Duke of Midnight (Maiden Lane #6)(3)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

Maximus grunted as he pulled on his breeches.

Craven continued, “As to the earl’s daughter, Lady Penelope Chadwicke, it’s well known that Lord Brightmore plans to offer a very nice sum when she is wed.”

Maximus lifted a cynical eyebrow. “Do we have an actual number?”

“Indeed, Your Grace.” Craven pulled a small notebook from his pocket and, licking his thumb, paged through it. Peering down at the notebook, he read off a sum so large Maximus came close to doubting Craven’s research skills.

“Good God. You’re sure?”

Craven gave him a faintly chiding look. “I have it on the authority of the earl’s lawyer’s chief secretary, a rather bitter gentleman who cannot hold his liquor.”

“Ah.” Maximus arranged his neck cloth and shrugged on his waistcoat. “Then that leaves only Lady Penelope herself.”

“Quite.” Craven tucked his notebook away and pursed his lips, staring at the ceiling. “Lady Penelope Chadwicke is four and twenty years of age and her father’s sole living offspring. Despite her rather advanced maiden status, she does not lack for suitors, and indeed appears to be only unwed because of her own… ah… unusually high standards in choosing a gentleman.”

“She’s finicky.”

Craven winced at the blunt assessment. “It would appear so, Your Grace.”

Maximus nodded as he opened his bedroom door. “We’ll continue downstairs.”

“Yes, Your Grace.” Craven picked up a candle and lit it at the fireplace.

A wide corridor lay outside his bedroom. To the left was the front of the house and the grand staircase that led to the public rooms of Wakefield House.

Maximus turned to the right, Craven trotting at his heels. This way led to the servants’ stairs and other less public rooms. Maximus opened a door paneled to look like the wainscoting in the hall and clattered down the uncarpeted stairs. He passed the entrance to the kitchens and continued down another level. The stairs ended abruptly, blocked by a plain wooden door. Maximus took a key from his waistcoat pocket and unlocked the door. Beyond was another set of stairs, but these were stone, so ancient the treads dipped in the middle, worn away by long-dead feet. Maximus followed them down as Craven lit candles tucked into the nooks in the stone walls.

Maximus ducked under a low stone arch and came to a small paved area. The candlelight behind him flickered over worn stone walls. Here and there figures were scratched in the stone: symbols and crude human representations. Maximus doubted very much that they’d been made during the age of Christianity. Directly ahead was a second door, the wood blackened by age. He unlocked this as well and pushed it open.

Behind the door was a cellar, long and with a surprisingly high ceiling, the groin vaulting picked out in smaller, decorative stone. Sturdy pillars paced along the floor, their capitals carved into crude shapes. His father and grandfather had used the space as a wine cellar, but Maximus wouldn’t have been surprised if this hidden room had originally been built as a place to worship some ancient pagan deity.

Behind him Craven shut the door, and Maximus began taking off his waistcoat. It seemed a waste of time to dress and then undress again five minutes later every morning, but a duke never appeared in dishabille—even within his own house.

Craven cleared his throat.

“Continue,” Maximus murmured without turning. He stood in only his smallclothes now and looked up. Spaced irregularly along the ceiling were iron rings he’d sunk into the stone.

“Lady Penelope is considered one of the foremost beauties of the age,” Craven intoned.

Maximus leaped and clung to a pillar. He dug his bare toes into a crack and pushed, reaching for a slim finger hold he knew lay above his head. He grunted as he pulled himself toward the ceiling and the nearest iron ring.

“Just last year she was courted by no less than two earls and a foreign princeling.”

“Is she a virgin?” The ring was just out of arm’s reach—a deliberate placing that on mornings such as this Maximus sometimes cursed. He shoved off from the pillar, arm outstretched. If his fingers missed the ring, the floor was very, very hard below.

But he caught it one-handed, the muscles on his shoulder pulling as he let his weight swing him to the next ring. And the next.

“Almost certainly, Your Grace,” Craven called from below as Maximus easily swung from ring to ring across the cavernous room and back. “Although the lady has a certain amount of high spirits, she still seems to understand the importance of prudence.”

Maximus snorted as he caught the next ring. This one was a little closer together than the last and he hung between them, his arms in a wide V above his head. He could feel the heat across his shoulders and arms now. He pointed his toes. Slowly, deliberately, he folded in half until his toes nearly touched the ceiling above his head.

He held the position, breathing deeply, his arms beginning to tremble. “I wouldn’t call last night prudent.”

“Perhaps not,” Craven conceded, the wince evident in his voice. “In that regard I must report that although Lady Penelope is proficient in needlework, dancing, playing the harpsichord, and drawing, she is not considered a great talent in any of these endeavors. Nor is Lady Penelope’s wit held in high esteem by those who know her. This is not to say that the lady’s intellect is in any way deficient. She is simply not… er…”

“She’s a ninny.”

Craven hummed noncommittally and stared at the ceiling.

Maximus straightened and let go of the iron rings, landing lightly on the balls of his feet. He crossed to a low bench where an array of different-sized cannonballs lay. He selected one that fit easily in his palm, hoisted it to his shoulder, sprinted across the length of the cellar, and heaved the cannonball at a bank of straw pallets placed against the far wall especially for that purpose. The ball flew through the straw and clanged dully against the stone wall.

“Well done, Your Grace.” Craven permitted himself a small smile as Maximus jogged back. The expression was oddly comical on his lugubrious face. “The straw bales are undoubtedly cowed.”

“Craven.” Maximus fought the twitching of his own lips. He was the Duke of Wakefield and no one was permitted to laugh at Wakefield—not even himself.

He picked up another lead ball.

“Quite. Quite.” The valet cleared his throat. “In summary then: Lady Penelope is very wealthy, very beautiful, and very fashionable and gay, but does not possess particular intelligence or, er… a sense of self-preservation. Shall I cross her off the list, Your Grace?”