first gin shop he’d shut down. To the right was a teetering brick building, the upper stories wider than the lower, every room let and relet until it might as well have been a rat warren—only one inhabited with humans instead of animals. Near his feet the wide channel was so blocked with detritus that not even the next rain would clear it. The very air hung thick and wet with stink.

To the east the sky had begun to pinken. The sun would soon be up, clearing the sky, bringing the hope of a new day to every part of London, save this one.

There was no hope in St. Giles.

He pivoted, his boots scraping against the grit underfoot, recalling Miss Greaves’s comment. Love St. Giles? Dear God, no.

He loathed it.

A faint cry came from the narrow alley where the gin barrels had once stood. Maximus turned, frowning. He couldn’t see anything, but daybreak was coming. He needed to return home, get off the streets before people noticed him in his Ghost costume.

But then the cry came again, high and nearly animal in its pain, but most definitely human. Maximus strode closer to peer into the alley. He could just make out a slumped form and the glint of something wet. Immediately he bent, catching an arm and pulling the figure into the relatively better lit lane. It was a man—a gentleman, by the fine velvet of his coat—with blood on his bare, shaved head. He must’ve lost his wig.

The man groaned, his head sagging back as he looked up at Maximus. His eyes widened. “No! Oh, no. Already been robbed. Don’t have me purse anymore.”

His words were slurred. The man was obviously drunk.

“I’m not going to rob you,” Maximus said impatiently. “Where do you live?”

But the man wasn’t listening. He’d started wailing weakly, his entire body thrashing rather like a landed flounder.

Maximus frowned, looking around. The people of St. Giles had begun to creep from their houses in preparation for the day. Two men scurried by, their faces averted. Most here knew better than to show interest in anything resembling danger, but a trio of small boys and a dog had gathered at a safe distance across the lane, staring.

“Oi!” A little woman wearing a tattered red skirt advanced on the boys. They made to run, but she was quick, grabbing the eldest by the ear. “What did I tell you, Robbie? Go’n fetch that pie for yer da.”

She let go of the ear and all three boys darted off. The woman straightened and caught sight of Maximus and the wounded man. “Oi! You there! Leave ’im alone.”

Tiny though the woman was, she was brave enough to confront him, and Maximus had to admire that.

He ignored the man’s continued moaning and turned to her, whispering. “I didn’t do this. Can you see him home?”

She cocked her head. “ ’Ave to see to me man, then start me work, don’t I?”

Maximus nodded. He dipped two fingers into a pocket sewn into his tunic and came out with a coin, which he tossed to her. “Is that enough to make it worth your time?”

She caught the coin handily and glanced at it. “Aye, ’spect it is.”

“Good.” He looked at the wounded man. “Tell this woman your place of residence and she’ll see you home.”

“Oh, thank you, fair lady.” The drunken man seemed to think the little woman was his savior.